CHAPTER XVII

NEW TRANS-CONTINENTAL LINES

Often the miner, and sometimes the farmer, enters a territory before trains have superseded the canoe and the ox-wagon; and in our chapter on Northern Alberta we have glanced at the romantic life of a pioneer who, if lacking modern means of access to his market, has a delightfully free hand to tap the overflowing natural resources of the landscape surrounding him. A finer career that, I think, for young and muscular manhood than the daily sitting on a stool in smoky London City. But it is for the adventurous, resourceful, self-contained men who need no companions but their own healthy thoughts.

There is another and more popular phase of pioneerdom—that of the early settlers in a district which the railway will reach, not some day, but soon; and in this connection—let me add in a warning parenthesis—one thinks of bachelors with energy and forethought rather than of middle-aged men with nerves and a family. The farming forerunner is apt to figure in a few years as the “old-timer” with a big balance at the bank and some stories worth listening to. And note that, when he has made good progress with his tillage, the construction gangs of the on-coming track will pay high rates for his accumulated store of grain, besides offering him opportunity to earn substantial wages with his horses, his pick and his shovel.

I need attempt no enumeration of the railways being laid in Canada To-day, and to be laid in Canada To-morrow. But I will write about two of them, and about regions they will open up, since the information may well serve the reader’s personal interests.

An earlier chapter showed how the construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway put a belt of prosperous civilisation across Canada. There is still only that one completed trans-continental line within the Dominion. But two others are in progress—two others that promise national advantages comparable with those that followed the making of the C.P.R. The one project—the Grand Trunk Pacific—was deliberately conceived under Government auspices; the other—the Canadian Northern—sprang spontaneously from the brains of two sagacious men.

From 1888 to 1896 no railways were constructed in Western Canada. During that period the country was “catching up,” in the matter of development, to the magnificent transit facilities provided by the C.P.R. In 1889 there was a promise of new transportation enterprise, powers being granted to a “Lake Manitoba Railway and Canal Company.” But for seven years its charter remained unused. Meanwhile, east of Lake Manitoba, a premature beginning was made with a railway to connect Winnipeg with Hudson Bay—the momentous development which as explained in an earlier chapter, is now about to occur. The next fact to be noted is that the inhabitants of Western Canada included two men—Mr. W. Mackenzie and Mr. D. D. Mann—who had helped as contractors to construct the C.P.R., and who, sharing an enthusiastic faith in the prairie country, became business partners. They took over the dormant charter, and made a line into the Dauphin Valley; and such was the humble birth of the great system subsequently to be christened the Canadian Northern. The fortunes of that company are to-day guided by Sir William Mackenzie and Sir Donald Mann, acting in association with Mr. D. Blyth Hanna, who was in charge of the initial line from Gladstone to Dauphin, which was inaugurated in December, 1896.

The last-named gentleman is indirectly responsible for the following record of an incident in the early life of a great undertaking: “A train on which he happened to be travelling to Dauphin ran over a heifer and broke her leg. On the train also were a couple of butchers on their way to a construction camp at the then terminus of the line. Mr. Hanna stopped the train, had the butchers kill and dress the heifer, whose carcase, thirteen minutes after the accident, was loaded in the baggage car, and was presently sold to the contractors. The hide was sent to Winnipeg, the farmer’s claim was paid in full, and a profit of four dollars and sixty-five cents included in the first balance-sheet of the railway.”

During the past fourteen years the Canadian Northern has grown at the rate of a mile a day. To the east, the Manitoba capital was linked with Port Arthur, and of the 1909 crops the Canadian Northern carried over 37,000,000 bushels to the head of navigation. The expansion of the system in the plains is proceeding upon a plan destined to result in five principal lines running east and west of Winnipeg, with certain north-westerly deflections that will feed the new Hudson Bay route. The Canadian Northern, indeed is now opening up an acreage of land no less fertile, and more extensive, than that which has given Manitoba and Southern Saskatchewan their pre-eminence in wheat-growing.

The British Columbia Government guaranteed bonds up to £7,000 per mile to secure the expansion of the Canadian Northern from Alberta to the Pacific coast. On the passing last year of the sanctioning Act, construction was promptly started from the mouth of the Fraser River at New Westminster, so that, as provided by the statute, British Columbia shall receive its second direct communication with the Prairie Provinces in the year 1914—the year of the proposed World’s Fair at Winnipeg.

The Canadian Northern Pacific will ascend the Fraser River cañon to the Thompson River, which it will follow to Kamloops. Thence it is to strike north-westerly through the valley of the North Thompson, reaching Edmonton by way of the Yellowhead Pass, which is the easiest route through the Rocky Mountains. From Edmonton the track is already advancing to meet the British Columbia section.

Deflecting from Fort Frances, two hundred miles east of Winnipeg, the Canadian Northern has entry to Duluth, the principal United States port on the Great Lakes; and therefore the Pacific extension will afford connection between Puget Sound and Duluth on a mileage almost identical with that of the Northern Pacific—the pioneer railway across the north-western States—with the advantage that, whereas the Northern Pacific has to climb three summits (of which the highest is nearly 6,000 feet), the Canadian Northern Pacific has to climb only one summit (a mere matter of 3,700 feet).

The project for connecting the head of Lake Superior with Canada’s eastern coast was undertaken piecemeal. By far the greater part of that distance has been covered, and, as I write, remaining gaps are being surveyed. To the question, “When will the Canadian Northern extend as an unbroken system between the Atlantic and the Pacific?” I have received this answer: “A very few years will see completion.”

Meanwhile the Canadian Northern, following the example of the C.P.R., has inaugurated a superb trans-Atlantic steamship service between Bristol and Canada. A fleet of steamships on the Great Lakes is also controlled by the company that owes its greatness to the genius of three men.

The Grand Trunk Pacific Railway Company, incorporated by an Act of 1903, is under agreements with the Federal Government for the construction and operation of a railway, wholly within Canadian territory, extending from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Its main line is to be of an estimated length of 3,600 miles, and there will be several branches of considerable length and importance.

This system, while traversing what is believed to be the richest mineral region of Eastern Canada, will open up an attractive area of Quebec Province and pass along the great clay belt in New Ontario (where a section has already been constructed, in connection with the Provincial Government’s line that affords access to the rich silver and nickel districts).

Concerning the prairie section lying between Winnipeg and the Rocky Mountains, Professor Thomas Shaw, formerly of Ontario Agricultural College, remarks: “The lands are of three kinds. They may be classed, first, as having special adaptation to the production of grain; second, as having such adaptation to mixed farming of which live-stock will form an important feature; and, third, as being mainly adapted to the production of live-stock only. The third class is not very large, the second is much larger, and the first is by far the largest.”

“The splendid native grasses,” observes Mr. E. S. Bayard (editor of _The National Stockman and Farmer_), “the good grain, the apparently favourable conditions for the growth of alfalfa and other clovers, peas, vetches and barley, and the abundance of water, all look good to a man who is interested in live-stock.” “The country pierced by the Grand Trunk Pacific in the Canadian West,” we learn from Professor E. E. Faville (editor of _Successful Farming_), “presents opportunities not to be excelled in any part of Canada.” And this is the testimony of yet another agricultural editor: “Conditions along the Grand Trunk Pacific are generally suitable for grain-growing, including a rich soil, reinforced with a vast quantity of vegetable mould, a sufficiency of rain during the planting and growing season, bright sunshiny days during the ripening season (hastening maturity), an absence of rust (due to the dry period at time of harvest), and an apparently total absence of all insect pests.”

In May, 1906, Professor J. Macoun, of the Government Geological Survey, received instructions to make an inspection of the country, on both sides of the line, between Portage la Prairie and Edmonton. From his report I take the following facts:

All the land from the Assiniboine westward to Touchwood, and over twenty miles beyond, is more or less covered with timber, although there are often great stretches of prairie interspersed with it. Ponds, marshes, rich bottoms and numerous lakes are scattered without order throughout the country. Everywhere the soil is rich—chiefly black loam. At the Indian mission near Touchwood, Mr. Macoun found excellent wheat, and in the garden at the post all the vegetables were of the highest quality. There is practically no bad land. On these extensive prairies, the settler’s first work is the erection of a turf house and the digging of a well; then he is established. South of Tramping Lake, many houses could be seen. The settlers met with were invariably from the United States, and all seemed pleased with their prospects.

I may mention that the company, who have no agricultural land for sale, published last June a list indicating the situation of 8,000 free homesteads available along the line.

As to the mountain section (which is now being rapidly pushed forward from both the east and the west), the country it traverses is said to be unequalled in North America for natural resources. Where the conditions do not lend themselves to agriculture, there is mining or lumbering to be developed, and in the rare districts in which those possibilities fail, there is at least trapping and hunting.

Last year I spoke with members of a party who, on behalf of the company, had just traversed the railway route across the mountains. On the beauty of the country they could not sufficiently dilate. At Yellowhead Pass, they said, you enter a vast, wild, unsubdued Alpine wonderland. It has been dedicated for ever to the use of the nation as the Jasper National Park—an expanse of indescribable grandeur, with an ocean of majestic virgin peaks comprised within the numerous well-defined ranges, snow-capped and glacier scored, which tower above a continental watershed wherein are the headwaters of five mighty rivers—the Saskatchewan, the Athabasca, the Thompson, the Columbia, and the Fraser. Also I heard of forest-clad slopes, flower-strewn passes, impressive solitudes, vast snow-fields and exquisite lakes.

Far above the explorers’ heads was Roche à Miette—an imposing, sphinx-like head with a swelling Elizabethan ruff of sandstone and shales. To the east the party saw a cluster of mineral springs, two of which boil out of a mountain side in a wild secluded little valley, and have a temperature of 116 degrees.

Farther on they saw Mount Geikie towering inaccessible, its summit lost in azure at a height of 11,000 feet. To the south-east lay Simpson’s Pass, in which the mighty Athabasca is born in a region of perpetual snow and a succession of glaciers. Within that pass is the “Committee’s Punch Bowl,” whereof Sir George Simpson has written: “The relative position of the opposite waters is such as to have hardly a correlative on the earth’s surface, for a small lake sends its tribute from one end to the Columbia and from the other to the Mackenzie.”

Presently they arrived in sight of Mount Robson, the King of the Rockies, which had been recently scaled by the Rev. G. R. B. Kinney, of the Alpine Club of Canada. Impressions of that eminence must be given in the words of its hero. “The first party of white men (of which I was one),” says Mr. Kinney, “ever known to reach Mount Robson was organised by Dr. Coleman, of Toronto University. . . . Our first camp was in the deep shades of the cedar and hemlock on the Grand Forks, within a mile of where the branch coming in from around the north of the mountain joins the one from around the south. Because of my roving disposition, I became the explorer of the party, and my first discovery was that of the beautiful lake that bears my name. Nestling at the very foot of Mount Robson on the west, walled in on every side by majestic glacier-bearing peaks, this forest-fringed emerald gem, sentinelled by the highest and grandest mountain in all the Rockies, will rival Lake Louise for splendour. The feeling of being the first white man known to walk its shores, and looking for the first time on the glories of its brand-new wonders, filled me with a sense of awe.”

The party failed to climb Mount Robson in 1907, so they returned to the task in the following summer, when again their efforts were unavailing.

Hearing in 1909 that an American party were about to seek the coveted prize, Mr. Kinney got together a pack train of three horses and three months’ provisions, “and left Edmonton alone to capture the mountain, hoping to pick up a companion on the trail.” At the place where he swam his horses across the Athabasca, he fell in with Donald Phillips, a young Ontario guide, and enlisted his companionship. They worried their packs to an altitude of about 10,700 feet, where they succeeded in making a bed on a snow-covered shelf. “For hundreds of miles,” says Mr. Kinney, “the peaks lay at our feet. Scores of miles of the Fraser valley lay open below us like a map, and the mighty Fraser was but a tiny, crooked thread of silver. Then the valleys disappeared, and we were alone with the stars and the snow-white peaks and the grinding avalanches.

“Friday, August 13, dawned clear and cold, and by the time the sun rose we were on our way to the peak. The many cliffs we had to climb were only from ten to a hundred feet high, but those hard, smooth, icy slopes between were tipped at an angle of from fifty to seventy degrees. One slip on the part of either of us meant a fearful slide to death thousands of feet below. The storm-clouds of sleet swept down and engulfed us while we were at little more than eleven thousand feet altitude. We had not enough provisions for another two-days’ climb. This was our last possible chance, and we despaired of ever reaching the peak. Fortunately, though the clouds were very dense and cold, but little snow fell. The storm was a blessing in a way, for though it spoiled our chance of getting pictures, it shut out of view those fearful sheer slopes below.

“In five hours of steady work we reached the peak. The clouds broke open for one brief minute, revealing to us a wonder world, with the Fraser more than eleven thousand feet beneath us; then the storm swept in worse than ever. It took us seven hours to return to our ‘highest-up’ camp, so dangerous had the softened slopes become on account of the storm, and by the time we reached our camp in the valley the climb had cost us twenty hours of hard work—but we had finally captured Mount Robson for our country and the Alpine Club of Canada. Our provisions were gone, we were hundreds of miles from civilisation; so for two weeks we lived on what mountain-gophers and birds we could get. I finally reached Edmonton September 6th, only to find that Cook and Peary monopolised the interest of the world.”

But, to continue our progress towards the Pacific, I learn that, seventy-five miles from the sea, there occurs a marvellous palisade of corrugated and terraced mountains reaching a height of 6,000 feet. Then comes a cañon one mile long with sheer walls a hundred feet high; and through that majestic avenue flows a mighty torrent. And so we continue along the Skeena River—a valley of enchantment—until we reach the new ocean port (Prince Rupert) that will be created by the Grand Trunk Pacific.

Situated 550 miles north of Vancouver, and forty miles south of the Alaska boundary, Prince Rupert occupies a beautiful site, and, it is said, nature has provided that future city with the finest harbour on the Pacific coast—large, land-locked, with deep water, no shoals, and an absence of strong tidal currents.

Steamship services from Prince Rupert will shorten by two days the traffic between Europe and Asia. To this new port will come the ships of the Seven Seas.