Peeps at Many Lands: Canada 7

Peeps at Many Lands: Canada 7

The goods trains are known as freight trains. The "cars" which run on

them are very much bigger and heavier than the trucks on an English

goods train, and can carry 20 to 50 tons each. When the cars are sent

back empty, they are generally made up into trains of enormous length.

As many as fifty-six have been counted in one train, so that the train

itself is often more than a quarter of a mile long, and in the

mountainous parts looks like a gigantic snake, as it winds, let us say,

alongside a lake, following every curve and indentation of its shore.

 

"Through the gorge that gives the stars at noon-day clear--

Up the pass that packs the scud beneath our wheel--

Round the bluff that sinks her thousand fathom sheer--

Down the valley with our guttering brakes asqueal:

Where the trestle groans and quivers in the snow,

Where the many-shedded levels loop and twine,

Hear me lead my reckless children from below

Till we sing the song of Roland to the pine.

 

"So we ride the iron stallions down to drink,

Through the cañons to the waters of the west!"

KIPLING: _The Song of the Banjo_.

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER VIII

 

GOLDEN WHEAT AND THE BIG RED APPLE

 

The most important product of the Dominion of Canada is wheat. Except

for a little hay and oats, the big prairie provinces of Manitoba,

Saskatchewan, and Alberta are especially noted for their production of

wheat, which they yield in truly enormous quantities. In point of

quality Canadian wheat ranks amongst the best in the world. But the

three big prairie provinces are not the only ones that produce wheat;

it is also grown in Ontario, as well as, in smaller quantity, in each

of the other provinces.

 

As soon as the snow disappears in spring, the prairie farmer gets out

his ploughs, and if he owns, as many of the prairie farmers do, large

tracts of land, his ploughs are worked by steam. In the North-West

there are no fields and no fences, except, it may be, round the home

paddock. In this case the ploughs set in and follow one another from

one end of the farm to the other; and when they reach the boundary of

the farm, they turn round and plough back again. Thus the furrow may

be a quarter of a mile, half a mile, or even a mile long. The

ploughing finished, the seed is sown. When harvest comes, the ripe

corn is cut down by the reaping-machines, following one another in the

same way as the ploughs. In many cases the wheat is threshed at the

same time that it is cut, and the grain put, not into sacks, but loose

straight into the waggons, which are built up like huge bins. The

wheat is then hauled to the nearest town where there is an elevator or

granary. Here it is graded, or separated into different sizes, by fine

riddles or sieves driven by machinery, and the farmer is paid so much a

bushel for his wheat, the price varying with the grade, or size and

hardness and quality of the grain. The straw is very often burned, as

the easiest way to get rid of it. If a North-West farmer has three

good years in succession, he can, it is sometimes asserted, retire from

business and live on a competency for the rest of his life.

 

After the harvest the railways of the prairie provinces are exceedingly

busy carrying the wheat to the shipping ports, where it can be loaded

into ships to be taken across the ocean. The greater part of this

wheat is consumed in England and Scotland, and a great deal of it is

put on board ship at Port Arthur and Fort William on the northern shore

of Lake Superior, whence it goes all the rest of the way by water. A

large portion of it is, however, ground into flour before ever it

leaves Canada, and the flour is sent to make bread for boys and girls,

not only in England and Scotland, but also in Australia, in China, and

Japan.

 

In Alberta, just east of the Rocky Mountains, where the climate is

milder than in the heart of the prairie provinces, a large number of

cattle are reared and fed, and there a good deal of hay is cut, and

sent over the mountains into British Columbia.

 

For many years the chief agency in opening up the North-West was the

cattle-rancher. The life of the cowboy, though not so romantic as it

is sometimes represented to be, has, nevertheless, its interesting side

to the man who loves the free life of the open air. "The business of

ranching has grown from a small beginning of the early days to be one

of the great industries of the West. It began when the Mounted Police

brought into Southern Alberta a couple of milch cows and a few yokes of

oxen for their own use." This was about the year 1873. Three years

later a member of the same force bought a small herd, but having no

other way of providing for the animals, he turned them loose on the

prairie to shift for themselves. There, although without shelter or

provision for food, they survived the winter, escaping the wolves,

predatory Indians, and prairie fires. Nowadays, cattle are generally

left cut of doors on the prairies all the winter in Alberta. Here the

winters are neither severe nor prolonged. "The days are bright and

cloudless, and the light snowfalls are neither frequent nor lasting.

They vanish before the warm Chinook winds, and are followed by days of

soft weather. There are cold snaps in January and the early part of

February, but the winter breaks up early in March, and before April the

prairies are spangled with flowers--false indigo, shooting stars, and

violets, with roses, lupines, and vetches, following after--until the

prairie is all aglow with wonderful colour."

 

In Alberta, as well as in the provinces of Eastern Canada, a good deal

of cheese and butter are made. The farmers do not make it in their own

dairies, but they take it to creameries and to cheese-factories, like

those which are run on the co-operative principle in Ireland, Denmark,

and other countries.

 

The principal town of the prairie provinces is Winnipeg, the capital of

Manitoba, which has a good deal of the appearance of a brand-new,

go-ahead American city. In 1881 its population was 6,000; twenty-five

years later it reached 100,000. It has a very large volume of trade.

 

In the provinces of Nova Scotia and Ontario large quantities of fruit

are grown and exported to England. In Nova Scotia apples are the fruit

most extensively raised; the valleys of Annapolis and Cornwallis in

that province are especially famous for their fine red apples. In

Ontario the fruit-growing region is the peninsula which projects

southwards between the great lakes. There apples are not the only

fruit produced in large quantity; grapes and peaches are also grown on

a large scale, grapes more especially in the neighbourhood of the

famous Niagara Falls. But in recent years the distant western province

of British Columbia has come rapidly to the front as a producer of

fruit, especially of apples, cherries, peaches, and strawberries.

These last, strawberries, as well as cherries, are sold principally in

the towns of the prairie provinces. The apples are rapidly taking rank

as amongst the best in the world. They are of magnificent colour, free

from every form of disease or blemish, and travel well for long

distances.

 

In December, 1907, an apple-show was held at New Westminster, at the

mouth of the Fraser River, in British Columbia, where prizes were given

(1) for the best display of apples, (2) for the five best packed boxes

of apples, and (3) for the single best packed box. Out of these three

events, British Columbia apples won two first prizes and one second,

although she had for competitors some of the most expert growers in the

United States. And again in December of the following year, at a great

apple-show held at Spokane, in the American State of Washington,

undoubtedly the biggest and most important apple-show ever held in any

part of the world, British Columbia covered herself with glory. The

prize-money amounted to no less than £7,000, and the separate prizes

amounted to as much as £100. In this great show, at which expert

fruit-growers from all over the United States, from Eastern Canada,

from British Columbia, from England, Germany, and Norway, were pitted

one against the other, British Columbia won several of the most

important of the prizes, and on the whole, considering the amount of

fruit she staged, won a long way more than her proper proportion of

prizes. The writer of this book was himself the proud winner of twelve

prizes for apples at this great show. Altogether it is estimated that

something like 400 tons of apples, all of them, of course, specially

picked fruit, were shown on the tables of the Spokane apple-show. What

a sight for a British schoolboy! The biggest apple in the show weighed

close upon 2 pounds in weight!

 

The apples of Ontario and Nova Scotia are packed into light wooden

barrels; those of British Columbia in oblong boxes holding 40 pounds.

No matter what the size or the variety of the apples, all have to be

packed in the one sized box. When well packed, with the apples all

level and even, and beautifully coloured, as they nearly always are, a

box of British Columbia apples is a perfectly lovely sight. And they

are as good as they look. But even more appetizing and attractive is a

box of Kootenay cherries, Kootenay being the name of the principal

cherry-growing district of British Columbia. The boxes into which the

cherries are packed are, of course, much smaller than the boxes into

which the apples are packed. A cherry box holds only 8 pounds of fruit.

 

One of the most beautiful of all the beautiful sights on a fruit-ranch

is the blossoming of the cherry-trees in May. The waxy white blossoms

not only cover--literally and truly cover--the branches from end to

end, but they also stick to the trunk and main limbs of the trees, much

as the feathers muffle the legs of certain kinds of pullets.

 

[Illustration: OTTAWA. PAGE 80. _T. Mower Martin, R.C.A._]

 

The fruit-ranches in Kootenay, and many of those in the even more

famous Valley of Okanagan, occupy some of the most beautiful situations

in the world, being strung along the feet of lofty rocky mountains,

with a lake washing their lower margin. And how magnificently

beautiful are these mountains and the deep, tranquil lakes which nestle

in their arms!

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER IX

 

CANADIAN TIMBER

 

The largest share of the natural wealth of Canada is derived from her

unlimited acres and square miles of wheat-lands. Next in importance to

her wheat is her timber. Considerably more than one-third of the total