Book !^^i Gopyiight ]«I"__ZI _ COPVRIGHT DEPOSIT. '^uiMi'. UZeX^ The Land of Fortune ILLUSTRATIONS BY COURTESY OF MR. W. J. WHITE INSPECTOR U. S. AGENCIES FOR CANADA Uo :: :: Copyright 1909 By :: :: ESTELLE THOMAS STEEL :: :: :: ashi.and, pa. :: :: :: AI.I. Rights Reserved ni A25942S '''' I hear the tread of pioneers Of nations yet to be ; The first loiv ivasJi of waves, where soo7i Shall roll a Iniman sea,^^ *' The nidi7?ients of Empire here Are plastic yet and warm ; The chaos of a niiglity world Is rounding into form ! '' one: of the tourists THE LAND OF FORTUNE TO MRS. JOHN KNOX GARDINER IN THE STATES My Dear Cousin: — We shall soon be rounding up the last hundred miles of our wonderful Canadian tour with the Nation- al Editorial Party, and I have not forgotten, that my last word with you "recorded a promise, the time has now come to fulfill." Had you not asked for my special "write-up" on Canada, I would simply have sent you a bundle of literature descriptive of the country, and Canada does not lack for word artists! Your much admired Kipling has been here. He introduces you to a climate that he calls "Crystal Atmosphere," "There was," he writes, "no true wind, but a push, as it were, of the whole Crystal Atmosphere." His description is both graphic and faithful. This Canada climate is a pure physical enjoyment and sat- isfaction, full of energy and push. You want to be 10 THE LAND OF FORTUNE up and doing. It is a stimulation that urges to emulation. This is the country and the climate you have asked me to tell you about, and in good faith point out why it might be a good opening for your boys, and so, all through this beautiful trip, as the " miles have slid behind us," and the prairie stretched beyond the limit of sight I have kept you in mind, your environment and equipment. Yours has been a thoughtful life ; and only your quick intuition and courage has kept it from being a struggle. But you have " won out," and you are now face to face with the future of your boys. You must send your four, big, comforting sons out in the world. Uniqualifiedly, I say Western Canada is a " Golden field of promise" to one who has brain and energy to expend in making a living and incidentally a fortune. I suggest and your own rational judgment will decide. But, taking the horns of your dilemma, what you want to do for your boys is not possible. The college training you would like to have for them you cannot give them, and your own college work gives you to know what they miss, and yet it will be made up another way. Not that I agree with the opinion of many a good hard-headed, self-made business man that " college makes a fool of the boys." No, what is wanting in a boy's common sense is not caused by " going to college." The lack w^as there before. There would simply have developed a different species of foolishness in the boy without the college career. Opportunity like genius is often a talent for INTRODUCTION 11 industry, linked with the habit of being able to make a prompt decision. The universe gives location, climate, conditions and circumstances, from these the alert, ambitious and industrious man or woman can make, has made opportunity. Now as to " the boys." Your boys have had the benefit of the Normal schools ; they have been reared in an atmosphere of culture. The routine of work on your small farm has taught them practical farming. They have a full quota of common sense and they feel the need and desire to get out in the world to become bread winners, makers and moulders of their own careers. These are the kind of men that all Western Canada wants ; brains and energy rather than much money. But as I write it comes to me that in the regulations that apply to " Homesteading in Canada," I have seen this provision, *' A woman may take up a homestead if she has minor children dependent upon her for support." There is the solu- tion of all your perplexities. Prosperity is a guest at your door step. Go to Canada with your boys. That is the move for you to make. The idea of being separated from them has been tugging at your heart strings ever since you realized that there is nothing, absolutely nothing in your locality for them. Don't look aghast at my proposition. Consider it for a moment, and it will seem to you, as it now does to me, a most eminently fitting thing to do. My enthusiasm grows with the thought. It is so entirely practical. Surely this land of the "Last 12 THE LAND OF FORTUNE Best West" is for the "Golden Youth" of this twentieth century. Bear in mind this Canada West is not the West that our forefathers went out in ox-teams to conquer ; not a West of turbulent Indians and howling wolves as pictured in the classic pages of " Wild Western Scenes." In truth there are no pioneer problems. The virgin soil is there teeming with richness, ready to give a marvelous yield in both quality and quantity of its products. Farming in ' ' Miss Canada' s' ' Domain is a perfectly organized business. Minerva like, it takes its place in the arena of competition fully equipped for suc- cess. Farm machinery of the finest type and most cunning device lends aid to land development. Even the whims of the weather are neither to be dreaded or considered, for the Science of Irrigation makes the "prairie to bloom" when the weather bureau "has clear forgot" to send the needed rain. Irrigation invest- ment rivals the gold mine and foreshadows rapid settling up in the almost boundle.ss great North West. But more of this later. Just now I want to make clear to you the advan- tage Canada holds for you and yours. You are wond- ering what you would do with all that you would have to leave behind. Surely that is good for $2,500, and $2,500 welded to energy and intelligence makes you a capitalist. Six hundred dollars will buy you a small place of about 50 acres near one of the many small towns of Canada. Select a place near a locality where your boys can each take up 160 acres under the homestead law. INTRODUCTION 13 If you have the will, you can, altogether take up 640 acres. On your fifty acres acquired by purchase build a house for $800, and you have plenty left of your capital to keep you warm and feed you until your land commences to yield, which will be as soon as you commence to cultivate it. Your knowledge of diversified farming in this new field with favorable conditions will bring you wonderful results, mighty different from old time plodding methods and will appeal to your delight in doing things. I can anti- cipate your reluctance to leave your friends and I know you would have many regrets, but regretting is a part of life. So long as we have memories, we shall have regrets. Valuing old friends, it is yet delightful to meet new ones, and all over this broad beautiful world you can find good, pleasant well bred people who know their own kind by instinct. The Optimistic are the people who make the world go round, with these Canada abounds. You would not be in a Canadian community thirty days until you would be in the Womans' Club, doing as much work as in your own ideal club in your little town with its Chinese wall. As to churches, schools, and all that, as one of the National Editorial wits remarked, " It is alarming how these institutions are spreading over western Canada." Schools and public buildings are erected by the government, the people paying for them in reasonable and just taxation. In this way small towns of less than one thousand population gain at once, creditable and handsome buildings. I am tempted to go into the history of Canada. I picked up several 14 THE LAND OF FORTUNE books on Canada in the far off city of Calgary and have been informing myself on vital points of Cana- dian history. "First explored in 1535 by Jacques- Cartier, by command by Francis I. Quebec founded in 1608 by the maker of French Canada, Samuel de Champlaine, Jesuit Missionaries, ex-plorers, painted Indians. The fall of Quebec, British control." Shall I startle you by telling you that during the last seventy-five years every treaty signed between the United States and Canada has conceded more to the former than to the latter. " Too often," says one writer, " the desire, on the part of British statesmen to preserve peace at any cost has resulted in the sur- render of Canadian territory or rights." From a Canadian view point our Eagle has not hesitated to spread out his wings even to encroachment. But with it all, " The Colony of the Maple Leaf" is 250,000 square miles bigger than the United States and its population is only one-twelfth of that of our country. Two names stand out in Canadian history : Sir John McDonald and Louis Riel ; Sir Jchn the hero, the responsible man in the play of the nation and Louis Riel, the villain, a half breed Indian leader of insurrections. Sir John was the father of the Con- federation of the Provinces in 1867. Newfoundland alone rejected confederation and still stands alone. The history of Canada is fascinating, full of romance, even from the days of French possession. Politically it is a record of common sense, of diplomatic persua- tion on the part of the colony and an equally diplo- INTR OD I CTION 15 matic yielding and paternal care on the part of Great Britain. The constitution of Great Britain has been centuries in making ; the best of it seems to have been applied to Canada. Through four systems, Imperial, Federal, Provin- cial and Municipal, law and order is maintained throughout Canada without a flaw. The great new Western Provinces are manipu- lated without graft or juggling and we have yet to hear of any scandal incident to the effort of any " trusted government agent " acquiring land by pecu- liar methods. There is no lawlessness of the Jesse James and Younger brothers order. The mounted police soon corral types of that kind and their cry is no longer heard in the land. A gun shot out of sea- son brings the mounted police and within twenty-four hours the perpetrator is apprehended and punished. A forest fire is discovered and disposed of before any considerable amount of lumber is destroyed. Our visit to Canada has been a tour of education. We have been gathering information of the country not yet copyrighted, and we have learned that this Canada west is positively the very last great area of undeve- loped farm land on the American continent. It is the last West and its people are brimful of enthusiasm ovei its prospects. But Canada wants more people to help develope its resources. The American is the much welcomed settler. The Cana- dian admires the American and wants him, but, at the same time, the Canadian says most courteously, but none the less emphatically, that Canada does not want to be annexed to the United States. 16 THE LAND OF FORTUNE Canada has her traditions and her love of country. All her patriotic feeling is centered about the Imper- ial Government. " God save the King " is sung with as much fervor as " My Country 'Tis of Thee." And as to liberty, that too often perverted siiib- boleth : Britain has dealt so judiciously and gener- ously with this most important of her colonies that liberty has followed ; a natural sequence to enlighten- ment. With increased wisdom liberty and law be- come more resolutely liked. Americans living in Canada are subjects of the Imperial Government. But all Canada knows that Americans go to Canada to better their condition. Loyalty to ones native country remains and is never questioned. Your boys will continue to love the Stars and Stripes and at the same time honor the Union Jack. One of the very pleasing features of our trip as a National body of editors from "The States" has been the mingling of the flags of the two countries. At every town along our line of travel we find our bonny flag honored and loved. Now, I think I have made it clear to you, my dear cousin, that you need not lose your birthright by moving your Lares and Penates to Canada. In answer to your inquiry, I am free to say, from my observations, that Canada offers you great advantages. It offers you what you and your boys can make use of, that is, farming land awaiting intelligent handling. You would receive as an American a most cordial and eager welcome. You, because of your desirability, INTRODUCTION 17 are positively wanted in Canada. The importance of that is pleasant. But, if you seriously consider going, now is the time to look over the land and get the low current prices, as it is predicted that wheat areas are going to double and treble in values in the next three years. You will j5nd in my notes sketchy accounts of all the localities we have visited ; and if you will take the railroad maps, you will be surprised at the great number of small towns along the route. You know in Canada the railway is the real pioneer and pushes on in advance of the settler. As to the advantages and attractions of the dif- ferent towns and localities each one claims an attrac- tion peculiar to itself. Medicine Hat offers natural gas at thirteen cents; and who does not appreciate gas and its advantages over coal and wood. Indian Head claims to raise forty-two bushels of wheat to the acre. Calgary says it is the smartest town with any number of educational institutions and unbounded faith in itself. Edmonton has coal mines ; fourteen banks and is the capital of the Province. Saskatoon says, " Though the statement be start- ling, it is the greatest centre of railway construction in the world." Brandon has the finest Fair Building in Canada. Red Deer never had a boom ! Each town possesses something superior to the 18 THE LAND OF FORTUNE other and a sublime self-confidence that leaves you in no doubt of the accomplishment of all that is promised. The rivalry is good-natured and the emulation a worthy stimulus to progress. The world's greatest energies are going to be expended in the vast North- west even up to the " skirts of the Russian Domi- nions." The possibilities make one grow dizzy. The people who have already cast their fortunes with Canada are not extravagant. They are enthusiastic because they know the pleasure of success. And now with this foreword, I leave my notes for your consideration. Hoping for them a bon voy- age into your good graces, and for you a bon voyage to the Land of Fortune. ST. PAUL THE PICTURESQUE AUGUST 24th, 1908 August 23d was the da}^ the National Editorial Party, on a handsomely equipped "special" pulled out of St. Paul, the picturesque, via Duluth, the wonderful, for the much talked of " Canadian Tour." St. Paul had shown the Editorial Association un- rivalled hospitality and most sumptions entertainment ; Woolsey planning to please an English Henry and a Francis offered no more. Untiring effort on its own part has immortalized St. Paul as a princely host. Each day some new diversion was offered. There were automobile rides over the city, to the beautiful Como Park, Minnehaha Falls and Fort Snelling, the oldest fort west of the Mississippi, where about a thousand soldiers are garrisoned. No American city has a more beautiful location than St. Paul, and no city in the world has a more beautiful show street than St. Paul's Summit Avenue. The shade trees are monarchs, the lawns emerald green and the resi- dences architectural dreams. Wildwood Park resort and an excursion to fam- ous Bear Lake were enjoyed, and the wonderful theatre which transforms itself like a magic palace into an auditorium seating 10,000 people. Then came Minneapolis with its entertainment at Lake Minnetonka and a magnificent entertainment at Donaldson's Glass Palace ; the finest department store 20 THE LAND OF FORTUNE in the Northwest. One of the most enjoyable of all the courtesies extended was the reception by Governor Johnson at the State capitol building. The capitol building like every new public building is large, magnificent, a joy to behold. However this Min- nesota capitol fulfilled a peculiar mission, in as much as it cost but four million dollars and gave every editor from Maine to Texas, who happened to be of the party, a chance to expatiate and dilate upon the Pennsylvania thirteen million dollar capitol ! Governor Johnson met the editorial people just a few hours after his nomination for the third time for Governor of Minnesota. He seemed a man in every sense of the word. His face showed lines of thought, of determination, of strength, sure indices of a character firm enough to carry purpose and equili- brium against any wave of mad irresponsible impulse. August 24th discovered the Editorial party in Duluth, the city located in the very heart of the con- tinent, at the head of Lake Superior, the greatest single body of fresh water in the world. The city takes its name from Jean Du Luth a French trader and explorer of 1687. In 1871, a Kentucky congressman in a humorous speech intro- duced Duluth to the reading public. Ever since its fame has been spreading. All the world knows of its marvellous growth like the enchanted cities of fairy land. Its iron, its wheat, its location, its harbor topographically not unlike the Bay of Naples, its amazing trade, its giant hills that await the skill of some magic engineer, its farm and dairy interests, a city of unprecedented natural advantages. ST. PAUL THE PICTURESQUE 21 Duluth has a population of 70,000. The Mesaba Ore Range contributes one million dollars in taxes to the school fund of Minnesota. The St. Louis river is another valuable asset belonging to Duluth. Fon du lac made famous by the more famous John Jacob Astor is on the St. Louis river. Through the courtesy of the Duluth Commercial Club the Edi- torial party were taken by steamboat to Fon du lac and shown the actual place where Astor did his first fur trading with the noble red man a century ago. The country round about is now the white man's own. Club houses and summer homes cluster along the shores of the river. Nature has done much for Duluth, but it was the brain and brawn of man that made possible the concrete dam which gives thirty thousand horse power developed under a fall of 378 feet. The dam is one of the show places of Duluth, and also the fifteen mile boulevard which winds its way along the crest of the hill from where can be seen the buzzing, booming city and the harbor stretching out below. Duluth has the only aerial bridge in this country and the finest High School building in the world. Duluth promises to be the greatest American city of the great Northwest. ACROSS THE FORTY-NINTH PARALELL AUGUST 25th, 1908 Miles had vanished behind us. We had left the States, crossed the 49th paralell and had become the guests of the Canadian Government, and of the Cana- dian Northern railway. This Canadian Northern is the baby transcontinental railway of Canada. It was worked out and owned originally by two men. It is just twelve years old and counts up fourteen hundred miles of road in Eastern Canada and three thousand three hundred and more miles west of Lake Superior. The Canadian Northern is a great road ; it is primarily a Western road. With its advent business of all kinds expanded in western Canada and real estate values were revolutionized. It is going to push up into the Hudson Bay country, a region only known to the ordinary traveler as the seat of the fur trade but full of romantic interest, through to the yet un- opened farm lands of the Northwest. There is no lack of territory for exploiting the railway neither is there any lack of energy on the part of the company. Railways make farms and railways make railways, and these localities of the magical black soil need only their own railway to give them their rightful place in the general scheme of western development. We passed through Winnipeg, the "gate way city" with an au revoir wave of the hand — later, on our return trip the keys of the city were to be given into ACCROSS THE FORTY-NINTH PARALELL 23 our keeping. The train rolled on and fifty-four miles west of Winnipeg came Portage la Prairie. The word Portage, generally used to designate "a carrying place overland between two navigable waters," is used in Canada as a verb. The city, Portage la Prairie, is a few miles off from the great Manitoba lake and is said to be in the richest agricultural section of all North America. The land has been worked for two generations and wheat to-day yields as high as thirty bushels to the acre "on land on the Portage Plains known to have been cropped each year for twenty- nine years by the same farmer."' At Portage la Prairie four transcontinental rail- way lines meet. Farther on came Gladstone and Dauphin, two promising towns on this new line of travel. A flying glimpse of Kamsack showed a town of 600 people, who have the courage to predict that their town will be the commercial centre of the Upper As- siniboine valley. This is reasonable for last year 250,000 bushels of grain were shipped from Kamsack, and in the month of June, 1908, 9,000 acres of Indian land adjoining the town were sold on an average price of ten dollars an acre, and some close to the town brought forty-five dollars per acre. There is plenty of timber, spruce, tamarack and poplar ; plenty of water, for in the Province of Manitoba of which Winnipeg is the capitol, there are the immense lakes of Winnipeg, Manitoba, Winnipegosis and num- berless smaller lakes. Small towns or settlements line the railway, and while they are not large they mean something. They form a centralizing point for the 24 THE LAND OF FORTUNE farmer who has taken up i6o acres "a few miles back." The actual existence of these towns none of them counting more than five years of life, indicate the fast settling up of available lands, and were the resources of this fathomless soil generally known, many a struggling breadwinner would shake the dust of an overcrowded city and come to a country which gives back with compound interest every dollar in- vested. THE FIRST WELCOME— HUMBOLT AUGUST 26th. 1908 Our first entertainment in Canada as an editorial party could not have been more happily arranged. Situated almost in the middle of the Province of Sas- katchewan is the town of Humbolt ; sterling and un- pretentious, full of energy and equal to the task of greeting the party and extending the courtesy of a most substantial and elaborate banquet, all of which Humbolt did most graciously and cordially. The Mayor of Humbolt in a three minute speech made everybody sure of Hurabolt's hospitality, and started the fire of enthusiasm and interest in the minds of the travelers over the country they had been invited to come and look at and write about. We were now fairly in the wheat lands of a truly prairie province. Saskatchewan is an Indian word, the English equivalent of which is "Swift Running Water." It is interesting to trace the names the Indian gives to his possessions. There is always a peculiar aptness. The province of Saskatchewan was named from the river, a great big body of water which rises some where out in the Rockies, has a north and south branch, comes through to the northeast finding its outlet in Moose and Cedar lakes and finally into Lake Winnipeg. Farms and settlements along this river tell a tale of magical prosperity and marvelous yield. At Humbolt THE FIRST WELCOME— HUMBOLT literature commenced to shower upon us. We com- menced to read about this country we were trav^ersing and to realize that we were a very poorly informed lot, Canada knows how to tell its own story and tells it with all the vigor and finish of a Baconian or Emer- sonian essay. The style is deliciously ornate ; subject and predicate are placed most beautifully and accura- tely, the idea is conveyed even before the climax is reached. It is forcible literature. The most intri- cately turned sentence w^oven by Henry James is rivaled by a writer presenting the beauties of Saska- toon, who says, "Saskatoon is a beautiful, healthy, happy city, happy because its people are prosperous. Even the recent financial crisis which so calamitiously affected the whole continent, did not result in a single failure in Saskatoon. " Saskatonians stand to-day a practical demon- stration of the philosophy, that to be at ease financi- ally, is to be at peace with men — and to be at peace with men is to have achieved a full satisfying meas- ure of the joy of the earth. " We have a right to be proud of our city and of the sea-like sweep of wheat lands tributary to it." "The ineffable charm of Saskatoon lies in its all-pervading spirit of prosperity, a charm which ob- e.sses the stranger within the first hour of arrival and which throughout this whole, wide western coun- try is nowhere else so peculiarly and distinctly pres- ent." We left Humbolt at noon carrying the most fav- orable impressions and reached this same Saskatoon THE FIRST WELCOME— HUMBOLT 29 in the evening. We found it a place fully up to its pretentions and its literature. One proof being in the statistical report that its cit}- assessment had soared from $750,000 to $7,000,000 in less than three years. The city has a population of 7,000. As a busi- ness centre its importance may be calculated from the maintaining of eight banking institutions. It has two daily newspapers ; two clubs both of representa- tive membership. It has thirteen churches, good hotels, fine school houses and good schools well attended, three railways to bring people to the town and if they are bright energetic people Saskatoon asks them most cordially to stay ; for she holds there is ample room and a bright future for the man who comes prepared to work. The cost of living is reasonable because the merchants of the town import their goods by the car- load. But Saskatoon's inestimable possession is its citizens. Their belief in the future of their town is contagious and we found ourselves joining cordially in with all their hopes and best of all in their belief, in that their present possession is the best there is on earth, whicn gives them " content all the year round." THE TWO BATTLEFORDS ^ AUGUST 27th, 1908 Leavdng Saskatoon, bright as a rainbow, in the early morning hours our train pushed along touching the smaller towns Warmen, Radisson, Fielding, Bor- den. The town of Fonda a little farther back we did not see, but we are told it is a place to see, one of the " three year olds." Our objective town was North Battleford. We reached there at noon. Here again were the keys of the city " given over" and eager, enthusiastic citizens tendered us a cordial welcome. The name of Battleford, if not actually historic, has place enough in history to be familiar to even those of us who did not or do not know Canadian his- tory. The Battlefords are not twins, not by many years. The reason for the existence of North Battle- ford is the coming of the railway in 1905, while Battle- ford, the original, dates back to the year 1876, not 1776. We think our American towns old, only when they date to 1776, and here is Battleford claiming anti- quity and has only thirty-two years to its credit. The old Battleford of 1876 was in its prestine days the capital city of the Northwest and the scene of the second Louis Riel rebellion. Just a word about this Louis Riel, which, though an old story to the Canadian, will interest other THE TWO BATTLEFORDS 31 readers, for we all begin to want to know more about Canada. Louis Riel was part Indian, the son of a white father and a half-breed mother. He had been edu- cated in Montreal for the Roman priest-hood, but, like many another product of civilization and sava- gery, discontent was the keynote of his nature. He had ambition without balance and an extraordinary vanity that urged him to resist organized authority. The "Red River Rebellion" occurred in 1867. It was caused by Great Britain handing over to Canada the Northwest country with the intention of extend- ing the Dominion westward. This Northwest was peopled with half-breeds, some of Scottish decent, some of English and many of French origin. These people thought they were going to lose their lands which belonged to them by right of occupation. Great discontent spread over the country and among the settlements. The storm centre was the French half breed party and Louis Riel assumed its leadership. Riel and his followers seized Fort Garry, now the city of Winnipeg, and set up a " so-called Provisional Government." Troops were called from the East and at their approach Riel promptly fled and his follow ers scattered. So much for the first rebellion. The second or Sackatchewan rebellion occurred in 1885, fundamentally from the same cause as the Red River rebellion, namely the encroach- ment upon the half-breeds of a hated civi- lization and the rapid disappearance of the buffalo upon which Indians and half-breeds alike looked to for a living. Louis Riel suddenly re-appeared from 32 THE LAND OF FORTUNE exile and a second time took up the cause of his rest- less compatriots. In this rebellion there was plenty of fighting. Battleford was one of the central points of the disturbances. Francis Dickens, son of the nove- list, was commander of Fort Pitt, a group of log houses in the form of a square, practically defence- less, as there were but " 25 " mounted police in charge. This garrison, if one may call it by so brave a name, knew its limitations. Commander Dickens seeing that the place could not hold out against the enemy withdrew his men and escaped down the river to Battleford. The Indians under "Big Bear" and "Pound- maker " put up a good fight. After considerable loss of life, the backbone of the rebellion was broken by General Middleton commander-in-chief of the Cana- dian militia. Riel gave himself up and Poundmaker and his people came into Battleford and laid down their arms. Poundmaker and Big Bear were im- prisoned. Riel Vv^as tried at Regina, found guilty of treason and sentenced to be hanged. At this time Battleford was 600 miles from the railroad. There are people living in Battleford who tell thrilling tales of the days of the rebellion and we imagine some day it will be made the subject of a vivid story. There is considerable rivalry between the two Battlefords, an amicable rivalry, however, as the towns combined and tendered us a most delightful entertainment. The town hall of North Battleford was trans- formed into a banquet hall. Decorations, the most elaborate covered the walls. American flags were THE TWO BATTLEFORDS draped with Canadian flags with most artistic effect. The menu was perfection. The two towns came to welcome and to serve. Small bunches of beautifully headed wheat tied with gaily colored ribbons were presented as souvenirs of the occasion. The mayor of each Battleford voiced a welcoming speech, and our editors responded with eloquent appre- ciation. They told how much information and knowl- edge they had gained since entering Canada. They praised the many excellent things en- couraged by the Imperial Government, and they com- mented markedly upon the law and order that reigned throughout the country. That ours was a tour of education seemed to be the keynote of every mind. The country editor is, if he can talk at all, a good talker. He tells his story well. He comes quickly to his point. The constant pressure from " copy wanted " has taught him to focus an idea on sight, and too, he receives unconscious training from the fact, that a popular editor shares the honor of his town with its clergymen and does much of the talking at town meetings. All this conserves to the end of making him the prince of ready speech-makers.. This happy faculty foiind full play and appreciation in the many Canadian towns on our line of travel. Battleford is 260 miles north of the International boundary. In its own words, in a beautifully gotten up leaflet, it says of itself, " Our surrounding country is agricultural and the achievements of many of your countrymen will go to show^ that from a standpoint of 34 THE LAND OF FORTUNE soil and climate the conditions are hardly surpassed anywhere for the growth of cereals and all kinds of garden produce. Good lands can be purchased at prices ranging from $10.00 to $15.00 per acre, within reasonable dis- tance of transportation and the productive value of the lands will show them to be worth many times that price. Good water is easily obtained and timber and fuel are not far away, so that nature here invites the industry of the willing settler. We wish to impress upon you that the great need of this district is a good thrifty American settler with $1000 on every quarter section within fifty miles of North Battleford.'* "SUNNY ALBERTA'* AUGUST 28th. 1908 At Lloydminster the Province of Saskatchewan ends and the traveler crosses the line and enters Alberta. Our train just touched Lloydminster, There was not time to see much of the town, but some one has writ- ten a romantic story about the place that heralded its fame. It is known as the all British town as it was founded by English Colonists under Rev. I. M. Barr. Its name is very very English. Its people are the bright, energetic class that have put the word failure out of their vocabulary. There is a section of coun- try a few miles southwest of the town named ' ' The Golden Valley " where the farmers reap one hundred per cent, on their investment. Some enthusiastic homesteader coined for Alberta the appellation "Sunny Alberta." The name took at once and ever since it has been " Sunny Alberta." The adjective is most happy and prepossessing. In ''Sunny Alberta" the remarkable characteristics of the climate are the snow-fall and the warm Chinook winds. These winds blow from the west and take their name from the Chinook Indian. One of the youngest and smallest of the growing Canadian towns supports the name of Vermillion. We arrived^^at Vermillion just as twilight shadows were falling, then followed the long, beautiful, fasci- nating evening of the North. Nine o'clock came, 'SiWNr ALBERTA children continued playing about the streets, even the chickens refused to wink an eye ; there yet seemed to be time for doing something. Although Vermillion is almost embryonic, it promises itself just as great rewards as larger towns. The soil is a rich black and deep ch, so deep ! We saw a cart drawn by oxen, the wheels of which were in the soil up to the hub. And this is the soil from which the ducats, perhaps ''3000" ducats are reaped. Vermillion gave the impression of being .a really new Western town and its people were correspondingly hospitable. A public meeting and a dance was the program of entertainment. Editor Cameron who is advertised as the first prisoner taken in the rebellion of 1885 gave a welcoming speech. Samples of wheat and corn were displayed. The Raising of Horses in Central Canada Has Made Many a Farmer Rich Vermillion made a good impression and it is a place to be remembered, and recommended to the young farmer who wants to widen his field of action 38 THE LAND OF FORTUNE and is seeking a new country. The town is right on the railroad and there are many desirable sections of land near by that can be bought cheaply. There is an advantage in going to a town the size of Vermillion. Things are not finished ; policies are not shaped ; public spirit is there but it is not fully crystallized into concerted action. The new settler, if he be a man possessing qualities of leadership, is soon sought out, soon called to his place in the councils and manage- ment of the town. Thereupon follows his interest and earnest en- deavor for the good of the town he is helping to build. It is the spirit of progress that makes the citizens of their own small and large towns en- thusiastic in the up building o f the place. The towns are their children. They give to them the best of their thought and judgment. They want them to be creditable, desirable towns. This creating and shaping is an up-lift to both town and citizen. It is a law near to nature's heart that every single impulse toward better accomplishment is a general uplift. We seemed in this locality to have gotten among the Vs. Just a few miles from Vermillion is the The Beginner on a Farm in Central Canada The Logs in His House Were Furnished Free from Government Lands • ' SUNN V ALBER TA'' 39 astonishing little town of Vegreville. Not in any of the towns visited could be found more ardent adver- tisers than in this town only incorporated in 1906, with a population numbering .1,000. Of course both telephone and telegraph lines are established. Vegreville has two banks, three grain elevators, of churches a goodly number, general stores, news- papers, hotels, everything necessary in the make-up of a town. It is another small town that may appeal to the settler with a small income. Land can be bought four miles south of the town for $9.00 per acre and the best land about six miles from the town may be had in half section lots at $14.00 to $16.00 per acre. A little startling is the statement, that we are traveling over and viewing the very last western land on the American continent. And then [^the query was, why, " If this is all there is," such great eagerness and haste to settle it? Why not leave land for future generations to come and " take up?" But it is hard to grasp the immen- sity of these prairie lands. Regiments of farmers would not exhaust them. The farmer is needed be- cause he is the basic proposition of society. Think of the 80 millions of consumers against millions of producers. Doesn't that bring a realizing sense of the importance of "The hand that holds the plow." First the farmer and his plow, then the manufacturer and his wares. Canada calls for the farmer as a proposition on which is builded all that comes after. 40 THE LAND OF FORTUNE The province of Alberta embraces an area of i6i,- 920,000 acres. It is double the size of England and Ireland combined. Its population is barely 200,000 while 50 millions of bustling busy people could be located. m-ii: ■ '». J L WH nftiiiligiii , 1^ B HH^ttiiMi 1 i^^S £0^;'^CW^Hi^^^^ :lilf-» 1 ki^^^f ^W^I^^^H p* . 1 ^pp pppfc3Slillill PiiS ^tti iyC 3':iiP^lfi^^ fi ^8 ^ iBiiRl^ii ^:^.%^i» H||i ^H ^B iiii Lunch Hour in a Centra! Canada Wheat Field THE TWIN CITIES AUGUST 29th, 1908 "Sunny Alberta" rose to the significance of its name on tlie morning of our arrival in Edmonton and Strathcona. Everywhere there was sunshine and from a clever people came a hearty welcome. Edmonton is the capital city of Alberta. It is perhaps of all the Northwest town, best known to the tourist. It is on the line of three railways and since 1905 has been en- tertaining most lavishly every trainload of tourists who stopped long enough to hear the story of its pros- perity. After five days travel, guests of Canadian skies and air, under the escort of Mr. W. J. White and Mr. C. W. Speer, men of rare understanding, the fact became definitely fixed that the possibilities in Canada had not been overstated. The story of Canada was unfolding before our eyes, we commenced to understand wliy we had been asked to repeat it from our own view point to the people in the states. Genuine enthusiasm came to the aid of the pencil point and it became a real pleasure to relate as we saw them, the many advantages offered by Canada to the home seeker. 1)1 Edmonton we were most delightfullv enter- tained at The Alberta, a splendid first-class city hotel answering every demand of the tourist. The stores are metropolitan. No use to speak of lesser things THE TWIN CITIES 43 like paved streets and fine business blocks, they are all there. Edmonton is the most beautiful placed city on the plains. It is built partly on a bluff overhanging the Sas- katchewan river and partly in a valley like tract down on the river bank. The view on the bluff is a never tiring scene of beauty. Meadow land and a small well wooded park add to the picturesque landscape. Ed- monton possesses the richest soil of any district in the west. It possesses a generous supply of timber, and in many places four or five feet of deep black soil can be found in this district. It has an unlimited supply of coal, which is easily obtained at different points, as well as along the river banks. It possesses every natural advantage to warrant great growth. i,ooo miles northward from Edmonton are the great plains of the Peace River district which is all tri- butary to the Edmonton district. Edmonton in its geographical position is the starting point for that region. But long before the lands to the north are tapped Edmonton wants people on it own surrounding farm lands. It seems to be a little more insistent than some other localities as to its advantages. It offers land within every reasonable distance from the town at $10.00 per acre. In coming to the Edmonton district the settler comes just at the right time. The schools are built, roads improved, churches established. The experience of many goes to prove that in the long run it is as cheap to buy an improved farm as to homestead. Taking into consideration that an im- proved farm is a producer from the start, and that 4i THE LAND OF FORTUNE the family have school and church privilege's as well as near neighbors, instead of being isolated. Edmonton suggests to the farmer who has sons to locate to sell off the old hard worked farm at $60.00 per acre and buy up land at $10.00 per acre, which soon can be increased in value to $40.00 per acre. Edmonton claims to be the young man's country for the chances of success are a thousand to one com- pared with the older country at home. The strength of the prairie and vigor of the mountain is in this Sunny Alberta. The climate is glorious. "The going of winter is as swift and definite as the advent of a sunny summer." There is not the tedious long- drawn-out-between season. Winter is winter, crisp and invigorating. Summer is never unbearably hot and Autumn is ideal. It is the long, long summer day that brings the marvelous yield of wheat. Be- sides spring and winter wheat there is a splendid acre- age from oats, potatoes, 400 bushels to the acre, flax, barley, rye and alfalfa, the never-failing universal al- falfa. Canada farming is not done on the hit or miss plan. Canada is the farmer's opportunity. The rail- ways made the farms, that is, made the making of farms possible and in every way the railway fosters the cause of the farmer. The 20th century farmer in Canada does not combat the problems that faced the settler in the prairie lands of the United States when with land values booming and magnificent and abund- ant yields the crops were left through lack of trans- portation facilities to rot upon the ground that gave them. THE TWIN CITIES 45 A no less eminent man than Ex-Governor Hoard of Wisconsin has said: "The pathway of the American farmer has been marked with a pathway of destruction from the Atlantic Ocean to the Rocky Mountains, destruction of fertility and destruction of forests; and it is only since science, constructive, applied science has entered into the domain of agriculture, that we begin to find that there is in it a tremendous great do- main for the exercise of human intellect." But the farmer of the present day and the farmer in Canada will not be tempted into the prodigality and want of forethought of the old time farmer. Agricultural schools and the experiment stations have created a new man — the scientific farmer. Educational opportunity has been eagerly grasped, seed selection, crop rotation, climatology, soil, chemistry and culture, irrigation, breeding; the teaching of the practical ap- plication of these sciences has changed the farmer into a man of ability and skill and power. He has become a practical economist, and his "work in this fielcl has given to the products of the farm a distinct value in world commerce." This is pre-eminently the farmers' day and it is exemplified in the country village where he sells but- ter at 40c per pound and eggs at 35c. The Canadian Government and the railways are working with the settler to develope farming on a scientific as well as a business basis. Taxes are low and educational advantages are spreading, markets are opening. Live stock is raised extensively. Small fruits are now under cultivation. It is being tried and proven that Canadian soil will give almost anything. 46 THE LAND OF FORTUNE Land which was considered only fit for ranching is now giving big yields in cereals. Buying land in Canada is not speculation. The value is in the soil all ready to produce itself under the guidance of the energetic settler. Strathcona is a town of 5000 on the south bank of the river Saskatchewan opposite Edmonton. It boasts of a university. The town was named for Lord Strathcona one of the projectors of the Canadian Paci- fic Railway. He drove the last spike of the road at Craigielachie in the Rockies in 1885. Canada's poet Drummond, author of Johnnie Corteau pays a tribute to Lord Strathcona's spirit of progress in a poem called "Strathcona's Horse." "The strong young North hath sent us forth to battlefields away, And the trail that ends where Empire trends is the trail we made today. But proudly toss thy main aloft, nor think of the foe tomorrow, For he who bars Strathcona's Horse, drinks deep of the cup of sorrow." THE THREE KINGDOMS AUGUST 29th. 1908 Wheat raising in Canada does not have a mono- poly. Timber and dairy interests grow clamorous as one approaches Central and Southern Alberta. At the town of Red Deer, on the Red Deer river, the animal, vegetable and mineral kingdoms, servants of the human family, are experiencing a mighty de- velopment. We arrived at Red Deer in the morning about nine o'clock. The air was pure and crisp; the sunshine alluring and exhilarating. Self-poised citizens met the tourists, gave them brief, well timed words of welcome, then followed a drive through the town and surrounding country that gave practical instruction and proof of what can be done in diversified farming in the region. Lumbering interests alone are making the town wealthy. The country is well wooded. Many saw- mills are being located on the Red Deer river. Wheat growing is as satisfactory as in other sec- tions. Coal deposits make fuel cheap; the coal is semi-bituminous. Dairying however is about the most important industry. The rich pasturage produces a fine quality of milk that makes the business most pro- fitable to farmers and owners of creameries. The government creamery is located here. It is on the co- operate plan and puts out butter at an average price of 25c per lb. In 1906 the output for the year was 48 THE LAND OF FORTUNE 128,000 pounds. Red Deer has a population of 2500, and is a supply station for a wide stretch of farming and ranching country that is occupied chiefly by Americans, people from Eastern Canada and England. Many of them are quite wealthy and have taken up their residence here to engage in cattle raising on a large scale. Red Deer has never had a boom and is greatly proud of the fact. There is a little town "In the Shadow of the Rockies" called "Olds." This town of a few thous- and energetic enterprising souls came into existence in 1892. In 1893 some ninety Danes and Nebraskans arrived and swelled the group of settlers. Since then they have done everything in the way of farming, ranching and so on that any other town has done. They want to be taken account of and beg any home seeker to "See Olds First." The sturdy husbandman will find a most hearty welcome in this district. Land can be bought from eight dollars to forty dollars per ,acre. Olds was one of the nice places in Canada we had to miss but we can easily tell some homesteader the straight road to "Olds." The city of Calgary is located on the Canadian Pacific main line, 840 miles west of Winnipeg and here the tourist gains the first sight of the Rocky Moun- tains "which form the glory" of Calgary. The city is built on rolling land that affords fine opportunities for landscape effects and the high altitude— 3000 feet above sea level — insures pure air, cool nights and a generally healthful climate. All that goes with a smart active city in the way of fine buildings, good schools, railroad service, well THE THREE KINGDOMS 49 equipped hotels, splendid trade opportunities, may be taken for granted in the case of Calgary; all of these are here and more. Calgary is a wonderfully pushing city. It im- presses the tourist at once that something is doing. It was an aspirant for the honor of being the capital of Alberta, because it held, that its attainments and possibilities were equal to such dignity. The award went to Edmonton, and Calgary rose from its disap- pointment to greater prosperity and with the ambition and determination to be the greatest city of the great Northwest. The Bow and Elbow rivers have the town snugly tucked in between them. Combining the Picturesque with the Practical Side of Farming From its position between the rivers some bright wit has worked out the answer to the conundrum: "Why is Calgary like a sweetheart folded in her lover's arms?" 50 THE LAND OF FORTUNE Calgary, not being made a capital city, has made itself. Its Board of Trade has put in circulation a booklet of 80 pages and upon each page tells of some definite advantage possessed by Calgary. Its people are progressive, educated, intellectual and cultured. Its schools are thorough, the Normal School and College preparing students for the various universities. It is a commercial and industrial centre and also a railroad centre, being 27 per cent, nearer the Pacific Coast than other Western Cities. The much talked of Chinook winds blowing from the Pacific and filtering through tne mountain ice fields of the Rockies bring a whiff of salt air into the atmos- phere. There is an altitude of 3000 feet, much sun- shine, cool summer nights, no oppressive heat. Fall is the ideal season, and winter moderate and comfort- able. The trade of the town may be calculated from a railway pay list of one million dollars per annum. Fur trading is a great business. Many tourists take advantage of the prices and buy a splendidly finished fur article for one-half the money asked in the East. Skilled labor is paid from 40c to 60c per hour. The Calgary district is famous both as a grain growing and stock raising producer. The carpet of Canada is a rich blue grass nourish- ing for cattle, horses and sheep, and "Flock Masters" are reaping unparalelled profits. Woolen mills are being established in Calgary and that means much to the sheep industry. To the tourist the topography of Calgary is fascinating. It lies among the foot hills of the Rockies, within five hours ride of the mightiest peaks in the world, with the beautiful Bow river at its THE THREE KINGDOMS 51 feet. Stoddard calls the Bow river the "silver key" which unlocks the silence and solitude of the Rockies. The color of the waters of the Bow are translucent blue bringing to mind the moonlight of fairy stories that delight the sweet pure mind of childhood. There is much to be told of Calgary for it is rich in its posses- sions. Manufacturing being not the least of them. There was an automobile ride that rushed us through the town out into the grain and grazing district. Up on the mountain bluffs, to the very edge, with the Bow river below, all this at Kipling's "Speeds no child should ev^er hear of and grown-ups should not attempt. ' ' But it was Calgary where rushing is not unusual, and in Calgary, mighty enjoyable. Sheep Raising is a Profitable Indusrty in Ca nada ^ It is fortunate for the newspaper man that he notes his impressions and advantages of different local- ities at first sight, for in the tangle of so many oppor- tunities found in each locality the mere recollection would resolve itself into a pandemonium of desirable 52 THE LAND OF FORTUNE assets. Each district has some individual advantage or charm that will appeal to an individual want and which is patent and pertinent to its own citizen. All Canada is good, for one reason, it is new. The charm of newness is always potent. Think of the new house, its up-to-date appointments, all the new mechanical improvements that apply to house keeping and comfort making. The laying aside of the cum- bersome and obsolete for the convenient and adaptable. Fit this idea to a new country and a Paternal Government that works on the principle that foster- ing the interests of its people is maintaining the in- terests of the country. Without question there is confidence in such conditions. The proof is in the prosperity of the Canadian settler, and above and be- yond all his unbounded satisfaction and content in his present accomplishment and future prospects. THE WONDERFUL MOUNTAINS AUGUST 30th. 1908 We have crossed and recrossed the Rocky Moun- tains on every railroad in the United States, but it re- mained for the Canadian Rockies to show the majestic grandeur of the mighty range extending from the Artie Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico. It was a "misty moisty morning" when we arrived at "Laggan" the mountain station for the beautiful Lake Louise. Everybody indulged in their own little original — joke that there should be no "laggin be- hind." As many as could get ponies mounted and climbed up the mountain path. Vehicles carried others. So up the mountain side the ponies started, only a few moments and the valley road narrowed into a gorge road bounded by the towering mountains on one side and the river on the other with the rail- road and shifting cars looking like toy things down below. It was a scenic panorama of great picturesque walls of rock, fern and moss-covered crags. The energizing air laden with sweet scents of the forest filled the lungs with buoyancy. Nearness to nature's heart made one glad to be alive. The river, a branch of the beautiful Bow River rushed down splashing and dashing against the rocks with here and there a water fall of dainty beauty. About three miles up, the road expanded and here, set in mountain fastness, is the prettiest lake in 54 THE LAND OF FORTUNE the world. Switzerland and Lake Luzerne are en- trancingly beautiful, but Lake Louise is the queen. The waters are blue, blue as the sapphire and like a superb gem it rests in the heart of the mountains. Giant snow capped peaks tower on either side like lov- ing sentinels, jealous lest so pure a jewel should escape. "This is one of nature's masterpieces, which tiny though it be she has reserved for her exclusive satis- faction." With the almost irrisistable impulse toward poetic description, the silenced word is the truest tri- bute to the beauty of Lake Louise. A little farther up the mountain were two more "Lakes in the Clouds," Mirror Lake and St. Agnes. "Banff" is, perhaps, for the short time it has been celebrated the most widely visited beauty spot in the world. Here one gets all the glory and vastness of the mountain scenery. The views are incomparable. The sublimity of nature's work is awe inspiring. Huge precipices tower skyward while bewitching, beautiful, half hidden by peak and forest tangle, the Bow river seeking ever the beautiful places of the earth, winds in picturesque course, its turquoise waters shining like a mirror in the sunlight. It was up roundabout these mountains that Ralph Connor wrote his story "Black Rock." One of the thrilling books of the last decade. Banff seems to be a meeting place for mountain peaks, "Glacier-born streams fall from sheer heights or leap from ledge, sending upward clouds of white mist, where miniature rain bows are seen throughout each sunny day." White capped peaks raise their heads, often wrapped about with clouds to dizzy THE WONDERFUL MOUNTAINS heights. Through the mountains are "Alpine Mea- dow," fragrant with rare and delicate mountain blossoms; forests of golden larch, spruce and pine. The verdure is exquisitely delicate, each beautiful lake reflects in its placid surface the eternal mountains and the swift moving cloud. The Banff Hotel is a most delightful hostelry, elegantly appointed and beautifully equipped. The sulphur baths are considered very healthful and are very pleasant. Besides the large hotel which is set in the heart of finest of the mountain's scenery. There are a number of cottages and small hotels. BaufE is about seven miles from Bank Head. The latter place is becoming famous for its deposits of hard coal which is said to be as good as the anthracite of Pennsylvania. Canada Mountains abound in game. Once upon a time the popular idea of Canada was pictured by a hunter in snow shoes clad in furs, gun aloft in the act of shooting a moose. Civilization has not denuded the forests nor put big game out of existence. The moose, the monarch of the Canadian forest is found in every province in the Dominion, from the Atlantic Ocean to the Rocky Mountains, and from the Yukon to the International Boundary Line. The moose is indeed noble game, and when fully grown weighs over one thousand pounds, and has a spread of antlers from five to six feet and more in width. Possibly the hardest game in North America to secure is the musk ox, as it is only found in a district 56 THE LAND OF FORTUNE situated almost or quite within the Artie circle, and about the headwaters of the Great Fish River, also northeast of the Great Slave Lake, and in Greenland and Labrador. The black bear is found throughout the length and breadth of Canada. He is a harmless creature with a good coat in the early spring, and lives upon fruit, berries, fish, meat, bugs, lizards ants and mice. It is impossible to tell how he secured his notoriety as a dangerous animal, for in reality he is an arrant coward. A Scene in the Ranching District of Alberta The bighorn or Rocky Mountain sheep is to-day considered the most valuable prize obtainable by the sportsman. Its home is among the fastnesses of the Canadian Rockies. This animal is of a suspicious timid nature, but is sure-footed and self reliant in its mountain home, and will escape over rocks which the hunter finds impossible to traverse. Its flesh is pro- THE WONDERFUL MOUNTAINS hi nounced by epicures to be the most delicious of the world's game, and its massive, wide-spreading horns make a beautiful ornament. Of all Canadian game the bighorn is the most wary and difficult to bag. The Rocky Mountain goat whose uncanny beard gives him almost a human-like appearance, has his home among the giant peaks of the Canadian Rockies. He is a brave and fearless fighter, and is more than a match for any dog that dares to attack him. His sharp and needle-like horns and strong pointed hoofs are excellent weapons of defence against his enemies. He is the most daring of all mountain climbers, fear- less, sure-footed, and delights in scaling great heights and taking perilous leaps across chasms. Foxes, rabbits, hare, mink, fisher, marten, sable, otter, beaver, muskrat and wolverine, and all other small game, are plentiful throughout Canada, but must [be hunted in accordance with the game laws in force in each province. Most of the small fur-bearing animals are trapped by the professional hunter, and are not usuall)^ sought for by the sportsman. The "Mecca" of goose shooting is reached on the south side of Buffalo Lake, about twenty miles north of Moose Jaw; wild geese in countless thousands come down from their feeding grounds in the Artie circle in the months of September and October, and remain there until they take their departure for the south when ice begins to form on the lake. The country to the south of the lake is well settled, and the wheat stubble field affords excellent feeding grounds. Am- bushed in pits dug in the stubble fields in the line of the flight of the geese, with decoys set out, the finest 58 THE LAND OF FORTUNE goose shooting imagined by the keenest sportsman can be obtained. Every true sportsman is the friend of all game ; he travels far to see them in their native haunts ; he glories in the chase and in fairly out-witting these nimble creatures of the forest. When he kills, 'tis only to satisfy his needs, for he is distinct to the ignorant butcher who would ruthlessly exterminate all game; and to the educated sportsman is due the formation of game protection associations and the con- sequent increase in recent years of big game in Canada. British Columbia is beyond comparison the best big game country in North America, and it would not be an exaggeration to say in the world. The climate in the fishing season is all that could be desired, while in fall and winter, during the hunt- ing season, there is no severe weather that any hunter cannot easily withstand. There is uo malaria or fever such as are so com- mon in the big game countries of Europe and Africa. Venomous reptiles are unknown as are poisonous or noxious weeds, the only possible chance of danger being from the pursuit of game or the smaller risk of attack by wounded animals. SOME SMALL TOWNS AUGUST 3 Its, 1908 Directly south of Calgary and less than fifty miles from the 49th parallel which we had crossed so inquir- ingly the first day of our trip, are the towns of Mc- Cleod and Lethbridge. The rapid growth of these towns establishes the fact, without question of doubt, of the wonderful producing quality and fertility of the surrounding country. McCleod is a bright little town just doffing its swaddling clothes. Beyond a very handsome hotel, its buildings are as yet unpretentious, but the welcome given the National Editors was royal and left nothing to be desired. A splendid luncheon was served in the town hall. A very delightful address of welcome came from the Mayor of McCleod and a cordial in- vitation from all the citizens to come and locate with them and share the honor of making McCleod the banner town of Southern Alberta. The self-reliance and self-containedness of all Western Canada becomes an interesting study as one travels the land and meets at every point, no matter what the remoteness, these characteristics. It is the solidarity of interests and desires that generates the hopeful and helpful spirit from which successful re- sults are a natural sequence. Southern Alberta has any number of thriving growing towns among which McCleod is one of the SOME SMALL TOWNS 61 winners. There are Tabor, Cardston, Spring Coolee, Pincher Creek, Stavely, Leavitt, Claresholm, Manton, all centres for out lying farm lands, and each located either on the railroad or quite near it. Southern Alberta is from 1400 feet to 3400 feet above sea level. The open nature of the country, clear, dry atmosphere and the fresh breezes that blow across its plains, all tend to make it one of the most healthful countries in the world. There is an entire absence of malaria and some portions of the province are recommended as a sanitarium. This is no longer an exclusive ranching country. The experienced agriculturist is surely converting it into a prize wheat country. Already immense yields of wheat have been harvested. Wheat sown in August grows to a height of six or eight inches in the Fall, comes through the winter without heaving or injury, and, even with the little snow fall that prevails, escapes the "thaw and freeze" period. It is ready for the reaper from the ist to the 15th of August. Climatic conditions are very favorable to this new departure of wheat growing in this Southern section. The winter is a season of' bright, cloudless days and infrequent snow falls which are soon blown away by the wonderful Chinook winds. The soil is a rich alluvial loam. In places gravel and sandy ridges occur, but in the valleys the accum- mulated silt dei)osits of ages has produced a soil of the richest kind and of great depth. SOME SMALL TOWNS 63 There is no rain during the summer months and its absence causes the native grasses to cure on the ground, retaining their nutritive qualities in such a manner that stock pastured thereon remain fat all winter. The irrigated portions of this locality will raise all kinds of grain and root crops and a sufficient supply of fodder for winter feeding. The non irrigated sections will grow winter wheat cr furnish the finest pasture for live stock to be found in the world. I^ethbridge is one of the largest towns of this sec- tion. It is something of a railroad centre and in time will have fiv^e railroads running into it. The great million dollar bridge now being built by the Canadian Pacific Company is going to rank one of the wonders of the world. It will be one mile and forty feet long and three hundred and seven feet high. The coal mines at Lethbridge are its greatest asset. Last year 256,000 tons of coal were mined. Close to the city are three collieries that are spending hundreds of dollars in development work and will soon be producing a thousand tons a day. It is likely each of these mines will employ at least 500 men. Lethbridge farming is quite up to its mining de- velopment. Seeding of Spring wheat begins the last week in March and Fall wheat about August i. Fall wheat is harvested the last week in July and Spring grain first week in August. 64 THE LAND OF FORTUNE The farming season begins early in March though it is not unusual to work the land in January and February. Ploughing is often carried on up to the first of December. The vegetables produced in this district in quality and quantity are equal to any in the world. A crop of 600 bushels of potatoes to the acre is not uncommon. At the Seed Fair for the Province of Alberta this year the Lethbridge district made a clean sweep. All of the first prizes went to farmers living within a radius of forty miles of Lethbridge. Of 57 prizes awarded altogether, the Lethbridge district won 38. Ops of Central Canada's Churches IRRIGATION AND GOLDEN WHEAT SEPTEMBER I^, 1908 Irrigation is as old as civilization and at the same time one of the greatest of projects in the way of modern investment. The overflowing of the Nile and the Chinese rivers and the good effects therefrom probably sug- gested the first ideas of irrigation. In Italy irrigation has been carried on since the time of Virgil and no country possesses so large an ex- tent of rich water meadows as Northern Italy. Taken from a National point of view, irrigation is a question of tremendous importance, for by this means all the rich organic and other matters diffused through the rivers, which would otherwise be carried to the sea, are saved to agriculture. Another econo- mic fact is that when the water is suited to irrigation the land never requires fertilizer. To the individual farmer the bare fact that arti- ficial watering insures him emancipation from the capriciousness of the rain fall is an asset of great worth in both his actual business summing up and again to his ease and peace of mind. The constant dependence upon the uncertainty of the weather has fostered in the mind of the farmer a certain anxiety that is almost akin to cowardice, and always means apprehension. But with the adoption 66 THE LAND OF FORTUNE of irrigation two or three crops can be obtained in one year, which will change a three per cent farm into a twenty per cent investment. The early spring crop affords pasturage to ewes and lambs which can, by these means, be brought earlier into the market. Irrigation is no longer a theory but a demonstrat- ed success; it has put the farmer on a business basis and promises to do much more for him. The Lethbridge District has the only extensive irrigation system operated for any length of time in Canada. The irrigation canal was brought into the city in September igoo. The entire system cost over $1,000,000. The area under irrigation to-day consists of about 100,000 acres, of which 65 per cent is under cultivation. From the sugar beets raised in the irrigation dis- trict in the vicinity of Lethbridge nearly 5,000,000 pounds of sugar are produced. The great irrigation project now under way in Southern Alberta is being promulgated by the Canad- ian Pacific Railway. $5,000,000 is to be expended in the enterprise and a vast area of three million acres is to be watered. The block as it is called is larger than Connecticut and Rhode Island combined. The magni- tude of the scheme is bewildering. The water is to be laken from the Bow river and St. Mary's river. By the construction of a dam a body of water three miles long, half a mile wide and forty feet deep has been created. There will be the main canal, seventeen miles long; the three secondary caaals, one hundred and fifty IRRIGATION AND GOLDEN WHEAT 67 miles long and the distributing ditches, eight hundred miles long, making a total of nine hundred and sixty- seven miles. Stacking the Grain in Central Canada Irrigation has practically unified the sentiment of manufacturers, merchants and transportation agencies in support of the small farm. The man with the big farm, being a large consumer and a shipper of freight has been by the natural law of bigness given greater consideration. This has been changed and it has been demonstrated, that on every irrigated area, a hundred farms of ten acres giv^e nearly a hundred times as much business as one farm of a thousand. Even in the most humid countries, scarcely a sea- son passes where the application of water, at the criti- cal time in the growth of a crop, would not add much 68 THE LAND OF FORTUNE to the value of the result. Farmers realize this and are not satisfied with returns that are the result of accident. They begin to know that irrigation means business. The resources of Southern Alberta are marvelous. Wheat has been king but bids fair to have to share honors on the combination farm. The crop of fall wheat in Southern Alberta in 1907 was estimated at 3,000,000 bushels. It was in this district that our Special train was halted and quite a number of the tourists were taken in carriages to a wheat field ten miles distant. It was an ideally clear, crispy day. The air breathed health and strength into the lungs, the horses bounded over the good hard road. In an incredibly short time we covered the distance and arrived at the wheatfield. Did you ever see a Canadian wheat field? a billowy, wavy thing of yellow gold; no fence line, no shade trees, no hills and knolls of green, all yellow, yellow on every side, nothing but the horizon to tell you where this "cloth of gold" c^nds. The flavor of the wheat flower floats in the air. You grow dizzy look- ing, all wheat, wheat. It seems like rippling waves of the ocean. It is an ocean of wheat, so big, so much, you do not know in the clear atmosphere whether you are looking at one mile or ten miles of this living gold. And gold it is, for it gives of its harvest 40 bushels to the acre and with the predicted "dollar wheat" will net its owner $10,000. The opportunities in Canada farming are amazing. Wheat in Southern Alberta often produces thirty to 70 THE LAND OF FORTUNE forty bushels to the acre. Soil depletion is unknown^ Oats gives 90 bushels to the acre. Barley and Flax both give astounding yields. As to Alfalfa, it con- tinues to be an agricultural revelation, and something of a vi^onder to the Eastern mind. It is the oldest known forage crop and yet many localities are just now commencing to cultivate it. Southern Alberta with its great area of irrigated lands is coming to be a banner Alfalfa producer. Four crops a season is not an unusual yield for Alfalfa. Timothy, Sugar Beets, Live Stock, Dairying, Poultry raising and even small fruits all are managed on a paying basis with gilt edged promises for the "Combination" farm in Southern Alberta. This is especially commented upon from the fact that original- ly it was exclusively a ranching country. Beyond contradiction this is the time for the man with a little means to buy Canada land. A small farm at fifteen or twenty dollars per acre will pay 20 or 30 per cent in crop values and fully as much on the rapid rise of land values. Mark Twain somewhere says "Once I could have bought St. Louis for six million dollars, but I foolishly let the opportunity pass, now it cannot be bought for hundreds of millions." The purchaser of irrigated lands gets an absolute guarantee of water and a title to both lands and water. On this vast tract you can obtain a home and in- vestment which will bring a constantly increasing income. HIS FIRST WHEAT SALE The First Grain He Ever Raised Himself Has Been Hauled to the Grain Buyers and Weighed and He is Now Receiving the Weight Ticket. His Farm Will Soon Make Him Rich, if His Smiling Face Tells Anything BANNER TOWNS SEPTEMBER 2d. 1908 Until we arrived at Edmonton, we had been in the care of the Canadian Northern Railway, traveling over its road and accepting its many courtesies. At Ed- monton, we were given over to the courtesies of the Canadian Pacific Railway, and then travelled south through the lands in Southern Alberta that are to be w^atered from a great irrigation plant. In the full glory of a bracing September morning, we arrived at Meclicine Hat. We were prepared for Medicine Hat, for it is the best advertised town in Canada. Kipling has put a halo about it by saying " It is the town that was born Incky." His Epigram- matic wit has gone farther and coined a classic phrase well known to all Canada pointing out quite definitely the town's base of supplies. Medicine Hat talks about its crops and farm lands, but it talks more about its natural gas, for therein are its trump cards, and it holds twelve with ace high. The town is in the heart of the territory underlaid by a great gas bearing stratum. This mysterious gift to Medicine Hat promises to make it the Pittsburg of the West. Already hundreds of steel drills are boring in to caverns where billions of cubic feet of gas wait to burst through the containing pipes. Gas is thrown up so abundantly that it is used for all purposes, for heat- ing and lighting, for household heat, light and cook- BANNER TOWNS ing, for public buildings and factories, for the streets at i3>^ cents per thousand cubic ft. Gas for manu- facturing is furnished at five cents. Medicine Hat confidently looks forward, and with warrantable ambition, to becoming a manufacturing centre for the whole enormous territory lying between Winnipeg and the Pacific Coast. Out on the nearby prairie is a gas manipulated brick making establishment which sells bricks at $40 per thousand. The shops of the Canadian Pacific Railway are located here. Natural gas instead of coal is used in firing up the engines saving to the company about six thousand dollars a yea^. With gas, locomotive tires can be reset without removing the wheel. A pleasant feature of the town is its park system and municipal nursery, the latter for the encourage- ment of local tree planting. The trees are obtainable as seedlings from the Forestry farm at Indian Head, kept for a couple of years at the city park nursery and then transplanted into the grounds of such residents as desire them, the condition being that they are placed within a certain distance of the street. The population of Medicine Hat is about six thousand. Apart from merchants and professional men, the occupants of the city are mostly wealthy ranch men. After leaving Medicine Hat, we came once more in the province of Saskatchewan. Traversing the Swift Current region which is renowned for its nutri- tious grasses, we found ourselves again in the centre BANNER TOWNS 75 of the grain growing district. It was harvesting time and at various points, we had the opportunity of seeing the great puffing engines and threshing machines har- vesting the golden wheat for the elevators. The immensity of this wheat traffic cannot be made plain with the editorial pencil. It is so big, the areas so tremendous and the yield so satisfactory and unusual that one can only say to the farmer and to the globe trotter go and see for yourselves. The informa- tion is worth all the trouble of the long trip. The town of Moose Jaw is the most important divisional point on the Canadian Pacific road. Septem- ber second in the evening we arrived here. The citi- zens had arranged for a town meeting. This meeting was most successful, interesting and informing. The subject of annexation came up and I fancy some of our American Editors who have been coquetting with the idea that Miss Canada's arm was to be tucked under the protecting arm of Uncle Sam, joining their for- tunes under one flag and that flag Uncle Sam's receiv- ed something of a shock in the pronounciamento which came from ona of our hosts, that Canada did not want to be annexed, Canada reveres her institutions the same as we do. Canada is a part of the Imperial Government of England and she loves all its traditions. The subject of annexation furnished opportunity for eloquent and grandiloquent speeches but all the flowery sayings from a flowery kingdom could not convince Miss Canada that she wants to be annexed to the coun- try south of the 49th parallel. Under this head, the Toronto Star asks "Will patriotism, American or Canadian, suffer by the inter- 76 THE LAND OF FORTUNE change of population aud the knowledge thereby gain- ed? Rational patriotism will not suffer. No patriotic citizen of Canada or of the United States will regret that the people of the two couutries are beginning to understand each other. The development of each country, the national ambition of each country will be furthered by the clearing away of those misunder- standings, which elsewhere create danger of war." The Pork Industry is Being Rapidly Developed in Central Canada Pork-packing Plants Are Established at Various Places To sum up the situation both Canadians and Americans may measure the others loyalty by their own which naturally will close the dis«.ussion. Moose Jaw is a fine town. No need to tell the origin of its name-. South of Moose Jaw is a grain belt that cannot be surpassed for productiveness and reliability of crop under good tillage. There are indications in the air that Moose Jaw is to grow and spread. A street car conductor in Win- nipeg told us that he was investing all his earnings in BANNER TOWNS 77 lots in Moose Jaw and expected to make largely on his investment. Moose Jaw has a population of 8,000 people and is the entrance point via the Soo line railway into West- ern Canada. Along this Soo line which comes in from St. Paul are located some of the finest small towns in Canada. No district in Western Canada has ex- perienced such rapid development associated with pros- perity as has this line and district in the last four years. The principle towns in this famously fertile country are Yellowpass, andWeyburn, the oldest of this group. Wilcox just three years old, Milestone, Roulean and Drink Water. In this district there are not many available homesteads, but then there is a fine wheat land for sale at very reasonable prices. The soil and climate produce "No. i Hard" wheat and easily 35 and 40 bushels to the acre. Moose Jaw is going to be a great distributing centre and that is a very valuable consideration to the new settler. The establishment of the Western Real Estate Association is one of the most important business movements ever made in Western Canada. Its avow- ed object is for the purpose of exerting effectively a combined influence upon matters affecting real estate interests and to promote immigration. Representatives met the editors at various places along the line of travel. They carried badges on which was imprinted the unique wording: Our Field Western Canada from the Great Lakes to the Pacific. Our Objects, Progress to our Country. Success to Ourselves. 78 THE LAND OF FORTUNE^ The real estate lime liglit. agent in Canada is constantly in the A Garden Plot in Saskatchewan perty m instalments is ttteir us the ,3 -^--^^;~:re\«;itraffai'sa-e admiuis- r^tur Jit Xeni. I U largely on the advice BANNER TOWNS 79 of the real estate agent and under his direction that new districts are opened up. It is through him that values of property in dispute are determined, he is a medium between the man with the house to sell and the man who wants to buy. His services are invalua- ble. It is a business, too, in which square dealing is essential, as the buyer of today may be the seller of tomorrow. The realty broker is a very necessary adjunct in the buying and selling, and this organization which has members and vice presidents in every province. Protects the broker, the capitalist and the customer and has practically eliminated the untrustworthy ele- ments which creeps into the real estate business per- haps more than any other line of legitimate business in the world. Following our itinerary, our train reached Indian Head on another of Canada's glorious, crispy, clear mornings. The air seemed health itself and imparted a certain quality of resoluteness to the mind. I never before realized that atmospheric conditions could so potenth' influence the mental attitude. Although miles away, the balminess of the Chinook winds "fil- tering through the Rockies" is felt at Indian Head. Here again the citizens met the tourists with teams and carried them through the town out to view the experimental farm. The farm is laid out in drives and walks and is conducted on the most scientific principles; it gives an annual yield in wheat of 42 bushels to the acre. The farmers around Indian Head are adopting the new methods of the experiment station. They have intensified their methods and are 80 THE LAND OF FORTUNE reapiug incredible results in profit. They actually claim on small farms to have cleared $2000 in one year after paying all living expenses. We were told by a resident a son of an English Clergyman that he had great prospects from his farm of 100 acres, great enough to make him thoroughly contented with Canada. He said, "There is more chance in Canada than at home in England, the class distinctions are not so hampering and children of this generation will never know them." Canada is very considerate of her adopted children. Indian Head and the surrounding country is populat- ed with alert, intelligent citizens. They work on the principle that good business is to get the largest le- gitimate returns from the smallest possible investment, and they set the seal of safety on farm investment and the seal of profit on intelligent up-to-date farming. REGINA SEPTEMBER 2d. 1908 Our visit at Regina was indeed a gala time. First we were given a reception at the City Hall which is a beautiful specimen of architecture in the Gothic and Renaissance styles. Representative men and women of Regina met the tourists. After viewing the municipal building, we were escorted to the hotel where a magnificent banquet was tendered. This was fine in the extreme. The speeches of welcome and response, of good will and congratulation were replete with intelligence and good sense. We were most fortunate in having with our party a number of women who could make speeches and when a woman can talk in public it is the best entertainment in the world and everybody enjoys it. At Regina, we had the pleasure of having dear Mrs. Parrott respond in behalf of the women to the hospital- ity and cordiality we were receiving. Mrs. Parrott was delightful, placid and pertinent and always popu- lar, she said just what every woman wanted voiced, just enough, and said it most pleasingly. It is a talent to know how to say the right thing and to be able to make a brilliant stop. Our other women talkers were Miss Ruling of Chicago. Her precise and beautiful English was a joy to hear. . _ . REGINA 83 There was Mrs. Wilson an American but a resi- dent of Canada, She was full of youthful enthusiasm and talked delightfully. Mrs. Snyder, of Chicago, is a very gifted woman. Her voice is pleasing both in speech and song. Her responses on several different occasions were enthusia- stically received. Miss Florence Dymond, from Louisana, always pleasing, made a very graceful response at Winnipeg. After the banquet our party was taken to see the quarters of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police. The Mounted Police of Canada is its standing army and peace keeper and does its work effectively and successfully. The home of the Governor of the Pro- vince is situated a few miles out of Regina. Here the tourists were given a reception by Governor and Madam Forget. The name Forget is French and in pronouncing it one must forget the last letter making the e an a, and the g soft. The reception was one of the most pleasing and enjoyable favors of our trip. It is always interesting to have a glimpse of the home keeping of other coun- tries. We found the official residence at Regina a most charming place and Governor and Madame For- get delightful as host and hostess. The ccnservatories were thrown open to the guests which added much to the pleasure of the occasion. The collection of Bogonia plants was amazingly large many of them being prize winners. REGINA 85 Regina is the center of the richest portion of the great Canadian West, and for miles on every side the land cannot be excelled for fertility. A result of this favorable location may be seen in the growth Regina has made during the past few years shown b}^ these figures of new building construction in the city during the past four years: In 1904 the outlway was $210,000; 1905, $750,000; 1906, $1,982,- 000; 1907, $1,177,840. Buildings, public and private, are now under construction at Regina to the value of $2,210,000. It is a beautiful, clean, commodious town. It has an unusually large number of attractive private resi- dences and a v^ery desirable social life. Areola is a small town south of Regina, it is the centre of a fine w'heat district and the crops have been good for a number of years. It has six grain elevat- ors, a telegraph and an express ofiice, a large flour mill, a brick yard with a capacity of 30,000 per day and excellent retail stores. Its elevator capacity is about 200,000 bushels. The town is ten years old and counts 100 citizens for each year of its age. BACK IN MANITOBA SEPTEMBER 3d. 1908 The province of Manitoba was the sphere of the pioneering efforts in Central Canada's immigration. In 1870, when Manitoba entered the Confederation it had only 17,000 inhabitants; today its population is 400,000, largely English Speaking. Then its agricul- tural productions found no place in the records; in 1881 it was credited as producing 1,000,000 bushels of wheat and 1,270,268 bushels of oats. In this province the rich soil and favorable clima- tic conditions are a bank account upon which not more than a portion of the interest is being drawn. Twenty million acres are here to crop with only five million acres now under cultivation. Lands can still be pur- chased at from $5 to $40 an acre, according to quality and location. Resident farmers, whose lands are valued at from $15 to $40 an acre are realizing a re- venue from the same equal to seven per cent on an in- vestment of more than double this value. One hundred and fifty miles west of Winnipeg is the thriving town of Souris. Situated on the high banks at the confluence of Plum Creek with the Souris River this is one of the few towns of Manitoba that owes much to the advantages of situation. The valley of Plum Creek, winding down from the west, breaks into the Souris valley some thirty miles above its en- trance into the Assiniboine valley. Here the town BACK IN MANITOBA 87 overlooks the valleys of both streams, stretching west- ward and eastward, making a delightful situation that has given it the reputation of being the prettiest town in Manitoba. It has a flour mill of 400 barrels capacity. The elevator capacity is 300,000 bushels. It is to be regretted that we could not tarry in Souris but the people of Brandon were waiting for the coming of the Editorial party. Brandon is called the "Wheat City." It has a population of 12,000. The streets are beautifully treed and boulevarded making the city an ideal place of residence. Splendid hotels entertain the traveler, and square business people meet the customer. The central experimental farm of the Dominion Government is located here. This farm includes por- tions of valley and upland and represents all classes of soil likely to be found in individual homesteads. This makes the results reached very useful to the farmer. The Winter Fair in Western Canada is an institu- tion of comparatively recent date, and that it has come to stay and to wield a powerful and beneficial interest in this great stretch of farming and stock raising territory may be accepted as a fact, final and indisput- able. In no other part of the farming world does the Winter and Summer Fair form so absolutely essential a part of the farming and stock raiding machinery as it does in Manitoba and Saskatchewan, and in some respects the Winter Fair is the more far-reaching in its influence. It is the reflection of the Agricultural ... ,-. .,, i pi 1 ^ -.4- '^^-a%- .-.■ ten 2 <^ ■^ o g — CO O c ^ EG ffi & 1^ 51 BACK IN MANITOBA Industry; the dial which records the workings of the Agricultural Machinery. Brandon has two railways, is the market centre for this very fertile portion of Manitoba and invites manufacturers to come and locate there. It is on the Assiniboine river another inducement to the manu- facturer. The Brandon Board of Trade tendered a most magnificent luncheon to our party. Nothing could have been more hospitable and no where along our line of travel did we meet more delightful or more progressive people. Brandon has a great future ahead of it. All it needs do is to live up to its advantages. CANADA'S PEOPLE AND PROSPECTS SEPTEMBER 4th, 1908 Agricultural life in Canada does not mean isola- tion. Population came with the advent of the rail- road, and brought with it a natural desire for the social side of life. All through Canada there is a cordiality and open heartedness that greets the new settler and the tourist and evidences the fact that the ethical is as important in this Northland as the practical. The social gatherings of a semi-public nature that bring together people of all classes show a single pur- posedness that argues much for the general advance- ment in this new country. The people are all energetic, active and industrious, proud of their homes, their city and territory. They are always ready and willing to talk about Canada and they do not concede that any country on earth is its superior. Very few old people are seen, the great majority of the citizens being young or middle aged people in the prime of life. The story of the accomplishment of these people sounds almost like a fairy tale, but when one meets them and gets to know them and sees the way in which they work he understands better how the great results have been obtained in so short a time. While Canada has immense elevators and flouring mills, it has never lost sight of the importance of its school house. It educational system is the very finest • 92 THE LAND OF FORTUNE in the world. Each town and community vies with some other to keep a Httle better and do a little more. The public school Curriculm embraces besides the usual fundamentals, Manual Training, Drawing and Art Work, Music and Physical Culture. All the lar- ger towns boast of academies and colleges and Uni- versities. Canadians naturally are a bright intelligent people and the majority of the new home seekers while not up to the mark financially possess the incalculable capital compressed in an education. Canada's sunshine is its greatest gift from nature. In scriptural phrase we are admonished to "Walk in the light" for there is no hope in darkness. Think of the 20 hours of glorious beautiful sunlight as compared with "lighting the gas" at three o'clock P. M. in New York. It is a scientific opinion that the wear and tear on the body is less in the long daylight countries because the body does not have to resist the depressing effect that accompanies shadows and darkness. Can you wonder that Canadians are the most optimistic, ambitious people on earth. They are keenly alive to their wonderful advantages and are determined to make every one of them work for the upbuilding of the country. They apply their intelli- gence and acquirements to business and to their methods of living. They get the most their is in life. The development of their own talents and the de- velopment of the country are both paramount objects. CANADA'S PEOPLE AM) PROSPECTS 93 When a man once possesses himself he comes also in the possession of material things. It is every man's ambition to own something and under the powerful stimulus of the two fold idea of owning and working, the people of Canada are building up a mighty Empire. "Communities do not grow by chance but by the operation of physical laws. Position, climate, moun- tains, valley, rivers, arable lands, minerals are predest- nating forces in a nation's history." The geographical position of Canada is in the main axial line of the world's grand commercial move- ment. School in a Country Town The development of Western Canada is not an ac- cident. The untouched resources of land are here and an ever growing multitude will come to gather in and possess the wealth of the country. 94 THE LAND OF FORTUNE Man is naturally an agriculturist and agricultural lands since the days of Eden, have steadily increased in value. A writer in one of the recent magazines says, "The time is coming, is near at hand, when the farming country of the prairies will be the thobbing heart of the nation's industrial and commercial life. Mines and forests we are told are being rapidly ex- hausted, but the resources of the fathomless prairies rightly conserved is inexhaustable. Gradually the soundness of the farming life is making itself known. The prairies offer to the nations of North America a treasury of exhaustless life, a life of firm first rela- tions with the soil, of fixed industrial principles, of limitless capacity for expansion and service." What politics or statecraft, or finance cannot do in the way of perpetual restoration of life's wear and tear, that the miracle of the soil can do. There lies the unmeasured, the unguessed power of the Western Canada Prairie Country. WINNIPEG SEPTEMBER 5th, 1908 We bade adieu to Brandon, the hospitable, and travelled on to Winnipeg, the largest city of Western Ci^nada. Here again we met with what had come to be proverbial Canada hospitality. In 1870 Winnipeg was a wayside hamlet, a little trading post of the great Hudson Bay Company, with a population of 215 souls. The growth of Winnipeg is phenomenal. During the last ten years it has doubled its population twice and now ranks as a city of 125,000 people. While Winnipeg is young it still has the distinc- tion of possessing an individual history. The city sprung originally from Old Fort Garry, which was built by the Hudson Bay Company when there was need of defensive measures against the Indians. The Fort was built of stone and mortar. The walls loop- holed for rifle fire and bastions at the corners where cannons were mounted. This is not more than sixty years ago. Twice within 38 years there have been rebellions of the half breeds. "But now the Assini- boine River flows peacefully past the fort, hearing nothing more hostile than canoeists in search of pleasure " and the Fort is a mere relic. The main street of Winnipeg is built upon the trail formed by the Indians while going north to the timber countries of Saskatchewan. WINNIPEG 97 But this is all ancient and Winnipeg and the "Last Best West look ahead. They let the dead past bury its dead and act in the living future." There is so much to do, such a big country to set- tle up and such wonderful resources to utilize that one gets busy merely contemplating it. Winnipeg is the political as well as the commercial centre of Western Canada. The Legislative and the Departmental buildings of the Manitoba Government and the chief immigration, lands and timber offices of the Dominion Government for the West are located here. The Canadian Pacific Railway Company has its chief offices in the West in Winnipeg. The Canadian Northern and Grand Trunk Pacific Railway also have land offices at Winnipeg where full information of land in the companies' districts can be obtained. There is no unnecessary elaboration in the method of securing land in Canada. Upon inquiry, prices, location and resources we find they are explained fully and concisely to the applicant. The entire trans- action is arranged by a smooth, understandable business method. The companies are quite explicit in stating the needs of the settler. They say that he ought to have four good horses which will cost from $600 to $700; set of harrows, $25.00; one wagon, $75 to |8o, if new, and if second hand, $45.00: one seeder, $85; one mower and rake $95; two cows, $80; pro- visions for him.self and family, about $200. A habit- able house, 18x20, one story high can be built for $200. It will of course have to be added to for the winter. He should also have one brood sow, $15.00; One of the Homes in Central Canada where the Government Houses the Emigrant for a Short Period After His Arrival WINNIPEG 93 forty or fifty hens, $15.00. With this outfit he will be in a position to commence comfortably, and will be much better off than most of the early settlers were twenty years ago. Some of those who had scarcely any capital are now in independent circumstances. The outfit mentioned will cost about $1,500. When the first crop is ready for harvest a binder will be re- quired, but it can be paid for out of the proceeds of the crop. A young man entering for his homestead say, in May or June, for which he pays the Government agent $10.00 can with practically no capital start for himself. If he is willing to work and understands horses and general farming he can earn from $160.00 to $180.00 for the summer season. He can employ a neighbor to break ten acres on his land, and in Novem- ber can put up a cheap house at, say, from $40.00 to $50.00 and live on his land during the winter months, when the wages are not as high as in the summer sea- son, thus complying with his settlement duties. He can do this for three years, and at the end of that time will be entitled to a recommendation for his patent. He will then be in a position to borrow suf- ficient capital on the security of his homestead to pur- chase the outfit necessary to enable him to devote his whole time to the cultivation and improvement of his farm. A settler with a family old enough to work can follow the same course. To enable a settler with a young family to start comfortably on a quarter sec- tion of free grant land, he should have at least $500 to $1000 capital. 100 THE LAND OF FORTUNE Of course capital means opportunity. As an il- lustration of what may be done in Canada, an Ameri- can settler purchased 480 acres for $2,200: be built a house and barn on stone foundations, bought some good stock, and went to work. Three years afterward he was offered $12,000 cash for his place just as it stood, and he declined the offer, saying, "I am here to make a home for my boys, and if I had the money in hand today, I know of no place in the world where I could invest it better." To grow a bushel of wheat in Canada costs 35c. The present price is $1.00. The secret of Winnipeg's rapid growth is the wonderful richness of its magical black soil, and fully 75 per cent of all the grain from the farther west provinces passes through Winnipeg on its way to market, either home or foreign. Winnipeg is a magnificent city, an imposing "Gateway to the West." Its streets are wide. Its buildings are of the finest class and architecturally splendid. City Hall square and its public flower gardens are beautiful. The Post Office and Court House are very handsome. The Royal Alexandra hotel built by the C. P. Railway is a dream of beauty and the railway depot of the Canadian Pacific is at once the handsomest and best arranged depot of modern times. The colonnade entrance and circular driveway are pleasing and artistic. It is without question the most impressive building in Winnipeg and Winnipeg is a city of fine structures. WINNIPEG 101 There is no need to tell of the fine stores, banks, asphalted thoroughfares, swift electric car service, swifter automobiles, public schools, colleges, the many and costly churches, the factories, miles of streets. All these belong to Winnipeg and are just right. Winnipeg's entertainment of the National Editors was princely. Winnipeg is renowned among various editorial visitants as being the prince of entertainers. A committee met the tourists at the Royal Alexandra Hotel. Chartered cars were in waiting and the party was conveyed through the city to see its beauties and possibilities. Later at the Royal Alexandra a banquet was tendered. The large banquetting hall of the hotel was magnificently decorated and covers laid for about 250 guests. The tables were most beautifully de- corated with innumerable small flags — the Stars and Stripes and the Union Jack. The serving of the ban- qust was perfection itself. Beautiful menues were used as souvenirs. The entire entertainment was magnificent and graceful in every detail and so enjoy- able that it is worth telling over and over again. We had some very delightful after dinner talks, and some farewell taking, as these were our last hours in Canada. In eloquent and hearty words, tokens of apprecia- tion were presented to the faithful and untiring secre- tary of the N. E. A., Mr. Parrott, to Mr. W. J. White of the Immigration Bureau, who seemed to be two men in his accomplishments for the editorial guests, to Mr. C. W. Speer, who gave of a ready fund of in- formation to eager listeners and to Mr. William H. Mayes, who is president of the N. E. A. and the 102 THE LAND OF FORTUNE happiest toaslmaster on two continents. With eloquence ringing in our ears and the brilliant entertainment of Canada's "Gateway City" dazzling our eyes, we boarded our returning train thence south- east over the great lakes, wise in the possession of new facts and broadened in mental horizon by a magnificent tour through Canada. THE END MAR 15 1910 One copy del. to Cat. Div. h*r%ti 'i^ i^ ■'