Peeps at Many Lands: Canada 1

Peeps at Many Lands: Canada 1

Peeps at Many Lands: Canada

Author: J. T. Bealby

CONTENTS

 

CHAPTER

 

I. THE GREAT DOMINION

II. THE FAR WEST

III. HOME-LIFE IN CANADA

IV. WINTER SPORTS

V. FIFTY BELOW ZERO

VI. LAW AND ORDER IN CANADA

VII. THE SHIP OF THE PRAIRIE

VIII. GOLDEN WHEAT AND THE BIG RED APPLE

IX. CANADIAN TIMBER

X. WEALTH IN ROCK AND SAND

XI. SPOILS OF SEA AND WOOD

XII. WATERWAYS

XIII. FIGHTING THE IROQUOIS INDIANS

XIV. THE HABITANT OF THE ST. LAWRENCE SHORE

XV. THE HOME OF EVANGELINE

XVI. REDSKIN, ESKIMO, AND CHINK

 

 

 

 

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

 

 

Ready for a Sleigh Ride . . . _Mortimer Menpes . . . Frontispiece_

By kind permission of E. J. Barratt, Esq.

 

Parliament Buildings, Toronto . . . _C. M. Manly_

 

Mountain Scenery . . . _T. Mower Martin_

 

Tobogganing . . . _T. Mower Martin_

 

A Settler's Farm-Yard . . . _T. Mower Martin_

 

The Rocky Mountains . . . _T. Mower Martin_

 

The Ship of the Prairie . . . _Allan Stewart_

 

Ottawa . . . _T. Mower Martin_

 

Winnipeg . . . _W. Cotman Eade_

 

Big Forest Trees . . . _T. Mower Martin_

 

The Iroquois attacking Dollard's Stockade . . . _Henry Sandham_

 

Montreal . . . _T. Mower Martin_

 

 

 

_Sketch-Map of Canada_

 

 

 

 

[Illustration: SKETCH-MAP OF CANADA]

 

 

 

 

The quotation from "The Song of the

Banjo," on p. 43, is made by kind

permission of Mr. Rudyard Kipling and his

publishers, Messrs. Methuen and Co.

 

 

 

 

[Illustration: PARLIAMENT BUILDINGS, TORONTO. _C. M. Manly._]

 

 

 

 

CANADA

 

 

 

CHAPTER I

 

THE GREAT DOMINION

 

If you look at a map of North America, you will see that the whole

northern half of it is one vast extent, coloured perhaps in red, and

stretching north from the boundary of the United States to the Arctic

Ocean; you will see that it is deeply indented by the great Hudson Bay

on the north, and the Gulf of St. Lawrence on the east; that it has an

outline projecting into many bold headlands, and a coast washed by

three oceans, fringed with countless islands, great and small.

 

This is Canada, a land that comprises fully one-third of the 12,000,000

square miles of the British Empire, thirty times as large as England,

Ireland, and Scotland combined--not much less in area, in fact, than

the whole of Europe. You may realize its breadth by thinking that if

you were to get on a train at Halifax on the east, on Monday morning,

and travel by the Imperial limited--a very fast train--day and night

without stopping, you would not reach Vancouver on the west coast till

Saturday morning. In the course of this long journey you would pass

through eight large provinces--Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Quebec,

Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, and British Columbia--and you

would still miss the island province, Prince Edward, and the great

northern territories. Here is a heritage of the Anglo-Saxon race, a

new nation indeed, part of the greatest Empire in the world, being

fashioned and built up with marvellous rapidity.

 

We will try to give our readers a few pictures of this new land. A

country whose southern parts are in the same latitude as Marseilles,

and whose northern islands hide in the everlasting silence of Arctic

ice, naturally presents a great variety of physical features, climate,

productions, and occupations, and this bewildering variety is increased

by difference in age. Down in the east the Tercentenary last year

marked the passing of 300 years since Champlain first landed; in the

north and west it is rare to find a native born.

 

There are only about 6,000,000 people in this broad domain, and the

settled parts and the large cities are mostly along the south, while

the northern areas are in many parts covered by great forests, in which

still roam the moose and the elk, the grizzly bear and the grey wolf,

while the plash of the hunter's paddle following his line of beaver or

otter-traps, or the tap of the prospector's hammer searching for silver

or gold, have long been the only echo of the white man. Nomadic tribes

of Indians still build their tepees beside the still waters of far

inland lakes, and follow the pathless highway of river and stream.

 

There are no forests in the southern districts of Manitoba,

Saskatchewan, and Alberta. Here is one vast open plain, grassy meadow

or ploughed land as far as eye can see, the prairie.

 

The southern part of Ontario, Quebec, and the province of Nova Scotia,

are, in appearance, much like England, studded as they are with large

towns, prosperous and old-settled farms, and numerous thriving orchards

and vineyards. If the rolling, wide prairies, reaching as far as the

eye can pierce in every direction, is the chief feature of the

provinces of Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta, the majestic river,

St. Lawrence, is the chief feature of the province of Quebec, and four

big lakes, or rather inland seas, are the principal feature of Ontario.

It is between two of these large lakes, Ontario and Erie, on the one

side, and a third larger lake, Huron, on the other, that the

above-mentioned garden-like part of the province of Ontario is

situated. The fourth lake, Superior, the biggest of all--nearly as big

as all Scotland, in fact--lies farther to the west, and stretches for

400 miles along the south of Ontario. There is yet a fifth big lake,

closely connected with these four--namely, Michigan--but it belongs to

the United States rather than to Canada.

 

"Domed with the azure of heaven,

Floored with a pavement of pearl,

Clothed all about with a brightness

Soft as the eyes of a girl;

 

"Girt with a magical girdle,

Rimmed with a vapour of rest--

These are the inland waters,

These are the lakes of the West."

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER II

 

THE FAR WEST

 

The province of British Columbia, which is separated from the rest of

Canada by the great range of the Rocky Mountains, is itself a "sea" of

tumbled mountains, which reach all the way from the Rockies to the

Pacific Ocean, and, like the northern portion of the Dominion, is

covered with forests. Here again there are several large rivers, such

as the Fraser and the Columbia, and a great many lakes. British

Columbia is an exceptionally highly favoured region. Not only is she

rich in natural resources--minerals, fish, lumber, fruit--but she can boast of scenery which can vie with that of Norway, as with that of Scotland, and even with the scenery of Switzerland.