THE FORGOTTEN FACT OF CANADA."
A PLEASANT and timely book by a pleasant, keen-eyed traveller. Mr. Russell has, perhaps beyond any writer alive, the power of wing his knowledge like gold-leaf, spreading it out till a small stock covers and lights up spaces out of all apparent propor- tion to his material. He was not long in Canada, he did not visit a great deal of it, and he derives his information, like the rest of us, principally from books prepared by official Canadians; but he has supplied us nevertheless with a pleasant picture full of details of Canada and its resources, its dangers and its defences, its society and its recommendations to emigrants, its relation to the United States and the attitude its people assume towards the mother country. The political portion has been perhaps super- seded by the resolve of the colonies to accept the Federation which it was Mr. Russell's purpose to recommend, and the interest of the chapters on defence is diminished, though not destroyed, by Colonel Jervois's report, but there remain many solid suggestions, useful hints, readable statements of little-known facts, and picturesque accounts of local society. The general effect of the book will be to in- crease the English sense of the value of our North American posses- sions, which, in Mr. Russell's opinion, possess what so many travellers have denied—a future. People in England are so accustomed to think of the Five Colonies as comprising the whole of British America, that they forget the existence of the vast central region large as the better known "Far West," and as yet almost unpeopled. "In the valleys," says Mr. Russell, "of the Saskatchewan and Assini- boine, Canada possesses a vast north-west of her own, eajoying a mild climate, which contains, according to one of the witnesses whose opinion is cited by the Committee, 500,000 square miles of fertile land, capable of sustaining a population of nearly 30,000,000 of people. It has been ascertained beyond doubt that the tract between the North and South Saskatchewan on the east is exceed- ingly fertile, and that no intense cold prevails throughout an enormous region of rich prairies on cretaceous and tertiary deposits. It is scarcely possible for us to conceive what an enormous expanse of fertile land lies to the east of the Rocky Mountains about the sources of those rivers, but there are too many witnesses of unmis- takeable veracity to render us sceptical concerning the beauty and capabilities of these regions. Could the poor emigrant be carried to these fertile districts, instead of sinking into the rowdyism of American cities, or beating down the rate of wages by competition, he would find at least a comfortable subsistence, even if he were unable at once to obtain a profitable market for his labours."
"From Lake Winnipeg to the highest navigable point of Red River, which flows into the lake with a course from north to south, there is a distance of 575 miles, only interrupted by some very insignificant shoals at the mouth of Goose River and the Sheyenne. Red Lake River and the Assiniboina extend the area of 'coast' navigable by steamers in the Red River Valley to 900 miles—much more than is enjoyed internally by the United Kingdom and France together. Throughout the districts thus permeated by navigable rivers, rye, oats, barley, potatoes, grass, and wheat grow as well as they do in Minnesota; and to these wild regions must be added the country along the great north Saskatchewan, and even the region which lies between it and the Rocky Mountains in a northerly direction."
This testimony is entirely borne out by that of Americans them- selves, never too willing to praise Canada. The New York Chamber of Commerce said in 1862 :—
"There is in the heart of North America a distinct subdivision, of which Lake Winnipeg may be regarded as the centre. This subdivision, like the valley of the Mississippi, is distinguished for the fertility of its soil, and for the extent and gentle slope of its great plains, watered by rivers of great length, and admirably adapted for steam navigation. It has a climate not exceeding in severity that of many portions of Canada and the eastern States. It will, in all respects, compare favourably with some of the most densely-peopled portions of the continent of Europe. In other words, it is admirably fitted to become the seat of a numerous, hardy, and prosperous community. It has an area equal to eight or ten first-class American States. Its great river, the Saskatchewan, carries a navigable water-line to the very base of the Rocky Mountains. It is not at all improbable that the valley of this river may yet offer the best * Canada ; ifs Defences, Condition, and Resources. Being a third and concluding volume of * My Diary, North and South." By Howard Russell, LL.D, London; Bradbury and Evans.
route for a railroad to the Pacific. The navigable waters of this great subdivision interlock with those of the Mississippi The Red River of the north, in connection with Lake Winnipeg, into which it falls, forms a navigable water-line, extending directly north and south nearly eight hundred miles. The Red River is one of the best adapted to the use of steam in the world, and waters one of the finest regions on the continent. Between the highest point at which it is navigable and St. Paul, on the Mississippi, a railroad is in process of construction; and when this road is completed another grand division of the continent, comprising half a million square miles, will be open to settlement."
In other words, the centre of the British section of the American continent, instead of being the vast desert which that mischievous. monopoly the Hudson's Bay Company has always assumed it to be, is a fertile region capable of bearing with ease a population larger than that of Great Britain, with perfect river communication, and needing only roads and railways to link the Canadas to the settlements on the shores of the Pacific. Granted twenty years of peace, the extinction of the Hudson's Bay Company, and one great railway, Acadia might be an empire with thirty millions of people, a great government, and a vast trade on one side with Europe and America, and on the other with Australia, Asia, and the Archi- pelago. That empire would be filled with our children, might be in strict alliance with ourselves, and we are hesitating whether to secure it we will spend for a few years a sum such as the Admiralty will waste in a week, the cost of maintaining less than a single regiment !
This vast region is, as we have said, fertile as England and metalliferous as Wales, and its climate, so far from being unendur- able, is milder than that of the great grain-bearing territories of central Europe. The testimony of Americans on this point, con- firmed by Mr. Howe, Mr. Galt, and other Canadians, is explicit and decisive. One writer, whom Mr. Russell evidently trusts, says :—
" It is a great mistake to suppose that the temperature of the Atlantic coast is carried straight across the continent to the Pacific. The isother- mals deflect greatly to the north, and the temperatures of the Northern Pacific are paralleled in the high temperatures in high latitudes of Western and Central Europe. The latitudes which inclose the plateaus of the Missouri and. Saskatchewan, in Europe inclose the rich central plains of the Continent. The great grain-growing districts of Russia lie between the 45th and 60th parallel, that is, north of the latitude of $t. Paul, Minnesota, or Eastport, Maine. Indeed. the temperature in some instances is higher for the same latitudes here than in Central Europe. The isothermal of 70 deg. for the summer, which on our plateau ranges Irons along latitude 50 deg. to 52 deg., in Europe skirts through Vienna and Odessa in about parallel 46 deg. The isothermal of 55 dog. for the year runs along the coast of British Columbia., and does not go far from New York London, and SebastopoL Furthermore' dry areas are not found above 47 deg., and there are no barren tracts of consequence north of the Bad. Lands and. the Coteau of the Missouri ; the land grows grain finely, and is well wooded. All the grains of the temperate districts are here produced abundantly, and. Indian corn may be grown as high as the Saskatchewan. The buffalo winters as safely on the upper Athabasca as in the latitude of St. Paul, and. the spring opens at nearly the same time along the immense line of plains from St. Paul to Mackenzie's River. To these facts, for which there is the authority of Blodgett's Treatise on the Climatology of the United States may be added this, that to the region bordering the Northern Pacific the finest maritime positions belong throughout its entire extent, and no part of the west of Europe exceeds it in the advantages of equable climate, fertile soil, and commercial accessibility of coast. We have the same excellent authority for the statement that in every condition forming the basis of national wealth, the continental mass lying westward and north- ward from Lake Superior is far more valuable than the interior in lower latitudes, of which Salt Lake and Upper New Mexico are the prominent known districts. In short, its commercial and industrial capacity is gigantic. Its occupation was coeval with the Spanish occu- pation of New Mexico and California."
Intense cold when unaccompanied by a really bad climate does not render life unhappy. Many of our readers are aware of the sort of enjoyment with which Berliners regard their bitter winters, and Mr. Russell's description of life in Canada during the frost is most captivating. The inhabitants are as it were driven to sport by the weather, and skating, sleighing, and sliding down montagnes Busses are fair substitutes for fox-hunting and English country life. Here is a scene peculiar to Canada. There is in Montreal a place called the "Rink," a word adopted from the Scotch cur- lers, and is a coverel skating-place of great dimensions :— "Anything but a Methodist-looking place inside. The room, which was like a large public bath-room, was crowded with women, young and old, skating or preparing to skate, for husbands, and spread in maiden rays over the glistening area of ice, gliding, swooping, revolving on legs of every description, which were generally revealed to mortal gaze in proportion to their goodness, and therefore were displayed on a principle so far unobjectionable. The room was lighted with gas, which, with the heat of the crowd, made the ice rather sloppy; but the skating of the natives was admirable, and some hardened campaigners of foreign origin had by long practice learned to emulate the graces and skill of the inhabitants. It was a mighty pretty sight ! The spectators sat or stood on the raised ledge round the ice parallelogram like swallows on a cliff, and now and than dashed off and swept away as if on the wing over the surface, in couples or alone, executing quadrilles, mazurkas, waltzes, and tours de force, that made one conceive the laws of gravi-
tation must be suspended in the Rink, and that the outside edge is the most stable place for the human foot and figure. Mercy, what a crash ! There is a fine stout young lady sprawling on the ice, tripped up by Dontstop of the Guards, who is making a first attempt, to the detriment of the lieges. How delighted the ladies are, and pretend not to De; for the fallen fair one is the best contortionist in the place. She is on her legs again,—has shaken the powdered ice and splash off her dandy jacket and neat little breeches,—yes, they wear breeches, a good many of them,—and is zigzagging about once more like a pretty, noiseless fire- work. The little children skate, so do most portentious mammas. A line of recently arrived officers, in fur caps and coats, look on, all suck- ing their canes, and resolving to take private lessons early in the morning. Some, in the goose-step stage, perform awful first lines with their skates, and leave me in doubt as to whether they will split up or dash out their brains. The young ladies pretend to avoid them with unanimity, but sail round them still as seagulls sweep by a drowning man."
That is not the account of a people to whom their climate is a misery. All that the vast districts of the interior need is roads, but while the Government of Washington granted four millions sterling in cash and some millions of acres to Minnesota to help her communications, that of Great Britain can hardly be induced to • spend a shilling on the development of regions through which, her vast commerce with further Asia may one day be compelled to pass. Acadia once formed will probably be able to perform our duty in this respect, but if we would retain even the sympathy of the popu- lation which will speedily flow into these regions our legislators must acquire a greater knowledge of their necessities and their hopes. As a first step, a provocative to real study—they cannot do better than read Mr. Russell's volume.
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