CHAPTER VII

WINNIPEG AND EDMONTON

The traveller whose imagination had vaguely pictured Winnipeg as a fur-trading station somewhere toward the North Pole would be aroused from such reveries by the spectacle of this brilliant and cosmopolitan centre, with its beautiful architecture, its broad boulevards, the magnificent Fort Garry Hotel on the site of the ancient fort, and the civic centre in the Free Exposition building, where specimens of all the great products of the Canadian West are displayed. Winnipeg, which in 1870 had a population of two hundred and fifteen people, in 1917 records its quarter of a million. It grows at such a rate that it is unsafe to prophesy to what degree these figures may be increased in the immediate future. A representative of Baedeker, who had been sent to the United States to prepare a volume on its western regions, complained to a fellow-voyager on the ocean steamer, when returning to his own country, that it was mathematically impossible to cope with the Far West with any accuracy. "Why, I prepare the exact population of a town--Seattle, for instance--and before I can get my report into print the population has doubled." This was naturally a tangible grievance, and one which was {142} extremely difficult for the statistician to meet. Possibly the same baffling problem of accuracy confronts him who would record the population of Winnipeg.

From the tower of the Fort Garry Hotel there is revealed a scene hardly to be compared with any other on the continent. The spectator can see broad boulevards, many of which are a hundred and thirty-two feet in width; an electric railway, operating hundreds of cars, whose service is said to be the most perfect of that of any city in the States or in Canada; streets paved with asphalt and macadam; extensive parks, where equipages not less fine than those of Hyde Park or the Bois de Boulogne, are seen rolling along the smooth, winding roads; churches, numbering nearly two hundred; the University of Manitoba; the art school; and the unexcelled beauty of miles of residential regions, laid out in those graceful curves and crescents so familiar in the West End of London--all these are indicated in this great centre of commercial, industrial, and social life.

To those who had thought of Winnipeg as being remote, if not inaccessible, it is rather surprising to find that this metropolis of Western Canada is but twenty-seven hours from Chicago and but forty-five hours from Washington. At the time of the Chicago Exposition of 1893, one of the most popular routes between Boston and that city was through the Hoosac tunnel, on which the passenger boarded {143} his train in Boston at seven P.M., and arrived in Chicago at seven the second morning after--a journey of thirty-six hours, which no one at that time regarded as being too long. Nor does it require the memory of that traditional being, the "oldest inhabitant," to recall that when the Pennsylvania Railroad succeeded in reducing the time between New York and Chicago to twenty-five hours, it was then held to be much more of a marvel than is now the eighteen-hours' journey of the Twentieth-Century Flyer. Winnipeg is forty-eight hours from Montreal, fifty-three from Quebec, and only forty-five from New York. No city on the western continent is more splendidly equipped than Winnipeg for business enterprises, great conventions, and large convocations of all orders. Besides the spacious and superb Fort Garry Hotel, she has more than fifty other guest-houses and one of the largest departmental stores on the continent; she has parks covering more than five hundred acres; she has more than twenty banks; and in a single year these banks did a business of almost one billion seven hundred million dollars. All the grain business of the Canadian West centres in Winnipeg. In the magnificent Union Station of white marble, costing some two millions of dollars, there are twenty-seven railway tracks, long distance and local, all of which radiate from the city. The Winnipeg River offers unmeasured facilities for power, a total of sixty thousand horse-power being already developed, {144} which is sold to manufacturers and other consumers at the cost of production. There are over four hundred successful factory plants in operation, employing twenty thousand factory workers. Thus told in bald statistics alone, the story of Winnipeg is singularly impressive; but these facts and figures are but the mere skeleton of the story of Winnipeg. In this northern metropolis the polarity of life in general is changed.

A signal aim in this city is the culture of beauty. In the laying out of streets and avenues the question of vista and the composition, so to speak, of the landscape has received unfailing consideration. All the country about is finely wooded, and with its rolling declivities offers cool and shaded nooks and spaces for summer outings. Here and there are lofty elms, and occasional wooded areas of many acres in extent. These are a surprise to the traveller whose conceptions of this region have been those of a bare and more or less desolate prairie land. The nature of the soil of the neighbourhood is a factor of determining importance. The clay belt begins at Cochrane, the junction of the Transcontinental line with the Ontario Government Railway, and it extends for three hundred miles to the west, affording a tract with plentiful water and with every productive condition. The provision of population for this clay belt is now a foremost question in Canada and engages the attention of both the Province of Ontario and of the Transcontinental Railway. The {145} generation that cleared the bush lands has almost passed away, and the present settlers have different ideas of pioneer life. One age does not repeat itself. The continual invention of machinery that liberates human life has its dominating influence, and all signs of the times point to new methods of entering on new settlements. The British settlers who arrive are not accustomed to the clearing of timber-lands, yet this clay belt has probably resources to sustain a population of from one to two million people, and the climate is no more severe than that of Quebec or of northern Maine. The transformation of this region of wilderness into a well-populated country would provide a much-needed link between Eastern and Western Canada. The distances, as we have seen, between Winnipeg and other of the great centres both in the Dominion and in the United States are by no means appalling; and with the splendid railway facilities now provided by the new Trans-continental route between Winnipeg, Toronto, and Montreal, by way of Cochrane, Cobalt, and North Bay, across New Ontario, and through the Highlands of the same Province, a route that only opened on July 13, 1915, this region is abounding in attractions for the new settler.

There are two sources of revenue which are of unmeasured value; one is that of pulpwood which can be advantageously disposed of, and the other that of employment in constructing government roads. Another inducement will be that of the {146} "ready-made farm." This scheme has been utilised to some extent in Alberta and in New Brunswick as an inducement to colonists. Thousands of these farms, on which buildings have been erected and a small area placed under cultivation, with stock and farming implements furnished, have been placed at the disposal of settlers, each for a small cash payment, and with the conditions of subsequent payments made most liberal and lenient. In Ontario the scheme has not yet been worked out in detail; but the government of the Province is favourable toward adopting a similar system, building a house and barn and clearing ten acres on a farm of a hundred and sixty acres, as well as advancing a limited sum of money for the purchase of stock. The Ontario government also propose arrangements for assisting the farmer in marketing his pulpwood.

All these conditions of the surrounding country are of vital importance to the city of Winnipeg. The settlement of wild lands, the development of industrial resources, centres of population springing up in new sections--all these directly contribute to the growth and importance of the metropolitan centre. The civilisation of Canada has proceeded more rapidly in the transformation of the wilderness into populated lands than did that of the western part of the United States. Four years after the formation of the Dominion (July 1, 1867) Canada had extended across the entire continent. By the conditions of the time, both in applied inventions {147} and in the degree of progress achieved by man, Canada has escaped the disadvantage that the long efforts of pioneer life entail upon a nation. The new towns and cities begin with well-paved streets, electric lighting, and electric transit.

Winnipeg, since 1899, has owned and operated its own water system, which is the hydro-electric power plant. The architecture is largely of a permanent nature, the designs following the latest developments of taste, skill, and efficient construction. Much of it compares favourably with the best architecture of New York or Washington. The blocks of handsome residences; the architectural taste of the public buildings; and the constant series of lawns, with their flowers and plants, leafy shrubs and luxuriant trees, make the city one of exceeding beauty and attractiveness. Churches, schools (and they are among the best in Canada), theatres, and lecture halls abound; the libraries are particularly enlightened and helpful and their growth and extension are only comparable with the library developments of St. Paul and Minneapolis, of Los Angeles and other young cities of the most advanced degrees of progress. "The world of books is still the world," wrote Mrs. Browning; and the community that renews its resources from the best that has been thought and said in the world, as it is conserved in literature, will be that which is the more efficient in all that makes for human advancement. Familiarity with the best literature has the {148} most potent of influences for good taste, good manners, high ideals of conduct, mutual courtesy, and self-respect.

Canada cannot afford to ignore Matthew Arnold's wise warning not to mistake material achievement for civilisation. In its true and full significance, civilisation means "the humanisation of man in society; his making progress there towards his true and full humanity. We hear a nation called highly civilised," Mr. Arnold proceeds to say, "by reason of its industry, commerce, and wealth, or by reason of its liberty or equality, or by reason of its numerous churches, schools, libraries, and newspapers. But there is something in human nature, some instinct of growth, some law of perfection, which rebels against this narrow account of the matter. Do not tell me, says human nature, of the magnitude of your industry and commerce; of the beneficence of your institutions, your freedom, your equality; of the great and growing number of your churches and schools, libraries and newspapers; tell me also if your civilisation--which is the grand name you give to all this development--tell me if your civilisation is interesting."

Carlyle, as Matthew Arnold reminds us, once wrote to a younger brother who thought of emigrating to the United States: "Could you banish yourself from all that is interesting to your mind, forget the history, the glorious institutions, the noble {149} principles of old Scotland--that you might eat a better dinner, perhaps?"

Mr. Arnold hastens to disclaim any sympathy with the idea that young men should not emigrate; it was the term "interesting" that caught his eye in Carlyle's counsel, and it is for that element that he makes his eloquent plea. It is that element, moreover, which the young and splendid city of Winnipeg may well reckon as one of its fundamental characteristics. In the _Journal Intime_ of M. Amiel, the reader finds him saying that "the human heart is, as it were, haunted by confused reminiscences of an age of gold; or, rather, by aspirations toward a harmony of things which every-day reality denies to us." In all the appointments of wealth and luxury, M. Amiel made an effort to realise or to approach this ideal, and thus finds in this order of life one form of poetry. Society demands distinction and beauty as a component part of human nature's daily food.

Obviously, a new country cannot offer archives of long centuries of history, nor ruined castles, nor an assortment of myth and tradition. These may and do have their part in that atmosphere of interest which is the nurture of the intellectual powers; but the Future is no less stimulating than the Past; prophecy is not less alluring than history. The art of life itself is the finest of all the fine arts and to the seeing eye may invest a city with as much fascination as is to be derived from the galleries of the {150} Louvre or of the Vatican. The spiritual life of all the ages is preserved in libraries, and the youngest of cities may well be heir to the records of this life. "No matter how poor I am," said William Ellery Channing; "no matter though the prosperous of my own time will not enter my obscure dwelling--if the sacred virtues will enter and take up their abode under my roof; if Milton will sing of Paradise; and Shakespeare open to me the worlds of imagination and the workings of the human heart; if Franklin will enrich me with his practical wisdom--I shall not pine for intellectual companionship, and I may become a cultivated man, though excluded from what is called the best society in the place where I live."

It is not only noble art and beautiful architecture combined with historic and social traditions that appeal to all that is best in life. What could more readily appeal to the imagination than that visible expression of faith in the future of the Great Dominion, the completion of a new great transcontinental line making possible direct transit across Canada from ocean to ocean? What could more appeal to the imagination than the marvellous invention of the wireless control of moving trains as has been already described in a previous chapter?

What can, indeed, be a feature of greater interest than the practical creation of a new world; the power of man conquering and transforming the domain of Nature? Do not Romance and Poetry {151} spring up here anew? Science and the Muses have a subtle basis of understanding. James Russell Lowell has interpreted this mutual comprehension in the lines:

"He who first stretched his nerves of subtle wire Over the land and through the sea-depths still, Thought only of the flame-winged messenger As a dull drudge that should encircle earth With sordid messages of Trade, and tame Blithe Ariel to a bagman. But the Muse Not long will be defrauded. From her foe Her misused wand she snatches; at a touch The Age of Wonder is renewed again, And to our disenchanted deity restores The Shoes of Swiftness that gave odds to Thought; The Cloak that makes invisible; and with these I glide an airy fire from shore to shore."

Winnipeg has an interesting centre in the Industrial Bureau and permanent Exposition and Public Service Building, located in the leading business street and contributing in many ways to the swiftest means of unfolding industrial opportunities and to the most liberal development of the city. Both the Dominion and the Province of Manitoba, beside all the railways centering in Winnipeg and thirty western Boards of Trade, have installed attractive and extensive exhibits of the natural resources, so extensive, indeed, as to be practically complete in their revelation to the visitor of every variety and quality of the country. The manufacturing interests of the city are represented by eighty-five practical exhibits of articles "made in Winnipeg." There is also a museum with a large {152} collection of mounted birds and wild animals of Canada; and there are historic relics and curios; as well as collections of economic minerals and other exhibits of various interest. Winnipeg has also, in this building, the first Civic Art Gallery in Canada, and it is wisely made free to all. In connection with the Gallery is an Art School where painting and drawing are taught. In this Public Service centre is a Convention Hall that will seat four thousand people and a smaller lecture or banquet hall seating about four hundred. There are also other accommodations for meetings, large or small gatherings, as may be, that are so numerous in business, social, industrial, or educational activities. Over seven hundred meetings were held in this building within the first ten months after it was opened. Adjoining Convention Hall is the Central Farmers' Market, where citizens conveniently find the produce of farm, market, or garden. The Industrial Bureau, which has its quarters in this building, is a thoroughly representative one, incorporated under Provincial Government Charter, with a directorate elected from appointed representatives of twenty-nine public bodies of the city, grouping together the best talent, administrative, professional, educational, and industrial, which could be brought together for the work of public service. The Bureau organisation is non-partisan, non-sectarian, and has no axe to grind other than that which concerns the benefit of the whole community. It is the Civic Bureau of {153} Information for citizens, visitors, and outside inquirers.

The Fort Garry Hotel is a social centre of Winnipeg. Its imposing architectural effects render it a landmark in the panoramic view of the city. Its walls, of buff sandstone, rise to a height of fourteen stories, and the copper roof and lofty pinnacles are transformed to molten gold when the sun shines on them. The majestic structure is an adaptation from the period of François I., with something reminiscent of the old chateau in Touraine and Normandy. In the standards of elegance and beauty in all entertainments, these Grand Trunk hostelries--the Château Laurier, the Fort Garry, the Macdonald of Edmonton--all introduce standards of polite life that are of incalculable benefit to the community and which have hardly before been approached in the Dominion. In elegance and refinement, both of appointments and of service, these hotels rival, if indeed they do not almost excel, the choicest luxuriance and beauty of Paris and New York. One block to the east of the Fort Garry is the magnificent Union Station in which the Canadian Northern and Grand Trunk Pacific centre, and which has every convenience and device up to date; and between the station and the Fort Garry Hotel is a wide boulevard with a double row of trees in the centre, and a little park, under the very shadow of the house, has its picturesque approach through the ivy-clad ruins of the old gateway to the fort; an historic reminder {154} of the time when, a century ago, this entrance was built by the Hudson's Bay Company in a turbulent period. The contrast between the sense of peaceful though intense activity, under the brilliant sunshine over the broad, beautiful streets, whose smooth pavement is a joy to motorists, with that time when savage assaults must be defended by the forces within Fort Garry, is a contrast to incite a train of speculative reflection. There were "sceptred spirits" in those days whose heroic deeds shine through all the years between their time and our own. The history of the Hudson's Bay Company is, in itself, one of the most thrilling chronicles of the Dominion.

From the windows and balconies of the Fort Garry Hotel the view is magnificent--St. Boniface, with its splendid cathedral group, Assiniboine Park, and the Legislative Buildings, with two rivers winding away into the vast spaces of the prairie--all make up a panorama never to be forgotten. The interior of this alluring house is singularly charming to the eye. The furnishings are rich and yet have that air of simplicity that appeals to the artistic sense--grey marble floors with soft rugs and the main dining-room all in cream and gold. The foyer and loggia connecting the banquet and ball rooms suggest the ancient cloister with their vaulted ceilings and the mediæval lanterns for electric lights. The café has marble wainscoting, suggestive of some old baronial castle, while in the grillroom there is oak panelling {155} that would delight old England. There are three hundred rooms, two hundred and thirty-five of which have private baths while the others have easy access to bathrooms. What a contrast of living is thus revealed between the fastidious and luxurious life of the twentieth century and that of the primitive days of a hundred years ago when the old Fort Garry occupied the site of this hotel!

For fully fifty miles west of Winnipeg extends a belt of land some 300 miles in width, provided with good water found at reasonable depths, which is the marvel of the world for grain raising. This Red River Valley is the great wheat-producing region of the continent, and the journey of nearly eight hundred miles from Winnipeg to Edmonton reveals vast fields of golden grain, while along the route the colossal elevators loom up in the level expanse like some colossal fortifications.

Winnipeg has been from the first a predestined centre of commerce. It is the metropolis of the transcontinental lines and is the one supreme gateway through which all travellers and all traffic from ocean to ocean must pass. No other city on the western continent has such an absolute monopoly of all transit from the east to the west, or the reverse.

Edmonton, the capital of Alberta, most attractive in its beauty of locality, stands on the bold bluffs of the Saskatchewan. The railway bridge spanning this gulf is one of the finest on the continent, with its imposing piers of hewn stone, over a hundred feet in {156} height, with trusses of steel. Two bridges at the level of the river provide for other traffic, with the novel arrangement that heavy vehicles are lifted and lowered from the surface of the bluff to the river by means of colossal elevators. The elevator is a municipal institution, and municipal ownership is the general rule in Edmonton, the city owning and operating the trolley lines, the electric light plant, the water-works, and the telephone system. Edmonton would be the earthly paradise of the disciples of Henry George, for it is a single-tax town. The University of Alberta with its splendid campus of three hundred and fifty acres, fronts the impressive capitol, of cream-hued sandstone, which stands on the Edmonton side of the river.

The capitol is four stories in height, with classic portico and a dome surmounted by a tall lantern, while the building is rendered still more beautiful by its artistic approach; wide terraced steps, with balustrades, ornamented with heavy bronze lamps, the effect of which, when lighted at night, is not without reminiscences of Paris. The Hotel Macdonald has a charming situation on the high bank of the river, within a few minutes' walk of the centre of the town. The traveller enters by the spacious court and covered loggia, passing thence into the great rotunda, with its floor of pink Levantine marble and its ceiling of solid oak. Adjoining this is a lounge, opening on a terrace 50 feet wide, overlooking the river, and the palm-room (octagonal in form, {157} with its dome decorated in Wedgwood designs), as well as a beautiful dining-room, a café, and other public rooms. As one walks through all this magnificence in the place so recently occupied by Indians, hunters, and trappers of the frontier trading posts, he begins to realise something of that almost incredible rapidity of growth and development that characterises the great North-West.

The Canadian Women's Press Club in Edmonton is an organisation that delights the heart of the modern woman, to whom her clubs are the very breath of being; and its President, Mrs. Arthur Murphy, is well known to the world of letters under her _nom de plume_, "Janey Canuck." Mrs. Murphy is one of the most famous of Canadian writers, and has contributed much to the general knowledge of the Dominion. Her work has received very high praise. "She has opened a new path in Canadian literature," says an eminent critic, "and her _Open Trails_ and _Seeds of Pine_ will inspire many other writers."

Mrs. Murphy is the wife of the Rev. Arthur Murphy, D.D., who at one time was the chaplain to the Empress Frederick. Her work has attracted much attention in England, and _The Bookman_ of London, in a critical review of her books extending into several pages, said:

"The work of 'Janey Canuck' has the optimism of the true lyric; the song of the open road. The refrain of the windswept spaces was never set to a better tune.... It {158} is not style that matters in the work of 'Janey Canuck' any more than it matters in the work of Walt Whitman--a kindred philosopher. She comes scattering seeds of gladness in our mist, and lo! our gloom is gone like a black cloud that breaks before the April sun. She is the philosopher of gladness and content and common sense, a philosophy as durable as Bergsonism."

Mrs. Murphy has been honoured by King George by the decoration that entitles her to be known as a "Lady of Grace," an appropriate title, indeed, for so gracious a lady.

Edmonton is the gateway to the Yellowhead Pass; and the beauty of its location, the charming nature of its people, and the vastness of the territory of which it is naturally the centre, all conspire to incite dream and prophecy of the future of this young city of University ideals and marked intellectual and literary quality.

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