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A
HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY
OF THE
BRITISH COLONIES
VOL. V
CANADA— PART III
GEOGRAPHICAL
BY
J. D. ROGERS
BARRISTER-AT-LAW
FORMERLY STOWELL FELLOW OF UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, OXFORD
WITH MAPS
OXFORD
AT THE CLARENDON PRESS
MDCCCCXI
HENRY FROWDE, M.A.
PUBLISHER TO THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD
LONDON, EDINBURGH, NEW YORK
TORONTO AND MELBOURNE
HISTORU
MAJA)
PREFACE
My gratitude is due chiefly to Sir Charles P. Lucas,
who suggested this volume, and kindly helped me by
looking through my proofs ; and after him to the
authorities in the Libraries of the Colonial Office and
British Museum, for their courtesy and attention.
Geography, with which this volume deals, has only
to do with what is present, external, and physical ;
but Canada is composed of historical as well as geo-
logical strata, which do not merely belong to the past,
but still remain exposed, visible, or even unconform-
able. Again, towns, mines, and wheatfields — which
are the work of men's hands — are quite as external as
woods, hills, and rivers ; so that humanity inevitably
intrudes even into a picture of external objects.
Further, unity in spite of width is the most striking
physical feature of the Canada of to-day ; and this
unity is due partly to the long eastward courses of
the Saskatchewan and St. Lawrence, to climatic
pressure from the north, and to interlocking water-
sheds, but partly also to those two great Com-
panies, whose servants streamed incessantly between
Labrador and Vancouver Island, — to political pressure
from the south, and to the converging plans of
philanthropists and statesmen for the development
of the intermediate land.
IV PREFACE
The very frontiers of Canada are no mere seas or
lines of latitude : but Canada is bounded, so to speak,
by Cartier and Champlain on the east, by Cook and
Vancouver on the west, by the Loyalists and Sir
George French on the south, and by Parry and
Franklin on the north — or by the ghosts and
memories of these men. Saintliness made Quebec,
Patriotism made Ontario, and Adventure made
Western Canada into Provinces ; so that spiritual
forces — like Northern Lights — spanned the whole
width of Canada from Ocean to Ocean. Materials,
too, were brought from Europe, in order that the
long house might hold together. Distant quarries
were sought, and elaborate mechanism was applied ;
the stones from the quarries consisting mainly of
human beings, and the mechanism consisting of
human as well as mechanical energy. The very
canals, roads, and railroads reflected political aspira-
tions ; emigration, which careless people thought
automatic, was artificially created by Societies for
alleviating industrial and military tragedies ; Govern-
ments planted Halifax, Quebec, and Ontario with
colonists, much as gardeners plant gardens with
flowers from other regions ; war helped to change the
haunts of bison into the homes of men ; and the
sturdy self-help of pioneers, who, though they
dreamed of a new heaven and a new earth, were
loath to break with their past, or to turn their backs
on the land of their fathers, peopled forests, plains,
mountains, sea-shores, and river-banks.
Men's minds rather than Nature welded the Atlantic
PREFACE V
with the Pacific across seventy degrees of longitude,
and within two or three lines of latitude ; and although
a book on geography primarily deals with things,
men, though something more than things, are after all
things, and cannot be quite left out. I have not
attempted nor have I the knowledge even to refer to
all the processes by which, or to all the critical places m
which, human materials have been deposited from
time to time ; but I hope that in attempting to indicate,
by a few leading cases, some of these processes, and
some of these critical places, I shall not be regarded
as trespassing beyond the proper sphere of Geography,
which I admit ought to limit itself to things present,
external, and physical.
CONTENTS
PAGE
Chap. I. The Far North-land and its Heroes i
II. The Far East: Nova Scotia, the two
Islands and their People . . 31
III. Links between Far and Middle East:
New Brunswick and its People . 73
IV. Other Links between Far and Middle
East: Peninsulas and Islands of
THE Gulf 91
V. The Core of Canada and the Middle
East 100
VI. The Middle East: Quebec, or The
Province of Two Nations and
One River 119
VII. Ontario: One Nation on Three
St. Lawrence Valleys and Beyond i 5 1
VIII. The Middle West : Prairie-Land . . 197
IX. The Many Nations of Prairie-Land . 217
X. The Far West and North-West, or The
Land of Mountains .... 247
XI. The Peopling and Civilization of the
Far West 262
INDEX 28
i>
LIST OF MAPS
PAGE
Arctic Canada 29
Novia Scotia 30
New Brunswick . . . 72
Labrador 90
Quebec 118
Ontario . 150
Prairie-Land 196
Southern British Columbia 245
British Columbia • . . 246
British North America at end
CANADA
PART III.-GEOGRAPHICAL
CHAPTER I
THE FAB NOBTH-LAND AND ITS HEBOES
By an Act of 1867 the provinces of Quebec, Ontario, Nova The
Scotia and New Brunswick were formed into a confederation ^^f^^^\^P^
frontier of
called the Dominion of Canada ; ^ ' Rupert's Land and the Canada
North-Western Territory' (1870), British Columbia (1871),
and Prince Edward Island {1873), joined the Dominion soon
afterwards under powers contained in the same Act, and Orders
in Council made in pursuance thereof; and in 1880 a further
Order in Council ^ transferred to the Dominion all other British
possessions in North America, including the attendant islands,
but excluding Newfoundland and its dependency on the coasts
of Labrador.
Consequently, the frontiers of Canada are — with this one
exception of the colony of Newfoundland — the frontiers of
British North America.
One glance at the map suggests that nature and nature was ascer-
alone made the northern boundary ; that on the east but for ^f ^^f^ .
■^ during the
the colony of Newfoundland and on the west but for Alaska search for
the same artificer was at work : but that the frontiers of ^ ^^^f^^^-
^ west
Newfoundland colony and Alaska, and all the ^0M\ki^xn passage
fronti^s, were the work of men s hands. If the inference ^^^^^"
were drawn that these natural frontiers were first-created, self-
created, and created without human sacrifices, the inference
' 30 & 31 Vict. c. 3.
2 Order in Council, July 31, 1880.
VOL. V. PT. Ill B
6 ' ''mSTOmQAl GEOVyRAPHY OF CANADA
*^'^<^ "•■ ^ /'' ' '' ": ^ , : . .-•
would be a truism in one sense and the reverse of true in
another sense. The coast of America and its islands existed
before white men existed, but did not exist as frontiers until
white men knew of their existence ; and this knowledge was
obtained after the last man-made boundary had been settled
by war, treaty, or Act of Parliament, and was obtained by a
deadly war against nature which lasted 283 years. The
names of the men who waged this war or directed it from afar
still consecrate its shores, and brave men's blood proved once
more the only possible cement of the walls of empire.
Although some of these warriors still live, they belong in
spirit to the heroic age ; for they fought not against human
foes but, like Thor, against the frost giants ; they displayed
* one equal temper of heroic hearts ', and their doings and
sufferings were on an heroic scale. Their aim was to dis-
cover a north-west passage from the Atlantic to the Pacific.
Their results were to ascertain the northern shores of the
American continent and northern frontiers of Canada. It is
now known that the north-west passages, for there are more
than one, are too icy to be used for trading with Japan, China,
India, or any other country, and that all the northern shore of
America which lies west of Hudson's Bay lies within the
Arctic circle, while Hudson Strait, though situated in the
latitude of the Shetlands and Faroes, is closed by ice for
eight or nine months in the year, and Hudson Bay, though
touching the latitude of Bristol, touches also the Arctic circle
and is chilled all the year round by stores of never-melted ice
which pour southward and eastward from Fox Channel.
The north-west passages are all but unnavigable, the northern
shores are all but uninhabitable; but great names and
memories live in this dead or half-dead region, and here at
all events geographers tread on holy ground, and geography
if not history has proved itself synonymous with the biography
of great men.
The first The first period of these discoveries (1576-1632) is still
THE FAR NORTH-LAND AND ITS HEROES 3
commemorated by the names of Queen Elizabeth/ l^ing penod of
James,^ Prince Henry ,^ ' the young Marcellus of English j^-^^g,'
history/ King Charles I ^'^ and Queen Henrietta Maria; ^ of 1632, was
famous statesmen like Sir Francis Walsingham/ Ambrose Earl ^^^ ^^'^^ -'*
of Warwick/ Robert Earl of Leicester/ George Earl of
Cumberland/ Robert Earl of Salisbury/ Charles Earl of
Nottingham/ Henry Earl of Southampton/ patron of
Shakespeare and Virginia, William Earl of Pembroke/
patron of the Bermudas and of Ben Jonson, Sir Christopher
Hatton/ Sir Walter Ralegh/ Sir Robert Mansell/ and Sir
John Brooke (Lord Cobham) ; ^ of princely East Indian
merchants like Sir Thomas Smith/^ Sir John Wolstenholme/*^"
Sir James Lancaster/^ Alderman Sir Francis Jones/^ or their
ambassador Sir Thomas Roe/*'' or their advocate Sir Dudley
Digges ; ^-^^ of great writers like Richard Hakluyt/ and
Michael Lok ; ^ and of the explorers employed by all these
patrons, namely. Sir Martin Frobisher^ (1576-8), whom
George Best/^ Charles Jackman,^ and Christopher HalP
accompanied; John Davys * (1585-7) the friend and neigh-
bour of Sir Walter Ralegh and of John Chidleigh ^^ Esq. of
Chidleigh, Devonshire; Henry Hudson ^•'^ (16 10- 11), whose
motto was to achieve what he had undertaken * or else to give
reason wherefore it may not be ' ; Sir Thomas Button " (161 2)
of Glamorganshire with whom By lot Hubbart ^ and Nelson ^
sailed; Robert Bylot ^^ (16 15-16) with William Baffin ^« as
mate ; Luke Fox (1631)^ assistant of Trinity House; ^ and
Thomas James ^ (1631-2) a native of Monmouthshire, a sea
captain of Bristol, and a barrister of the Inner- Temple. All
these names and places are equally well known to historians
steeped in Elizabethan lore and to illiterate whalers of to-day ;
* In Frobisher Bay. '^ In Cumberland Sound.
3 In Hudson Strait, middle. * In Hudson Strait, east entrance.
5 In Hudson Strait, west entrance. ^ In Hudson Bay.
"^ In Hudson Bay, Southampton Islands.
® In Hudson Bay, James Bay. ^ In Davis Strait.
^^ In Baffin Bay. ^i In Frobisher Bay, east entrance.
B 2
HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF CANADA
and Hud-
son Strait
and Bay
were dis-
covered by
Frobisher,
Davys,
Htulson,
Button,
and, if we except Bylot and Button Islands, the same names
denote the same places, although here and there sea-changes
have occurred, capes being transformed into islands, islands
into sounds and straits,^ straits into sounds, and sounds into
straits.
The discovery of the northern frontier was a process ; and
its first period may be summarized thus : Martin Frobisher
(1576-8) in the Gabriel (25 tons) examined not only
Frobisher Bay but part of * Mistaken Straits ', as he misnamed
Hudson Strait, and Cape Best or Hatton Headland, which is
the southern gatepost to Frobisher Bay and the oiorthern
gatepost to ' Mistaken Straits '.
Next John Davys (1585-7) in the Sunshine (50 tons)
searched * Cumberland Sound \ which lies north of Frobisher
Bay, and sailed north to ^ Mount Ralegh ' and ' Cape
Walsingham' in ' Davis Strait ', and south to ' Cape Chidleigh \
which is the southern gatepost of Hudson Strait, and to Davis
and Ivuktok "^ inlets in Labrador, lavishing Devon names
wherever he went.
Then Henry Hudson (1610-11) in the Discovery (55 tons)
passed right through Hudson Strait to ' Digges Island ', and
* Wolstenholme Cape ', which stand on the south side of its
western entrance ; and to ' Salisbury Island ' which is opposite
the very middle of its western entrance ; whence he turned
south along the east coast of the Bay, wintered somewhere in
the far south-east, and was put into a boat with nearly half his
crew, was cut adrift, and died an unknown death.
Next Sir Thomas Button (161 2) in the Resolution and
Discovery (55 tons) passed from ' Resolution Island \ as the
island of which Cape Best is the southern extremity was
afterwards called, through Hudson Strait to Salisbury Island,
whence he crossed Hudson Bay south-west to what ffe called
* Port Nelson ' in ' New Wales ' and wintered there. Next
^ e.g. Cumberland Islands, Sir Thomas Roe's Island.
* Alias, Hamilton Inlet.
THE FAR NORTH-LAND AND ITS HEROES 5
summer he coasted northward by ' Hubbart's Hope ' (now
called Churchill) to the west,^ south, and east of the ' South-
ampton ' Islands, whence he returned by ' Mansel ', Notting-
ham ' and Salisbury Islands through Hudson Strait home.
Baffin and Bylot (161 5) in the Discovery (55 tons) explored Baffin,
the east coast of Southampton Island a little further to the
north than Button, and (16 16) outdid Davys by sailing round
the whole of ' Baffin Bay ', discovering ' Smith V ' Jones ' and
* Lancaster ' Sounds, which for aught he knew might be straits.
In 1 63 1 Fox sailed in the Charles (70 tons) through /^jjt,
Hudson Strait and Bay into ' Sir Thomas Roe's Welcome ',
as Button's Strait on the west of Southampton Island was
thenceforth called. After following it northward, but not so
far as Button's furthest, he coasted southward to the entrance
of the Bay named after his rival {55° 10' lat.), then sailed due
north, passed through the chain of islands Southampton,
Nottingham, Mansel, and Salisbury — which stretch from
Hudson Strait to the western main — until he reached the
Arctic circle in Fox Channel ^ far beyond Baffin's northernmost
point in Hudson Bay, although far below Baffin's northernmost
point in Baffin Bay. His names of places on the east coast
of Fox Channel commemorate Trinity House and its officials.
James's voyage {163 1-2) in the Maria (70 tons) resembled and James.
that of Fox, for he followed all except the eastern coasts of
Hudson Bay, but he did not go so far north and went
further south, rounding ' Cape Henrietta Maria ' and entering
' James Bay ', where he wintered on * Charlton Island '. * He
divided Button's New Wales into 'New North Wales' and
* New South Wales ', which names persisted until the end of
the ensuing century "^ ; and named * New Severn River ' in
' New South Wales '.
1 Up to 62^42' lat. 2 j.8°lat.
•^ 66° 30' lat. * Charles I's town.
® See e. g. C. Middleton's Chart, 1 743 ; and Arrovvsmith's Map in
Sir A. Mackenzie's Voyages, i8or.
6 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF CANADA
The Hud- After 1632 there was a pause of 186 years during which
^CoviMnv ^^ geography of the northern coast line remained almost
built forts stationary while its history advanced. After 1668 Hudson
^Bav ^668^ Strait became a highway through which the Hudson's Bay
et seq,^ Company sent annual ships to its factories or forts which
began to line James Bay and the southern coast of Hudson Bay.
The earliest Governors of the Company (1670-91) were
Prince Rupert, the Duke of York and Albany (James II),
and John Churchill (Duke of Marlborough) ; Sir J. Haynes
was its deputy governor (1675-85), and forts were built
on ' Rupert River ' (Fort Charles), ' Moose River ', and
* Albany River ' in James Bay, and on New Severn River,
and between Nelson River and * Hayes River ' (York Fort),
and on 'Churchill River* in Hudson Bay (1668-1688).
The white man's range was ' the range ' of coast line and
timber trees ; and all these settlements were on well-wooded
coasts where Indians did not dwell but whither they gladly
descended from the interior for purposes of trade. North of
James Bay on the east coast, and north of Churchill on the
west coast, the shores of Hudson Bay are timberless and bare
and the resort of black and white whales; and where shores
are bare and seas have whales, there Eskimos are always found
* with fat flat greasy faces, little black piercing eyes, good teeth,
lank black matted hair with little hands and feet V eating raw
meat and sleeping naked in houses of stone or (in the Arctics)
of ice and snow like the sugar huts in Grimm's fairy stories.
After thetreaty of Utrecht(i 7 13) forts were built by the Hudson
Bay Company at the mouths of East Main River ^ and Big
River ^ on the east shores of James Bay, and for a time at
Richmond Fort on Richmond Gulf (1749) ^ on the east coast
^ Hakhiyt Society Publications, vol.xi; Captain W. Coats, Geography
of Hudson Bay^ ?• 73-
"^ Formerly Slude River.
^ Fort George, now Fort Victoria.
* 56° 22'lat. Coats, op. cit., p. 78.
THE FAR NORTH-LAND AND ITS HEROES 7
of Hudson Bay, where a few trees chanced to grow, the object
of Richmond Fort being to attract Eskimo traders who
ah'eady frequented the coast between Hudson Strait and
Little Whale River'; but in the west there were no trees
north of the Churchill 2, and the same object was attained by
sending annual tradeships up north from the Churchill as far
as Whale Cove, a distance of 200 miles. Englishmen wanted
seas and trees, Eskimos seas without trees, and Indians trees
without seas. For more than a century after 1632 no one
was a match for Baffin, Fox or even Button, in the extent of
his knowledge, and geography stood still.
Then a small move was made. Explorers named James atid
Knight, George Barlow, and D. Vaughan were sent out by the g^pify^.
Hudson Bay Company to the north of Churchill in 1 7 1 9, and tions were
were never heard of again until 1767, when their boats and Hudson
bones were discovered on Brooke Cobham (Marble) Island. Bay^ 17 19
In the meantime men's hearts were touched with anxiety for ^ "^^^' '
those who had gone forth and had not come back ; and men's
intellects were stimulated. A controversy arose, some men
arguing that Hudson Bay was like the Mediterranean, a closed
sea with an outlet at Hudson Strait but without an inlet,
and that Roe's Welcome and Fox Channels were ads-de-
sac where the ice was created which beat against the east
coasts of Hudson Bay and drove through Hudson Strait. If
so, they said, the frontier of Canada lay far north of Roe's
Welcome, Fox Channel, and Hudson Bay and Strait. Other
theorists, notably Arthur Dobbs, contended that Roe's
Welcome was not a cul-de-sac but a Strait which rounded
some northern Cape a few miles north of Button's furthest,
and that a straight line drawn from this northern Cape to the
Pacific passed through open sea. Wild as the theory sounded,
there was no one who could disprove it. So Sir Charles
Wager, the First Lord of the Admiralty, sent out Christopher
* Coats, op, cit., pp. 66, 89. - 59° lat.
8 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF CANADA
Middleton and William Moor in King's ships to test it.^ They
sailed up Roe's Welcome, examined ' Wager Inlet ' (which
led only to a river), * Repulse Bay ' (which was a bay and
nothing more), and noted a 'Frozen Strait' leading from
Repulse Bay down the east coast of Southampton Islands,
and returned. Middleton had reached the Arctic circle, and
had found no thoroughfare ; for his road merely took him
round a corner back into Hudson Bay ; but when he told his
story he was disbelieved. Less weight was attached to his
facts than to the arguments urged by controversialists whom
Dobbs led.
and the The next move was made by land, and the Hudson Bay
IhTcopfer- Company was the moving spirit. In 177 1-2 Samuel Hearne
mine, and went overland from Churchill to the mouth of the Copper-
and icT^^ mine. He passed through the mountainless, mossy, treeless
Cape were barrens of the reindeer and musk ox until he reached the
^fro7nelse- -^^^^^^ circle, the sea, and the Eskimos, whom his attendant
where. Indians slew. His adventures were vividly described, but his
geographical information was vague, cloudy, and confused.
Then two explorers whose geographical capacity was beyond
cavil took up the tale. Captain Cook (1778) sailed with the
Discovery and Resolution along the west coast of America and
reported that it was continuous from 44° 5 S'' lat. northward
to Icy Cape, which is beyond the Strait, whose exploration
brought death and immortality to Bering (1741), and some
three-and-a-half degrees within the Arctic circle. Then an
employee of the Canadian North-West Fur Company named
Sir Alexander Mackenzie started from Fort Chipewyan on
Lake Athabasca, ^ followed the Great Slave River northward
to Great Slave Lake and Mackenzie River northward from
Great Slave Lake to its mouth amid black whales and Eski-
mos.^ The Rockies had already been seen from the Missouri
^ Henry Ellis, Voyage to Hudson Bay, ly^d-y, for discovering
a North-west Passage^ 1748, with map.
'' 59° lat. ^ 69° lat.
THE FAR NORTH-LAND AND ITS HEROES g
and perhaps from near Calgary ; the Indians who visited Fort
Chipewyan brought stories of the same mountains ; and now
1 60 miles west by north ^ of Great Slave Lake, Mackenzie
began to catch glimpses of the self-same snow-peaks
' crowding together like conical waves ' which are seen, and
are never forgotten when once seen, from Calgary. Hence-
forth his day-dreams and night-dreams were filled with visions
of a great range separating prairie land, the Athabasca, the
Great Slave, and the Mackenzie rivers from the Pacific, and
became what some people called mountain-mad. But to return.
Icy Cape and the mouths of the Mackenzie and Coppermine
rivers formed three fixed points on the northern shore of
America, and all of them were within the Arctic circle.
Possibly Repulse Bay, which was also within the Arctic circle,
and the southern shore of Hudson Strait formed two more
fixed points; if so, they were tied together by the familiar
southern shores of Hudson and James Bay and formed one
coast line ; but as yet no one knew whether Hudson Strait was
anything more than a larger edition of Cabot or Belleisle
Strait connecting the Atlantic with a larger edition of the
Gulf of St. Lawrence. Meanwhile, at all these five points,
dwelt Eskimos similar to one another in habits, manners, looks,
and language. The Eskimos were the human and only
threads which bound these scattered rags and tags together.
The discovery of the three new fixed points did not solve, but
only restated in more puzzling language, the problem of
a continuous frontier, which was left where the stout Eliza-
bethan mariners in their frail cockleshells left it.
The second period of discovery (1818-39) began immedi- Thesecojtd
ately after the batde of Waterloo ; and we seem to pass from ^search
1632 to 1818 without a break. There is the same heroic ^ 818-39,
atmosphere as that which surrounded the Elizabethan group, ^alimal •
and we are once more face to face with Christian patriots
whose devotion, valour, energy, simplicity, and humility lift us
* c. 62° c. 30'.
lO HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF CANADA
into a region where the air is purer and men are nobler.
These latter-day heroes attacked their problem by sea and
land; but the mariners, unlike their predecessors, sailed in
vessels of 300-400 tons, or more rarely of 150-170 tons,
while the overlanders were half mariners and used boats
resembling whaleboats. The royal patrons of the discovery
were the prince Regent,^ afterwards George IV ; ' his brother,
the Duke of York,^ the Duke of Cambridge,^ and the Duke
of Clarence,^ afterwards William IV,^-^ his wife Queen Ade-
laide,^-^ the Duchess of Kent^*^, and her daughter Queen
Victoria.^ Its official patrons were Henry Earl Bathurst,^*'
Colonial Minister ; Robert Viscount Melville,^-^ First Lord of
the Admiralty ; Admiralty officials such as Sir John Barrow,^*^-''
Sir George Cockburn,* Sir Thomas By am Martin/ Sir Henry
Hotham/ Sir Baldwin Walker,^ Captain Thomas Hurd,^-^
Sir Francis Beaufort,^ and John W. Croker ^ (Macaulay's
Croker).
Its private patrons were Sir Felix Booth,^ Sir C. Ogle,^
and the Hudson Bay Company under Sir John Pelly,^*®
Nicholas Garry/*^ Sir George Simpson,^ J. Berens,^
A. Colvile," Edward Ellice,« J. Halkett,« G. Keith,^
McLoughlin,^ S. McGillivray,' and W. McTavish.^
The Duke of WeHington,^-^ Sir William Cornwallis'
(Nelson's friend), and Sir Joseph Banks ^ inspired it ; George
Earl of Dalhousie "^ and Matthew Baron Aylmer,^ Governors
General of Canada, and Sir Peregrine Maitland,^ Lieutenant
Governor of Upper Canada, assisted it; and Hyde WoUaston's*^
and Henry Kater's ^ instruments were used. The names of
all these men are writ large upon the map of Arctic Canada
^ Barrow Strait and north. 2 Yb\^, and south.
^ Hecla and Fury Strait and south. * Ibid, and north.
' Boothia Peninsula.
® North coast of America and its straits from Great Fish Estuary to
Coppermine River.
' Ibid, from (and including) Coppermine River to Mackenzie River,
* Ibid, west of Mackenzie River. * On the Continent.
THE FAR NORTH-LAND AND ITS HEROES II
along with the names of the explorers, amongst whom Sir
William Edward Parry and Sir John Franklin were foremost.
All the great explorers of this period except Sir John Ross
derived their inspiration either from Parry or from Franklin,
and Sir John Ross introduced Parry to the Arctics.
In 1818 Sir John Ross, with Lieutenant Parry, sailed round and Par^y
Baffin Bay in the Isabella (385 tons) and mistook all the ^'^^^^^^'^^
straits and sounds, especially Lancaster Sound,^ for ^2i.y^. northern
In 1819-20 Captain Parry in the Hecla (375 tons) and ^^^^^J
Griper^ with Captains Matthew Liddon and Edward Sabine,
Lieutenants F. W. Beechey and H. P. Hoppner, Midshipman
James Ross, and others who were destined to be famous, entered
Lancaster Sound, which they pursued due west for 450 miles.
The new Strait was named Barrow Strait, and they passed in
succession North Devon (Liddon's County), Wellington Chan-
nel, Cornwallis, Bathurst, Byam-Martin and Melville Islands
on their north, and Prince Regent Inlet, North Somerset
(Parry's County), and after an interval Banksland on their south.
Between Melville Island and Banksland never-melted ice
towered aloft and blocked further progress. So Parry wintered
in Hecla and Griper Bay (Melville Island) and during the
winter explored the eastern half of that island, whereon the
names of twenty of these explorers are commemorated.^ On
most of the islands of Barrow Strait present traces of musk-
oxen and reindeer but only past traces of Eskimos were
found, a sure sign that they were near but were not on the
mainland of America. Another less convincing proof was
that the explorers were already five hundred miles due north of
the mouth of the Coppermine, and were gazing westward over
an ocean of hummocky ice which had never thawed since the
1 Between 74° and 75° lat.
2 Parry Islands (for the whole group) and Cape Fisher, Point Nias,
Point Reid, Sabine Peninsula, Point Griffiths, Point Ross, Beverley
Inlet, Skene Bay, Point Palmer, Dealey Island, Cape Halse, Point
Wakeham, Fife Harbor, Cape Hoppner, Hooper Island, Bushnan Cove,
Cape Edwards, Cape Beechey, Liddon Gulf on Melville Island.
HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF CANADA
and Ross
discovered
Boothia
and King
IViliiam
Island^
world began, while Banksland on their south trended south- ^
westward. In 182 1-3 Sir William Edward Parry in the
Fury and Hecla, with Captain George Lyon, Lieutenant
H. P. Hoppner, Midshipmen James Ross, Francis Crozier,
and others no less famous, repeated Middleton's expedition,
but continued northward along the whole east shore of what
he called Melville Peninsula to an ice-choked strait which he
named Fury and Hecla Strait. The mystery of Hudson Bay
was solved. Fox Channel, some two hundred miles north of
'Fox's furthest', was fitted flute-like with a mouthpiece at
right angles to it; and Cockburn Land lay above, and
Melville Peninsula below the mouthpiece through which ice
was blown from Prince Regent Inlet into Fox Channel, and
so into Hudson Bay and Hudson Strait. The apex of
Melville Peninsula ^ was an eastern apex of the American
continent, and as usual it swarmed with Eskimos. After
spending two winters in the Arctics Parry returned home
and reached Prince Regent Inlet again next year from the
north (1824-5) with many of his old companions and in the
same ships ; but the Fury was lost, and his lowest points were
' Cape Garry ' on the west and * Cape Kater ' on the east of
the Inlet. Cape Kater was only one hundred and thirty
miles north-west of Fury and Hecla Strait, and the existence
of an intervening coast was proved by Parry's successors,
and more especially by Sir John Ross.
In 1829-33 Sir John Ross, with James Ross for companion
and Felix Booth for patron, descended Prince Regent Inlet in
the Victory (150 tons) and Krusenstern, passed Cape Garry,
found and named ' Boothia Felix ', which is a continental
promontory, though nature seems to have intended it for an
island ; for the isthmus which joins it to the mainland is only
thirteen feet above sea-level, seventeen to eighteen miles long
and three parts lake, while a similar isthmus shadows this
isthmus a few miles north of it. Besides exploring the
1 7o°lat.
THE FAR NORTH-LAND AND ITS HEROES 13
isthmus and its counterpart, and the eastern mainland, for
fifty or sixty miles, and the magnetic pole on the west coast
of the peninsula,^ James Ross followed what he thought was
the western mainland for one hundred and twenty miles as
the crow flies, named it King William Land, and its western-
most points Point Victory, Cape Jane Franklin and Point
Franklin. Long afterwards this land proved an island and
these names names of omen. Meanwhile Ross lay icebound
on the east of the isthmus, abandoned his ships, took to his
boats, and on arriving in Lancaster Sound after four years'
absence from the world, saw a ship. A ship's boat put forth
to meet him. What was the ship's name .? asked Ross. * The
Isabella of Hull, once commanded by Captain Ross ' was the
mate's answer : and who was the questioner ? ' Captain
Ross.' * Impossible,' replied the mate, for * Captain Ross
had been dead two years'. It was now assumed (rightly)
that the mainland east of Boothia curved round to Fury and
Hecla Strait, and (wrongly) that Boothia and North Somerset
were parts of the same peninsula, so that the continent touched
Lancaster Sound in the northernmost point of North Somerset.
While Parry was engaged on his second voyage Lieutenant and the
(Sir) John Franklin (i 820-1) with (Sir) George Back, (Sir) ^^^^f/^^'^
John Richardson, Robert Hood and some French Canadians, continents
repeated Hearne's exploit, but from Great Slave Lake,^ not ^^'^^^l
from the Churchill, reached the mouth of the Coppermine, strait and
called the Gulf, into which the Coppermine, Richardson, ^^fj-
Hood, and Back rivers opened, George I V's Coronation /f/^Wze/^j;^
Gulf, and returned by Hood River and the barrens to his 'fJ^^'f!lJ^
* fort ' ^ on the edge of the barrens and just south of the
watershed of the Coppermine. His provisions were exhausted.
Winter had set in. The fort which he had requested the
1' 96° 46' ii" long. ; 70° 5' 19'' lat.
2 Fort Providence c. 62° 17' N. lat. 114° 9' long.
3 Fort Enterprise at the head of Yellowknife River, which falls into
Great Slave Lake.
14 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF CANADA
Indians to provision was without provisions or Indians. Back
crawled on to search for Indians. Franklin lay down and
lived on ofFal. He was soon joined by Richardson, who
was in charge of stragglers and had shot one straggler who
had shot Hood and probably eaten two others. One or two
others staggered into the fort. While they were dying inch
by inch, and the last spark was being extinguished, an Indian
whom Back had found arrived with food and they were saved.
In 1825-7 Franklin, Richardson, Back, and Kendall, after
building and provisioning a fort^ on Great Bear Lake,
repeated Mackenzie's exploit and descended the Mackenzie
River to its mouth in boats built after the model of whaleboats.
Thence Franklin and Back coasted westward to meet Captain
Frederick William Beechey, who was coasting eastward from
Bering Strait. Franklin passed the boundary between Canada
and Alaska ; Beechey's mate, Elson, passed the northern apex
of Alaska ; and the two parties reduced the unknown part of
that coastline to one hundred and sixty miles. Meanwhile
Richardson and Kendall coasted to the east through ' Dolphin
and Union Strait ', which was named after their boats, and
lies between * Wollaston Land ' and the mainland ; and after
reaching the Coppermine River they returned by land to the
fort on Great Bear Lake.
Two of the five fixed points of the continental border,
namely, the mouths of the Mackenzie and Coppermine, were
now joined to one another, and a third, namely, Bering Strait,
was nearly joined to them.
by Backy In 1833-5 Sir George Back and Dr. Richard King started
east from Great Slave Lake, partly to ascertain the fate of Ross,
but chiefly for purposes of exploration, crossed the watershed
and discovered and descended the Great Fish River, which
Franklin had heard of (1819),^ to its mouth. The land
^ Fort Franklin.
' As Thloueeatessy, Narrative of a Journey to the . . . Folar Sea,
1823, vol. i, p. 143. Probably Hearne's Thele aza.
THE FAR NORTH-LAND AND ITS HEROES 1 5
about its mouth was named ' William IV's Land ' ; a strange
coincidence, for although Back had then heard of Ross's return,
he had not heard that Ross had named his south-western goal
' King William Land ' ; and Back's ' William I V's Land ',
and Ross's * King William Land ' were explored by their dis-
coverers to within one hundred miles of one another. The
country traversed by Back was the abomination of desolation ;
a few miles east/^ of his fort ^ on Great Slave Lake, trees
ceased, and there were barrens, barrens, barrens all the way.
Thus a sixth fixed point was added to the coast-line of
North America, namely, the Great Fish River.
The last expedition of this period was the only private and by
venture of the Hudson Bay Company during this period. ^^^''^^°^^'
Thomas Simpson and Peter Warren Dease (1837-9), who
were in command, explored the northern coast from Beechey's
furthest to the Great Fish Estuary, which they traced
a little further east than Back had traced it. Their boats
Castor and Pollux gave a name to the eastern limit of
their discoveries, which lay 57 miles south of the most
southerly point reached by James Ross, and, strange to say,
1 20 miles south-east (not south-west) of James Ross's western-
most point. But the wild geese were flying south, stars were
seen in the sky, and food was scarce, so they too turned back
with their task just unaccomplished. They noted land on
the north of Simpson Strait, which they identified with Ross's
King William Land and deemed a promontory of Boothia,
and land on the north of Dease Strait, which was called
* Victoria Land '. Simpson and Dease proved what Franklin,
Richardson, and Back partly proved and partly guessed, that
the seaboard from Bering Strait to Boothia is fairly straight,
except where the Mackenzie Coppermine and Great Fish
rivers form estuaries, and is paved with ice from end to end,
except where running rivers and land warmer than the waves
* At Artillery Lake. ^ Fort Reliance.
i6
HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF CANADA
The third
period of
search^
i845-59»
was also
national :
Rae
searched
between
Hudson
Bay and
King
William
Island:
cut narrow streaks or pathways of water through the crystal
sea during two short summer months.
The godfathers and godmothers of the third period
(1845-59) were the Duchess of Kent, Queen Victoria, her
consort Prince Albert and her children the Princess Royal,
the Prince of Wales and Duke of Cornwall, Prince Alfred, and
Prince Patrick (Duke of Connaught) ; Admiralty officials like
Sir F. Baring, First Lord, J. W. Deans Dundas, W. A.
Baillie Hamilton and John Parker; the Hudson Bay
Company, to whose officials no new names except those
of Shepherd and Matheson need be added ; Lieutenant
P. A. Halkett, who invented a portable boat; and the
explorers, among whom Sir John Franklin was the central
figure.
If we may for once anticipate events, John Rae (1846-7),
acting on a suggestion made by Franklin in 1828 and 1836,^
and under a commission from the Hudson Bay Company,
traced on foot the whole coast between Fury and Hecla Strait
on the summit of Melville Peninsula, and the base of Boothia
Peninsula, thus joining Parry's north-western with Ross's
easternmost limits. He passed the winter at the base of
Melville Peninsula, which was a low isthmus, thenceforth
called Rae Isthmus, forty miles across and seven-eighths lake,
like that which formed the base of Boothia Peninsula; and in
both cases there were two lines of lake across the isthmus.
The land lay within the arctic regions, the only fuel was
Andromeda tetragona, and he fed on reindeer which he shot
or on seals bought from the Eskimos who lined the shore.
The whole coast was now known from Bering Strait to
Hudson Strait, but for two or three exceptions, which were —
a strip of coast on the west of Boothia, a strip of coast on the
west of North Somerset (if Boothia and North Somerset
were indeed one), and fifty or sixty miles of what might be
^ Journal of the Royal Geographical Society ^ vol. vi, 1836, p. 43.
THE FAR NORTH-LAND AND ITS HEROES 1 7
land or might be sea on the east of King William Land.
These were the two or three dark places on the earth, the two or
three riddles of the Sphinx which were as yet unanswered.
In 1845 Sir John Franklin, Captains Francis Crozier, James Franklin
Fitz James, and one hundred and twenty-six doomed men, set f^^^^
out in the Erehus and Terror to sail the whole way from 1845;
Lancaster Sound to Bering Strait and perchance to answer
these riddles or else, in Hudson's words, ^to give reason
wherefore it might not be *, for they were men who meant to
do or die. They were provisioned for three years and
vanished in their first year. After three years a search for
them began. This was the prologue of the drama.
In 1848-9 Captains Sir James Ross and (Sir) F. Leopold and was
McClintock and Lieutenants Robinson and Brown wintered nought for,
first in
in Barrow Strait and sledged along the east and west coasts 1848-9, by
of North Somerset, but not quite so far south as Boothia, and J^^^^^^
along part of the east coast of Prince Regent Inlet, but not Fullen,
so far south as in North Somerset : from Bering Strait ^^<^^<^^^-
' ^ son, Kae,
Lieutenant W. J. S. Pullen went in a whale-boat to the &c,;
Mackenzie ; and from Canada Richardson and Rae, starting
at a fort ^ on Great Bear Lake, repeated Richardson's feat of
1825-7, tried but failed to cross to Wollaston Land, although
they conversed with Eskimos who had recently been there ;
and when the curtain dropped upon the first Act no new
light had been thrown on the fate of Franklin or on the
northern frontier of the continent.
In 1 8 50- 1 a flotilla of vessels under Captains Horatio Austin secondly in
and Erasmus Ommaney, Lieutenants Sherard Osborn, William ^^^^7-^'^^^
Browne, F. Leopold McClintock, George F. Mecham, R. Vesey Ommaney
Hamilton, R.D.Aldrich, (Sir) Clements Markham, andDr.A.R. ^^^^^^^
Bradford, in the Resolute y Assistance, Pioneer, and Intrepid, parties,
renewed the search. Captains William Penny and Alexander /^j^^^^f^^^^
Stewart, Dr. P. C. Sutherland, R. A. Goodsir and J. Stuart joined
them with two other vessels ; Sir John Ross, then seventy-three
^ Dease and Simpson's Fort Confidence.
VOL. V. PT. in Q
l8 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF CANADA
years of age, brought two more vessels, Captain C. Forsyth
one more (1850), Captain William Kennedy and Lieuten-
ant Bellot (185 1-2) one more, and Lieutenant De Haven
(United States) two more, the latter being supplied by the
generosity of Henry Grinnell. These vessels met off and
on in Barrow Strait, and Ommaney found on Beechey Island
at the south-west of North Devon the spot where Franklin
wintered (1846-7), but no record except an epitaph on the
grave of one of Franklin's crew. Before the search had pro-
ceeded far, the vessels were frozen for the winter into beds
of ice, some in Wellington Channel near its mouth in Barrow
Strait, others in Barrow Strait near the mouth of Wellington
Channel. Then sledges took on the task. McClintock went
west to Melville Island, which he searched more or less as far
as Liddon Gulf. Aldrich searched both sides of Byam Martin
Channel, more or less. Penny, Stewart, Sutherland, and
Goodsir searched both sides of Wellington Channel and of its
continuation Queen's Channel more or less to its northern
entrance between Capes which were named Cape Sir John
Franklin and Cape Lady Franklin — ominously, as it proved.
South of Barrow Strait a new island was found between
Somerset and Banks Land, and was named Prince of Wales
Island. Ommaney and Osborn searched half its west ^ and
Browne ^ searched half its east coast. Lieutenant Bellot while
searching North Somerset discovered that it was an island and
that between it and Boothia Peninsula was a strait ^ more
like a Greenland fiord than a strait, twenty miles long, one
mile wide, four hundred feet deep or more, with granite walls
fifteen hundred feet high. Bellot Strait, as it was called, be-
came a new fixed point on the northern coast of Canada.
Everything east of it was already known. On its west there
were still two unjoined points which lay very near one another.
James Ross's most northerly point on the west coast of Boothia
was only one hundred miles south of the western entrance of
^ Down to 72° 18'. 2 Down to 72° 49'. ^ ^ ^3° lat.
THE FAR NORTH-LAND AND ITS HEROES 19
the new strait, and the coast sloped towards it. The west
coast of Boothia, though a missing link in the chain, was no
longer a mystery. Only one uncertainty, one crucial uncer-
tainty, remained. The Achilles' heel of the problem was King
William Land ^ along whose northern shore James Ross had
been one hundred miles west of the point reached by Simpson
from the west on a line of latitude ^ one degree lower than
Ross's line. As yet no one knew that King William Land
had an east coast and was an island, and no search party had
reached within one hundred miles of it, although Bellot had
been one hundred and thirty miles, and Browne, Osborn, and
Ommaney had been one hundred and eighty miles on its
north or north-west.
Meanwhile Sir Robert McClure in the Investigatory and by ^^^-
Sir Richard Collin son in the Enterprise, started from England colliitson
for Bering Strait (1850), after passing which McClure {oV from the
lowed a water line by the shore, as a miner follows a gold '
lead, or Theseus followed Ariadne's string, and it took him
past the mouth of the Mackenzie north-eastward up a new
strait, which he called Prince of Wales Strait, and which lay
between two new lands, the left of which turned out to be
Banks Land, and the right was named Prince Albert Land.
He reached its ice-choked mouth some sixty miles due south
of Melville Island, and wintered a few miles further south
( 1 850-1). Thence sledge parties were sent out. Lieutenant
W. H. Haswell sledged southward, where he found Eskimos,
Lieutenant S. G. Cresswell followed the north coast of Banks
Land, and R. Wynniatt the north coast of Prince Albert Land,
until the shore turned to the south-east, and he reached a point
sixty miles due west of Osborn's furthest point on the west
coast of Prince of Wales Island and two hundred miles north-
west of King William Island. Osborn's and Wynniatt's points
are the Jachin and Boaz of what is now known as McClintock's
Channel. Next year, unable to escape to the north, McClure
i 69° 31' lat. 2 68° 29' lat.
C 2
20 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF CANADA
retraced his steps through the Strait and sailed almost all the
way round Banks Land until he stuck fast during a second
and a third winter (185 1-2) (1852-3) in the Bay of Mercy
on the north coast of Banks Land, sixty miles south-west of
Melville Island. The same wall of perennial ice which baffled
Parry when sailing from the east in 1819-20 baffled McClure
when sailing from the west in 185 1-3. And there in his icy
prison he must be left at present.
Collinson passed through Bering Strait in 1851, pursued the
same clue up the same strait as that which McClure followed,
found two of McClure's cairns with letters from him, and
wintered with HaswelKs Eskimos (i 851-2). His sledgers
unwittingly crossed the very tracks of McClure's northern
sledgers. Next year he tried to advance, but was compelled
to retreat, searched Prince Albert Inlet, which is between
Prince Albert Land and Wollaston Land, and which he had
mistaken for a strait, and then entered Dolphin and Union
Strait and sailed east to Cambridge Bay in Victoria Land, just
one hundred and thirty miles west of King William Land,
which was now the only unknown place on the northern coast
of America. His further career will be traced hereafter.
a7td by Rae Rae was Still on the trail, and after many efforts crossed
'^sotdjf'^ Dolphin and Union Strait to Wollaston Land and hunted
after the missing men along its whole south coast from the
south edge of Prince Albert Inlet on the west, where he almost
met Haswell, though he knew it not, to a point in east Vic-
toria Land on the southern threshold of what is now called
McClintock Channel (1851). He, McClure, and Collinson
proved that Prince Albert, Wollaston, and Victoria Land
are a single island, and when near his eastern terminus, some
forty or fifty miles west of King William Island, Rae found
a spar of English wood with a broad-arrow mark. He was
unable to cross to King William Land, and returned with this
intelligence to England. A ray of hope ushered in the second
Act of the drama and a ray of hope shone as the curtain fell.
THE FAR NORTH-LAND AND ITS HEROES 21
Between 1852 and 1854 Captains Sir Edward 'BQlch^v, thirdly in
Sherard Osborn, and G. H. Richards, with W. W. May and ll%l\^^
D. Lyall in the Assistance and Pioneer] Captains Henry Kellett and by
and McClintock, with Mecham, Vesey-Hamilton, B. C. Pirn, ^^^^^
E. F. de Bray and (Sir) George Nares in the Resolute '^wA from the
Intrepid, and Captain W J. S. PuUen and Dr. R. McCormick, in ^^orth-east
the North Star, once more entered Lancaster Sound. The
Assistance and Pioneer were duly frozen into their winter
quarters near Cape Sir John Franklin at the north end of
Queen's Channel, while the North Star was left at Beechey
Island near the south end of Wellington Channel, and the
Resolute and Intrepid, after penetrating Barrow Strait as far as
Melville Island, wintered there off Dealey Islet. Meanwhile
McClure remained in Mercy Bay and Collinson in Cambridge
Bay, fast bound in misery and ice. These seven ships did
not make, but their sledges made geography. Each sledge
had its name, flag, and motto, for instance, ' Persevere to the
end ', ' Endeavour to deserve ', * Be of good courage ', * Go
forth in faith ', ^ Dangers do not daunt me ', ' Success to the
Brave ' and * Loyal au mort ' (note the gender !) The sledgers
remained out in winter for 100 days at a time, while the
thermometer sometimes registered 100 degrees of frost and
gales blew, and the longest journeys were 1157 sea-miles in
70 days (Mecham) and 1148 sea-miles in 105 days (McClin-
tock). Belcher and his men went east along the north coast
of North Devon, discovering Belcher Channel, North Corn-
wall, and North Kent, and made it clear that Belcher Channel
led by Jones Sound to Baffin Bay ; Richards, Osborn, Lyall,
and May explored the northern coasts of Cornwallis, Bathurst
and Melville Island, until they met McClintock on the top of
Sabine Peninsula in Melville Island; Mecham went along
the south coast of Melville Island, which he found to be twice
as long as had been thought, and discovered and examined
the southern half of Eglinton Island and the south-east, south,
and west coasts of Prince Patrick Island ; while McClintock
22
HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF CANADA
{they
rescued
McClure)
{Belcher
abandoned
fonr ships)
examined the east and north coasts of Melville Island and
Prince Patrick Island and the northern half of Eglinton Island,
doing everything which Richards on the east and Beecham
on the south had left undone. The search was for the first
time thorough and complete, but the islands were drawn
blank except for the following discovery. A cairn built by
Parry near Hecla and Griper Bay (Melville Island) had been
used as a post office, where McClintock left a letter (June 6,
1 851), which McClure found, and left a second letter (April
28, 1852) which Mechamfound (October 12, 1852). McClure
was in sore straits. His provisions were running short : his
men's gums were rotting and their legs were swelling with
scurvy, and he knew that Austin and Ommaney intended to
return in 1851. Accordingly, as a counsel of despair, he
arranged to send one-third of his men south, and one-third
east, if haply they might find some one who would succour
them. He and the remaining third were to stay at their
posts for another winter. On April 15, 1853, the three parties
were to take leave of one another, probably for ever ; but on
April 6 a wild lonely figure came rushing over the ice gesti-
culating and yelling like a madman. His face was black
with frost-bite : but — was it possible ? Yes, he was speaking
English, and was not one of their crew. It was Lieutenant
Pim, who brought a sledge party from the Resolute, McClure
and his men were transferred to Kellett's ships, and the Inves-
iigaior, which was frozen in beyond hope of release, was
abandoned.
In summer Kellett's ships escaped from their position and
sailed east, but were caught by winter ice before reaching
Wellington Channel. Belcher's ships sailed south, but were
caught by winter ice before reaching Barrow Strait. In
spring, 1854, Belcher ordered the abandonment of the
Resolute^ Assistance^ Intrepid, and Pioneer^ and their crews
sailed home in the North Star and some storeships, which
were met further east. A year later, the Resolute, as if in
THE FAR NORTH-LAND AND ITS HEROES 23
mockery of Belcher's orders, drifted by itself unguided yet
scatheless, like the boat which bore Lancelot to the enchanted
towers of Carbonek, out of Lancaster Sound down Baffin
Bay to the very verge of the Arctic circle ^ where an American
whaler found it and took it home. It was afterwards restored
to England by the United States.
And what of Collinson ? From Cambridge Bay his sledgers and by
explored the Coast of Victoria Land eastward a little further J^^^^^^^^^'*
than Rae explored it, and found what Rae found ; like Rae, he west,
was unable to cross to King William Land, so he sailed west,
and, after passing a third winter in the Arctics, repassed
Bering Strait (1854) on his way home by the way he came.
And what of Rae? In 1853 Rae was sent out by \h^ andfro}fi
Hudson Bay Company from Hudson Bay, not in quest Q{i^^^ south
the missing men but solely to throw light on the last unsolved who heard
mystery of the northern frontier of America. After tracing ^f^jf^^^l^'
Chesterfield Inlet, which had been partially examined in aster on
1763^ and 1792, he wintered as before on Rae Isthmus, re- ^Ifi^^^j^
examined Pelly Bay in the Gulf of Boothia, and reached island.
Dease and Simpson's furthest point in the Great Fish Estuary.
He then struck north and reached a point which Ross had
reached on the west of Boothia Isthmus, thus proving that
King William Land has an east coast which is separated by
water from the west coast of Boothia. Rae and Collinson
had already seen water on the west of King William Land,
James Ross had seen water on its north, and Back, Dease,
and Simpson had seen water on its south. Five expeditions
of first-rate magnitude and difficulty were required in order
to prove that King William Land was an island. Six search
parties, conducted with consummate skill by Osborn and
Ommaney, by Browne, by Bellot, by Wynniatt, by Rae, and
by Collinson, had converged upon it from every point of the
compass, except from the inhospitable south, had approached
^ 67° lat.
^ S. Hearne, yb«/';^^>' , , , to the N'orihern Ocean^ 1795? P- 3on.
24 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF CANADA
it and retired. This Island is and always was the most in-
accessible spot on the northern frontier of Canada. Nor
was Rae able on this occasion to cross thither, want of food
and boats and healthy men compelling him to return. He
returned with thrilling news. Englishmen were mourning
over the abandonment of five Arctic ships, and of Collinson,
and over the unpenetrated and now impenetrable veil which
hid Franklin's fate, when Dr. Rae announced, on the authority
of the Eskimos of the Great Fish River, that Franklin's ships
were lost on the north coast of King William Island, that
his crew went south by the west coast to the Great Fish
Estuary, where the last man dropped and died of famine in
the month of May long ago, and that the throes of famine
led to those nameless horrors which disfigured Franklin's
first expedition. Moreover, he brought back plate with the
dead men's initials and crests, which he had bought from the
Eskimos who had bought them from the dying men. In 1 855
James Anderson descended Great Fish River from Great Slave
Lake and found more traces of the dead but none of the
living ; but he too could not cross to King William Island,
as his boats were worn out and the great Lone Land through
which he had journeyed had exhausted his supplies. Thus
the last mystery of the continental coastline and of Franklin's
fate and of the only practicable north-west passage was rent
asunder. But there was a fourth Act to the drama.
In 1857-9 In order to make certainty doubly certain, Lady Franklin
tockreached ^^^ Others sent out McClintock with W. R. Hobson and
^^Y ^^^^^ Young in the Fox (170 tons) (1857-9). McClintock
Island and descended Prince Regent Inlet and steamed to and fro through
confirmed Bellot Strait, which is the northernmost apex of north-eastern
the itcws
America, and which the Eskimos know of but seldom visit.
Unable to proceed either on the east or west of Boothia, he
wintered on the east of the strait, and dispatched sledge
parties. Allen Young explored the whole south coast of
Prince of Wales Island, between the points formerly reached
THE FAR NORTH-LAND AND ITS HEROES 25
by Browne and Osborn respectively, so that the whole coasts
of Prince of Wales Island, and the east shore of what was
thenceforth called McClintock Channel, had now been
traversed from end to end ; McClintock and Hobson scoured
the west coast of Boothia, which was the last missing link
left between Bering Strait and Hudson Strait, and the
whole coasts of King William Island and part of Great Fish
Estuary. They saw the Eskimos whom Ross and Rae had
seen, and on the north and west of King William Island and
on islands in the estuary found cairns, implements, skeletons
and clothes of white men, and brought home amongst other
relics of the fallen a written record which was found in a
cairn on Ross's Point Victory. According to the record,
Franklin, after wintering on Beechey Island, sailed up
Wellington and Queen's Channel, passed between what
Penny prophetically named Capes Sir John Franklin and Lady
Franklin, sailed down what was thenceforth named Crozier
Channel, between Cornwallis and Bathurst Islands, descended
what was thenceforth named Franklin's Channel between
Prince of Wales Island and North Somerset, and was finally
wedged into the ice within sight of what Ross propheti-
cally named Point Franklin, Cape Jane Franklin, and last
but not least Point Victory. Franklin died in 1847. ^^"^
April, 1848, Crozier andFitzJames led one hundred and five
survivors southward by the west coast towards Back's Great
Fish River. There the story ends, and although Eskimo
tales may not have been true in every particular, it can hardly
be supposed that any of the band were alive when their first
would-be saviours crossed the Atlantic, and what I have called
the prologue to the drama was really a prologue in Heaven.
Everything was now revealed. Franklin and his men were
the first to connect Ross's, Back's, Dease's, and Simpson's
discoveries, and died in doing so. The answer to the last
riddle which the Sphinx propounded was stern and terrible
indeed. Like Berens and Hudson, Franklin bought glory
26 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF CANADA
with his Hfe and joined 'the lost adventurers his peers',
wearing a crown of victory. The strangely prophetic names,
Capes Sir John and Lady Franklin, Point Franklin, Cape Jane
Franklin, and Point Victory, lend an almost eerie touch to
a tale which even without it is written in *starfire and
immortal tears \
Franklin's According to McClintock, Franklin might have been
^l^/ successful as well as victorious had he only known of the east
William coast of King William Island ; and this criticism was justified
traversed ^ ^y ^^^^ Amundsen, who sailed along Lancaster Sound,
byAmtmd- Franklin Channel, and the east coast of King William Island,
1^903-6. ^^^ ^^^^ along the North American coast, to Bering Strait,
thus passing from the Atlantic to the Pacific in one ship by
the north for the first time {1903-6). This error of about
ten miles in a voyage of twenty thousand miles or more meant
the difference between Amundsen's exploit and Franklin's
disaster. The way which Franklin all but found was not
only a possible way but was probably the only way to the
west; for Hecla and Fury Strait, and the straits between
Melville and Banks Island, between the latter and Prince
Albert-and- Victoria Island, and between the latter and
Prince of Wales Island, are so far as is known always as
impassable as Parry, McCliire, and Collinson found them.
Tins search It is sometimes asked why the archipelago of islands to the
^northern ^^o^^h of continental Canada are considered part of Canada.
archipelago The answer is that the differences between straits and isthmuses
Canada. ^^^ between islands like Southampton, King William and
North Somerset Islands, and peninsulas like Melville and
Boothia Peninsulas, are infinitesimally small, that the last
crowning discovery which was made on the northern coast
was the discovery that what was thought a promontory was
really an island, and that the discoveries of these tiny differ-
ences cost the greatest amount of suffering and deaths.
Even now maps are not agreed as to whether Cockurn Land
is an island or a part of Baffin Land. INIen sailed or walked
THE FAR NORTH-LAND AND ITS HEROES 27
round every foot of every island coast — except some northern
islands recently discovered by Otto Sverdrup (1898- 190 2),
except too the greater part of Grant Land, and except a
small strip of Victoria Land on the west coast of McClintock
Channel, which was examined by Amundsen — before the real
continental coast was ascertained, and in order that it might be
ascertained. The very names of places denote that the island
search and continental search were inextricably interwoven ;
names of landsmen like Garry, and of naval officials like
Barrow, recur on both the insular and continental shores,
and Beechey's name is found inland and on every coast.
History decided that there should and could be only one
search and one discovery, of which the search and discovery
of the archipelago was an inseparable part. The very herbs
and animals proclaimed the unity of the islands and the
continent. The moss, iripe de roche, and ground willow on
which reindeer, musk-ox, lemmings and hares feed ; the
lemmings on which white bear cubs feed ; the white bear
cubs, musk-ox, and reindeer on which the wolves feed ; the
hares on which the ermines and foxes feed; the purple
saxifrage which allures the ptarmigan, which allures the owls
and ravens; the seals which allure the white bears and
Eskimos, thrive, and the feeders thrive, in winter as well as in
summer, on the islands as well as on the mainland. But the
principal tie is the human interest of the tragedy associated
with Sir John Franklin, who explored on foot, in boats, and in
ships of the Royal Navy, the continental barrens and shores
and the islands and their shores, and perished in the fulfil-
ment of a mission which equally concerned the waterways
amid the northern islands and the delineation of the northern
frontier of the American continent. The Dominion Govern-
ment sends a steamer from time to time to control or save
the whalers of Lancaster Sound and Barrow Strait ; and
Herschel Island, a little west of the mouth of the Mackenzie,
is a rendezvous of American whalers from Bering Strait and
28 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF CANADA
of representatives of the North- West Mounted Police, who
also frequent the islands of Hudson Bay ; otherwise these
arctic islands and this arctic coast have once more resumed
their primeval desolation ; nor are they destined to become
the theatre of history or the home of any one white man, and
the only history of which they are or will be the theatre is
contained in catalogues of names of kings, queens, princes,
admirals, officials, men of commerce and explorers of a by-
gone age, names which mark their dates and illustrate their
characteristic features in a way which resembles the mute
records of the past furnished by geology. But the re-
semblance is not complete ; for the names which are written
on these shores are human names, and names which speak
from spirit to spirit and eloquently perpetuate no mere
succession of events, but an heroic tragedy in which Intrepid
and Resolute Investigators pursued Discovery through regions
of Sunshme, but also of Erebus and Terror and Fury, until
their Enterprise and Resolution were rewarded with Victory.
As to the general Geography of Canada, S. E. Dawson, Canada ami
Newfoundland (1897), in Stanford's Compendium of Geography and
Travely is the leading authority.
As to this chapter: besides references in the notes, the Hakluyt Society's
Publications contain monographs on the Voyages of William Baffin
(1881), William Coats (1852), John Davys (1880), Martin Frobisher
(1867), Luke Fox and Thomas James (1894), Henry Hudson (i860),
which illustrate the first period ; during the second period Sir George
Back, Sir John Franklin, Sir William E. Parry, John Rae, Sir John
Richardson, Sir John Ross, Captain F. W. Beechey, and Thomas Simpson
have been their own historians ; and thirty-two Parliamentary papers
(1847-58), indexed under the title of Arctic Expeditions, deal with
the last Franklin expedition and the Franklin relief expedition. Sir
Richard Collinson, Sir Leopold McClintock, Sir Robert McClure,
Sherard Osborn, Peter C. Sutherland, Robert MacCormick, Robert
Goodsir, Alexander Armstrong, and others, have also published their own
experiences. There are English translations of the Voyages of Roald
Amundsen (1908) and Otto Sverdrup (1904) to which reference has
been made.
CHAPTER II
THE FAR EAST
Nova Scotia, the two Islands and their People
We must now leave the Arctic solitudes for the hum of the The four
market-place. Three thousand miles south-east of Herschel Pr^/nces
Island and two thousand miles south of Lancaster Sound are
the Maritime Provinces.
The four Maritime Provinces, all or some of which the <^>'^ Aca-
French called Acadia, are the eastern vestibule of Canada. ^^*
Three of the Maritime Provinces, Cape Breton Island, Nova
Scotia, and New Brunswick, occupy the curving coast along the
south shore of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and the west shore
of the Atlantic Ocean ; and the fourth, Prince Edward Island,
is an island in the Gulf, shaped like a new moon and mimick-
ing the Gulf shores off which it lies. From 1763 to 1767 all
four, from 1767 to 1784 the first three, from 1820 until now
the first two provinces, constituted the Province of Nova
Scotia ; but in the following pages Nova Scotia will be used
not in its political but in its geographical sense, which is
also the political sense which it bore between 1784 and 1820
when the Province was the Peninsula of that name.
These four provinces lie east of the mountain range (if it
may be so called) which throws off a succession of ridges
between Central Alabama and the Shickshock mountains in
the Peninsula of Gasp^, and is sometimes called the Appala-
chian range ; and therefore they resemble New England and
are unlike Canada proper in contour and character.
East of a bent line drawn from Digby (Nova Scotia) to Their Geo-
Cape Canso (N. S.) and thence to Cape Breton are ^chtd^'coal
Cambrian or pre-Cambrian slates, into which granite from strata;
32 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF CANADA
time to time intrudes. The country is rough, stony, irregular,
and dull of hue. It is unfertile, but has gold. Behind, from
Digby to Truro (Nova Scotia) and thence to Chignecto
isthmus (New Brunswick) on the left, and to the Bras D'Or
and Sydney on the right, are later rocks of Silurian, Devonian,
Carboniferous, Permian, and Triassic age ; and the rose-red
sandstones of Windsor (Nova Scotia), of the Bras d'Or
(Cape Breton Island), and elsewhere, are usually Triassic like
those at Dawlish, and the lily-white gypsum hard by is
usually Carboniferous. The series is much the same as in
Europe, but Triassic is the last and latest of the series in
Nova Scotia, so that the newest rocks are brightest.
ami their From Digby to Wolfville what seems like a straight and
gfography ^arrow valley ninety miles long lies between two straight
cotnposite ridges, but this is both more and less than truth. The north
valleys, ii^gQ is a real ridge and is longer than it seems ; for it begins
west of Digby, where the sea cuts through it, then continues
as ' North Mountain ', which is sandstone with a trap-cap, to
Cape Blomidon beyond Wolfville, where the sea again cuts
through it; and then it continues as the Cobequid range,
which is mainly Carboniferous, and extends behind Truro
from the Permian flats of Chignecto Isthmus on the west to
the Gut of Canso on the east. The seeming south ridge is
merely the fringe of the Cambrian highlands ; the seeming
valley between the ridges is a composite valley carved out by
two rivers rising in a low-lying bog, within a few paces of one
another by the roadside,^ running in opposite directions and
named the AnnapoHs and Cornwallis ; and the valley after
passing Wolfville opens out into the Basin of Mines and its
shores, until Truro and the hills behind Truro bring it to an
end some sixty or seventy miles beyond Wolfville.
red rivers, All the chief rivers of the seeming valley, and of the Basin
^marshes, ^^ Mines and of south Chignecto, are lazy, dirty, and red
with slime and ooze, and as unlike the rivers of Quebec and
^ Lieutenant Coke, Subaltern's Furlough, p. 395.
THE FAR EAST 33
Ontario as it is possible for rivers to be; but the mud which
they carry out to sea is returned by the tide with interest in
the form of salt, sand, trap, gypsum, lime, and many other
fertihzers. Moreover, the tides exceed even those of Ungava
Bay, and are probably the highest in the world.
Access to the sea from Annapolis, Wolfville, and Truro is
by narrow slits ; Chignecto also communicates with the same
sea by narrow slits ; and the sea is not the open sea, but the
funnel-shaped Bay of Fundy. Therefore flowing tides sixty
feet high wash these shores, and ebbing tides scoop out
drains and pile up dams. The land which is washed — or
but for the dams and drains would be washed — by the tide
is salt-marsh, and is extraordinarily fertile, especially when
man adds his puny dams and drains to those which Nature
has made.
Because the series of rocks from slates to New-Red Sand- and coal,
stones is much the same in the West of England and the
eastern Provinces of Canada, coal may exist west of Mird
Bay (Cape Breton Island) but not east of it; at Sydney
(C. B. I.), but not at Louisbourg. Again, the coast north
of St. Anne's Bay (C. B, I.) is one of the few purely
Archaean areas east of the Appalachians ; therefore coal may
be expected at New Campbellton (C. B. I.) and Broad
Cove (C, B. I.) or to their south, but not in the Archaean
area to their north. So, too, in Nova Scotia, Pictou, the
Cobequids and Chignecto are rich in coal, but the Atlantic
coast is too old for coal. In New Brunswick the coal area
is vast, and yet hardly any coal is obtained.
New Brunswick has three belts — a Cambrian or older belt New
from Shepody, where the salt marshes end, to Passama- ^^^'^^^^^^
quoddy Bay, a granite belt thence to Bay Chaleurs, near Edward
Bathurst, and an Appalachian belt along the north border f^f/^^^^j^^^,,
of the province ; and these three belts form a Z, between whatdiffer-
whose upper and middle lines are Silurian and granite high- ^'^^*
lands 800 to 2,600 feet high, and between whose lower and
VOL. V. FT. Ill D
34 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF CANADA
middle lines is a fertile Carboniferous plain 200 to 500 feet
high, cleft by river valleys and ravines, but otherwise level
and free from stone. These geological divisions are very
visible even to a railway traveller. The change from stone-
less levels to rough granite country at Petit Rocher station
near Bathurst is almost dramatic; Moncton is obviously
within the zone of salt marshes; the ninety-mile journey
thence to St. John— along two straight valleys lying back
to back, and separated by a watershed 160 feet high — is
obviously within the Carboniferous zone, and St. John
railway-station is in a cleft between unmistakable Cambrian
or pre-Cambrian slate rocks and limestone rocks almost as
old. The Carboniferous area is large and flat ; therefore its
coal is hard to seek and far to find, and New Brunswick
hardly yields any coal. Nor does Prince Edward Island,
which is an extension of the low-lying Carboniferous, Permian,
and Triassic mainland, and is never 500 feet high. But
then the Island — which Cobbett described as ' a rascally heap
of sand, rock, and swamp ', and a * lump of worthlessness '
which 'bears nothing but potatoes' — has loamy stoneless
soil, grows corn, is fertile from end to end, and is known as
the granary and garden of the Gulf, so that it need not seek
wealth below the surface.
The little- Each of the four Maritime Provinces is small : the smallest
These^Pro- ^^ ^^^^"^ ^^^ ^^^ largest is emptiest : and the size of the three
vinces, large provinces increases as we approach Canada proper.
1 90 1 Prince Edward Island
„ Cape Breton Island
„ Nova Scotia
„ New Brunswick
^'S' ^f Prince Edward Island is a miniature, and the very form
^Breton Is- ^^ ^^P^ Breton Island conveys a sense of littleness. Two
/and, thin sea-arms passing on the east and west of Boularderie
Island (C. B. I.), and known as the Little and Great Bras D'Or,
lead to an inland sea, as long as Windermere, then to a Strait
S^. mites
Population
2,184
103,259
3,975
97,605
i7»453
361,969
27.985
33iji2o
THE FAR EAST 35
spanned by a railway bridge, then to a second inland sea as
long as Lake Constance, and lastly to St. Peter*s Isthmus,
which is half a mile across. These two seas though salt are still
and small, like lakes, and are known as the Little and Great Bras
D'Or Lakes respectively. The island is hollow within, and a
canal through the isthmus of St. Peter divides its attenuated
body into two halves. Elsewhere waterways which lie back to
back, and are separated by low watersheds, almost cut it into
long low-ridged slices, resembling Boularderie Island in
shape ; for instance, between Sydney Harbour and East Bay,
between Mire Bay and Fourche, and at Lake Ainslie. The
country is hilly but low, like Prince Edward Island, except
near its northern apex, where the hills are 1,392 feet high.
Thence, too, all down the peninsula is a range with hills,
glens, burns, and lochs as pretty as in Wales ; but the ridge
vanishes and is replaced by dull tame flats at a village a few
miles north of Port Hood. This prosy village, which dispels
every vestige of romance, is named Glencoe.
The Gut of Canso, which divides Cape Breton Island from of Nova
Nova Scotia, is often only a mile wide, and looks like a river -S*^^^^^*
or ice-cut ravine rather than sea, and trains cross it on steam
ferries as though it did not exist. The very sea is small,
and the land of Nova Scotia is low and narrow for its length.
Though hilly, its hills are less than those of Cape Breton
Island ; at its thickest it is 70 miles across, and at its thinnest
30 miles across between Bay and Ocean (at St. Margaret's) ;
and it is 15 miles across between Bay and Gulf at Chignecto.
New Brunswick takes us amongst the mountains in its far
north, and it has one river, the St. John, which is 450 miles
long, tidal for 90 miles, and navigable by ocean steamers to
Fredericton, 84 miles up-stream, or by river steamers to the
Grand Falls, 220 miles up-stream: but for which, like its
sister provinces, New Brunswick lacks height, length, and
width. On the other hand, the prevailing littleness of the ^^^^^^.^^^
Maritime provinces is veiled by the vast American forest, with their
D 2
3^
HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF CANADA
historic im-
portance.
Acadians
were from
France^
not fr 07)1
the Seiney
as were the
Canadians^
which clothes them throughout — except in very stony or very
marshy places — with a coat of many colours; and their
human geography is instinct with interest, variety, and some-
times tragic depths, presenting as it does a moving picture of
great political Powers, and of still greater social forces, com-
bining, dividing, and recombining, filling, emptying, and re-
filling large tracts, and of Acadians, New Englanders, Germans,
British Americans, Ulstermen, Yorkshiremen, Highlanders,
Lowlanders, Irishmen, and Englishmen supplanting or sup-
plementing one another, and the writer who describes it
inevitably lapses into narrative.
Nova Scotia, which is the central object in the narrative,
was once possessed — and parts of it are still possessed — by
the Acadians, who, like the French Canadians, came from the
apple-growing, cider-drinking districts of France, but were
unlike, and were not of the same stock as the French
Canadians, who came from a dififerent part of France, at a
time when France was not yet one. In the sixteenth century
the secular rivalries of Brittany and Normandy were not dead,
and the Guises poisoned the Seine from end to end with
Roman Catholic intolerance, making Picardy, Paris, Perche,
and Rouen strongholds of their League ; while Tours, on the
Middle Loire, was Henry IV's capital in his heretical days,
and Brittany at the mouth of the Loire, and La Rochelle
a little further south, maintained their hostility to Parisian
centralization and orthodoxy long after Henry IV had bridged
over the gulf between the two religious parties, and built his
canal between the Loire and the Seine. Old Canada was
colonized in three movements. Between 1608 and 1645
immigrants into Quebec from the Seine outnumbered im-
migrants from the Loire and its neighbourhood by five to
one, and all but all the latter came in the last decade ^ ; then
things changed, and a second tidal wave brought two im-
* Benj. Suite, in Transactions of the Royal Society of Canada ^ 1905*
vol. xi, Part 3, p. 99.
THE FAR EAST 37
migrants from the Seine for every three from the Loire and its
neighbourhood, but almost all the latter came without women
and in 1662-3, which was too late to change the type which
was already set. During the third and last movement (1667-
72) there was a large inflow of women, and all those who
came from country districts and went into country districts
were from Normandy. The Seine, so to speak, flowed into
the St. Lawrence and coloured it.
While French Canada was being peopled from the Seine, but from
Acadia was being peopled from the Lower Loire, or the nlarTt^^^
country of dyked salt marsh and lagoon (or barachois) which
lies between the mouth of the Loire and La Rochelle, and
which afterwards became famous in history as La Vendue.
De Monts, one of the fathers of the Acadian race, was from
Saintonge near La Rochelle, and Pontgravd was Breton;
De Monts's, Pontgravd's, and Poutrincourt's immigrants into
Acadia were mustered and embarked at La Rochelle;^ and they
were the first body of men and women who went to the west
to stay. Nicolas Denys of Tours and his brother De Vitr^,
his Breton partner, and Isaac de Razilly of Touraine, chose
and led out to Acadia the emigrants of 1632, who and whose
issue ' were ', according to most historians, ^ the Acadian race.'
The lesser lights included Le Borgne, Lord of Belle Isle,
who financed D'Aulnay and La Tour,^ and Guilbaut of La
Rochelle, who defended La Heve with his henchmen (1658).
True, La Tour was from east France, but he was Protestant,
and his followers, who were referred to as 'Swiss', * Pro-
testant/ and rebel Rochellais, left no mark upon this country
of Roman Catholic devotees. The colonizing Acadians were
essentially from the middle west of France, and were often
almost at war with the immigrants from elsewhere, such as
De Saussaye and his men, who sailed from the Seine;
Savalet, who was Basque ; and Rossignol and Doublet, who
were Normans. The Acadians still say ' molue ' for ' morue '
^ Lescarbot, Livre iv, ch. ix. ^ jsf^va Scotia A^xhives (1900), pp. 94-5.
38 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF CANADA
as Denys did.^ Although our historical evidence is incom-
plete and our philological evidence is scanty, yet, so far as
they go, both point to the Lower Loire, La Rochelle, and the
country between them as the cradle of the Acadian race. If so,
the home which was chosen, or which they chose for themselves,
in the new world contained vivid reflections of their old homes
across the sea. This choice was partly dictated by conscious
high policy common to all France, and was partly due to the
childish memories and ingrained habits of those for whom
and through whom the choice was made.
The French French naval experts invariably preferred the harbour with
were La ^^ narrowest entrance, across whose mouth they could stretch
Htoe and a chain in time of war in order to save the ships that were
whose har- within. This was why they chose as their Atlantic capitals
hours had Placentia (Newfoundland) (1663-17 1 3), Louisbourg (Cape
mouths Breton Island) (1713-63), and La Heve (Nova Scotia) (1632),
and nearly chose St. Anne (C. B. I.) (17 13), all of which
have mouths less than half a mile wide. De Brouillan saw
Halifax Harbour (Chebucto) and said that it was splendid,
but too wide for defence ^ In Digby Gut, on the Bay of
Fundy, there was an entrance which was also half a mile
wide into the estuary of the Annapolis, and accordingly
Annapolis only ranked second to La H6ve in French eyes as
a colonial site. Conversely, British experts praised Annapolis
harbour, but blamed its narrow exit ^ ; rejected Louisbourg,
though ice-free, after careful thought, and La H6ve without
a thought, and chose wide-mouthed Sydney (C. B. L), and
Halifax (N. Sc), and were almost persuaded to choose Shel-
burne (N. Sc.) as their Atlantic capitals. British admirals
wrote of exits as though harbour mouths were meant to be
opened, French admirals of entrances as though harbour
mouths were meant to be shut ; for on sea the British were
^ Abb^ Casgrain, in Transactions of the Royal Society of Canada^
1887, vol. V.
* B. Murdoch, vol. i, p. 247. ^ e.g[. Colonel Morse.
THE FAR EAST 39
all for attack, and the French all for defence, or even escape.
And there were other advantages in Annapolis and La Heve. (^nd be-
Indians came down Allen's River bringing fur to Annapolis ^^^^^y %^^^
from the interior ; or passed up Allen's River, over a portage rotites,
and down the Mersey to Liverpool on the Atlantic in four
days ; ^ this last route being the straightest river route between
the Bay of Fundy and the Atlantic in Nova Scotia. The La
H6ve River is the largest river on the Atlantic coast of Nova
Scotia, and Indians paddled up it or its branches either to-
wards the Allen and Annapolis as already described, or towards
the Nictaux and Middleton in the Annapolis Valley, or towards
the Gaspereau, and so to Mines on the Basin of Mines.
Therefore the French Forts at La Heve and Annapolis be-
came Indian markets. Moreover, both the La H6ve and
Annapolis Rivers were navigable to sea-going ships, Bridge-
town being the head of navigation of the Annapolis and
Bridge water of the La Heve ; although Acadian civilization
barely reached Bridgetown and never reached Bridgewater,
and the timber of the La H6ve deterred more than it attracted
men who, unlike the French- Canadians, were loath to wield
the axe or range the forest.
On the other hand. La H6ve was in the middle of 2,xi fisheries
Adantic cod-fishery, which was carried on by Frenchmen ^""/^"
at Liverpool Bay (Rossignol), Tusket Island, Yarmouth
(Fourchde), and perhaps at Lunenburg (Malagash) before
1632. The cod-fishery was spontaneous, and long after La
H6ve was abandoned, sporadic temporary French fishing
settlements appeared from time to time at Cape Negro (1671),
Halifax Bay (1699 and before 1749), La H6ve, Shelburne
(1705), Pubnico (1740)^ and Lunenburg (before I749)^ and
more permanent settlements at Cape Sable and Yarmouth
(1736, 1740). Yarmouth, however, possessed more potent at-
tractions for the Acadian imagination than cod-fish in its great
* Colonel Morse in Brymner^ 1884, pf>. xxvii, xxxvii.
2 Nova Scotia Archives (1900), p. 244. ^ Ibid. (1869), P- 5^^^*
40 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF CANADA
Cheboggin salt-marsh. But the salt-marshes of the Lower
Annapolis excelled those of Yarmouth. Salt-marshes, being
without forest or stone, easily dyked, and when dyked very
fertile, like those of La Vendue to-day, fascinated the Acadian
mind with hopes of wealth and memories of home. The
herring {gaspereau) and mackerel fisheries of Annapolis were
to the cod-fisheries of La Heve and its sister ports as the
Bay of Fundy is to the Atlantic, but agriculture and dim
recollections of the marsh-lands from which they came lured
the Acadians once from St. Croix Island (1604-5), ^^^ oi^ce
from La H6ve (1632-5), and made them cleave to Annapolis
with the force of a natural instinct. Annapolis became the
capital (i 635-1 749), an honour for which nature scarcely
fitted it. Colonel Mascarene described the fort (1720) as on
a promontory flanked by Allen's River on its left, and facing
the Annapolis River, which ran on its north. There were two
towns, one of docks and wharfs on the Annapolis underneath
the fort, and the other straggling for a mile and a half along
Allen's River. The dykes were out of repair and the banks
overflown.^ But for the dykes the description reads like a
' parody of Quebec : a parody, for the fort was only forty feet or
so above river-level, there were no rocks, and the Annapolis
was as different from the St. Lawrence as a mud-pond from
an Italian lake. In 1755 houses lined each bank of the
Annapolis, from Goat Island, some nine miles below, to
Bridgetown, some fifteen miles above Annapolis, as though
the river were a street.^ Even so Arthur Young compared
the banks of the Loire near its mouth to 'one continuous
village * for thirty miles.
The Mines From Annapolis the Acadians advanced to the salt-marsh
werTmade between the Cornwallis and Gaspereau rivers, seventy miles to
because of the east, and dwelt at Grand Pr^, on its very edge, and under
marshes — "^^ "P^^ — ^^^ foothills which half surround it. Salt-
^ Nova Scotia Archives (1869), pp. 43-5.
2 Nova Scotia Hist. Soc^ vol, ii, p. 158.
THE FAR EAST 41
marshes also lined the Cornwallis for a few miles, up to
Kentville or thereabouts, and encircled the mouths of the
little rivers, Habitants, Canard, and Pereau, themselves a few
miles north of the Cornwallis; and around each marsh as
close as close could be the Acadians hovered like fireflies.
Fourteen miles south-east of Grand Pr^, Windsor (Pisiquid)
lay between the Avon and St. Croix rivers, along which
were easy water-routes to the Atlantic at Chester Bay and
St. Margaret's Bay respectively, and near whose mouths were
the usual dyked salt-marshes and the usual settlers. All
these settlements from the Pereau to Windsor were called
the Mines settlements because they fronted the Basin of
Mines. They were separated from the settlements on the
Annapolis, and although De Brouillan in 1701 ordered the
inhabitants of Mines to make a road to Annapolis, and some
sort of road was used by English soldiers in 1746-7, the road
was deemed 'almost impracticable' for the Acadian cattle
and families in 1755.^ Clearly the Acadian god was only
god of the marshlands. Mines, said Colonel Mascarene,
might easily be made ' the granary, not only of this province
but of the neighbouring governments' (1720); long before
1746 the men of Mines had two far-off markets for their
corn, Boston and Quebec; and the Quebec market and
other magnetic attractions drew them eastward and northward.
Truro (Cobequid), which is nearly sixty miles north-east of
Windsor, was made a seignory in 1689, and was peopled
by Acadians from Mines during the first war between
France and England (1689-17 13); and in 1748 the Acadians
spread from Truro along a tract of sea-coast north of
Cobequid Bay as far as Economy, and south of Cobequid Bay
as far as the Shubenacadie River, with detached posts west
of the Shubenacadie at Walton and Noel, and one inland
settlement at the confluence of the Stewiacke and Shubena-
^ Judge Morris, ' Remarks concerning the removal of the Acadians in
1755,' Nova Scotia Hist, Soc, vol. ii, p. 158 (1881).
42 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF CANADA
cadie fourteen miles from the coast. That is to say, they
leapt from Windsor to Truro, and then stretched back towards
Windsor as far as 64^ west longitude. Their inland settle-
ment was on the broad easy waterway which leads over a one-
hundred foot watershed from Truro to Dartmouth in Halifax
Harbour, some sixty miles away ; but as yet no one except '
Indians had any occasion to use the waterway, because no one
before 1746 wanted to visit the neighbourhood of Halifax.
Before that date the mouth of the Shubenacadie was only
valuable as the end of an avenue of Indian fur-trade.
so, iooy the More than seventy miles away from Truro, on the other
^atchi^-^^ side of the Cobequid range of hills, which are here 600 or 700
necto and feet high, were the famous salt-marshes of Chignecto Isthmus
Shepody. ^y];^i(^}^ Biencourt and Biard admired in 161 2. Chignecto was
reached from Mines as easily as it was from Truro by cross-
ing to what is now Parrsboro Harbour, and by using the
Hebert or Maccan Rivers, which rise at a short distance from
Parrsboro ; consequently a double stream of Acadians, both
from Mines and from Truro, poured into Chignecto, after
Chignecto (1676) and Truro (1689) became seignories, and
even overflowed into the marsh-lands of Shepody (New
Brunswick) at the mouths of the Petitcodiac and Memramcook
(1698). War turned the Acadian tide thither: in the first
great war the Acadian settlements of Chignecto were twice
sacked by Colonel Church (1696, 1704); and in the second
great war (1744-63), Beaus^jour (Fort Cumberland) con-
fronted Fort Lawrence (Beaubassin), and the dirty little
Missiguash River, which ran — or rather crawled — between
them, became the theatre of one of the decisive battles
of North America (1755). For the French identified the
Acadia, which the treaty of 1 713 ceded to England, with Nova
Scotia, and still claimed as their own the mainland west of
the Missiguash which is now called New Brunswick. The
modern distinction between Nova Scotia and New Brunswick
is derived from this claim which was itself derived from La
THE FAR EAST 43
Tour's claims and had nothing to do with geography, for one
indivisible marsh lay on either side of the impalpable frontier-
line of which the Missiguash was the outward and visible sign.
New Brunswick, which now intrudes into our narrative, St, John
first figures in history tis the transitory scene of the short- ^^-^ chosen
lived settlement on St. Croix Island in Passamaquoddy Bay itsnarroiv
(1604-5), but only became a permanent separate entity when j^^^^^^^^^
La Tour built Fort Latour (New Brunswick), a few yards long^-iver
north of the present railway station of St. John (1635), and ^^^^^'
quarrelled with the Governor of Annapolis. The attraction
of the site was threefold. First, there were the usual dykable
salt-marshes down west towards Musquash Harbour;
secondly, the fur-trade came down to the River St. John
from the recesses of Maine (United States) and the neighbour-
hood of the River St. Lawrence ; and thirdly, between what
is now the Upper Town (Indian Town) and Lower Town the
river contracts from a width of a mile or more to a width of
four hundred and fifty yards, and forms reversible falls,
which fall up-stream when the tide is high and down-stream
when the tide is low, and are navigable at middle tide, and
which are not unlike those of the ^ Lac de Grand Lieu ' near
the mouth of the Loire. The river above the falls seemed
an ideal place of refuge, and was used as such by Villebon
when driven from Annapolis (1690), by the Acadians (1755),
and even by Latour during his strife with Annapolis.
It was in order to allay this strife that the King of France New
assigned the American coast, beginning from the middle of J^^^l^^^t
Chignecto Isthmus to La Tour, and the rest of Acadia as far rated from
as Cape Canso, to his rival of Annapolis (1638) \ '^^ Scot%for
modern phrase, one took New Brunswick and the other Nova political
Scotia. But the New Brunswick of 1638, besides being ^^"^^^''^^
indefinite towards the west, contained an odd omission, and
the Nova Scotia of 1638 contained an odd restriction.
How, it might be asked, were the eastern coast-lands of New
^ B. Murdoch, vol. i, p. 93.
44 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF CANADA
Brunswick to be disposed of? Why was the sway of
Annapolis to go as far as and no further than Cape Canso ?
and both In order to understand the New Brunswick and Nova
from the Scotia of those days the scenes must once more be
andislands shifted and a new scene disclosed. In 1653-4 a third some-
whichwere thing, which was neither New Brunswick nor Nova Scotia
given to °'
Denys. but partook of both, was bestowed on Nicolas Denys of
Tours. This new dominion extended along the Canso Gut
and the coast of the Gulf of St. Lawrence from Cape Canso
to Cape Gasp^ (Rosiers) ; Newfoundland, Cape Breton Island,
Prince Edward Island, and the other islands of the Gulf
being thrown in as make-weights ^ In a certain sense this
sandwiched colony was well-conceived. Cape Canso was
separated by two hundred miles of coast from the nearest
Acadian settlements on the Atlantic, was inaccessible from
land, and was a French fishing resort long before Denys was
born and long after he died ^. Thus Bergier of La Rochelle
succeeded Denys as guardian of Canso (1682), and a French
fort there was raided by Englishmen (1690), and an English
fort there was raided by Frenchmen (1744). It was the head-
quarters of a great cod-fishery, which was French until 17 13,
and then English, or rather New English. The post was
critical and isolated. Again, the slender isthmus of
St. Peter's separates the Gut of Canso from the Bras D'Or
Lakes, over whose placid waters the Indians brought their
furs, and St. Peter's was easily converted into and soon became
an Indian market and mission centre for the whole island. It
was clear that Canso on one side of the entrance to the
Gut, and St. Peter's on the other side, must belong to
the same rulers. The Gut itself is only as wide as the
St. Lawrence at Quebec or Montreal, so that its two sides
* Nicolas Denys, Description of . , . North America^ 1672, ed. by
W. F. Ganong (1908), pp. 57-67.
'^ e.g. of Savalet; Lescarbot, Hist, de la Nouvelle France, ed, 1866,
Livre iv, ch. ii ; Voyages of Samuel de Champlain (1604-16), ed. by
E. G. Bourne, 1906, vol. i, p. 133.
THE FAR EAST 45
were and are indivisible; and as yet the Gulf Coast was
a series of ports unconnected with one another except by
water. Denys's posts were established from time to time
at Guysborough (Chedabucto, Nova Scotia), where he
quarrelled with a Sherbrook squatter (1667), at St. Peter's
Isthmus (Cape Breton Island), across which he built the first
road in the Maritime Provinces (1650, &c.), at St. Anne's
(C. B. I.), where his brother grew wheat (1653), at Miramichi
(New Brunswick) (1647), and at Nipisiguit (N. Br.) (1669).
At his death the long line was already torn into shreds, two
of which, at Miramichi and the mouth of the Restigouche in
Bay Chaleurs, fell to the lot of his short-lived son Richard
(1689). Nicolas Denys and his son made something of
their scattered coast-lines and introduced colonists, and
dreamed dreams of a new dominion which should link
Acadia with Canada. Nor did these dreams die with them,
for they were based on nature and fact. But there were
two weak points. How could the Bay side of the Isthmus
of Chignecto belong to one authority and the Gulf side
fifteen miles away to another.? When Denys's son-in-law
became first Seigneur of Chignecto (1676) this weak point
was probed. Secondly, there was no capital. The founda-
tion of Louisbourg on the Atlantic coast of Cape Breton
Island remedied the latter defect, but aggravated and accentu-
ated the former defect.
Louisbourg, or Havre k I'Anglais, is a harbour on the Louis-
Adantic coast of Cape Breton Island, and in 1597 French J|^f^'
Basques went there to fish, and men of Olonne in La Vendue capital, re-
wintered there in order to fish on the Grand Banks of New- ^^^^^^
foundland. ^ To-day there are two conspicuous objects in dominion
Louisbourg Harbour : one, the old ruined fort, coiled like
a green dragon upon a low grassy slope ; the other, a brand-
new elevated pier for loading ships with Sydney coal in
winter, for Louisbourg Harbour is ice-free when Sydney
^ Denys, op. cit., ed. Ganong, p. 181.
46 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF CANADA
Harbour is ice-bound. Beneath both pier and fort fisher-folk
may be seen drying cod on flakes in the same fashion as
they still do at outports in Newfoundland and did at Louis-
bourg in 1597. The land near the French fort is low, and
the principal French village was placed on a gradual slope,
down which marshes trickle lazily into a salt lagoon which
is now but was not then connected with the sea.^ Doubt-
less the marshes were just sufficient to keep the ground
clear of timber, and the lagoon suggested reminiscences
of a better lagoon at Placentia which was not then but is
now disconnected from the sea. For the colonists came
from Placentia (Newfoundland) and even they must have
been struck by the poverty of Louisbourg when compared
with their old colonial home. When its garrison of 3,000 odd
regulars went and the 30,000,000 livres — which they cost —
was spent, Louisbourg, stripped of its adventitious pomp and
glamour, became what it has been ever since, a fishing-
village, only a little less wretched than Baleine (which Lord
Ochiltree once tried to colonize)^ and its other neighbours
because of its proximity to the Sydney coal-mines. But the
great fort galvanized adjacent French fishing-villages, from
Sydney (Spanish Harbour) to St. Esprit, into life ^ ; a small
fort east of St. Peter's Isthmus induced small settlements
on Isle Madame* and by the Inhabitants River; and
a small fort at St. Anne's served as a base for summer settlers
at Ingonish Bay. Denys's two sub-centres were revived,
and they and the new centre at Louisbourg produced local
effects. But the influence of Louisbourg was more than
local. Three thousand soldiers clamoured for bread and
meat, yet no land was cleared in the vicinity. A few
^ See plan, p. 198 of vol. v, Pt. i, of this Series.
^ 1629.
^ (Sydney) Spanish Harbour, L'Indienne (Lingan.), Morienne (Cow
Bay), Main k Dieu, Scatari, Baleine, Gabarus, Fourch^, St. Esprit.
See T. Pichon's Letters relating to Cape Breton Island^ &c., 1760;
Richard Brown, Hist, of Cape Breton Island (1869), p. 269.
* Arichat (Grand Nerica), Petit De Grat, Descous.
THE FAR EAST 47
imported Germans at Mire Bay, twelve miles north, and
when the St. Peter 's-Louisbourg road, which is still known
as French Road, was built, the inhabitants of St. Peter's, sixty
miles south-west, sent supplies ; but the cry was still for
more. It was heard in far-off Mines, Truro, and Chignecto ;
and a military road from Beausejour to Bale Verte, and
cattle-tracts from Windsor to Truro, and from Truro to
Tatamagouche and Wallace Bay (Remsheg), were con-
structed ^ This was the first northward Acadian trek. The
isthmus was crossed, and the first ports were opened on the
Gulf coast of Nova Scotia in order to send meat and bread to
Louisbourg. At the same time Port Hood (Just-au-Corps)
(Cape Breton Island) was occupied by Acadians in order to
supply it with stone.
It would seem that the ring of settlements from Gaspd to but with
Louisbourg was complete, and that Denys's dominion had ^W^^'^^^^^*
come to life again. But the new Gulf State differed from
the old. The missing capital was found and faced Europe ;
so that it was a link not between Canada and Nova Scotia,
but between Canada and France. Moreover, it tapped Nova
Scotia, and ports were occupied on English as well as on
disputed territory, on the Gulf as well as on the Bay of
Fundy, through which the wealth and manhood of Nova
Scotia began to drain away to a power at war with Nova
Scotia. Or, to change the metaphor, what had been meant
as a clasp was used as a wedge.
Then Louisbourg fell twice (1745, 1758) and Beausejour The Fall
once (1755). When Louisbourg fell first, those French ^^^^^^'^"
colonists of Cape Breton Island who were caught were sent caused an
to France, but the Acadian trek towards the Gulf instead of j^,^^]l^\ji^
being arrested was accelerated. The loss of Louisbourg meant Gulf^
the loss of a market ; and amongst other causes economic
distress drove 2,200 Acadians in 1749 from Chignecto to
^ See e.g. Nova Scotia Archives (1869), p. 152.
48
HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF CANADA
e.g. to
Prince
Edward
Island,
Halifax
Prince Edward Island and Cape Breton Island,^ but chiefly to
Prince Edward Island, at which we must now glance.
Prince Edward Island had been occupied in 1719 by two
Norman families and in 1720 by 135 Frenchmen,^ and in
1745 there were some 800 persons in the Island, some of
them Acadians. In 1751, owing to the inflow of Acadians,
the population probably exceeded 2,000 ^ ; and Acadians were
still swarming in in 1752.^ In 1752 Hillsborough Bay and
River,* Crapaud, Tryon and Traverse rivers, and Bedeque
Bay on the convex side, or the side turned towards New
Brunswick; St. Peters, Savage Harbour, Tracadie, Little
Rustico, and Malpeque (Richmond) Bay on the concave or
Gulf side; and Souris and Fortune rivers, Lescoussier and
Brudnelle (Three Rivers ),^ on the south-east side ; and
a little later, according to Lord Rollo (1758), North Point on
the north-west side of the island had inhabitants : that is to
say, the chief coves on every coast were inhabited, and more
especially Hillsborough Estuary, where Port La Joie was the
nominal capital. Moreover, the only road in the island ran
from the head of Hillsborough Estuary to St. Peter's, and
there were cornfields beside it. The Acadian trek from
Chignecto made the coast line of Prince Edward Island over-
whelmingly Acadian between 1751 and 1755. But the failure
of the Louisbourg market was only temporary, and it was
compensated, though inadequately compensated, by the
creation of a new market at Halifax. Until the expulsion of
the Acadians for political causes, the newly-created capital
produced economic demands which checked the Acadian trek,
and kept the Acadians in their old homes.
Halifax, or the port of Chebucto, on the Atlantic coast of
^ Brymner, 1887, cccxlvi, cccxlviii, ccclvii, ccclviii.
^ sic Anderson ; but see Nova Scotia Archives (1869), p. 48.
^ «V Th. Pichon, tibi supra,
* Port La Joie (Charlotte town),'Pinette River, Pointe Prime, Belfast,
Wild Boar Creek, and Creek Northwest.
* John MacGregor, British America^ 1832, vol. i, p. 290.
THE FAR EAST 49
Nova Scotia, was the British counterblast to Louisbourg. was made
Halifax was built in 1749 : the port is one of the best ports f^£^^f'
in North America ; and the city, like St. John, is a city on
a rock ; indeed, from the east it looks like a rocky island en-
garlanded with houses, except on its bare brow, on which
a fort rests like a crown ; but its rear is really connected by
a rocky ridge with the mainland, nine miles away, at the head
of Bedford Basin. It is distinguished from every other first-
rate Canadian town by the absence of a river, and therefore
of mills, cultivations, and trade routes behind it. It was mid-
way between useful sea and useless land, or would have been
but for two things. In the first place, on the opposite side
of Bedford Basin, one mile away by ferry and twenty-six by
rail, a supplementary town was founded at Dartmouth ; and
the series of lakes which all but connect Dartmouth with the
Shubenacadie and with Truro begin half a mile behind Dart-
mouth. Indeed, the water-trip from Truro to Dartmouth was
so tempting that Indians took it in 1756 and all but wiped out
Dartmouth. In 1826 a Company was formed to convert the
incomplete waterway into a complete canal, but the scheme
failed owing to the shallowness and shiftiness of the Shubena-
cadie. Almost every first-rate Anglo-Canadian town has its
supplementary town, which is usually a vis-h-vis town, and the
reason for the reduplication is sometimes mysterious, but in
this case was too obvious for words. Dartmouth was called
into existence in order to correct the barrenness and isolation
of Halifax.
In the second place, although there was no waterway, there and was
was already a cattle trail to Windsor, which was used in '^']\^'^whidlor
when Due d'Anville sheltered the French fleet in Halifax by a road,
Harbour, and in 1749 when the Acadians drove * one hun-
dred cows and some sheep' to greet Colonel Cornwallis's
colonists. Colonel Cornwallis immediately proceeded to make
the trail into a road, which was continued to Annapolis. In
1784 this road from Halifax to Windsor and Annapolis was
VOL. V. PT. Ill
50
HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF CANADA
and imi*
fied Nova
Scotia,
The 77ew
colonists
comprised
{i) soldiers J
sailors^ &C,
of British
origin :
the only carriage road in Nova Scotia. The road to Windsor
is forty-six miles long, and passes through a sterile region,
which only becomes fertile about nine miles from Windsor.
It was built, with the help of Acadians and soldiers, not along
any valley, nor in order to open up the interior to settlers, but
in order to save Halifax from extinction. When Dartmouth
failed, this road was a matter of life or death to Halifax.
Without it Halifax which grew nothing would have been cut
off from the Acadia where Acadians dwelt and grew every-
thing ; with it Halifax united the Acadians of Acadia with
the English of England, although it was built too late to save
Acadia for the Acadians.
And Halifax was more than a port, a rock of defence, and
a possible inlet of Acadian wealth into England and of
English wealth into Acadia, It was the first city ever built
on the east coast of Nova Scotia, and it was built midway
between Cape Sable and Cape Canso and their respective
cod-fisheries. It brought these two places of resort under
one control for the first time in history. Before then the
Atlantic coast of Nova Scotia was dominated from its two
ends, which never met ; and it almost seemed as though the
Bay of Fundy represented an alien civilization. Halifax tied
these three threads into a single knot. Louisbourg more than
fulfilled, Halifax utterly shattered Denys's dream. Louisbourg
disunited Nova Scotia while uniting Canada to France. The
harmony had in it a discordant note. Halifax united Nova
Scotia with itself and to England, and was a harmony through
and through.
The new colonists who arrived in Halifax (1749-52) were
the first colonists who were not French, but it would be
a mistake to infer that they were all of them from the United
Kingdom. In 1781 the Lords of Trade wrote that *it is not
meant to encourage emigration from these kingdoms *, ' the
population being too much exhausted to admit of sparing
any to populate distant territories.' ^ Such was the settled
* Brymner, 1895, pp. 28, 30.
THE FAR EAST 51
policy of England, but an exception was now made in the
case of (i) disbanded seamen and marines, who were reduced
from 40,000 to 10,000 between 1748 and 1750 ; (2) of dis-
banded soldiers ; (3) and of artificers and the like. Some of
those who were disbanded had doubtless served, or even
enlisted, in North America ; if so, home fares and land
grants were no more than what they expected. Artificers
and soldiers were bracketed together as in French Canada.^
The first consignments of intending settlers consisted of (i)
460 * mariners', ex-marines,^ privateers^ and the like, 73
naval or military officers^ 86 old soldiers, 505 British or
(rarely) foreign artificers and the like, 419 servants, 47 non-
descripts, 509 wives and 444 children, or 2,543 i^ ^'y^ (2)
of about 2,200 German and other foreign Protestants, {2)German
recruited by a Mr. Dick of Rotterdam, and his agent at ^^^"^^^^ .
Frankfort-on-the-Main ; and (3) of New Englanders who /^n ^^^
came from Louisbourg when Louisbourg was restored to Eng-
France (1749).^ The third batch came at their own cost '
and risk ; the first two at the cost of, and with promises of
land and rations from the Government. Those of the first
batch who were from Great Britain had probably melted away
before 1767, because in that year there were said to be only
912 English-born and 173 Scotch-born colonists in the
whole of the Maritime Provinces.^ But this batch included,
as we have said, a few Norsemen, Germans, and Frenchmen
from near Belfort, who were miscalled Swiss, and may have
included an indefinite number of English Americans. The The Ger-
second batch of colonists was all, or almost all, German. ^^^'^^^.
More than half of these Germans went seventy miles west to Lunen-
1 Part I, pp. 80, 10 1.
2 Of Frazer's, Holmes's, Jordan's, Paulett's, &c.
3 Belonging to The Beaufort^ Boym^ Hardwick^ Lightnings Prosperous,
Privateer y Raleigh^ Royal Family ^ Salama^ider^ York, armed vessels, &c.
* Nova Scotia Archives (1869), pp. 506-57.
^ In 1752 of the 4249 colonists in and near Halifax 3594 had British
names. Ibid., pp. 650-670.
6 N(yva Scotia Historical Society , 1891, pp. 45-71.
52 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF CANADA
Lunenburg, where they founded the second Atlantic city of
Nova Scotia, built ships, and planted rye and barley, of which
they raised 13,000 bushels at a time when no other Atlantic
settlement of Nova Scotia except Chester raised 1,000 bushels
of any cereal (1767). Lunenburg is near the La H6ve; and
in 1765 S. Pernette, a British officer of German nationality,
took up land, alongside of other British officers, on the La
Heve below Bridgewater, and he too introduced ' Germans
and others as colonists '. All these Germans struck boldly
inland. The Lunenburgers marched to Mines Basin and
drove back 120 cattle, half of which arrived (1756); thus
creating what was then the second cattle trail from the
Atlantic to the Bay of Fundy. Long afterwards (c. 1805)
the men of La Heve, some of whom were German in origin,
founded New Germany on the La Heve, seventeen miles
north of Bridgewater ; and to-day almost continuous corn-
fields or orchards line the La H6ve below New Germany.
and the Soon after Halifax and Lunenburg were founded 6,000
New Eng' Acadians were wiped clean off the map of Nova Scotia (1755
supplant- et seq.) ; the residue hid, fled, or were absorbed ; and the same
^ngthe besom of destruction swept Prince Edward Island and Cape
Acadzans; ^ ^
Breton Island only a litde less thoroughly. Louisbourg drew
them north; in 1745 when Louisbourg fell their self-inflicted
expatriation began on a considerable scale; ten years later
their expatriation was intended to be universal and com-
pulsory; and ten years later still every nook and cranny
in Nova Scotia where they had ever been was owned
. or filled by New Englanders. Descendants of the Pilgrim
Fathers came from New Plymouth to Yarmouth, Liverpool,
and Barrington (Cape Sable), where one of them had 423
issue (and others in the States) before she died ; Annapolis
and Granville at one end of the row of marsh-lands on the
Bay of Fundy, and Cumberland and Sackville at the other
end, fell chiefly to the lot of Massachusetts; and so did
Manchester township between Guysborough and the Gut of
THE FAR EAST 53
Canso ; men from Connecticut occupied Grand Pr^, Horton,
and Cornwallis; Rhode Islanders, Falmouth and Newport;
and New Hants-men, Noel, Truro, Onslow, and Londonderry.
Windsor also attracted New Englanders, but being vested in
absentee officials at Halifax moved slowly ; and experiments
were played upon several Atlantic ports which failed.
In 1767 — if the census of that year is to be believed —
there were 6,349 British Americans, 2,710 British Europeans,
1,808 Germans, and a few hundred vanishing Acadians in
Nova Scotia. There was a complete transformation. A
dainty piece of old French porcelain was replaced by stout
Boston hardware, and the colony became almost as British
as Massachusetts itself. Except at Halifax and Lunenburg,
there was no geographical novelty, but only a substitution of
new for old faces in old places. Europeans built new seats
for themselves ; but Americans simply sat in the seats of those
who had left. The Americans, however, brought European
Britons in their train.
Throughout the eighteenth century the prohibition of the (4) Ulxf^^^
Irish wool-trade drove Scotch Lowlanders, whom Cromwell ^^'^'^
and William III had planted in Ulster, to Londonderry in
New Hants and to Pennsylvania.^ McNutt, who led the
immigrants from New Hants, was himself a Scotch-Irish-
Pennsylvanian, and many of his immigrants came direct
from old Londonderry and Belfast. They were Presbyterians
to a man, and ministers invariably accompanied Presbyterian
emigrant bodies. Immigration direct from Ulster, or the
Ulster invasion, as it is called, lasted ten years (i 761-71),
and before 1767 had added 2,165 persons to the population.
It was spontaneous, collective, and unassisted, and it was the
prelude to a second spontaneous and collective movement
from the British Isles.
Other Acadian homes were vacant besides those by the (5) High'
^ John Doyle, 77te American colonies tindet the Hotise of Hanover y
p. 392 et seq.
54 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF CANADA
land Ro- marshlands of Nova Scotia^ and in 1767 the whole of Prince
manCatho- Edward Island was allotted to 67 proprietors, chiefly Scotch,*
soldiers, on condition that they should settle foreign European Protest-
&c,who ^j^|.g Qj. jBritish Americans on their land ; a condition which they
supplanted ^ ''
Acadians fulfilled by Stocking the land exclusively with Highlanders, most
in Prince Qf ^hom were Roman Catholic, and with Dumfries men.
Edward
Island; The island was divided into three counties corresponding with
old French divisions, namely. King's (south-east), Queen s and
Prince's County (north-west), each with a coast-line looking
towards Gulf and mainland. The capital of King's was
Georgetown (Three Rivers, 1,123),^ opposite Port Hood
(Cape Breton Island), and Pictou (Nova Scotia) ; the capital
of Queen's was Charlottetown (Port la Joie : pop. 12,080),*
opposite Baie Verte (Nova Scotia); and the capital of
Prince's is now Summerside (Bedeque Harbour : pop. 2,875),*
opposite Shediac Bay (New Brunswick). Nowadays steamers
ply from Port Hood, or Pictou, to Georgetown and Charlotte-
town, and from Shediac Bay to Summerside and Charlottetown ;
or in winter men cross the ice between Baie Verte (Nova
Scotia) and Cape Traverse (Prince Edward Island) and go
overland direct to Charlottetown. The island is like some
fair triptych with three different but related designs — a father,
mother, and son, upon whom three different groups gaze, but
the central is always the ultimate figure upon whom the eyes
of all beholders are directly or indirectly riveted.
The Highland immigrants spread themselves in all three
divisions of the island, but at first only along the Gulf shores,
and before 1773 there were men from Argyle andCantyre at
Richmond Bay, Moray men at Cavendish, Perth men and
others at Cove Head and St. Peter's, Dumfries men at Three
Rivers, and Roman Catholic Highland ex-soldiers at Tracadie.
Long after 1773 the Highlanders followed the Loyalists to
^ Lord Advocate Sir James Montgomery ; Judge Stewart ; various
ofificers of Fraser*s 78th Highland Regiment, &c.
^ Population 1901.
THE FAR EAST 55
the Other side of the island, where Belfast was settled by eight
hundred Highlanders and Islanders under the auspices of
Earl Selkirk (1803), and Woodville was colonized from Colon-
say about the same time.
It was in 1773 that the Highland invasion reached Pictou (6) High-
Bay (Nova Scotia), which the Acadians had never touched, {^^/ f^'^^-
J ^ '' ' by tenancy
but which had been taken up by some enterprising Philadel- &c,, who
phians in 1765 by way of experiment. Three rivers meet in ^(-^'"^^^^^
Pictou Harbour — East, Middle, and West rivers, all of which
flow through fertile uplands, especially West River. In 1767
dense forest spread from the Harbour to the nearest settle-
ment at Truro, fifty miles away, when six families arrived
there in a ship called The Hope from Maryland and Philadel-
phia. Some died, others left, and the hopes of those who
remained grew dim. Suddenly in 1 773 the Hector^ commanded
by Captain Ross and owned or hired by a member of the
Company, deposited thirty families from Loch Broom,
Sutherland, and Inverness, amid the half- starved remnant.
The situation seemed desperate ; but the newcomers with
incredible exertion staved off famine and others joined them,
chiefly Highlanders, but also some Dumfries men from Three
Rivers (Prince Edward Island) (1775) and direct from Dum-
friesshire (1788-9, 1 801, 18 15-17). Pictou soon became
the Paradise of Highlanders who leave this hemisphere ; and
bishops, priests, and ministers who preached in Gaelic urged
them thither. Down to 1 783 the population was Presbyterian,
but without a minister. In 1786 the Rev. James MacGregor
arrived from Scotland; in 1790 the first house in the first
village was built on the west side of Pictou Harbour and the
village was named Pictou; and in 1792 the blazed trail to
Truro became something that could be called a road. The
English and Gaelic sermons and sacred songs of James Mac-
Gregor were the spiritual charm ; European war (1793) ^^^
the lumber trade, which it created, were the material charm
which attracted the Highlanders, who at the dawn of the
56 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF CANADA
where next century had penetrated into and reclaimed the forests at
^'ohtedi^hem ^^ ^^^^ sources of East, Middle, and West rivers.
and zuent Meanwhile some Roman Catholic Highlanders and Island-
^Br^tft^I^' ^^^' some of whom were ex-soldiers of the 82nd Regiment,
land; joined them in 1783 and 1791, and in 1791 some of these
Roman Catholics went further east to Antigonish in
St. George's Bay. Thence, at the instigation of Bishop
McEachran of Prince Edward Island, some went still further
east and crossed to the west coast of Cape Breton Island :
and men from Locha^er, Strathglass, and the Isles soon
began to people the coast, from the Inhabitants River in the
Gut to Judique, Mabou, Port Hood, Broad Cove, and Mar-
garee, from which easy routes led to the Bras d'Or Lakes.
From 1802 to 1828 Highland emigrants went direct to Sydney
and dispersed thence along the Bras d'Or and the east coast,
reaching St. Esprit and the back lands during the twenties.
This movement is said to have added 25,000 Highland or
Island emigrants to the population of Cape Breton Island ;
and to-day Gaelic is the second language of the island. By far
the majority were and are Roman Catholics ; but St. Anne's
(where Denys once was) and Wagamatcook were and are
Presbyterian, and at West Bay and River Inhabitants the
{Scokh im- earliest stratum was Presbyterian. The reader may well
^hemfdue "^^^^^^ ^^ ^^ irony of fate. The State demanded foreign
to economic Protestants and vetoed other Europeans as colonists of Prince
causes,) Edward Island, and by way of response not a single foreigner
came ; but Prince Edward Island, Cape Breton Island, and
a large brand-new district of Nova Scotia, were promptly
covered from end to end by Scotch Roman Catholics and
Protestants from Scotland. Nor did any one note the non
sequitur. State laws were not only ignored, but reversed amid
applause ; and an irresistible economic law drove the High-
landers and a few Lowlanders westward across the Ocean.
Before 1745 the Highlands were the home of the Mclvors
and their idle retinue, whose names scarcely suggest economic
THE FAR EAST 57
associations, but after 1745^ sons of the Highland widow
were drafted into the army, while others of the unemployed
settled down to sheep-farming and soon found that five men
were doing less than the work of one man.'^ Accordingly
disinterested philanthropists and interested graziers sent the
superfluous four to the colonies at their own expense. At
the same time Highland ex-soldiers in colonial wars were
rewarded by land grants in accordance with colonial tradition.
The year when serious sheep-farming began to penetrate and
deplete the Highlands is usually quoted as 1767 ^ the very
year when Prince Edward Island was sold to Scotch pro-
prietors and the first invitation was issued to the Highlanders
to emigrate.
The Ulster and Highland Scotch invasions were attended (7) y^rk-
with two minor invasions, both of which are associated with ^^Ifhodists
Governor Francklin. From 1772-4 some Yorkshire Metho- <^t Chig-
dists settled in Chignecto Isthmus at Sackville and Amherst, ^
near the old forts, and on the Nappan and Maccan, side by
side with the British Americans — many of whom they sup-
planted during the War of Independence. After 1765 the
whirligig of time changed Great Britain's role from that of
protector of British Americans against French and Canadians
into that of protector of French Canadians against British
Americans, and it seemed inconsistent to bolt and bar the
door any longer against the Acadians, some of whom were
accordingly restored.
In Nova Scotia the restored Acadians were settled (i) on (8) res-
the Clare coast between Weymouth and Yarmouth {^1^^)/^[ans^'^^'
and on Tusket Bay between Yarmouth and Fort Latour, at
Eel Brook, Abuptic, and Pubnico, where La Tour's descen-
dants might still be seen in 1829 and 1908 ; (2) on the dyked
^ One regiment dates from 1 740.
2 e.g. in Rum Island; see Report III on Emigration, 1826-7, <!"•
2907 ; comp. James Anderson, Account of the Hebrides^ '7^5) P* i^^*
^ e. g. by Traill. Comp. Lord Selkirk, Obsef-vations on the Highlands ^
1805, pp. 113, 171.
58 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF CANADA
marshlands of Minudie, close by the Yorkshiremen ; and {3)
at Pomquet Tracadie and Au Bushee, a few miles east of
Antigonish. Here the exiles have clung and thrived.
Frenchmen have also been observed on the Chezzetcook
(Musquodoboit) and at French Village (St. Margaret's Bay),
east and west of Halifax respectively, and at John River
(Tatamagouche Bay) ; but the two last, and probably the
first of these settlements, consisted of some persecuted
Huguenots from the east of France ^, and were therefore not
Acadian.
whom As for Cape Breton Island, in 1764, one hundred and fifty
aUracTcT Frenchmen, or Acadians of Canso, sailed away to St. Pierre
towards and Miquelon (w^hich are the only North American islands
Dominion- belonging to France) ^, and others left from elsewhere in the
neighbourhood for Miquelon, and the Magdalens about the
same time.^ At the very same time some merchants of Jersey
and Guernsey (which are the only French-speaking European
islands belonging to England) set up a large fishery establish-
ment in Isle Madame (1764) and Cheticamp (1770), and pro-
ceeded to set up similar establishments in other French-speak-
ing Gulf ports, namely, Belleisle Strait (on its north). Prince
Edward Island (on its south-east), Miramichi (New Brunswick),
Caraquet (N. B.), and Paspebiac (Gasp^) as though Denys's
mantle had descended upon them. They wished to act as
political peacemakers as well as captains of industry *, and
had acted similarly forty years earlier in what was then the
French-speaking part of Newfoundland. Even to-day their
establishments at Belleisle Strait, Cheticamp, Isle Madame,
and Paspebiac, not to speak of minor establishments else-
where, exercise a political as well as an industrial influence.
Soon afterwards sixty Acadian families were lured back by
^ From near Belfort; see George Patterson, Hist, of Pictou, 1877,
pp. 126-133. John MacGregor, Br. America , vol. ii, p. 127.
^ Nova Scotia Archives (1869), p. 349; Scots Magazine, 1765, p. 661.
3 R. Brown, Hist, of Cape Breton Island (1869), pp. 357, 408.
* B. Murdoch, Hist, of Nova Scotia (1867), vol- ii, p. 436.
THE FAR EAST 59
the music of their native tongue from St. Pierre, Miquelon,
and the Magdalens (i) to Isle Madame and to Grande
Riviere, Ardoise, Tillard, Bourgeois, and False Bay on the
adjacent mainland (1768-93), and (2) to Cheticamp and the
Lower Margaree River, all of which are to-day Acadian or
French settlements; and those who came back in 1793
settled too in (3) the Little Bras d'Or and at Ball's Creek on
Sydney Harbour, where the strip of land between Sydney
Harbour and the Little Bras d'Or is thinnest, and are there
still. A handful of Acadians seem never to have left Port
Hood.
As for Prince Edward Island, in 1773 the refluent Acadian
tide reached (i) its north-west corner near Cape Egmont,
where John MacGregor found in 1832 a centenarian who had
peopled three neighbouring villages with his issue, from which
they soon spread round North Point to Tignish and Holland
(Cascumpec) Bay; (2) Rollo Bay and its neighbourhood at
the other end of the island; and (3) the north-west corner of
Rustico Harbour, on the north ; and the living burden has
remained where it was deposited.
In each of these three provinces — Nova Scotia, Cape
Breton Island, and Prince Edward Island — the Acadians
were redistributed, or redistributed themselves, in three isolated
districts, some of which were very near their old homes.
Hardly had the old exiles returned, when a new wave of (9) Loyal-
exiles surged over the land. The Loyalists were expelled ^^it^ter-
from the United States, not by thousands but by tens of thou- 'vals on
sands. The movement began in 1777 when Boston was *
evacuated, 'took form,' as Sir Guy Carleton wrote, *in 1782,'
and reached its climax in 1784, when 28,347 were 'settling'
— as to 11,047, in New Brunswick ; and as to the rest, 10,995
on the Atlantic coast, 5,481 on the Fundy coast, and 824 on
the Gulf coast of Nova Scotia. The population of Nova
Scotia was more than doubled.
On the Atlantic coast the Loyalists tried to create at Shel-
6o HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF CANADA
burne a new capital which was not wanted, and, if wanted,
would have been in the wrong place. Possibly they argued
that Louisbourg and Halifax were made and did not grow, but
forgot that when Louisbourg and Halifax were made they were
the only Atlantic cities, that they were necessary military and
naval depots and had a political rat'son d'etre. There was no
room for a second Halifax : moreover, Liverpool and Lunen-
burg were already growing into maritime cities ; therefore the
7,923 Loyalists who thought they could found a big town by
building many houses dwindled to 300 in 18 18 and are now
1,500. The city, that was to be, shrivelled into a fishing-village
like Louisbourg. Between Shelburne and Halifax 651 settlers
were dotted here and there amid earlier settlers ; and between
Halifax and Guysborough 604 settlers broke more or less
new ground at Musquodoboit, Jedore, Ship Harbour, Sheet
Harbour, and Country Harbour (Stormont) ; and at the end
of the line — three hundred miles long — Guysborough was
occupied by 1,053 settlers. The extremities of the line were
strongly held, and Halifax was in the middle ; but land links
were wanting, and accordingly roads began to be built from
Guysborough to Halifax,^ and from Halifax to Chester, and
so to Shelburne. The continuity of the Atlantic coast, the
supremacy of Halifax, and the principles of roads with a
political significance, which were asserted for the first time
in 1749, were reasserted in 1784 with redoubled emphasis.
On the north of Nova Scotia, Weymouth, Digby, and
Clementsport ^ (west of Annapolis), and Wilmot and Ayles-
ford (east of Annapolis), were occupied for the first time,
making the line from Mines to Digby complete, and extend-
ing it, with the help of the Acadians of Clare, to Yarmouth,
Barrington, and the Atlantic coast. Similarly Loyalist settle-
ments on the Upper Kennetcook and Nine Mile River joined
on Windsor to Truro ; Parrsboro supplied the missing link
^ Completed shortly after 1800. Haliburton.
"^ Hessians were put here.
THE FAR EAST 6l
between the north coast of Cobequid Bay and the south
coast of Chignecto; and the loyalists of Wallace on Wallace
Bay, and of Arisaig, between Antigonish and Merigomish,
and the disbanded 84th, who ' cleared immense tracts' be-
tween Merigomish and Pictou and * raised large families ', and
proved * the best body of settlers we have eyer had '/ performed
similar yeomen's service on the Gulf shore. In 1788 a few
stragglers were at Baie Verte and Tatamagouche, so that
a girdle now ran round the crooked coast between Windsor,
Truro, Parrsboro, and Sackville; across the isthmus of
Chignecto to Baie Verte ; and between Baie Verte, Pictou,
Antigonish, Pomquet, Manchester, and Guysborough. Nova
Scotia was surrounded by settlers, and the circle was fairly
complete owing to the new lands of the Loyalists.
The Loyalists were also grafted on to old stocks, and even and re-
here set their own original mark. To-day not only is the trough fZj^i^.^^
of the Annapolis and Cornwallis valleys one apple-orchard, but 77iented
most of the uplands and parts of the two ridges, which confine f^^^^^^'
it on the north and south, are cultivated. The Loyalists and
their kinsmen who were already there went from the river-
banks to the wooded slopes and heights ; and at Wilmot ^
crossed the Northern ridge and settled by the sea. At or
near Grand Prd, some left the marshes, and cleared the Gas-
pereau Valley and the uplands between it and the marshes ;
and others clave to the marshes, where they built far better
dykes than their predecessors, and reclaimed Long Island, and
annexed it to and made it a part of Grand Pr^.
No inland settlements were deHberately planted except on and settled
main roads, for instance, at West Chester on the road between ^almgwith
Londonderry and Sackville (c. 1784), at Preston on the Guys- others.
borough Road, at Boydville and Mount Uniacke on the
Windsor Road, at Hammond's Plains on the Chester Road,
and at Dalhousie Settlement (c. 1820) on the straight cross-
1 Jos. Howe, in Report III on Emigration^ 1826-7, Qn. 41 13, &c.
2 Includes Middleton, Lauren cet own, Wilmot, &c.
62 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF CANADA
grained road which Sir John Sherbrook set soldiers to cut
from Halifax through Hammond's Plains to Annapolis.
Mount Uniacke was colonized by Roman Catholic Irishmen,
who came ' by way of Newfoundland ' in order to evade the
Passenger Acts, and were probably the first of their kind
(c. 1 8 19). The Irish Roman Catholics who may be seen
to-day, especially at Dartmouth, came in after this date —
after, that is to say, the seals had been impressed upon the
wax and the wax had hardened. Preston, Boydville, and
Hammond's Plains are each within tw^enty miles of the capital,
and were assigned to bodies of negroes, who, after six or seven
years' trial, were sent away to warmer places ; and Dalhousie
Settlement was composed of disbanded soldiers who were
rationed from Annapolis, and was one of the last of its kind
in the Maritime Provinces. The inhabitants of Liverpool
proved bold inland pioneers, like their neighbours of Lunen-
burg, and pushed northward to Caledonia, Pleasant River
(Brookfield), Harmony, and Kemptville on the way to Anna-
polis ; and the road from Liverpool to Annapolis was partly
the cause and partly the effect of their enterprise (1804).
Settlements between Dartmouth and Truro preceded the road :
thus in 1786, when the trail was mostly 'an avenue of felled
trees', there were wayside cottages along its whole length
where the wayfarer might feed three times a day on fish,
bread, and tea.
Inimi' In one case straggling trail-makers from neighbouring
grants re- settlements were the cause not only of a new road but a new
grated in- town. In 1 800 some Truro men bought the sites of Sher-
land, brook, on the lower reaches of St. Mary's River, of Glencoe
at its forks, and of Lochaber on its north branch above the
forks and sixteen miles from Antigonish, and cut their way
thither through the forest. At this date, as we have seen,
the Highlanders of Pictou were already at the sources of East,
Middle, and West rivers, and they now pushed on to Caledonia
on the west branch of St. Mary's. The Highlanders of Anti-
THE FAR EAST 63
gonish came to Lochaber ; and the Highlanders of the Gulf
soon met, not at Truro on the Bay of Fundy, as they used to
do, but at a colony from Truro on the St. Mary's, washed by
the Atlantic tide and named Sherbrook. Sherbrook is the
only Atlantic settlement created by overlanders from the Bay
or the Gulf, and it was created by overlanders from both.
Roads between Antigonish, Pictou, Truro, and the Atlantic
followed the overlanders : the overlanders did not follow roads.
The lumber-trade spurred them into the forest where they had
the courage to live alone ; but they farmed wherever they went,
and roads and towns followed their footsteps.
In 1784 three hundred and eighty Loyalists and discharged ^n Prince
soldiers took steps to settle in Prince Edward Island ; and jsland
between 1784 and 1792 the only new settlements were on Loyalists
the mainland side of the island, ten between Bed6que and*^^^^^^^^
Murray Bays, and three near East Cape. The main stream, a^idwent
which had hitherto been directed towards the Gulf side, was capital.
now diverted to the side which faced the sister colonies. The
fee-simple of the land was already sold to absentees, and
Loyalists were daunted by the agrarian situation, against which
Yorkshiremen alone were proof, many of whom came from
Chignecto, turned tenants, introduced scientific farming, and
went inland, if a man can be said to go inland in a country
where he is seldom five and never ten miles from salt water.
Many Loyalists left or concentrated themselves in Charlotte-
town, which is the capital of the Island, and which was after-
wards recruited from every county of the United Kingdom.
The miscellaneous character of the capital was due to two
causes. First, every capital is a mirror of its country; and
owing to the land being locked up immigrants came slowly,
and the later type was unlike the earliest type, which was ex-
clusively Highland or Loyalist. After Waterloo, Lowland
hand-loom weavers, who formed part of Cormack's colony of
New Glasgow (181 9), Roman Catholic Irishmen (whose
names are especially frequent among latter day settlers at
64
HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF CANADA
In Cape
Breton Is-
lands
Loyalists
founded
Sydney :
and Syd-
ney became
a coal and
steel centre.
North Point, at Richmond Bay, and on the South coast, and
some of whom came from Newfoundland), and the English
unemployed contributed their quota. Thus in three years,
1 83 1-3, ships from Tobermory, Greenock, Dumfries, Bide-
ford(^w), Plymouth, Yarmouth, and Waterford ((^/j*) discharged
passengers at Charlottetown, and the archaic Highland element
was overlaid with strata of every epoch and variety. Secondly,
every capital — especially if it is an immigrant's port — is apt to
become an amalgam of many creeds and races. It is so in
Halifax and Sydney as well as in Charlottetown.
In 1784-5 Sydney, Baddeck (on the Bras), and St. Peter's
Isthmus were colonized for the first time, and they were
colonized by Loyalist refugees. Sydney really consists of
two low-lying towns five miles apart, one of which is North
Sydney on the north entrance of the north-west arm, and the
other of which is Sydney on the south entrance of the south-
west arm of Sydney Harbour. Four or five miles above
Sydney, the south-west arm contracts into Sydney or Spanish
River, which leads to a watershed under one hundred feet
high, and so to East Bay, which is an arm of the Great Bras
d'Or Lake. To-day this route is dotted with houses and
gardens, but in 1799 there was not even a trail from East
Bay to Sydney, though the distance by land is about
fourteen miles and by sea about eighty miles. The line of
extension did not lie in this direction. But there was
a forest road straight from Sydney to Louisbourg, the elder
brother whom it had supplanted (1785), and along this road,
twenty-four miles long, there were and are some scattered
settlements, and above this road thq whole coast as far as
Morienne Bay has a series of rich coal-mines. To-day
Sydney, though not a coal city herself, is the capital of
a group of coal towns which include Dominion, Caledonia,
Bridgeport, and Glace. It is supposed that Glace has 15,000
and Sydney 14,000 inhabitants, so that the suburb exceeds
the city, from which it is thirteen miles by train, The big
THE FAR EAST 65
coal business has even revived Louisbourg (pop. 1588)/
which is used as an auxiliary port in winter, is connected
with the coal towns by railway, and is growing. But Louis-
bourg, the coal port, is on the north-east cove,^ three miles
from Louisbourg, the French fort. Moreover, the Dominion
Steel Company have their principal works a mile or two
below Sydney, so that Sydney owes its position to its steel as
well as to its coal. As coal port and coal centre, Louisbourg
and Glace respectively assist Sydney on the south side of the
harbour. Sydney also requires an assistant port on the
north side of the harbour, for the coal-mines cross the
harbour mouth and reappear at Sydney Mines (pop. 7,000 .?) ^
and further north. North Sydney (pop. 5,000 .?) ^ performs
this function and serves the larger town in its rear, as Sydney
serves Glace. Being near coal and steel, both Sydneys are
industrial cities. Like all capitals, they are not cast in any
one mould, but the visitor is surprised at the indisputable
' predominance of the Scotch type in the Sydneys. The
Acadians of Ball's Creek, and the Italian and other cosmo-
politan workmen in the mining towns, are merging in a common
type, but the Scotch type persists. Yet the founders of Sydney
were not Scotchmen, but North American Loyalists. The
second coal centre of Cape Breton Island is Inverness (pop.
2,ooo.?y on the west coast, which consists of some two hundred
red twin houses, each twin isolated from its neighbour, and all
arranged, or about to be arranged, in the familiar American
parallelogram. Inverness coal extends to Mabou and Port
Hood (pop. 550)', where similar miners' houses may be seen ;
but Port Hood, unlike Inverness, is a port, and has traded
with Newfoundland for one hundred years or more. The
principal pr»rt of these coal towns is Port Hastings in Canso
Gut, with which Inverness is connected by railway (fifty-six
miles). Three miles beyond Port Hastings is Hawkesbury,
^ Population, 1901. ^ See plan, Part I, p. 198.
^ Population now.
VOL. V. PT. Ill F
66 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF CANADA
but Hawkesbury and Mulgrave, its looking-glass town on
the Nova Scolian side of the Gut, owe much of their
importance to their position on the main line from Sydney to
Halifax and Quebec. Before re-crossing the Gut let us cast
one last glance back.
Cape With an account of the Acadians, Highlanders, and
land was' Loyalists of a century ago, and of the miners and railway
complete, men of to-day, the human geography of Cape Breton Island
' is all but complete. During the last century pervasive Irish-
men mingled with pertinacious Scotchmen on the Bras d'Or
Lakes, and Scotchmen reached Aspey Bay. Indians have
increased from three hundred to five hundred and fifty, and
live on their reserves at Escasoni (East Bay), and near
Whycocomagh and Baddeck, and on Chapel Island (close by
St. Peter's Isthmus), whither they flock annually as they did
in Denys's time. These are small addenda and tiny finishing
touches, but for which, and for the mines, railways, and
capitals, the crude outline was a finished sketch in 1820, or'
somewhere between 1820 and 1830.
when ^ The date is equally significant in the. history of Cape Breton
unification island and Nova Scotia. While Cape Breton Island was
being peopled and was making sure of a separate existence
for itself, it was polidcally separate from Nova Scotia
(1784-1820); when its separate existence was secured and
its character was formed, it was re-annexed to Nova
Scotia. The reason for this paradox was war and the eff"ects
of war. After the Canadian War (181 2-14) the proposed
union of all the Maritime Provinces with Quebec, by an inter-
colonial road far from the American border, filled the air.
The road was a good carriage road from Halifax to Moncton
before 1828, and in 1842 it was a post road as far as the
Restigouche. The first and only thought which inspired
Nova Scotians and Cape Breton Islanders, when Cape Breton
Island attained man's estate, was union with the Western
Powers.
THE FAR EAST 67
Again, in the Twenties, English Committees and Com- and Eng-
missions on Distress preached Emigration as its cure, and ^^J^ ^,*^^-
statesmen began to pour streams of Irish, Engh'sh, Lowland, began seri-
and Highland emigrants into the colonies. Huge land- ^""^^-^*
companies were formed for the purpose. The land*
companies of the Twenties peopled some new districts in
New Brunswick, many in Quebec, and more in Ontario, but
none in Nova Scotia or Cape Breton Island, for they were
already full. On the other hand, the land-companies were, or
were assisted by, agricultural and mining associations, and
the mining associations set to work at Sydney in 1827, and
on Nova Scotian coal in the same year, but they only brought
prosperity to prosperous districts and did not change the country.
A man might walk from end to end of Cape Breton Nova
Island and Nova Scotia, using Haliburton's History {^^2())%iriycom.
as guide-book, and without finding anything except what ht plete in
expected to find. He would shake hands with a great- ^^^°'
grandson of an 82 nd Highlander at Pictou Landing, and
would learn from Haliburton that that spot was granted to
the 82nd Highlanders in 1784; he would find Antigonish
Highland, New Glasgow Scotch, Clementsport and Lunen-
burg rather German, and the Annapolis and Windsor
valleys very English. He would know exactly where to find
Acadians and men from Cape Cod, and would recognize
them at a glance. He would expect to find Halifax city
(pop. 40,832)^ apparent Queen — with an Adaniic row of
satellites amongst which Lunenburg (pop. 2,916), Bridge-
water (pop. I 816), Liverpool (pop. 1,937), Shelburne
(pop. 1,445), Barrington (pop. 784), and Yarmouth (pop.
6,430) were conspicuous ; a Fundy group, including Digby
(pop. 1,150)5 Annapolis (pop. 1,019), Bridgetown (pop. ^5^)'
Middleton (pop. 969), Kentville (pop. 1,731), Wolfville
(pop. 1,412), Windsor (pop. 2,849), Truro (pop. 5,993), Parrs-
boro (pop. 2,705), Amherst (pop. 4,964), and Spring-
^ Population 1901 censu?.
F 2
68 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF CANADA
hill (pop. 5,178); and a Gulf group, including Pictou (pop.
3.235), Westville (pop. 3,47 1). Stellarton (pop. 2,335), New
Glasgow (pop. 4,147), Trenton (pop. 1,003), ^"^ Anti-
gonish (pop. 1,526). He would learn that the Gulf and
Ocean towns other than Halifax were equal to one another,
and that both together equalled three-fourths of Halifax, or
a little more than the Bay towns.
The supremacy of Halifax over other towns is unchallenged,
and it accounts for two-fifths of the town life but for only one-
ninth of the whole life of Nova Scotia, for Nova Scotia is
rural in its habits.
but for its He might be puzzled by the groups of towns around Pic-
iron ^o"> ^^^ ^^ ^^ Strange name Springhill, but would easily
guess the cause. Both are coal centres. The coal-mines
near Pictou were first worked seriously in 1827, and had
a railroad in 1839. The harbour is deeply indented by its
three rivers ; therefore the mines at Westville and Stellarton
send their coal to sea either from Pictou or from the lofty
coal pier at Pictou Landing, and the latter route is now pre-
ferred. As at Sydney Harbour two coal routes are creating
two capitals of the coal towns, Pictou and New Glasgow, and
as New Glasgow commands the preferred route, it is out-
stripping Pictou in the industrial race. In order to complete
the parallel, the steel-works of the Nova Scotian Steel Com-
pany at Trenton, a mile or two below New Glasgow, are to
New Glasgow, what the works of the Dominion Steel Company,
a*mile or two below Sydney, are to Sydney.
Springhill, Maccan, and Loggins are coal-mines south of
Chignecto Bay, and all this coal-mining has only enriched
districts which were already rich. So with the iron-mines of
Londonderry, north of Cobequid Bay, and at Torbrook, on
the Nictaux, and at Clementsport, on the south side of the
Annapolis Valley.
its gold, Gold is widely scattered near Sherbrook,t Stormont,* Sheet
Harbour, Tangier, Musquodoboit, and Mahone Bay on the
THE FAR EAST 69
Atlantic coast ; at Montagu, Caribou, and Moose River near
the Guysborough Road * ; at Oldham and Renfrew near the
Truro roadf; at Waverly and Uniacke near the Windsor
road t ; in the Brookfield district behind Liverpool and
Bridgewater * ; and in the neighbourhood of Yarmouth. The
starred names are, the crossed names were, yielding rich
returns — if returns can be called rich which barely yield
£600,000 per annum" from the whole of Nova Scotia. Gold
has not opened up new districts, but only added a crown here
or a crown there to districts which had already attained
distinct ion. Gold is accountable for the small branch-line
between New Germany and Caledonia; and may, along
with Torbrook iron and the agricultural development of the
La Heve, have been partly accountable for that between
Bridgewater and Middleton.
Except local branch-hnes a few miles in length, and some ^>id its
ten miles of main line west of Mulgrave, every Nova Scotian
railroad follows the chief main roads more or less. No line
has been built between Halifax and Guysborough, and the
lines to and through Windsor became less important than the
lines to and through Truro owing to the political decay of
Annapolis, the economic progress of the coal districts, and
the completion of the through line to Quebec, which promoted
Halifax from the position of Nova Scotian capital to that of
winter-port of Canada. But for these additions, omissions,
and changes, the old main roads which make the Atlantic
Gulf and Bay towns of Nova Scotia one on Haliburton's
map (1828), and the new railways, when they are shown upon
a small scale, seem replicas. There has been a duplication
of functions. Consequently Halifax, which is the one head,
has grown out of all proportion ; although Yarmouth, the
junction, so to speak, for Boston, Truro, the junction for
Quebec and Sydney, and minor ganglionic rail-and-road
centres like Kentville and Bridgewater, have also benefited.
70 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF CANADA
Authorities.
In addition to authorities cited in the notes see : —
Report and Collections of the Nova Scotia Historical Society: 1881,
Judge Morris, Remarks concerning the removal of the Acadians in 1755 :
1891 ; D. Allison, Notes on a general return of the several townships in
Nova Scotia f Jan. i, 1767.
Nova Scotia Archives : Selections from the public documents of Nova
Scotia^ by T. B. Akins, 1869 (contains, e.g., lists of the immigrants of
l74Q,&c. : Col. Mascarene*s Account of Nova Scotia, 1720, &c., &c.).
Nova Scotia Archives: Cofnmission Book, 1720-41, ed. A. M.
MacMechan, 1900.
Canada Reports on Archives j by D. Brymner, 1884; contains e.g.
Colonel R. M.orse^''^ Description of Nova Scotia, 1784.
T. Pichon, Letters, &c. relating to the Islands of Cape Breton and
St. John, 1760.
Accounts and Papers, 1826-7 : Third Report of House of Commons
Committee on Emigration, with Map; Ibid. 1828 : Colonel Cockbum*s
Report on E7?ngration Appendix, {a) Nova Scotia, (J?) New Brunswick,
(t) Prince Edward Island, &c.
Major Holland, Plaft of the Island of St. John (Prince Edward Island),
ed. 1765, 1775, 1789, 1851.
Of secondary authorities : —
T. B. Akins, Hist07y of Halifax, in Report and Collections of the
Nova Scotia Historical Society, 1895.
Sir John Bourinot, Historical and Descriptive Account of Cape Breton
Island, 1892 ; Builders of Nova Scotia, in Transactions of Royal Society
of Canada, 1899.
Richard Brown, History of Cape Breton Island, 1869.
W. Calnek, History of Annapolis (1897).
J. B. Desbrisays, History of Lunenburg, 2nd ed., 1895.
T. C. Haliburton, General Description of Nova Scotia, 1823 ; Historical,
and Statistical Account of Nova Scotia, 2 vols, (with map), 1829.
T. Longworth, History of O^islow, in Report and Collections of the
Nova Scotia Historical Society , 1896.
John MacGregor, British America, 2 vols., 1832.
Beamish Murdoch, History of Nova Scotia, 3 vols., 1865-7.
George Patterson, Memoir of James MacGregor^ 1859; History of
the County of Pictou, 1877 ; Sable Island, 1894.
T. Watson Smith, Loyalists at Shelburne, in Report and Collections
of the N Sc. Hist. Soc, 1888.
NEW BRUNSWICK
a:- ^-^ ..x^
SCALE OF MILES
10 O lb 20 30 40 50
•RVr^ouriis**/^*, 0xf8rJl^»<^l0
CHAPTER III
LINKS BETWEEN FAB AND MIDDLE EAST
NEW BBUNSWICK AND ITS PEOPLE
Lines of communication of river, road, and railway double New
and doubly intensify one another in Nova Scotia, but triple and ^^««-^«^^^^
triply intensify one another in New Brunswick, which is only a through
little more than a double line of communication between the '^^y^ ^^
Quebec.
Atlantic or Nova Scotia and Quebec ; and the influence of Quebec
being nearer is increased in proportion to its nearness. Even
those parts of New Brunswick which adjoin the isthmus of
Chignecto, and are geographically a part of Nova Scotia,
became more famous as resting and starting places for the
north than as places to live and die in.
Sackville (pop. 1,444^), Dorchester (pop. 1,246^), M^m- itssouih-
ramcook\ Hillsborough (pop. 650^), Hopewell (pop. 707^), ^^^^^ ^omer
and Moncton (pop. 9,026 ^) represent geological and historical tension of
extensions of Chignecto Isthmus and its rivers into New Bruns- ^^^^^
wick, and had a similar origin. The Methodist College at
Sackville accentuates the presence of Yorkshiremen; and the
Roman Catholic College at Memramcook is the educational
Mecca of the Acadians.
Many Acadians swarmed or hid during the troubled Fifties, its east and
between Moncton and the Bay of Fundy, and then fled further ^^o^'^fj-^^^^
^ •' ' coasts were
north. Long ago there had been Quebec missions at Nipisi- occupied by
guit (1620) and Miscou (1634); and w^hen Denys's dominion ^.^if^^^l
crumbled into dust Recollets missionaries remained at Resti-
gouche and Miramichi, and two coureurs des hois acquired
seignories and flitted to and fro between Nipisiguit, Poke-
mouche, and Richibucto. After the first fall of Louisbourg
a fort was built at Shediac (1749) : and after the fall of Beau-
1 Population 1901.
74 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF CANADA
s^jour 3,500 men^ were concentrated by 'Mr. Bobare from
Quebec ' * at Beaubairs's Island, where the two arms of the
Miramichi meet (1756). In order to take shelter with the
priests and soldiers of their race the Acadians fled from Nova
Scotia to Shediac, Cocagne, Buctouche, Richibucto, Miramichi,
Pokemouche, Miscou, and other ports on the Gulf coast ; and
to Miscou, Caraquet, Nipisiguit, and Restigouche on Bay
Chaleurs, lining the sea-route to Quebec Province, and spread-
ing along all the eastern and part of the northern border
of New Brunswick. On the eastern border they received
grants at all these ports between 1767 and 1798 : on the
northern border they and some French sailors, who fought at
Restigouche (1760), and some Jerseymen, who settled in
Miscou, received similar grants from 1784 onwards. Denys's
colonists had probably died out : if so, Acadians from Nova
Scotia were the first fruitful seed sown along the eastern and
northern shores of New Brunswick, and they are still there.
They dotted two sides of New Brunswick with a succession
of connected settlements for the first time in history. But
they founded villages not towns, and the work of peopling
these two sides was done a second time by men, of a different
race and of a later generation, who founded towns. Thus Camp-
bellton (pop. 2,652 ^•*), Dalhousie (pop. 862 *), Bathurst*^ (pop.
2,500^), and Caraquet (pop. 773*) on Bay Chaleurs; New-
castle (pop. 2,507 *), Douglastown (pop. 481 *), Nelson (pop.
377*), and Chatham (pop. 4,868*) on either side of the
estuary of the Miramichi ; and the towns of Richibucto (pop.
760 *) and Shediac (pop. 1,075 *) are the fruits of Scotch seed
w^hich was sown twenty or thirty years later, and of which
more anon. Of these towns Shediac is the Gulf by-port of
Moncton (pop. 9,026*), which is on the bend of the Petitcodiac;
1 B. Murdoch, History, ii. 312.
* Boishebert; sic Dr. Witherspoon, /^wrwa/ of 1757, Nova Scotia
Hist. Soc.y 1 88 1, vol. ii, p. 31.
2 = Restigouche. * Population in 1901. ' = Nipisiguit.
LINKS BETWEEN FAR AND MIDDLE EAST 75
therefore it may be said that the only Gulf towns are the ports
or port towns of the Miramichi, Richibucto, and Petitcodiac,
which are the only rivers affording easy access from the Gulf
to the St. John. Similarly Bay Chaleurs and the Restigouche
also point to the St. John. The Acadian villages and Scotch
towns are termini of crossways leading to one great river. Of
all these crossways the two valleys, which seem like one valley
formed by the Upper Petitcodiac and Kennebecasis, constitute
the easiest and straightest way, and were first furnished by
British colonists with a main road past Petitcodiac, Sussex
(pop. 1,398^) and Hampton (pop. 650^) to St. John (pop.
40,711').
St. John owes its position as the commercial capital of New St, John,
Brunswick to its fine harbour and situation at the mouth of ^^^^ ^i{ on
the St. John. The harbour does not freeze in winter, and the St.
the city proper is on two rocks on the left bank of the river- -^^ ^'
mouth below the falls, but its suburbs extend above the falls
and to the right bank, at West End.'^ The river itself is one
of the great river-routes into the interior of North America.
For the first fifty miles of its upward course, the river whose
St. John zigzags by Westfield, at the mouth of the Nerepis ^^'*'^'
(west), Kingston, at the mouth of the Belleisle (east), and
Hampstead (west), and Wickham (east), at the mouth of the
Washademoak (east), to Gagetown (pop. 925^) (west), which e.g. Gage-
is the most important town between St. John and Fredericton, ^^"'
and from which the Salmon River produces an easy waterway
to a low watershed, and so to the Richibucto, and a less easy
waterway to Cain's River and the Miramichi.
After Gagetown the river bends westward through flooded
flats and more continuous settlements, past the vis-a-vis towns
of Maugerville (north) and Oromocto (south), at the mouth of
the Oromocto (south), to the low-lying, leafy city of Frederic- Frederic-
ton (pop. 7,117^) (south), which is the political capital and ^^^^'
University city of New Brunswick, and presents a striking
^ Population, 1901. ^ Formerly Carleton.
76
HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF CANADA
Grand
Falls,
Edmund-
ston,
contrast to its supplementary lumber-towns of Marysville
(pop. 1,892^) and Gibson (pop. 764^), on the opposite or
north bank. Though eighty-four miles from the sea, the
river is still tidal, half a mile wide, and thatched with lumber
rafts, like Groby's Pool with pancakes. It is here that the
Nashwaak penetrates towards the sources of the Miramichi,
and presents a waterway to the Gulf, only inferior in impor-
tance to the waterway from St. John to Moncton. So far
the importance of three great towns on the St. John is partly
due to their position at the head of the three best waterways
to the Gulf. Sixty-four miles further on is the lumber-town
of Woodstock (pop. 2,984), below which the Eel River
joins the St. John from the south, and other rivers join it
from Maine (United States). The river now runs north and
south for 112 miles past Perth (east) and Andover (west),
which are twin towns near the mouths of the Tobique (east)
and the Aroostook (west), past Grand Falls (pop. 644), where
there is a miniature Niagara, 124 feet high, and past Grand
River, where the Grand River flows in from the east, to
Edmundston (pop. 444), where the river, which is now flowing
west and east, is joined from the north bythe Madawaska,ariver
one-third its size and depth, and leading to Temiscouata Lake
and Portage on the Appalachian Range, and so to Rivibre du
Loup, 81 miles away, on the St. Lawrence. The St. John,
Madawaska, and Riviere du Loup are the natural high-
way through the 341 miles of impenetrable forest which
separate the Bay of Fundy from the St. Lawrence River.
Along this highway there are trifling interruptions formed by
falls, rapids, and one low watershed, and towns have been
built as trysting-places wherever and only where two or more
similar highways meet ; for instance, at St. John, Gagetown,
Fredericton, Woodstock, and Edmundston. Even Westfield
and Oromocto are at the ends of a pair of waterways which
cut off a sharp corner of the St. John ; and Petitcodiac and
^ Population, 1901.
LINKS BETWEEN FAR AND MIDDLE EAST 77
Sussex are and have been starting-places for short cuts to the
Belleisle, Washademoak, and Salmon River crossways. But
this rule has two exceptions. Grand Falls has its town, and,
although it is a compulsory resting-place on the old main
river-route, it is not the starting-point of a new crossway ;
and although the Grand River furnishes the only practicable
crossway from the St. John to the Restigouche and Bay
Chaleurs it has no town, unless Edmundston, twenty miles away,
serves that purpose. These exceptions, or possible exceptions,
occur where boundary disputes retarded natural development.
Hardly less important than the side-passages, so to speak, are also
from the great river to the eastern gulf are its two back-stair Zm^Passa-
passages to Passamaquoddy Bay, one from Woodstock up maquoddy
the Eel River and down the St. Croix \ and the other up the ^■^'
Oromocto and down the Magaguadavic : the first leading to
Milltown (pop. 2,044 ''), St. Stephen (pop. 2,840 '^), and St.
Andrews (pop. 1,066 ^), and the second leading to St. George
(pop. 2,892 '^), all of which are on Passamaquoddy Bay. The
towns on the west side of the St. Croix are rather larger than
those on the east, but belong to the United States : for by
the sport of Fate the frontier between British America and the
United States is the St. Croix,^ and Fate as usual has been
capricious in its choice.
England claimed as heir to France : and France only and adjoin
claimed because it planted the first Acadian colony at St. f^f^^f^glf^"
Croix Island (1604-5).^ ^"^ ^or this plantation no one
would have heard of the St. Croix River; yet St. Croix
Island belongs to the United States. Secondly, England
claimed as the heir of Sir William Alexander, to whom
James I. granted a colony (162 1) bounded by the St. Croix
River to its source, including *its furthest source from the
west ', and thence by a line due north to the nearest river,
emptying itself into the St. Lawrence. The treaty of 1783
1 Chiputneticook branch. ^ Population, 1901.
' Douchet Isle.
78 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF CANADA
substituted the watershed between the Atlantic and the
St. Lawrence River, for the river emptying itself into the
St. Lawrence, but otherwise followed the grant with a
deference rarely paid either to its author or its recipient.
Yet the present boundary excludes western affluents of the
St, Croix; and the due north line, after shadowing the
St. John River from below Woodstock to Grand Falls, hits
the St. John River above Grand Falls : after which the river
and a western affluent named the St. Francis become the
boundary as far as a lake^ near the source of the St. Francis,
whence a straight line is drawn south by west to lat. 46** 25^
where another tributary of the St. John becomes the
boundary as far as the watershed between the St. Lawrence
on one side and the Bay of Fundy and the Atlantic on the
other side. The arguments and compromises by means of
which this singular boundary was evolved are described in
the preceding volume of this series. Its effects were
to assimilate and identify the fortunes of Passamaquoddy
Bay with those of the St. John River, to throw back the
proposed inter-colonial road and railway from the St. John •
and St. Croix to the Gulf shores, and to compel New
Brunswick to associate with Canada by way of Quebec
instead of Montreal, and with Quebec by northern routes
instead of north-western routes. The north-western routes
would probably have been one : the northern routes are two,
not by choice but by geographical necessity.
Hence New The consequence of these artificial arrangements are that
t^aT''^ New Brunswick is divided longitudinally into a Gulf-Coast-
eastem and strip held together by a State road and rail : and a St. John
1imo?life ^iver- Strip held together by river, and at a later date by
private roads and railways : the first strip being extended to
include Bay Chdleurs and Moncton, and the second strip
being extended to include Passamaquoddy Bay. Dusty
parchments drawn by London scriveners at the behest of
* Lake Pohenagamook.
LINKS BETWEEN FAR AND MIDDLE EAST 79
a crowned pedant and unique historical complications pro-
duced this arbitrary dichotomy. But was it arbitrary ?
Long before history began, Indians adopted these very The same
same divisions : and the St. John River, including Passama- ^^^^^^ ^c-
•' ^ curved in
quoddy Bay, was the domain of the Maliceet, while the Gulf Indian,
coast, including Bay Chaleurs and the Petitcodiac, was the
domain of the Micmac. To them New Brunswick was not
one but two : and the ways between the two were the same
as those which have been described between St. John and
Monclon, between Gagetown and Richibucto, between
Fredericton and Miramichi, and between Grand River and
the Restigouche to-day; even the back entrance to the
St. John from Passamaquoddy Bay and the short cuts were
the same. The very trysting and council places of the
Indians at St. John, Fredericton, St. Andrews and Wood-
stock— not to mention lesser or later posts at St. George,
Westfield, Oromocto and Edmundston, were at the same
corners in Indian times as the principal places were under the
French and English regimes.
The French regime was the Indian regime with a and in
European veneer. In 1620 a RecoUet missionary oi^J'^^^J^
Nipisiguit descended the St. John ; and coureurs des hois from
Quebec followed him ; but in political geography these men
were mere pupils of those whom they went to teach. Only
one effort was made to improve upon the lesson learned
from the Indians. In 1683 De Meule proposed to plant
French Canadian ' Habitans ' along the St. John every four
leagues, so that a road ' might make itself naturally ' from
Quebec to Acadia.^ But in French Canada Habitans pre-
supposed Seigneurs; so the Government created Seigneurs
between Woodstock and St. John in order that the Seigneurs
might create the Habitans, and the Habitans might create
the road or the road might create itself: and Seigneurs resided
for a few years at Woodstock, Nashwaak opposite Fredericton,
1 Coll. de Manuscriis, ed. Blanchet, Quebec, 1883-5, vol. i, p. 301.
8o HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF CANADA
Jemseg (opposite Gagetown), St. John, Hampton, St. Andrews,
and St. George; but those on the coast were mostly Acadians
who resided elsewhere, while those inland being wild men of
the woods, and wont to travel like Indians and with Indians,
resided everywhere or nowhere, and were the last people in the
world who would be likely to introduce Habitans.^ In 1690
Villebon removed his capital from Annapolis to Jemseg,
Nashwaak, and St. John successively, but only for a few
years. In 1696 and 1704 Colonel Church and others laid
these setdements waste, and in 1733 there were only one
hundred and eleven settlers on the St. John, mostly Acadian.
In 1746 the first order was given to cut a path three feet
wide from Lake Temiscouata to the Riviere du Loup and
was not obeyed. So far the French plan proved a mere
plan on paper.
Acadian Then voluntary and involuntary flight led bands of
7hesT\ohn Acadians across the Bay of Fundy to St. John. Thence
and Gulf they fled further and founded ' French villages ' on ' French
differed. midges' by * French lakes', (i) near Hampton east of
St. John, (2) on the Oromocto, (3) at Little River, near
Grand Lake, and near (4) Kingston, (5) Gagetown,^ and
(6) Fredericton on the St. John : of which villages two above
Fredericton survive, but the rest of the villagers have been
dispersed and gathered together again at Edmundston, or in its
neighbourhood where they act as Wardens of the March.
These Acadians entered New Brunswick by a different route
from those who spread along the coast at the same time, so that
New Brunswick to all intents and purposes was still two provinces*
New Eng' As in Nova Scotia so in New Brunswick, while the
settMin Acadians fled afield for safety, the New Englanders rushed in
the south- to farm and trade, but at three places only : (i ) in the salt-
^and^onOie niarshes between Moncton and Sackville, (2) at St. John on
1 E.g., the four brothers Damours at Hampton, Jemseg, Fr^neuse
(Maugerville) and Meductic (Woodstock), and Vilieu at Shepody, &c.
"^ Grimross.
LINKS BETWEEN FAR AND MIDDLE EAST 8l
both banks (1762), and (3) on the flooded banks of the western
St. John at Maugerville (1763). All were of British descent ^^'^^*
except a very few of the settlers near Moncton, who were
Germans from Pennsylvania. The settlers at Maugerville
were the first New Englanders to arrive, and they came by
the Magaguadavic and Oromocto, thus emphasizing from the
very first the unity of the St. John district with that of
Passamaquoddy Bay. A few Englishmen came from
England under Lieutenant William Owen to Campobello
Island in Passamaquoddy Bay; and a few scattered British
Americans settled on the adjacent mainland, and also on the
St. John at Kingston, and east of Maugerville and at
Fredericton. No one settled on the Gulf. There was as yet
no unity in New Brunswick.
This British- American invasion was a mere fragmentary The Loyal-
forecast of the invasion twenty years later by the Loyalists, ^f^-f-^^^ ^^
In New Brunswick the Loyalists included twelve regiments where the
of disbanded Provincial soldiers \ two Highland regiments, f^^^^y^^'
and four neighbourhood guilds or associations of Loyalists, settled ,
besides officials and the like. The soldiers were introduced,
located, and rationed for a time by the British military
authorities, and similar first aid was accorded to the other
wounded spirits. They came with their wives and children.
These were the men and women to whom, and to whom
alone, the creation of St. John, Gagetown, Fredericton,
and Woodstock, and of continuous settlements between them,
of St. Stephen, St. Andrews, and St. George, on Passama-
quoddy Bay, and of Hampton and Sussex, on the critical base
line between St. John and Moncton, was due. The Loyalists,
who made Nova Scotia come of age, made New Brunswick
exist. Their harbingers, the New Englanders, barely made
it a prophecy of a province by twenty years of effort ; while
they made it a perfected province in a moment, in the twink-
1 Eighteen others are mentioned in Brymner, Report on Archives^
1883, p. II.
VOL, V. PT, III G
82 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF CANADA
ling of an eye. There were now capital and other towns
at the very coigns of vantage chosen by Frenchmen a century
ago, and by Indians many centuries ago ; and there were
also settlements (followed by a road) along one hundred
and twenty-eight miles of the River St. John and between
St. John and the Gulf (near Moncton); and there was
a road (followed by settlements) between Fredericton and
St. Andrews. As in Nova Scotia, roads became symbols
and instruments by which a unity hitherto unattainable
was attained. Passamaquoddy Bay became like an alter-
native mouth of the St. John, and the St. John was tied to
the Gulf by the thin thread that passed through Sussex and
Moncton. No Loyalists went direct to the Gulf or far from
the sea except on the St. John and at Sussex, but hardly had
they arrived when re-emigration and extension began.
and Loyal- Some re-emigrated by the new road to Moncton and its
isi re-emt- neighbourhood, and so to the Gulf; others used it as a base
grants met °
Highland for extending northwards to the valleys of the Washademoak
immi- ^j. j^g^ Canaan, and of the Salmon River at Chipman, New
grants on ^ r j
the Gulf, Canaan (1792) and Chipman (c. 1800) having been reached
already by extension from the St. John. At Fredericton
a Highland capitalist named Davison induced fifty Loyal-
ist families to pass over the watershed to the mouth of the
Miramichi and elsewhere (1784-5); and other Highland
LoyaHsts followed from Fredericton and founded Ludlow,
midway between Fredericton and Newcastle (18 14), while a
counter-current of Ayrshire and Highland colonists from
Newcastle founded Doaktown (1790), almost midway between
Newcastle and Fredericton. The Ayrshire and Highland
colonists, who were borne along on the counter-current, formed
part of those who came to and overflowed Cape Breton Island,
Pictou, and Prince Edward Island ; they not only reached the
Gulf Coast of New Brunswick, but even reached Campbellton *
1 Athol Point.
LINKS BETWEEN FAR AND MIDDLE EAST 83
on Bay Chaleurs, and the shores of Passamaquoddy Bay
(i8o4y but did not reach the St. John.
Hitherto no Irishmen from Ireland, and hardly any Eng- English
lishmen from England,^ officers excepted, had arrived as ^'^^ ^p^^
colonists. Then after Waterloo a period of systematic ^^.^^/^
emigration began and continued until the Fifties. Every <^^"^^i
part of the United Kingdom, especially Ireland, contributed. ^ ^ ~^°*
There were hardly any foreigners ; and the only foreigners
were from the United States. In 1851 one-fifth of the
population were returned as immigrants ; and of the
immigrants 71 percent, were Irish, 12 percent. Scotch, 10
per cent. English, 4 per cent, 'other British', and 3 per
cent, foreign, meaning American. The movement towards
New Brunswick was intensely national.
The new era ushered in new roads on which the newcomers ^y^^ roads
setded. There were new provincial roads from Fredericton ^^^^ ^^^^^^
(i) to St. John by the short cut between Westfield and Oro-
mocto (1826), (2) to Chatham (1833-4), (3) to St. Andrews
(1826-7), and (4)toChipman (c. 1835), and so to Richibucto
(c. 1855), not to speak of minor cross-roads from Moncton
to Canaan, from St. John to Shepody, and so on. The
capital was being used as a road centre, and two more bonds
were added between the River St. John and the Gulf by the
second and fourth roads.
On the first road Irishmen peopled Blissville. The second along
road was the work of the Nova Scotia Land Company, which '^^^/^^ i»^'
introduced Skye crofters to Old Stanley Road (1837) to l^^lffj^^^
associate with the Irishmen of Tay and the Welshmen of
Cardigan hard by; Anglo-Scotch borderlanders settled at
Harvey, Wooler, and Tweedside (1837), on the third road;
and on the last road which was built in order to promote settle-
^ G. Patterson, Life of James MacGregor^ pp. 351-2. Probably ex-
soldiers, ibid., p. 347.
2 Yorkshiremen in Sackville, &c., Lieutenant Owen at Campobello,
and W. Hannington at Shediac.
6 2
84
HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF CANADA
e.g. the two
inter-
colonial
roads to
Quebec,
by the
St. John
route,
ment there were Irishmen at Londonderry (c. 1825), Nova
Scotians from Cornwallis at Alma (c. 18 15), and Scotchmen
at Roxburgh (c. 1848).
These settlements were the products of social effort, but
were backed by sturdy individualists like Thomas Boies, who
founded a one-man town called Boiestown, near Ludlow
(c. 1822), and Alexander Gibson, 'the lumber king,* who
bought land from the Land Company and gave his name to
Gibson, and by many others whose names are forgotten.
During this period two great intercolonial roads were com-
pleted to Quebec, one from Fredericton and Woodstock and
the other from Moncton. These roads overshadowed every
other road, and the second which continued to Halifax over-
shadowed the first. The first was indirectly due to war, and
the second was directly due to apprehensions of war.
Before 1783 there was wilderness, and nothing but wilder-
ness, between Woodstock and the St. Lawrence. In 1783
Sir Frederick Haldimand began to build, between Rivibre du
Loup and Lake Temiscouata, a road which in 1833 was from
six to nine feet wide, with old tree-stumps on its dry patches,
and rotting timber strewn corduroy-fashion on its wet patches.
In 1 79 1 Sir Guy Carleton established small military posts at
Presqu' He and Grand Falls between the Loyalist settlements
at Woodstock and the Acadian settlements at Edmundston.
During the war with the United States (18 12-14) Sir John
Harvey, Sir George Prevost, the 8th and the 104th Regiments,
marched from Woodstock to Riviere du Loup or vice versa.
Governors and regiments went before and pioneer-settlers
followed after. Between 181 7 and 181 9 six disbanded regi-
ments were settled by the War Office at Wicklow, Kent,
Perth, and Andover, between Woodstock and Grand Falls,*
and a seventh between Grand Falls and Lake Temiscouata,^
and the self-made road of which De Meule dreamed began
^ The 8th, 90th, 98th, 104th, and the New Brunswick Fencibles and
West Indian Rangers. * The 49th.
LINKS BETWEEN FAR AND MIDDLE EAST 85
to materialize. Daring the rebellion (1837-9) four regiments
used this ' celebrated new route by the Portage of Temiscouata,
by the possession of which the Americans seek to control the
navigation of the St. Lawrence. Indeed its danger was as
obvious as its value when these words were written (1842),
and the writer added that in case of war with the United
States ' the Kempt road which is to open a communication
between New Brunswick and Quebec ' was the first necessity
of life to Canada in winter, when ice on the river and gulf of
St. Lawrence cuts off Quebec from Europe, unless there is
a safe way by land from Quebec to some ice-free Atlantic
port.^
The Kempt or Gulf road from Moncton to Newcastle, ami by the
Bathurst, Lake Matapedia, and M^tis on the St. Lawrence ^^^^^*
River doubled the sea-route to Quebec, and rarely followed
either river or any other natural course. It was artificial,
and was built chiefly as a military precaution, but partly also
in order to induce settlement; and the chief settlers along
this line were Irishmen and Scotchmen, among whom lessees
of the Island of Arran — who, on the expiry of their leases,
went to Campbellton, Dalhousie (1829), and the Bay Chaleurs
— were conspicuous. Philanthropists sometimes disguised
as evicting landlords found recruits for the road by the Gulf,
as the War Office did for the road by the river.
The whole history of this period was a history of roads ; both oj
and the political effect of the two most important roads was "^^^^f^ ,
^ ^ aitmntshed
to people, enrich, and unify the province by diminishing the the import-
importance of its capital. The great gulf road did not pass ^^^Z^l^
Fredericton or St. John ; and the great river road had two towns.
branches from Woodstock, one to St. Andrews, which did
not pass Fredericton, and the other to St. John, on which
Fredericton resembled a beautiful wayside inn.
After the Fifties immigration almost ceased ; roads played Railways
little part, and men forgot the great part which the Colonial ^^^^^ff^
^ Sir R. Bonnycastle, The Canadas in 1841, 1842, vol. ii, pp. 127, 146.
86 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF CANADA
Hon almost and War Office played in stocking the land with Loyalists
^and ' and veterans. It was a period of railroads, which shadowed
doubled the the two intercolonial roads, and the main provincial roads from
^'^^ ^' Moncton to St. John and from Fredericton to Chatham or
Newcastle. The great intercolonial railroad, being political,
shadowed the Kempt road, which is far from the frontier;
and the railroads near the St. John were left to private
enterprise. The Gulf settlements and St. John River settle-
ments, so to speak, were united with themselves and the
St. Lawrence by two vertical steel jambs, the left jamb
dividing into two below Woodstock, and by two steel cross-
bars with each other. Fredericton sank to the material level
of Moncton; and the extreme points at Halifax, St. John,
and Passamaquoddy Bay were strengthened at the expense
of intermediate towns. Of these towns Halifax, being the
terminus of the intercolonial Railway, profited more than
St. John, which is, however, the terminus of a branch-line
from Moncton, and of a concatenation of small private lines
down the St. John valley. Perhaps the completion of the
National Transcontinental Railway, which is meant to go
across country from Grand Falls by Chipman to Moncton,
with branches to Fredericton and St. John, will readjust the
scales ; but its principal effect will be to open up new districts
to settlement. At present the country away from the main
railways and roads is very lonely. There has been extension
by old setders up Eel River, Tobique River, and the like,
and by old and new settlers elsewhere, but always, more or
less, in the neighbourhood of the new railway lines. Thus
the line between Woodstock and Edmundston and its neigh-
bourhood has absorbed Irish navvies, dispatched by Earl
Wicklow from his Wicklow estates (1848), Shetland navvies
(at Lerwick), Baptists conducted by Rev. Charles Knowles
from Yarmouth (Nova Scotia) to Knowlesville (i860),
Presbyterians conducted by Rev. G. Glass from Aberdeen to
Glassville (1865?), and Skedaddlers or Americans, who left
LINKS BETWEEN FAR AND MIDDLE EAST 87
the United States in order to avoid fighting and settled on
Skedaddler Ridge near Knowlesville (1864). But matters
like these belong to parochial rather than to national
history, and the face of the country and character of the
population have hardly changed since the Fifties, when it
attained some sort of finality.
The population has increased 50 per cent, during the last The popu-
fifty years and was 331,120 in 1901, of which one-third was ^^^^^^^
* English ' (including British American), one-fourth Irish, British,
one-fourth Acadian, one-seventh Scotch, and the minute
residue comprised 1,368 negroes (who settled at Otnabog
(181 2) and Willow Grove (181 7), and 1,309 native Indians
(for whom twenty-five reserves have been set apart at the
mouths of the Tobique, Richibucto, and elsewhere).
Geographically, if unimportant details are omitted, the
Indian, French, and British civilizations, and the rivers,
coast-lines, roads, and railways, resemble one another on the
map. But the resemblance would be misleading, because it
ignores the human element.
New Brunswick is still an oblong exhibiting a difi'eren. and united.
type of civilization on its two longer sides — Military and
Loyalist on the west, Scotch and Acadian on the East ; but
the nature, causes, and effects of its incurable dualism are
not now what they were in old time. Thus the two types
still meet along well-worn routes by river, road, and rail ;
but these cross-routes, which once were mere points of
casual contact, are now means by which the two civilizations
are indissolubly welded together.
The reader may be weary of seeing rivers and coasts New
referred to as lines of development, and lines of development ^^ ^j^^ .^^_
described by architectural and mechanical metaphors such as vince of
passages, props, bands, bonds, and the like ; but these meta- ^^ ^j^^
phors recur irresistibly to those who realize that if there is north,
one essential truth which has persisted through the ages, it is
that New Brunswick is the province with two corridors to
88 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF CANADA
Quebec Province, two bands and bonds between the St. Law-
rence and the Atlantic, two props or pillars upon which Quebec
Province rests, and must rest during half the year, unless it is
to depend upon the United States. It was so when New
Brunswick was dual and divided ; and the more self-contained
and united New Brunswick has become, the more irrefutably
has it shown that its mission in the history of the world is to
connect Quebec Province with the far Eastern provinces
and with Europe.
Authorities.
Nicolas Denys, Description ^ &c.^ of the Coasts of North America
(Acadia), 1672, transl. and ed. by W. F. Ganong, 1908, published by
the Champlain Society.
William F. Ganong, Contributions to the History of New Brunswick,
1895 et seq., being papers reprinted from the Transactions of the Royal
Society of Canada ; especially the papers entitled * Origin of Settlement ',
1904, and * Historic Sites', 1899.
J. W. Lawrence, Footprints or Incidents in the early history of New
Brunswick, 1883.
Captain Mimro's Description of St. John River, &c,, 1784, in Report
on Archives of Canada, by D. Brymner, 1891, pp. 25 et seq.
Professor Ganong has discussed and illustrated the peopling of New
Brunswick with an industry and thoroughness which leave nothing to
be added.
CHAPTER IV
OTHEB LINKS BETWEEN FAR AND MIDDLE EAST
Peninsulas and Islands of the Gulf
The north side of Bay Chaleurs, although situated in the The north
province of Quebec, reflects the civilization of its south side. ^^^^^ ^
No one lives there except upon the coast, behind which the Chdleurs,
wooded tableland of Gaspd Peninsula (c. 1,500 feet), crowned
by the Shickshock Mountains (c. 4,000 feet), bring the long
line of the Appalachian range of Eastern America to a fitting
end, and prohibit settlements inland.
The country consists of one county, which is to all intents
and purposes nothing but a line of coast; and along the
coast is a railway one hundred miles long, ending on the
west in Restigouche and on the east in Port Daniel, a few
miles beyond which is Point Macquereau at the mouth of the
Bay. The easternmost towns lie almost continuously along
the shore, in this order : Port Daniel (pop. 2,509),^ Hopetown
(pop. 2,411),* Paspdbiac (pop. 1,759),* and New Carlisle
(pop. 1,027).* New Carlisle was founded in 1784 by
Loyalist Englishmen from New York State and a few dis-
banded soldiers," is still two-thirds English, and is the county
town ; Port Daniel and Hopetown are two-thirds French in
origin, and Paspdbiac is six-sevenths French in origin and is
the head-quarters of the Jersey fish-merchants, who began
their mission of industry and reconciliation here upon the
green-sward below the purple mountains and above the low
red rocks on the shore in 1767. These rocks are red sand-
^ Population, 1901.
2 The House of Assembly of Lower Canada, Rep. VI on Crown
Lands, 182 1-5, p. 120.
92 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF CANADA
Stone, which, as they decay, colour and enrich the soil some
fifty miles westward as far as New Richmond (pop. 2,318),^
New Richmond being the second town of the county and
half Scotch. West of New Richmond, Carleton (pop. 1,06 1) ^
is wholly, Nouvelle Bay three-fourths, and Matapedia five-
sixths French in origin; but elsewhere the British, chiefly
the Scotch element, prevails, except in the historic settlement
of Micmac Indians (pop. 422)^ at Cross Point opposite
Campbellton. The French mission to these Indians is
nearly three centuries old; but the Church preceded the
state, and there were no white settlers here, until Acadian
refugees and some thousand sailors, who on their defeat by
Commodore Byron (1758) fled to the woods, formed the
stock from which the present French-speaking inhabitants of
the Bay are derived.
The East of Point Macquereau the Peninsula of Gasp^ trends
eastern northward, and a new county begins, but the country is the
Gasp^ same, and we still breathe the same historical atmosphere.
Pemnsula, jj^^j.^ ^j.^ ^^^ ^2ime forbidding hills, forests, and mountains
behind the coast, and the same red rocks, and almost the
same people upon the coast. Gasp^ Bay is the most
populous place upon the coast ; it was here that Cartier set
up a cross (1534), and fishermen from Quebec used to live
here in the summer, so that General Wolfe raided it (1758)
in order to deprive Quebec of its principal fish supply.
But there was no permanent settlement here until the
conquest. An Irishman, F. O'Hara (1765), was the first
agricultural settler; and its first town was Douglastown
(pop. 1098),^ which was laid out for the Loyalists in 1784,
and is now four-fifths Irish, while the other settlements in
Gasp^ Bay are three-fourths British, South of the Bay
French influences are in the ascendant at the settlements^
1 Population 1901.
* Mai Bay (pop. 1,993),^ Bonaventure Island, Perc^ (pop- 1,868),^
L'Ance au Beaufils (pop. 2,294).^
OTHER LINKS BETWEEN FAR AND MIDDLE EAST 93
opposite Champlain's ^ Pierced Rock and elsewhere; and
north of the Bay the atmosphere is French, but not de-
cisively French until the corner is rounded and we reach
Magdalen River, St. Anne, and Cape Chat. Here we are
face to face with French Canada in its purest form. There
is no Acadian tinge, and the British element is almost
effaced; indeed, it is only one per cent, at Cape Chat.
Perhaps the changed aspect is due to history, or perhaps to
geography; for it was here that Riveron was Seigneur and
tried, like Denys, to plant fishermen colonists in his Seignory
(1689 et seq.); and it is here that we pass from gulf to
river, which, according to Denys, began at Cape Rosiers, just
north of the Bay of Gasp^, but according to modern
geographers begins at Cape Chat. In any case Cape Chat
and everything west of it is Quebec in spirit; while Cape
Rosiers and everything south of it is a replica of the north
shore, which is a replica of the south shore of Bay Chaleurs.
Indeed, the statistical resemblance of the north shore of Bay
Chaleurs and the coast from Point Macquereau to Cape
Madeleine, two-thirds of the way between Cape Chat and Cape
Rosiers, is uncanny; and the two districts are like twins.
Population x
1000
Percentage 1901 '
1831
1851
1 901
French origin
British origin
North shore of
Bay Chaleurs
Thence to Cape
Madeleine
5
4
10.8
8.7
24.5
24.6
69
70
28
28
But distinctions of quality underlie these quantities. North of
Point Macquereau the Frenchmen are less Acadian and more
Canadian, and the British are less Scotch and more Irish :
thus out of every ten British there are ^m^ Englishmen, four
Irishmen, and one Scotchman here ; and the proportion west
* Voyages of Champlain, ed. E. G. Bourne (1906), vol, ii, p. 212.
94 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF CANADA
of Point Macquereau is four Englishmen and four Scotchmen
to two Irishmen. The Loyalists who laid the foundation of
all these settlements were mostly English, that is to say,
English-American ; next in time came Scotchmen who over-
flowed Bay Chaleurs; and when at last Irishmen began to
emigrate they had to go further afield to Perce and Gasp^.
Hence both counties are to a large extent English, and the
county which was nearest and grew quickest is as Scotch as
its twin sister is Irish.
The Mag- Halfway between the Pierced Rock and Newfoundland
^l^^d ^^* ^^° niiles), and equidistant from Cape Breton Island and
Prince Edward Island (c. 60 miles), or from the Gut of
Canso and Anticosti (c. 90 miles), are the Magdalen Islands,
with ninety square miles of sandspits, on which the in-
habitants dry cod; of sandstone rocks, on which sea-birds
breed as they did in Cartier's day ^ ; of sandstone hills five
hundred and fifty feet high, and of red soil as in Prince Edward
Island. The principal island is composite, consisting of
several islets known as Amherst, Grindstone, Wolf, Grosse,
Coffin, and Alright. Wolf Islet has been compared to
a ' sesamoid bone in the middle of a muscle of sand nearly
twenty-four miles long V and the others are either joined by
low sand-bars or disjoined by shallow salt-lagoons. On the
south-east, Entry Island, and on the north-east Brion and
Bird Islets are wholly detached from these semi-detached
units. Like Anticosti, the islands lie in the mid-stream and
are strewn with wrecks. Here walrus were hunted by
Basques in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries ;
then by Normans and Basques under Denys's Norman rival
(1663 et seq.)%- then by sailors in the employ of French
companies; and at last four families arrived from Prince
^ Richard Hakluyt, Principal Navigations, vol. viii, p. 192.
^ George Patterson, in Nova Scotia Institute of Natural Science,
vol. vlii, pp. 35-51.
8 Doublet.
Other links betiveen far and middle east 95
Edward Island (i75V) and several from the Gut of Canso^
(1765). They were the first settlers and were Acadian.
A New Englander named Gridley reorganized the walrus-
hunting with the residents as helpers, but returned to the
United States during the war (1776-83); after which other
New Englanders took on the task, and the new system met
with so much success that the walruses were practically extinct
in 1795.^^ Then (1798), to crown their sorrow, a landlord
was put over the residents ; his name, Sir Isaac Coffin, was
not cheerful, and the squatting problem, which has always
been a difficulty, where Acadians are concerned, became acute.
Nevertheless, the population rose from thirteen (1791) to 80
or 100 (1798), 133 (1821), and 153 or 195 (1831) families'^;
swollen as it was by French Royalists, expelled from
St. Pierre during the French Revolution, and by wrecked
Englishmen, and by a prolific Nova-Scotian lady named
Mrs. Dixon (1822), who in sixty years peopled nine out of
the ten villages of Entry Island with her issue. Fishing and
sealing are the principal pursuits of the inhabitants, who now
number 6,000,^ live mostly on the compound island or islet-
group, and of whom five-sixths are Acadian or French,
and the rest British in origin. The type of civilization
is essentially characteristic of the south side of the Gulf.
Anticosti Island, the other obstruction in the fair way oi AniicosH
ships sailing from Europe to Quebec, belongs geologically ^^^^*^^-
and historically, in body and soul, to the north shore of the
Gulf, which is the south shore of Labrador. It is seven
hundred feet high in parts, almost harbourless, and 2,600
square miles in size, or a little larger than Prince Edward Island,
and nearly as large as Cape Breton Island. Its rocks are
Lower Silurian limestone or sandstone, like those of Mingan
' Richard Brown, History of Cape Breton Island ^ pp. 356, 408;
comp. Nova Scotia Archives (1869), p. 349.
2 Lower Canada House of Assembly : Report I on Crown Lands^
1821, pp. 50 et seq. ^ Population, 1901.
— g6-^ HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF CANADA
Islands, off the mainland opposite, to which it once belonged
physically and politically.
In 1 66 1 Fran9ois Bissot, son-in-law of Guillaume Couil-
lard, who was son-in-law of Louis Hubert, became Seigneur
of Egg Island, where Admiral Hovenden Walker was wrecked
(1711), with trading and fishing rights thence to the River
Goynish or thereabouts. He made his head-quarters Mingan,
on the mainland, of which his successors were acknowledged
as Seigneurs, while Bissot's son-in-law, Louis Jolliet, the
discoverer of the Mississippi, settled in Mingan Isles and
on Anticosti under a separate title and for the same
purposes.^ There William Phipps took Jolliet captive in
1690, but the captive returned and resumed his industry.
Like Denys and Riveron, Jolliet was alive to the value of
residence as a trading and industrial asset. Thus far
Anticosti prospered. But a blight seems to overhang
Labrador; and one hundred and eighty years later Anti-
costi was a howling wilderness haunted by wrecked sailors,
who turned cannibals, by lighthouse keepers, who were
there to save sailors from wreck, and by philanthropists or
monomaniacs in charge of food stores to save wrecked
sailors from cannibalism. Then an Anticosti Company
was formed and introduced settlers (187 1); and the island
reached its zenith in 1881, when it had 676 inhabitants,
of whom 160 were English Newfoundlanders and the rest
Canadian French, all the inhabitants living either in the
westernmost or in the easternmost corner of the island.
Then began the decline and fall of what seemed to be an
incipient province, the inhabitants dwindling to 253 (1891).
Then the province was bought at a pubUc auction by
M. Menier, of Paris, with the proceeds of the sale of chocolate
(1895); and he has built a pier 1,200 yards long at Ellis Bay
in the west end, where there is the nearest approach to
a harbour along the smooth undented coast-lines of this
^ JoUiet's and Bissot's heirs claimed more,/>os^ p. 99*
OTHER LINKS BETWEEN FAR AND MIDDLE EAST 97
inhospitable island. The east-enders have gone ; the west-
enders number about 500 ; and a few wild beasts have been
introduced in order to enliven the unromantic swamps and
forests of the interior.
Anticosti is an outlier of Labrador, and Labrador may The m-
mean one of three things. Geographers draw a line from '^^y^ ^
the mouth of the Saguenay in the St. Lawrence River up the
Saguenay to Lake St. Jean, and thence to the mouth of
the Rupert in James Bay, and describe Labrador as the
great lone land between this line, James Bay, Hudson Bay,
Hudson Strait, the Atlantic, and the Gulf of St. Lawrence.
Historians cut off all that part of geographical Labrador
which abuts on the river St. Lawrence and Saguenay, and
draw their line from Pointe des Monts, close by Egg Island,
where the Gulf begins, to Rupert River; because they say
that the civilization of a river invariably differs from that of
a gulf. Historical Labrador is the Peninsula of bays, straits,
seas, and gulfs which are exposed to the iciest currents on the
earth's surface in those latitudes. Lawyers cut off a thin slice
of Atlantic coast, beginning with Blanc Sablon in Belle Isle
Strait and ending in Cape Chidleigh in Hudson Strait, because
the thin slice belongs to Newfoundland by law, and the rest
of geographical Labrador has been similarly assigned to
Quebec Province. Taking Labrador in its least sense, its
southern shore is what Bissot's and JoUiet's heirs and assigns
claimed. In its largest sense it exceeds 420,000 square miles;
yet its only inland residents are a handful of white men, who
occupy one Hudson Bay Company trading post at Lake Nichi-
cun and another at Lake Mistassini; and perhaps 2,000
Montagnais or Nascaupi Cree-Indians who are Algonquins.
The huge husk is twice the size of Germany and all but
empty within ; and its exterior is hardly more populous.
After the amalgamation of the North- West Company of The ex-
Montreal with the Hudson Bay Company of London (1821) ^Labrador.
the latter invaded northern, southern, and eastern Labrador
VOL. V. PT. Ill
98 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF CANADA
from east, west, and north, by sea and by land. Dr. Mendry
went overland from Richmond Gulf (Hudson Bay) to Ungava
Bay (Hudson Strait) and founded Fort Chimmo (1827),
whence John Maclean went overland to Hamilton Inlet on
the Atlantic Ocean (1838), where a Hudson Bay Company
post had recently been established by seafarers (1837).
Various posts and forts on the north coast of the Gulf of St.
Lawrence and up to and along the Saguenay had already
been leased to the North- West Company and others, and
were gradually absorbed by the Hudson Bay Company.
Thus they ran a girdle round the Peninsula, which still holds,
but with two differences : the Saguenay has long since been
rescued from Labradorism, and handed over to civilization ;
and the trading posts are often doubled, so that a French-
Canadian faces a London-Scottish post, not in rival war, as
in the wild north-west before 182 1, but in friendly com-
petition. Indeed, Franco-British duels of this mild kind are
in progress from end to end of the Mackenzie, all round
James Bay, and at Hamilton Inlet, as well as on the north
shore of the Gulf of St. Lawrence. But the fur trade requires
only a few, still, strong men in a silent land. On the east
coast of Labrador there are Moravian missionaries who preach
to and trade for some 1,000 or 2,000 Eskimos at Makkovik,
Hopedale, Nain, Okkak, Hebron, Rama, and Killinek; and
south of these missions some 3,000 Newfoundland fishermen
have setded. Resident fishermen, traders, and missionaries
between the Saguenay and Blanc Sablon are now .8,000,^
of whom 4,000 are on the river shore west of Egg Island,
and are almost all French Canadians, and 4,000 are on the
gulf shore, where French Canadians are to British as three
to two, and most of the British are English Newfoundlanders
living east of Cape Whittle. French Canadians on the north
shore of the Gulf include Acadians from the south shore, and
the Magdalens, who, between 1857 and 1861, squatted at
1 8,165; census 1901.
OTHER LINKS BETWEEN FAR AND MIDDLE EAST 99
the mouth of the Natashquan, and in the neighbourhood of
Cartier's Port Brest (Eskimo Point). Settlers have come
from west, east, and south. The Gulf coast, which was never
thoroughly French, is now parti- coloured. It is only when
we enter the river that the French star shines alone, or almost
alone, on its north as well as on its south bank.
Authorities.
There is a good map of Labrador in the Journal of Jhe Royal
Geographical Society^ vol. v. (1895), No, 6.
Add to authorities in the Notes : —
S. G. Benjamin, Cruise in the Gulf of St, Lawreme^ 1885.
Jos. Bouchette's works mentioned at the end of Chapter VJ.
Jos. Schmitt, Monographie a^Anticosti^ 1904.
Henry Y. Hinde, Labrador^ 1863.
Wilfred Grenfell, Labrador^ 19 10.
Sir William MacGregor, Governor of Newfoundland, Reports of
Official Visits to Labrador in 1905 and 1908, published in Parliamentary
Papers, 1909.
Laiv Reports^ Appeal Cases ^ I903> P« 104, Labrador Company v.
Queen. This case exploded the idea, which Vondenvelden (1803),
Bouchette (1832), and others held, that Bissot's seignory reached to
Blanc Sablon or thereabouts. Only one or two seignories of small
extent and comparatively recent origin existed on the north shore of the
Gulf, and they were in the vicinity of Mingan. De Courtemanche,
a grandson-in-law of Bissot, occupied Bradore Bay in the eighteenth
century, but under a different title, which only conferred fishing and
trading rights.
Archaean
Canaaa
includes
Labrador
and is
bounded on
one side by
the basins
of the
Mackenzie,
CHAPTER V
THE COBE OF CANADA AND THE MIDDLE EAST
Labrador is vast and desolate because it is a part of
Archaean Canada; and Archaean Canada, or the Canada
where Archaean rocks are the only rocks, has been ever
since the world began, before life began, and before the rest
of America or any other continent rose from the deep. It
is the core of the American continent and of Canada. It
represents the prelude to the geological trilogy. It is the
ground floor of the earth, on which upper stories have
been built elsewhere, but on which nothing has been built
here, for it is what and where and as it always has been,
and its shape shows no trace of change. In Archaean coun-
tries distances in space count for as little as aeons in time,
and the reader must now seat himself on the magic cloth of
Jonathas and transport himself a few thousand miles to the
north-west.
The mouth of the Mackenzie lies in a delta of ddbris be-
twixt Silurian limestones on the west and Archaean gneiss
and granite on the east. A few hundred miles up-stream
just off, but once doubtless part of, the river, is an inland
sea called Great Bear Lake, with limestone on the west of it
and granite or some other Archaean rock on the east of it,
and its eastern is colder than its western shore.^ Yet a few
hundred miles further up-stream is a second inland sea called
Great Slave Lake, through the middle of which, close by
Stony Island, the division between Archaean and Silurian,
between gneiss and limestone, and between colder and
* Comp. Sir John Richardson, Arctic Searching Expedition, vol. ii,
p. 251. Sir George Back, Narrative of the Arctic Land Expedition^
1833-5* P- 563-
THE CORE OF CANADA AND THE MIDDLE,^,ASJ. VOX,
warmer, runs. The same invisible line now coincides for
a while with the visible course of the Slave River, which is the
Mackenzie under another name, and which leads up to a third
inland sea called Lake Athabasca; after which the line of
separation leaves the far north-west for the middle north-west
or west of Canada at Methye Portage, where it enters the
plains watered by the Churchill and Saskatchewan, coincides oftheSas-
neither with valleys nor seas (for there are none), but passes ^^^^"'^'^^^^^
by Lake He a la Crosse, — where Cree and Chipewyan Indians
taught Lacrosse to Europeans, — and Beaver Lake, and at
last reaches a fourth inland sea called Lake Winnipeg, in which
the Red River and Saskatchewan unite, before they travel of the Red
together to Hudson Bay under the alias of the Nelson. The ^ '^^^'
rock-row, which is the southern rim of the Archaean region,
now travels southward along the eastern border of Lake
Winnipeg to the border of the United States, dips below the
border, and reappears as the northern edge of Lakes Superior and of the
and Huron, which are the two inland seas in which the upper ^A^ ^^•
' ^^ Lawrence^
waters of the river St. Lawrence are gathered together. The
whole Canadian tract between Lakes Winnipeg and Superior
is Archaean. Lake Superior and its Archaean edge now
point eastward ; but Lake Huron wheels southward, and the
St. Lawrence looks away from its eastern goal, towards which
it only turns again when it expands into its third and fourth
inland seas. Lakes Erie and Ontario. Meanwhile the mys-
terious line of rock which we have been following passes
through Sault St. Marie (which is between Lakes Superior
and Huron), through Grand Manitoulin Island, through
Georgian Bay, which is an inner fold of Lake Huron, then ^;;^ <5y
just north of Lake Couchiching, which is an extension of Lake Georgia^i
Simcoe, and then just north of Lakes Balsam and Sturgeon, ^^^^
and the dozen other lakes into which the Trent expands, and Ttent
so straight to the Thousand Islands, which adorn the exit of ^^'^^^^
Lake Ontario into what is now called the River St. Lawrence, /^^j^ st.
Hitherto the feet of the prehistoric Archaean Continent have Lawrence
l-p:^ ' , ; HISTORIC AI^ GEOGRAPHY Of CANADA
at the
Thousand
Isles,
{avoiding
the penin-
sula of
Ontario,
Toronto,
by the
Lower
Ottawa
{avoiding
Ottawa)
been washed by seven seas of fresh water — for Lake Erie is too
far away to be reckoned — and when it enters the seventh sea,
which is Lake Ontario, it reaches its southernmost Canadian
limit and hesitates before committing itself to the north-
easterly direction which it finally assumes. And here we too
will pause for a moment.
The northernmost limits of the limestone area follow the
southernmost limits of the Archaean area like shadows, ex-
clude Algoma with its treasures and Muskoka with its
pleasures, and include Lakes Simcoe and the Trent Lakes,
the chief cities of Georgian Bay, and the cities of Peterborough
and Kingston. At or near the southern limits of the lime-
stone area, the limestone tips of the upper and lower lips of
Georgian Bay appear; and limestone reappears in Bruce county
(Ontario) as a ridge which runs southward, encircles Hamilton,
and is known in its later stages as Burlington Heights, and
Queenstown Heights, where the famous victories of 1 812-14
were won. Then once more the ridge reverts into a single
rock over which the River Niagara plunges, emptying Lake
Erie into Lake Ontario, and forming the famous cataract
whose praises Father Hennepin was the first to sound {1678).
Therefore Toronto is in the very middle of the limestone
belt. The peninsula behind the ridge and between Lakes
Erie and Huron belongs to a later stage of evolution called
Devonian.
But to return to our gneiss. A few miles east of the
Thousand Isles and west of Brockville the Archaean border
goes due north from the St. Lawrence to the Ottawa, which it
reaches at Lake Chats, forty miles west of Ottawa city, and
follows in its eastward course, so that Ottawa city, which is
the capital of the Dominion, Smith's Falls and Merrickville
on the Rideau, and Brockville on the St. Lawrence, only just
belong to the later formation. At Grenville on the Ottawa,
east of Ottawa city, the Archaean rim takes a short cut, as
does the modern railway, behind Montreal towards Joliette,
THE CORE OF CANADA AND THE MIDDLE EAST 103
and then wavers and wanders to and fro some ten miles or and by the
so from the left bank of the St. Lawrence, until Cap Tour- j^^!^^.^^//^
mente is reached thirty miles below Quebec. Thus Montreal, {avoiding
and Cartier's ' Mount Royal ' behind Montreal, and Quebec, ^^."^^^^""j'
and the Heights of Abraham behind it, are within the lime- St. Law-
stone area ; but below Cap Tourmente Silurian limestone is ^^^^^ ^^•^*
hardly found except on the right bank, for instance, at Riviere
du Loup, the left bank being thenceforth almost wholly
dedicated to archaean gneiss and the like.
Such is the outer margin of the Archaean region. Its The north
inner margin is Hudson Bay, except where a flat Silurian or ^.^^'^ ^^^
Devonian strip lines the shore between the Churchill and near Hud-
Rupert rivers. This excepted strip begins to overspread the ^^^^ ^^'
gneiss for the last 60 miles of the Rupert and Nottaway, the
last 150 miles of the Moose, and the last 250 miles of the
Albany rivers ^ ; and the principal posts of the Hudson Bay
Company have dotted its hem for the last 240 years. Every-
thing else, — if a few well-known outcrops of later date may
be omitted — is Archaean ; and the Archaean zone is like some
rough horse-shoe, wide at its extremities but narrow at ils
arch, with its convex side turned toward the south, and its
hollow side filled with a sea chilled and choked at its entrances
with Arctic ice.
Broadly speaking, the whole Archaean area is stone, hill, Some of the
and forest. The characteristic Archaean stone is hard, bossy ^I'^l^^^con-
gneiss ; therefore the hills are low, rounded knolls, and the sists of
valleys high and three parts lake or river ; and the soil is thin
and sandy, so that the stones break through it like the rib-
bones of a starved horse. Archaean Canada is a land without
glaciers (except one or two in Baffin Land), peaks, passes,
ridges, downs, heaths, or plains. Even its forests disappear
and turn into boggy or stony ' barrens ' north of a line drawn
from Churchill (Hudson Bay) ^ to the east of Great Slave
1 Dr. R. Bell, Royal Geographical Society, vol. x (1897), p. 8.
2 c. 60° lat.
I04 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF CANADA
Lake, of Great Bear Lake, and of the mouth of the Macken-
zie ^ ; and from near Richmond Gulf (Hudson Bay) ^ to near
Fort Chimmo (Hudson Strait) ' and Okkak ' on the Atlantic.
Labrador too has bald patches elsewhere, especially on its
wind-swept, ice-swept Atlantic coast. Similar * barrens ' were
noted long ago in Lapland and Siberia by Giles Fletcher
(1588) and others, who called them 'Tundras',* which was
then the Russian and is now the European word for barrens.
and some In the Archaean area barrens are a change for the worse,
^^}'^ , but there are changes for the better. The rocks are not all
rods and gneiss and granite, but mineral rocks, and rich clay belts have
clay belts, }qqq^ discovered. What are called Huronian rocks ^ are also
Archaean in age, but contain dolerite or diabase, and the
copper and unique nickel of Sudbury (Ontario), the silver
and unique cobalt of Cobalt (Ontario), the silver ot Thunder
Bay (Lake Superior), the copper of Michipicoten (Lake
Superior) and of Wabigoon and Manitou (between Lakeft
Superior and Winnipeg), and probably all minerals east of
the Rockies are found in Huronian strata. Nor is the soil
always thin, deep deposits of clay being found on the shores of
lakes and over long stretches between lake and lake ; and the
history of Lake St. Jean, which is an expansion of the Sague-
nay one hundred miles from its mouth in the very heart of
the Archaean country, may be taken as a parable and a
precedent.
e.^, at Every early explorer wished to go west, and the Saguenay —
^f ^7.^.. which is one to three miles wide, and lies west and east, while
the St. Lawrence lies south-west and north-east — tempted
Cartier (1535), Roberval, Chauvin, and Champlain (1603),
Chauvin building a stone house at Tadoussac by the mouth
of the Saguenay at least eight years before the first log
shanty was built at Quebec. Yet Tadoussac (pop. 511^) only
' c. 69° lat. 2 c. 57° lat. s c. 58° lat.
* Hakluyt, Principal Navigations^ vol. iii, p. 403, ed. 1903.
' Including Animikie. ^ Population, 1901.
St. Jean,
THE CORE OF CANADA AND THE MIDDLE EAST 105
became a summer fishing-station and fur-market, to which the
Montagnais Cree-Indians of Labrador brought fur, and which
the Recollets and Jesuits used as a base whence they pushed
on to Chicoutimi, seventy miles up stream, and to Lake St.
Jean (1647); ^^^ it was from Lake St. Jean that Father
Albanel pushed on by Lake Mistassini and Rupert River to
James Bay (1672). Geology supplied the reason. Tadoussac
has much gneiss and little grass, and the Saguenay for seventy
miles is a cleft filled with deep water between gneiss and
granite walls. Tadoussac and the Saguenay were epitomes
of Labrador ; therefore civilization shunned them and clave
to the St. Lawrence, so that the Saguenay and its Lake were
never more than the home of a few traders and missionaries
until Joseph Bouchette and others explored the Lake from
Quebec (1827-8). Bouchette's route lay up the St. Maurice
and La Tuque, not far from the present railway track from
Quebec to Roberval-on-the-Lake, through lands which he
said were less known than the heart of Africa. He urged
the colonization of the Lake shores and of the river banks
down to Chicoutimi, or a little further. In 185 1 over 5,000,
in 1 90 1 nearly 50,000, colonists had responded to his call;
and the St. Jean and Upper Saguenay district, with its capitals,
Chicoutimi (pop. 5,79^^), H^bertville (pop. 2,580^), and
Roberval (pop. 2,593 ^) is a fine example of French-Canadian
enterprise under the British regime.'' This new district is
an oasis redeemed from the wilderness and connected with
the St. Lawrence and civilization by 190 miles of lonely
railway, or seventy miles of the deep still waters of the lonely
Saguenay.
Some four hundred miles due west of Lake St. Jean, e.g. at
between Lake Abitibi and Lake Timiskaming inclusively, ^J^^is.
there is a larger and richer clay belt which is now being re- kaming,
claimed. Lake Timiskaming is an expansion of the upper
' Population, 1901.
2 Canada Dept. of Agriculture : La Contrive du Lac St. Jean, 1888.
To6 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF CANADA
Ottawa, and lies on the main water-way by which Pierre De
Troyes and Pierre Le Moyne Dlberville attacked the Hudson
Bay Company in James Bay (1686), and along which fur-
traders still wander north; and it was a mere passage with a
wayside inn, until rich cobalt and silver mines were discovered
at Cobalt (November, 1903), and gold mines at Larder Lake
close by. De Troyes' and the fur-traders' route to James
Bay just missed Larder Lake, and in 1906 moose fed on its
water-lilies, bears swam to its islets, loons wailed, and deso-
lation reigned over it. Two years later machinery crushed
quartz, and there was a gold ' city ' on its shores.
For these reasons Lake Timiskaming has a railroad one
hundred miles long to North Bay Junction (on Lake Nipis-
sing), and so into the civilized parts of Ontario ; and the
railroad has now been continued for another hundred miles
northward to Matheson close by Lake Abitibi ; that is to say,
right through the clay belt. At Porcupine Lake, near Mathe-
son, important discoveries of gold were announced in 1909.
and other The development of Lake St. Jean belongs to the past,
/ aces, ^j^^j. ^^ Lake Abitibi and its neighbourhood to the present ;
and one hundred or two hundred miles west of Lake Abitibi
there is a somewhat similar patch on the Archaean skirt,
where a surveyor in 1907 discovered a lake fifty miles long,
surrounded by rich clay, and unmarked on any map ' ; and
similar discoveries are being made from time to time in the
heart of the forest, which intervenes between the outer and
inner limits of the Archaean wilderness. These districts
belong to the future ; and it is hoped that all these oases will
ultimately hang together like beads upon a string by means
of the National Transcontinental Railway which is in course
of construction.
In Archae- These tracts, where rocks and lakes produce wealth recall
"llverTand ^^^^ ' S^od land of brooks, of waters, of fountains and depths
lakes sei-ve that spring out of valleys and hills, of wheat and barley, . . .
' ^ On the Kabinagagami River.
THE CORE OF CANADA AND THE MIDDLE EAST 1 07
whose stones are iron, and out of whose hills thou mayest
dig brass ' ; and whether the lakes and rivers do or do not
deposit soil, they are the natural roadways along which wealth
is exchanged. As Pascal wrote, 'Les rivieres sont des
chemins qui marchent,' but rivers are the highways of Canada
in a peculiar sense. Eternal forest makes other roads im-
possible or difficult ; Canadian waters are as innumerable as
the stars, and unless very deep or swift, freeze in winter.
Archaean Canada is a labyrinth of waters ; lakes lie on
almost every watershed, and full-grown rivers start from the
lakes on journeys many hundred miles in length towards
every point of the compass. A few extreme examples will
illustrate what is meant.
Nearly three hundred miles north of Mingan Isles there is and water-
_ _ ., /- 1 , 1 T 1 partings
a Lake, seventy miles from north to south, named Lake are often
Michikamau, which discharges into North- West River, which '^ater-
ffieettn '^s
discharges into Hamilton Inlet on the Atlantic. West oi e.g,at '
this lake is a lakelet which ' discharges — either into Lake ^^.'^^ .,
__,,., , , . , XX ., T^. ^' Michika-
Michikamau or southward into the Hamilton River according ^lau^
to the direction of the wind ', and in spring the swollen lake-
let discharges both ways simultaneously.^ Further, a few
miles north of Lake Michikamau, on * very flat country ', are
two lakelets with a bog two hundred yards long between
them, one lakelet discharging into Lake Michikamau, and
therefore into Hamilton Inlet, and the other into George
River, and therefore into Ungava Bay (Hudson Strait), so
that particles of the same slime ooze from one bog towards
bournes six hundred miles apart.^
If we now travel from Lake Michikamau along its line of at Frog
latitude in the Sun's course and at the Sun s pace for two
hours and forty minutes, we shall reach a lakelet on a flat
called Frog Portage, from which an affluent of the Nelson
1 Royal Geogr. Soc. Journ. (1895), vol. v, p. 531 (map).
2 Mrs. L. Hubbard, A Woman's Way through unknown Labrador
(1908), pp. 174-5 (map).
To8 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF CANADA
flows, and into which the Churchill, during its annual flood-
time, pours some of its waters ^ ; so that the same waters
reach Hudson Bay at points. 150 miles apart. It might be
thought that these lakelets, ponds, and flats — common to two
w^ater-systems — are occasional vagaries like Tuburi Marsh in
Mid-Africa. But the same excuse will not explain what follows.
at Summit Returning now to a spot seventy miles south and one
Labrador ^^^^^^^ ^^d fifty miles west of Lake Michikamau, whence
we came, we shall see a flat and on it a lakelet five miles long,
called Summit Lake. ' The longest branch ' of the Koksoak,
which runs into Ungava Bay in Hudson Strait four hundred
miles north, * flows out of the northern end of Summit Lake
(53° lat.), while a branch of the Manicouagan River,' which
runs three hundred miles south into the St. Lawrence River,
* flows out of the southern end of the same lake, thus con-
necting by w^ater the Gulf of St. Lawrence and Ungava Bay.' ^
In other words, everything east of this waterway, or half
Labrador, is an island, bounded by fresh water on its west,
and salt water on its north, east, and south. It is strange,
but a geologist vouches for it and therefore it must be true.
And still stranger things are true.
at Summit Once more let us accompany the Sun on its westward race
Nipioon, ^"^^' ^^ ^0^1* ^^^ ^ quarter, and then drop southward one
degree, and we shall see another flat and another lakelet,
called Summit Lake. It is three miles long, and 'sends
a stream in both directions ' — one to Lake Nipigon, and so
to Lake Superior and to the river and gulf of St. Lawrence,
and the other ' north to the Albany river ', and so to James
Bay (Hudson Bay).^ Therefore everything east of this
double stream, or nearly all Quebec Province and Ontario, is
literally and in very truth an island bounded by fresh and
salt water equally. And the strangest tale is to follow.
^ Sir J. Richardson, Arctic Searching Expedition (185 1), vol. i, p. 90.
2 Canada Rep. of Geological Survey (1895), vol. viii, p. 25 /.
^ Canada Rep. of Geological Survey (1902), vol. xv, pp. 317 «, 218 «.
THE CORE OF CANADA AND THE MIDDLE EAST 109
Lake Athabasca (690 feet s.m.), the third inland sea of the and at
basin of the Mackenzie, lies one thousand miles north-west j^l^/^^
of Lake Nipigon. Into its eastern corner, in a dyke between
Archaean and Cambrian rocks, or between two species of
Archaean rock, an affluent descends from Wollaston Lake
{1,300 feet s.m.), whence an effluent descends by Reindeer
Lake (1,150 feet s.m.) into the Churchill at Frog Portage,
and so into Hudson Bay at Churchill, or in spring floods at
Nelson. If so, all the ' barrens ' of North- Western Canada
and some of their adjacent forests are an island. Recent
explorations have resolved one-half of Canada into three
gigantic islands surrounded by sea and river. The nominal
water-parting between two opposite river-systems is the real
meeting-place of both ; and there is nothing like this either in
Africa or anywhere else in the world.
Even where this is not the case, the watershed is all but and are
always the nearest approach to a plain in Archaean Canada ; ^(^hvavsflat
and Methye Portage is probably the only watershed that
bears the faintest resemblance to a ridge. Americans call
these roof-flats heights of land for fear that watersheds may
suggest other associations. The boatman, whom his canoe
bears from the Atlantic to the Arctic Ocean or to Hudson
Bay, invariably finds the portages — or places where he
reverses parts and bears his canoe — on the so-called water-
sheds the easiest with which he has to deal. The portages
by the rapids give far more trouble, but not for long ; thus
the St. Lawrence from Lake Superior, and the Mackenzie
from Lake Athabasca, only drop 602 feet and 690 feet
respectively, or on an average one foot in three miles. Similarly
in Russia, where portages were first described, the describers
contrasted the ease with which boats were carried from the
Volga to the Don, on the water-route from Moscow to
Constantinople, with the difficulties of the ascent of the Onega
on the water-route from the Arctic Ocean to Novgorod.^
^ Hakluyt, Principal Navigation^ vol. ii, p. 454 ; vol. iii, pp. 73 et seq.
no HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF CANADA
Its hills
are low.
Branches
of the St.
Lawrence
surround
Archaean
Canada
above
Montreal,
Moreover in Canada the highest heights of land rarely exceed
2,000 feet s.m., and the highest mountains are hardly higher.
But are they mountains?
A tourist who looks at Mount St. Anne (2,620 feet s.m.)
behind Cap Tourmente (1,874 feet s.m.), or at Les fiboule-
ments (2,551 feet s.m.), from a steamer on the St. Lawrence,
or at Trembling Mountain (2,380 feet s.m.) in the Montreal
District, looks at some of the loftiest heights from the lowest
depths in Archaean Canada ^ ; yet he is never conscious of the
presence of mountains like Snowdon, partly because forests
invest them from foot to blue rounded summit, and partly
because the summits are mimicked and shadowed by number-
less other blue, wavy, fretted summits of almost equal height.
This country is no more mountainous than the Atlantic in
a storm. These are not mountains, but the buttresses of an
undulating plateau. The scenery here is comparatively bold,
not because the hills are higher, but because the valleys are
lower than usual. An equally bold descent marks the end
of the Archaean system on the north shores of Lakes Huron
and Superior. The plateau resembles some old fort, with
bastions and lunettes on its outline, guarded by abattis of
living trees and moats of running water.
If we proceed westward from the Atlantic, the Gulf and
river of St. Lawrence represent the moat as far as Montreal.
In its lower reaches the river is about as wide as the Strait
between Dover and Calais ; but it narrows at Quebec to
a little less than a mile, and retains that width as far as
Lake Ontario, except where it expands into lakes from three
to nine miles wide. There are no rapids east of Montreal,
and ships of 15,000 tons visit Montreal. Above Cap
Tourmente the river is fresh, and above Three Rivers
tideless. At Montreal the St. Lawrence and Ottawa meet
and their breadth is equal. Above Montreal, the main-
^ Probably hills near Moisie River and at Cape Mugford almost
attain 3,000 feet, those at Nachvak almost 4000 feet.
THE CORE OF CANADA AND THE MIDDLE EAST III
Stream of the St. Lawrence having apparently abandoned
the task, the Ottawa fills the dyke or moat for 170 miles;
then fragments of dyke skirt the north shore of the Trent
Lakes, Lake Couchiching, Lakes Huron and Superior, but
the true moat wavers and wanders in its course. The moat
between Montreal and Georgian Bay seems to be at one time
the Ottawa, at another time the St. Lawrence, and at another
time some more or less watery compromise between the two.
After Georgian Bay it is clean-cut and sure of its way.
Even so men who- were westward-bound used to travel which
along the St. Lawrence from Quebec or Three Rivers, and ^^^^^^^^^
pause at Montreal in doubt as to which way they should go. been at
Montreal was Doubting Castle. Rapids lay above it both ^^^ ^^^^'5
° r y /^^ main-
on the St, Lawrence and on the Ottawa. The usual course stream.
of early voyagers was up the Ottawa, past the capital of the
Ottawas^ on Allumette Island, along the Mattawa, and
thence over a flat watershed into the Lake of the Nipissings,^
and down French River into Georgian Bay, where the
Hurons dwelt. Possibly the St. Lawrence once flowed
along this very course; and this course was taken by Le
Caron and Champlain (16 15-16), and by the Jesuits who
founded the doomed mission of St. Mary on the limestones
near Midland on Georgian Bay (1640). A second route lay
up the St. Lawrence to the Bay of Quintd on Lake Ontario,
where there was an early Sulpician mission (1666), and
thence along the Trent and its lakes beneath the shadow of
the Archaean rim ; then across a flat watershed into Lakes
Simcoe and Couchiching; and this route also ended in
Georgian Bay. Orillia on Lake Couchiching was the Huron
capital, and two -thirds of this route, or that part which lay
between Georgian Bay and Kingston, was one-third of
Champlain's route from Montreal to Lake Ontario (1615-
16), fear of the Iroquois having made him avoid the direct
route from Kingston to Montreal, which was first followed
^ Algpnquins.
112 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF CANADA
by the Jesuit, Le Moyne (1653); but of which La Salle was
the lay pioneer {1669). The second or middle route lay
midway between the possible ancient and the actual modern
channel of the St. Lawrence ; and for aught we know the
St. Lawrence may have flowed this very way in the middle
ages of geological history. The route by the actual St.
Lawrence and its seas was the third and latest way to the
west, and forts were built between river and seas, or between
seas and seas at Kingston (1673), Niagara {1678-9),
Detroit (1686), and Sault St. Marie (1669), a few hundred
miles apart from one another. Beyond these forts there
were missions, forts, or both, at Mackinaw and Green Bay
on Lake Michigan (U. S.), and at Duluth on Lake Superior
(U. S.), before Lake Ontario was explored or Lake Erie
known; and these posts, like those on Lake Ontario and
Lake Erie, led to the Mississippi and its tributaries. Later
forts were also established at Grand Portage and Fort
William, on the west of Lake Superior, as gateways to the
north-west for north-western travellers, and as goals for
travellers from east or west. Sometimes western and north-
western travellers took a short cut from Toronto to Lake
Simcoe, and thence either by Lake Couchiching, or, like
Franklin (1825), by the Nottawasaga, to Georgian Bay; but,
although a fort was built at Toronto in 1749, this short cut
played no part in Canadian history during the French
regime.
Quebec and Quebec and Ontario provinces are vast — both extend to
areTon- Hudson Bay — and the former includes Labrador, and the latter
cemedwith includes the Lake of the Woods between Lakes Superior and
^Lawrence ^ij^^ip^g* The boundary between the two provinces is
audits (i) the Ottawa, of which the north and east banks as far as
^earlier ^^^^ Timiskaming belong to Quebec, while the south and
courses. west banks, including Cobalt and the railway to Abitibi,
belongs to Ontario; (2) an imaginary line due north from
Lake Timiskaming to James Bay ; and (3) a line from the
THE CORE OF CANADA AND THE MIDDLE EAST II3
head of Lac des deux Montagnes — which is the first expan-
sion of the Ottawa above Montreal — to Pointe au Baudet on
the St. Lawrence. But those parts of Quebec and Ontario
Provinces in which history was made lie between narrow
confines. All their historical events took place in the valley
of the St. Lawrence. There their colonies and towns were
built, their battles fought, and their industrial successes won.
In former times the river was called Canada ; and what was
once called Canada, and is now called the Middle East of
Canada, is essentially the country of the River St. Lawrence.
What the Nile is to Egypt and the Soudan, the St. Lawrence
is to Quebec and Ontario. But the St. Lawrence is purer
and straighter than the Nile. It has infinite islands but no
mud islands or deltas, not even at its mouth, and for its last
thousand miles, from Detroit to Pointe des Monts, the
distances by air, land, or water differ but little. As the
Nile above Khartum is the White and Blue Nile, so the
St. Lawrence above Montreal is the Ottawa and the St.
Lawrence; so that the Upper Province is the Province of
Two Rivers. Quebec Province is bounded on the south
partly by the boundary-line which has already been described,^
then by the Appalachian range, then by the 45th parallel of
latitude until it strikes the St. Lawrence at St. Regis opposite
Cornwall. Parts of the Appalachian range within Maine,
Vermont, and New York States may be seen on a clear day
from any hill-top between Montreal and Quebec, and on the
north of the river the crowded hill-tops of Archaean Canada
loom near at hand. All that is of interest in old Canadian
history took place within these narrow limits. The figure
described within these limits represents from time to time en-
closed spaces, of small size in Quebec Province and of large
size in Ontario, but French civilization might be typified by
the straight line of the St. Lawrence, upon which miniature
circles and triangles were sometimes described on its islands
^ ubi supra ^ p. 18.
VOL, V. PT. Ill I
114 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF CANADA
or at the confluence of its principal tributaries. No serious
effort was made to fill the whole enclosed space until the
very end of the eighteenth century. Above Cornwall, the
southern limit of Ontario — for we are already in Ontario — lies
in the present bed of the St. Lawrence and its inland seas,
until Pigeon River on the west coast of Lake Superior is
reached. Thence it continues up the old river route from
Grand Portage on Pigeon River to the 49th parallel of
latitude, which is the international boundary of the middle
and extreme west of Canada as far as the Pacific. Rivers
have never been boundaries for long, either in Asia, Africa,
or Europe, and parallels and meridians have only been
effective boundaries between * spheres of influence ' in bar-
baric countries or between British provinces. The immediate
palpable effect of these arbitrary lines was that in Ontario
new towns sprang up at Niagara, Detroit River, and Sault
St. Marie, opposite American towns or vice versa ; and that
the starting-point on Lake Superior for the middle west and
north-west was shifted from Grand Portage to Fort William,
forty miles north (1803), the old and new ways meeting
rather more than one hundred miles west of the two starting-
points. Ontario, south of the most ancient possible course
of the St. Lawrence to Georgian Bay, is sometimes nick-
named old Ontario ; it too has narrow confines, but it was
always thought of as a triangle which colonists tried to fill.
Nevertheless nearly all its principal towns lie on one of the
three ways to the west, and on a Silurian or Devonian, not
on an Archaean, foundation. The civilization of the middle
east abhorred granite, and its line of life was thin-spun and
single, except where the St. Lawrence seemed to go or to
have gone two or three ways, and there it too became double
or triple, and tried to cover the interval between the threads.
West of French River the line is once more frail and
single, and is symbolized by the Canadian Pacific Railway
as it runs along or near the north shore of the first and
THE CORE OF CANADA AND THE MIDDLE EAST IT5
second seas of the St. Lawrence as far as Fort William,
which shines with the reflected glory of the middle west.
After Fort William there are forty miles of the old water-
system, 350 miles of a new water-system with the old
wilderness, and then a new country.
But we must return to the middle east, which suggests Middle
three reflections. First, because it is the country of one country of
great river, because that river is a pre-eminent example of the St.
' Les chemins qui marchent ', and because all its main rail- ^"^^^^^^^^
ways and roadways double or treble the course or courses of
the great river, there is an incessant stream, not only of
water but of men and things perpetually moving along the
western way. Secondly, from end to end of the middle east
there is not one rock later than rocks of Devonian age,
which rocks precede Carboniferous rocks in the geological
scale; consequently there is no coal. Thirdly, the middle
west is often called the north-west because its southern limit
is 49° lat. or two degrees north of Quebec City, and it is
proposed that the National Transcontinental Railway shall
connect it with Quebec by a straight line. When this is
complete it is thought that the single thread with knots, net-
works, and tangles here and there, which is the emblem of
Canadian destiny, will be changed into an immense triangle
with a base 1,200 miles long; the middle east will no longer
be length without breadth, and a new era will dawn. The
St. Lawrence, which has hitherto been the only ' Leit-Faden '
of the middle east, will be left at Quebec, and the track will
plunge at once into the primeval forest, catching up cross-
threads here and there, like that at Abitibi, but without
emerging until its journey is at an end. A more familiar
metaphor is often used. It is said that hitherto the middle
east has been like a row of one-storied houses in Quebec
Province, and of two-storied houses in Old Ontario, with
two or three scaffolds and ladders erected to an unbuilt
upper storey, and that the time has now come to build
I 2
Il6 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF CANADA
a still higher storej all along the upper ends of the scaffolds
and ladders. The metaphor is not quite exact, for it can
hardly be expected that the living places along the new track
will be continuous with themselves and with the old track.
Along the old track nothing is so striking as the continuous
civilization which lines the valley of the St. Lawrence up to
Lake Superior ; but the continuity was attained by different
methods and processes and with different results in the
provinces of Quebec and Ontario.
CHAPTER VI
THE MIDDLE EAST
Quebec or The Province of Two Nations and one
River.
Quebec is the Province of two nations — Old French and Quebec
New English — the former underlying the latter, and having Zl^jl^^liy
the first choice of place, but both mingling and alternating in the French,
centres of most disturbance, like successive geological strata.
Both cleave to the St. Lawrence, but the French, who were
there first, cleave most closely. The cities which were chosen
by the French were on critical points on the great river, and
are therefore most altered. In the chief cities as well as in
the country districts the French are still first.
Under the French rdgime there were only three cities in Quebec,
Canada : Quebec, Three Rivers, and Montreal, which were '^■^^^.^
founded in 1608, 1634, and 1641 respectively. These three a^id Mon-
places are all north of the St. Lawrence, and were in 1535 ^p^^-^l^^^^
the chief places of the Indians/ who lived on the St. Lawrence a7td
and spoke Iroquois, and may have been Hurons or Mohawks ^^r^J^?^
for aught we know, and were wiped clean out before 1608,
when their vacant seats were filled by Frenchmen, who for
awhile shunned the south shore as though it were plague -
stricken. Again, each of these places lies at an angle formed
by two rivers, as though for trade or defence. At Quebec,
Cartier dwelt on the east bank of the St. Charles, in whose
mouth his ships lay, and on the other side of which the
friendly Indians occupied Quebec itself. Recollets, Jesuits,
and fur-traders chose Three Rivers because it was on the
St. Maurice, which, unlike the St. Charles, went far inland,
* sub. nom. Stadacona, Ochelay, Hochelaga.
I20 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF CANADA
and at whose head waters the Atticamegues ^ dwelt. More-
over, every year until Montreal was founded, and often in
later years, the Ottawas of Allumette Island ^ used to travel
north by the Gatineau and south by the St. Maurice in order
to bring their peltry to Three Rivers without passing Montreal.
At Montreal the Ottawa joined the St. Lawrence. Further,
each of these cities has or is an island ; for early mariners
conceived the St. Lawrence as a sea-arm, and chose their
harbours on or behind islands. And islands had other advan-
tages. The island of Orleans which sheltered, fed Quebec, and
when Champlain saw the St. Maurice he wrote, ' There is
one island in the middest of the said river . . . This would be
a very fit place to inhabit, and it might be quickly fortified.' ^
Montreal is an island of 123 square miles, or twice as large
as Manhattan plus Hong Kong plus Bombay, but not so
large as Singapore, but with far greater opportunities for agri-
culture and far greater exposure to attack and far less
opportunities for defence than its peers.
In each of these three places the French pioneers occupied
the very isles and isle-guarded peninsulas on the north bank
where their first Indian friends flourished and vanished. The
three sites had different advantages.
In French Quebec is a city on a hill — strong, fair, and opportune.
^Quebec ^^^^ miles above it is Cap Rouge, where Cartier and
was the Roberval wintered (1541-3) in order to be near, but not too
^andmiy ^^^^» ^^^^^ friends at Quebec. Opposite Cap Rouge is the
European Chaudi^re, a highway of the Abenaki Indians,^ who dwelt on
^^^ ' the Kennebec River in Maine (United States) ; and who in
1 64 1 sent envoys along this highway to Quebec in order to
make an alliance with some Ottawas,^ then resident at Three
Rivers. While Quebec opened up the friendly southerners.
Three Rivers opened up the friendly northerners and
westerners ; and Quebec and Three Rivers, between them,
^ Algonquins.
2 Champlain, Voyages, ed. E. G. Bourne (1906), vol. ii, p. 185.
THE MIDDLE EAST — QUEBEC 12I
became junctions and asylums for friendly Algonquins of the
distant south and the distant north and west. Quebec, too,
became the port for the European vessels upon whose annual
arrival the trade, safety, and existence of Canada depended.
When Kirke (1629) and Wolfe (1759) took Quebec, every-
thing west of it was doomed, because Quebec was the only
link of Canada with Europe. But they had to leave in
November and could never come before Spring, so that
Quebec was left to its own military resources every winter.
During five months of the year it is useful only as a fort, for
ice makes it useless as a port ; then when the thaw comes it
proudly raises its head and brings Europe into the heart of
America, and makes the uttermost waters of the basin of the
St. Lawrence and the seas which beat against England and
France a single waterway.
Three Rivers never had direct dealings with Europe, and Three
Europeans scarcely knew of it except as a half-way house ^^^rthe
between Quebec and Montreal ; but it was the first base of starting'
the western fur-trade and the first goal of the western Indians, ^t^raders
Nipissings ^ and Hurons, as well as Ottawas ^ and Atticame- the resort
gues,^ came hither year in and year out to meet the %{dians ^
Governor-General and his suite, who came in large boats or and the
little brigantines from Quebec to meet them. It was the ^'^^^ ^ ^
home of interpreters such as Pierre Boucher, Jean and
Thomas Godefroy, Jacques Hertel, Jean Nicolet, M^dard
Chouart Sieur des Groseilliers, and Pierre Esprit Radisson,
who were the lay pioneers of the far west. In 1653 ^wo of
these interpreters visited Green Bay (Lake Michigan), from
which the Mississippi was discovered ; in 1656 Lake Winni-
peg was known to them by name^ ; and in 1661 Groseilliers
and Radisson went from here to the River Nipigon on the
north-west shore of Lake Superior, where Duluth built a fort
(1684), from which La Verendrye, a native of Three Rivers,
^ Algonquins.
^ B. Suite, Chronique Trifluvienne (1879), p. 174.
122 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF CANADA
advanced in order to build a chain of forts between Lake
Superior and Winnipeg (1731 et seq.). Three Rivers had
a long reach inland, which Quebec never had. It seemed
too at one time that it might become a federal capital for
the Algonquins and Hurons under French protection. It
also had a relentless foe across the water who rarely wrought
havoc in the neighbourhood of Quebec, but incessantly
attacked Three Rivers. This foe was the Iroquois.
and was The Iroquois, who spread death along the south shore of
^mhawks^' ^^ ^^* Lawrence, and dread from James Bay to the Atlantic,
were the Five Nations; and the Mohawks, who more
especially menaced the Lower St. Lawrence, dwelt where the
Appalachian range would be if it were a ridge. Between
Temiscouata and Rivibre du Loup this range is a wooded
ridge 1,324 feet high, in the midst of wooded hills 1,000 feet
higher; further south-west, between the sources of the
Chaudifere and Kennebec, it is still the same ridge and
1,854 feet high; and between the St. Francis and Con-
necticut Rivers, where the watershed is on Canadian soil,
this selfsame ridge is 1,585 feet high, and its coronet of
wooded hill-tops twice that height. A little further on, the
ridge vanishes and is replaced by a watershed, 120 miles
south of the Canadian border, and 150 feet high, dividing two
rivers, each running due north and south — the Hudson to New
York, 200 miles south; and the Richelieu and its expansion
Lake Cham plain to the St. Lawrence at Sorel, 180 miles
north. The range only exists for the eye of faith, and the
watershed is about the same height as that in the Petitcodiac
or Annapolis Valleys; but the rivers which it divides are
great navigable rivers, the only obstruction on the Richelieu
being at Chambly, where the river falls nearly seventy feet in
two miles. The Mohawks lived west of this watershed, on
the Mohawk, a western tributary of the Upper Hudson, and
the rest of the Five Nations lived still further west. The four
Western Nations menaced the St. Lawrence from above
THE MIDDLE EAST — QUEBEC 123
Montreal to the west end of Lake Erie; and the Mohawks
shot down the Richelieu to Sorel like arrows from a bow.
When the Mohawks heard that the Hurons and Algonquins
passed the mouth of the Richelieu annually on their way to
Three Rivers, they felt as sportsmen would feel on hearing of
an annual migration of caribou past their lodge-gate. Pbre
Jogues was their first prize, and was the first to make the
through trip from Sorel to New York (1642). The Iroquois
seized him as he started from Three Rivers for the west, took
him to the Mohawk, tortured, burned, maimed, and mutilated
him ; then he escaped to New York and France, returned
twice to the Iroquois of his own accord, and was killed.
The Richelieu was the road to Calvary, and every field near
it was watered with the blood of the victims of the Iroquois.
Pres de la borne q\\ chaque ^tat commence
Aucun ^pi n'est pur de sang humain.
As a take-off for Europe Quebec was alone, but as a take-off Montreal
for the west Three Rivers had a younger rival in Montreal. ^^,,^^^ ^,^^
In 1656 ^ the race between Three Rivers and Montreal began base of^
in earnest : when La Salle's explorations of Lake Ontario and aminsuhe
the south-west began (1669), Montreal was his only base, and Iroquois
after that date Three Rivers was more or less eclipsed, ^j^^ ^/„-^y
Montreal was exposed to the full fury not only of the ^^se of fur-
Mohawks but of all the Iroquois. After 1643 ^^ Mohawks ^^^/ ^y
chastised Three Rivers with whips but Montreal with Indians,
scorpions. They descended the Richelieu to Chambly, forty-
seven miles above Sorel, and crossed by the Litde Montreal
and La Prairie Rivers to Laprairie, opposite Montreal.
Sometimes, too, other Iroquois descended the St. Lawrence
from Oswego (United States) on Ontario Lake, so that
Montreal was between two fires, from east and south-west*
AdamDaulac's heroism at the Long Sault on the Ottawa (1660)
and Madeleine's defence of Vercheres (1692) saved Montreal
1 Suite's date.
124 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF CANADA
from attacks from the west and north respectively. The
Iroquois, so long as they commanded the river, threatened
Montreal from every side. Montreal was Castle Dangerous.
Down to 1665 the Iroquois made the existence of Montreal
hang in the balance; after that date counter attacks were
organized, and Montreal was comparatively secure. The
power of the Iroquois was broken, and the Iroquois gradually
ceased to be a political force of first-rate importance. Then
Montreal asserted its geographical superiority over Three
Rivers, and fur-traders for the west and friendly Indians
from the west gradually began to prefer Montreal to Three
Rivers, as base, goal and meeting place.
Expansion The best defence of the French colonists was expansion,
^th^7h^^^"^ and expansion was from the same three centres, and was
French both On the north and on the south side of the river ; for in
capitals; ^^ history of civilization the country which tries to keep one
river-bank invariably gains or loses both.
from At Quebec Louis Hebert of Paris, and his son-in-law
Quebec Guillaume Couillard, farmed in the Twenties. East of
along the '
east shore Quebec, and west of Montmorency Falls, Robert Giffard of
V^^ Perche became seigneur of Beauport, and stocked his
1^20 etseq., seignory with colonists in the Thirties. In the Forties other
seigneurs did the same for Beaupre, — which is east of Beauport
and extends eastward to Les Eboulements — and for the lime-
stone islands which began with the Island of Orleans and end
opposite St. Paul's Bay in the Isle aux Coudres. The
inhabitants of Beaupr6 dwelt west of Cap Tourmente,
where limestone, fresh water, and wheat-growing end ; or at
St. Paul's Bay, under the shadow of Les Eboulements, and
outnumbered the inhabitants of the capital in 1667. In 1628
David Kirke raided Cap Tourmente, and in 1759 James
Wolfe raided Beauprd from end to end, and occupied the
Island of Orleans in order to starve Quebec. The island of
Orleans was also more populous than its capital in 1667 ; and
from that date it and Beaupr^ have changed but little down
THE MIDDLE EAST — QUEBEC 125
to to-day. Nor has Beauport changed much along the shore
line.
The Seignory or Lordship or Manor of Beauport was by means of
three miles long and four miles deep, and of Beauprd ^^^^^^^^
forty-eight miles long and eighteen miles deep : the * long ' habitants,
side being along the St. Lawrence, which served as road,
till roads were built, and the Meep' side being unin-
habited and uncultivated, except for a short distance from its
long side. The building of roads and the clearing of the
forest, of which the whole valley of the St. Lawrence con-
sisted, was usually the duty of the lords of the manor or
seigneurs, but invariably the act of the habitants or copy-
holders whom their lords imported and planted. In order to
build roads across their front the habitants required narrow
and contiguous fronts. The first holdings of the habitants in
Beauport were from ten to seventeen-fold, and of those in
Beaupr^ forty-fold deeper than wide. Roads crept on from
front to front, and clearances crept on from front to rear;
and the rearmost depths were often forfeited, because they
had not been reclaimed, or even used, by their nominal
possessors. Sometimes whole seignories deserved or incurred
the same fate.
West of Quebec eight or more seignories had been created and west
before 1660 around the mouths of the Cap Rouge, Jacques ^^Jly^ '
Cartier, Portneuf, and St. Anne Rivers, and ^\\ were empty means of
except two. The first exception was Portneuf, which is forty ^^^Jj^^
miles above Quebec and below Three Rivers, and had colonists
before 1645, but its lord belonged more to Three Rivers than
to Quebec ^ ; and the second exception was Sillery, which is
four miles or so above Quebec, and there Jesuits and others
began to fold converted Algonquins and Hurons like sheep
within a pen in 1 639. In the Fifties the Huron pen was trans-
ferred to the Island of Orleans, and afterwards to St. Foy and
Old and New Lorette close behind Quebec ; and it is still at
^ Jacques Le Neuf de La Potherie.
126
HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF CANADA
and on the
south bank
towards the
east ;
expansion
on the
Richelieu
was from
Europe^
Three
Rivers,
and
Montreal ;
New Lorette. Consequently Quebec had a motley Indian
fringe immediately inland and on its west. Its white men
did not expand to the west until later than 1665. Before
1689 the Abenaki of Sillery had been sent across the St. Law-
rence to a pen at the mouth of the Chaudi^re; the other
Algonquins of Sillery had died out, and it was then that the
left bank became wholly and solely a white man's country.
Pbre Druillbtes, the missionary of the Abenaki, was the
spiritual (1646), Fran9ois Bissot and Guillaume Couture,
issue-in-law of Couillard and so of Hubert, were the secular
pioneers of the right bank of the St. Lawrence, Bissot and
Couture settling at Ldvis opposite Quebec (1646-7). A little
later, Montmagny acquired and colonized the Rivibre du Sud
further east, and a bridge of islands thence to the Island of
Orleans (1646-55). Next, issue-in-law of GifFard took up
the tale and acquired the colonized St. Roch des Aulmais
(1657) and St. Anne de la Pocadiere (1672) ; and a Couillard
acquired and colonized Llslet (1671). Then Bissot's sons
acquired and colonized Vincennes, between L^vis and Rivibre
du Sud (1672). Thus members of the Hubert and Giffard
groups trumped one another's last cards and went step by
step, islet by islet, along the right bank, away from the
Iroquois, and like lemmings towards the sea. In 1759 Wolfe
seized L^vis and raided St. Roch and St. Anne, which were
then the chief villages, for towns there were none.
Before 1665 no one dwelt on the right bank of the St.
Lawrence anywhere east of Longueuil (if there), and west of
the Algonquin settlement at the mouth of the Chaudi^re. In
that year forts were built at Sorel and Chambly, and a road
fifteen miles long was built along the old Mohawk trail from
Chambly to Laprairie, opposite Montreal. This was the first
road in the province. The triangle thus formed between
Laprairie, Chambly, and Sorel was both military and indus-
trial ; and it bid defiance to the Mohawks, screening Three
Rivers and Montreal from their attacks. It was the first public
THE MIDDLE EAST — QUEBEC 127
colonial enterprise, since Montreal was founded, the first mean
term between Three Rivers and Montreal, and leading men
from both cities, but more especially from Three Rivers, took
part in it.
Charles Le Moyne of Montreal had founded the seignory
of Longueuil opposite Montreal in 1657, ^^^ cultivation
began here in the late sixties; otherwise Montreal took
ittle direct part in colonizing the right bank. Nearly all the
first seigneurs of the new seignories were officers of the
Carignan-Salieres regiment, who were fresh from Europe,
and some of whom, like Contrecoeur, Sorel, St. Ours, and
Varennes, proved successes, while others like Chambly proved
failures. The inhabitants were either soldiers of the same
regiment, or some of the immigrants whom Pierre Boucher of
Three Rivers attracted to Canada on his visit to France
(166 1 -2). For between 1663 and 1672 Canada received
the largest batch of immigrants that ever went from Europe to
French Canada, and the population, which was 2,000 in 1662,
rose to 6,700 in 1672. After that date immigration ceased
during the French regime. Pierre Boucher and Three Rivers
were identified with one another, and Three Rivers was the most
important centre from which the new colonists were distributed.
At Three Rivers, as at Quebec, there was a family party Three
whose sons and sons-in-law went east, west, and south ; and ^^'^^^^
expanded
the peopling of Grosbois (1669) and Yamachiche (1703) on east, west,
the west, and about the same date of Champlain, Grondines, ^^^ souths
and St. Anne de la Parade, on the east of Three Rivers, may
be traced not merely to Three Rivers but to Boucher or
some one of his relatives. South of the St. Lawrence there
are five rivers between the Chaudiere and the Richelieu, none
of which were used by Indians as through routes — the Du
Chene, B^cancour, Nicolet, St. Francis, and Yamaska; and
colonists settled at Gentilly (1676) and Bdcancour (1680) on
the B^cancour, and at St. Francis {1674), Nicolet (1676),
and Yamaska on the mouths of the rivers of those names.
128 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF CANADA
e.g. to Of these settlements St. Francis was the most typical and
^riverwhere i^^po^'tant. It was on an islet at the river-mouth, as was
Indians Nicolet, and its colonists were all from Three Rivers and
also settkiL ^^der the guidance of a relative of Boucher. Shortly after its
foundation Abenaki arrived from the Chaudibre and settled at
St. Francis, even as they had settled at the Chaudiere and
B^cancour, so that an Indian fringe was apparently being
created all along the right bank of the St. Lawrence. Lastly,
this sub-colony on the St. Francis opened up a new through-
route up the St, Francis and down the Connecticut to the
Atlantic, which Indians knew but neglected, but which the
descendants of Hertel, the interpreter, used in their raids
against Salmon Falls (1690) and Haverhill (1708), and
Robert Rogers used on his return from his counter-raid
against St. Francis (1759). This is the only river-route in
Canada which can fairly be described as a white man's route ;
a route, that is to say, whose utility white men were the first
to appreciate. But in French times it was a route and
nothing more. Settlers never ventured up-stream.
At the end The energetic initiative of the soldiery and of the little
%rench S^^^P ^^ enthusiasts at Three Rivers was contagious, and
period the soon after the wars of the Sixties seignories on paper lined
settlements ^^ ^ \izx^^ of the St. Lawrence, from Montreal to Les
on the left , '
^a«/&^///^ Eboulements on the north bank and Cape Chat on the
^\'fe^' ^^^^ bank. It was a thin, narrow, close-packed line, and
became except in the triangle of the Richelieu and St. Lawrence all
continuous, ^^ seignories abutted on the St. Lawrence, until almost the
end of the chapter. It became a real line on the north bank
when the Government completed a road for sledges (1721),
and carriages (1734), between Quebec and Montreal (1721),
and the road soon began to resemble the street of a straggling
village. In the last period of the French regime seignories
extended up the Richelieu to the frontier, but they were
shams above Chambly. The Hertel brother-raiders from
Three Rivers had succeeded Chambly at Chambly, and came
THE MIDDLE EAST -QUEBEC 129
to own St. Charles and the volcanic mountains of Beloeil or
Rouville close by; and they brought in settlers. Both
Chambly and Sorel were square-shaped, and lay on both
sides of the Richelieu, like square-rigging on a mast, so that
settlers here doubtless overlapped the river towards the
Yamaska, where the uppermost seignory was at St. Hyacinthe.
Shadowy seignories ascended the Chaudibre to where its
tributary the Du Loup joins it, and the modern roadway and
railway to Portland (United States) diverge, and at that spot
Benedict Arnold found setders in 1775. Some civilization
crept up these three southern affluents of the St. Lawrence,
but without system or purpose.
On the west of Montreal a tiny triangle between the and
St. Lawrence and Ottawa was marked off into seignories, ^^^Tjj]X!i
and sparsely colonized at the eleventh hour of the French westward,
dominies; and it belongs for that reason to the Province of
Quebec, although geographically it seems a part of Ontario ;
while opposite it, on the north, there was the Lake of Two
Mountains, with a settlement of Algonquins and Iroquois,
and on the south there were settlements of Iroquois at Caugh-
nawaga and St. R^gis, but for which the south bank of the
St. Lawrence above Montreal was all but empty. At one having the
time an Indian fringe hung along exposed parts of the %^^^^^
frontier with a seriousness and system which suggests ihd,t fringe.
the authors of the policy deemed Canada a province more
like East India than what we usually call a colony. Indian
reservations may still be seen a New Lorette, B^cancour,
St. Francis, Caughnawaga, St. R^gis, and the Lake of Two
Mountains; and some people point to them as the ruined
remnants of a wall of red men which was once meant to run
round and protect what once was Canada ; others compare
them to pounds for deer, decoys for wild birds, kennels for the
dogs of war, industrial schools, or labour colonies. But perhaps
they were the outcome of mixed motives, and never had one
ratson d^elre.
VOL. V. PT. Ill V
130 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF CANADA
In the Under British rule none of the conditions which have been
perwd ^ described changed materially, and the military geography of
Quebec was Quebec Province proved almost immutable. The substitu-
stoT^^ tion of Americans for Iroquois and British for French had
scarcely changed the importance of, or the approaches to the
chief cities.
In the Anglo-French war one deadly blow was struck from
the sea at Quebec, and Wolfe won nothing but Quebec, but
Quebec was everything (1759). Then what was won was
almost lost in winter, but won again in spring by British
ships ; and when Amherst swept down to Montreal along
the two Iroquois routes from Lake Champlain and Oswego
he only gave the coup de grdce. So far as river-routes went,
Amherst, like De Courcelles and Frontenac, was only the
pupil of the Iroquois^ but the sea-route was the decisive route.
aiidMon- In the next war Richard Montgomery took Montreal by
trealihe ^^ f^\^ Mohawk route to Laprairie {1775), — for Montreal
posed place, was Still as vulnerable and exposed as it had been a century
ago, — and Quebec was once more the only, though the vital
spot in British hands. Then Benedict Arnold attacked
Quebec in winter from the old Kennebec-Chaudiere route of
the Abenaki, and just failed. Spring returned ; Quebec was
relieved from the sea; and when it was safe, the rest of
Canada was safe. We hear of emissaries from the Upper
Connecticut being checked on the Upper St. Francis ; other-
wise the same old story was repeated.
In the third war (181 2-14) Quebec was immune, and the
River Richelieu and Lake Ontario once more poured hostile
forces against Montreal ; but the country had changed some-
what. The civilized triangle on the south of Montreal had
grown in size, and its base was no longer the old road from
Laprairie to Chambly, but the international frontier. There
were roads too inside the triangle, one of which went due west
from St. John's on the Richelieu to the St. Lawrence, and
another went due south from the St. Lawrence to the frontier
THE MIDDLE EAST QUEBEC 131
near Odelltown and Lacolle Mills ; while other roads led from
Chateauguay in the west of the triangle direct to Plattsburg*
(New York) on Lake Champlain. Therefore the war-cloud
hovered over Plattsburg, Lacolle Mills, Odelltown, and
Chateauguay, and although the old Iroquois duet was sung
again by American voices, it was sung with variations.
For a time the arts of peace were as conservative as the Seigmries
ways of war. The old seignorial system was as immutable as '-^'^^^ P^^'
ever. The old seignories had been utilized as, or divided neiu town-
into parishes in the early eighteenth century ; and had been "^^^^"^ r
utilized as, or grouped into counties in the last half of the
century, but survived unchanged as the basis of agriculture.
Two new seignories had been created in Murray Bay east cf
St. Paul's Bay, and given to Scotch lairds, who forthwith
talked French and turned themselves into seigneurs, their
kilts into sashes, and their crofters into red- and blue-capped
habitants. Many lordships but few holdings changed hands,
and hundreds of habitants to-day own holdings which their
forefathers cleared two hundred years ago or more, thus
belonging to what they call ' la noblesse de la charrue '. The
institution made for permanence and stability, but it was far
from universal. Nearly half the valley of the St. Lawrence
lay south of the seignories and north of the frontier ; and
here there was a new district congenial to Britons, and to
which British energy soon began to be applied in a truly
British way. Roads were built, townships were laid out, and
immigrants were introduced.
The scenery of the Richelieu is un-English partly because e.g. town-
there is no English river so straight, wide, and deep as this ^!f^t^^
river ; and partly because there are no English hills Uke the Francis ;
row of ex-volcanic hills of Devonian age — Mount Royal,
Montarville, Beloeil, Rougemont, Johnson, Shefford, and
Yamaska — which adorn its neighbourhood. But the five
unused rivers between the Chaudi^re and Richelieu are of
English size, and their shallow upper waters wind in and out
132 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF CANADA
roads were
built along
the Chau-
di^re, and
St. Francis^
and he-
tweenthem,
and the
eastern
townships
began to
exist ;
of hills which stand to the Appalachian range much as hill-
tops by the Wye and Severn stand to Plinlimmon. Of these
rivers the river which has the most English look and English
surroundings is the St. Francis, and the St. Francis runs
right through the heart of this district. A survey was ordered
(i 791), proclamations and rules drafted (1792), check lines
run (1793), instructions (1796), and maps (1803) issued, in
order to attract settlers. But convenient roads and intelli-
gible tenures were also required.
In 1830 four main roads were more or less complete,
(i) The Kennebec, or Merrick Road, ran up the Chaudiere and
Du Loup, and down the Kennebec, by the route which Mon-
tresor took when he went South (i 761), and was first used for
carriages in 1830. This route must not be confused with Mon-
tresor's(i76i)and Arnold's (1775) northward route, which the
recent railway by Lake Megantic follows. (2) A stage-coach
ran thrice aw^eekfrom opposite Three Rivers to the St. Francis,
and thence up the St. Francis, past the villages of Richmond
with its twelve houses, and of Sherbrooke with its fifty houses,
to Stanstead on the frontier 129 miles away ; whence the travel-
ler might wander by road into the valley of the Connecticut,
or along the frontier to the Richelieu.^ The white man's one
and only river-route was shadowed by a British-Canadian
road, along which towns were growing. The St. Francis
was still connected with Three Rivers as of old. (3) Another
one-hundred-mile road started from the St. Lawrence up
a tributary of the Chaudibre called the Beaurivage, by ' Craig's
Road Station ' to Leeds, Liverness, Craig's Bridge, and
Kempt's Bridge (which is ten miles north-west of Lake St.
Francis), and so to Richmond, which is on the St. Francis.
This road connected the St. Francis more or less with Quebec.
Part or all of this road was called Craig's Road because
Sir J. Craig employed Quartermaster-General Sir J. Kempt
^ British American Land Co., Inforniation respecting the Eastern
Townships^ i833«
THE MIDDLE EAST QUEBEC 133
and soldiers on its construction ; but it was unpopular because
for sixty miles of its course there was no public house, and
for twenty-seven miles only one private house.^ (4) An
eighty-mile road continued from Richmond by Sutton to
Farnham on the Yamaska, and thence to the Richelieu
between St. John's and Chambly; whence the traveller
might reach Montreal by the roads already described. There-
fore the St. Francis was connected more or less with Montreal.
The third and fourth roads followed neither river nor hill nor
valley, but ran across the grain. They were the first cross-
grained roads in the Province. Each of these roads had
a distinct influence, and all led to the United States. The
first road connected Quebec with Boston and Portland
(United States), and the other roads connected the St. Francis
with Boston on the one hand, and with Three Rivers, Quebec,
and Montreal on the other hand. Less than thirty years
later the first through railway was opened. It ran from the
valley of the Connecticut, by Hertel's route and Rogers'
return route, up the St. Francis to Richmond, and then
diverged into a Y, one branch of the Y going to Quebec and
the other to Montreal — or, rather, to points opposite to these
cities.^ The railway went almost the same way as three of
the roads which have been described, and enhanced their
influences. Thus, although it detached Richmond and
everything south of Richmond from Three Rivers, and made
Sherbrooke supplant Three Rivers as the half-way house
between Quebec and Montreal, it brought Quebec and Mon-
treal into closer contact with the eastern States of America
through Sherbrooke. For by this time Sherbrooke had
become the judicial, manufacturing, and commercial capital
of what was once called the St. Francis District, but was also
known as the Eastern Townships.
^ C. M. Day, History of the Eastern Townships, 1868, p. 220.
2 British-American Land Company, Emigration to Canada, The
Eastern Townships, 1859.
134 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF CANADA
The east- Common people defined the Eastern Townships as rather
em town- wider than the judicial district of St. Francis, which was
ships hned •' '
thefron- created in 1823.^ In popular usage the Eastern Townships
^^^^ ' meant the district traversed by these four roads, except where
the first road shadowed that part of the Chaudibre which lies
north of its affluent the Du Loup, and except where the other
roads reached seignories on the Richelieu, Yamaska, and
St. Lawrence. All the frontier from close by the Richelieu
to the Du Loup belonged to the Eastern Townships ; and the
northern limits just included Actonvale, Drummondville,
Aston, Blandford, Lyster, Inverness, Leeds, and Tring.
Politicians added to the Eastern Townships of common
speech a thin western wing along the frontier between the
uppermost seignory on the Richelieu and the point where the
frontier and the St. Lawrence intersect, and a still thinner
eastern wing along the frontier from the Du Loup to the Temis-
couata portage. In their view the Eastern Townships meant
the townships which formed a buffer between the seignories
and the United States. When Sir George Prevost advocated
* a barrier of wilderness against the Americans ',^ he wanted
to substitute bears, beavers, wolves, and moose, for human
beings in the Eastern Townships, not merely in the neigh-
bourhood of the St. Francis, but all the way from St. R^gis
to Lake Temiscouata. Both politicians and common people
illogically confined the expression to the townships at the back
of the seignories on the right bank of the St. Lawrence ; for
at the back of the seignories on the left bank of the St. Law-
rence townships were also introduced, and with them the
same new type of civilization. In 181 4 there were 150,
before 1795 there were no townships in Quebec Province;
and townships soon covered half as much country as that
^ The judicial district is defined by Bouchette, Topographical Diction-
ary, sub. nom. ' Districts *.
* Cited e. g. Accounts and Papers (1826-7), (vol- v), Third Report on
Emigration^ Aj3peiidix, p. 516; and comp. Kingsford, History oj
Canada^ vol. ix, p. 41 n
THE MIDDLE EAST — QUEBEC
135
which was covered by seignories. Townships were the new
note of British policy ; and there had been nothing like it
hitherto in Quebec Province. But what, it may be asked, is
a township ?
An Englishman who was asked this question in 1827 drew townships
a diagram like that which is below, and, modelling his style ^J-ff^^^^^g
on Euclid,' replied much as follows : — seignories
1
lot"
__^_,
_3_
.A..
_A.
_6_
_7-_
._8_.
9 1 10 11 1 a
LOT
200- -"
ACR£5
LOT
lob--
ACRES
....
- —
- —
5ECOND
fTHIRD
'■■"raKge"'
— -
--H--
50a{»50/\
1
— -1— -
1
LOT
~"c
y-
0
__-J_...
a
_.
fr._g_
-i-
T"
"0"
jSi-[--
-r-
...X..
0
...1 .,
0
"^' "3
-i-
"i"
-i-
N,---
IV
III
II
I
' A township \ he said, ' is a parallelogram which some-
times contains 20 to 36 square miles, like the above, or
sometimes 100 to 144 square miles.'^ It is divided horizon-
tally and vertically by thick lines which are roads. All con-
tinuous lines divide it into 200 acre lots. Each block of 4
lots is a section, 4 horizontal sections are (sometimes) called
a concession, and 4 vertical sections a range. Each section
is surrounded by roads, therefore a fortiori each concession
or range is surrounded by roads.' The figure resembles the
plan of numbered seats at a theatre with gangways and rows.
A model seignory would be represented by a parallelogram,
but there would be no gangways or rows, so that if a 100 or
50 acre lot were carved out of a township it could be done as
shown by the dotted lines in the diagram; but if carved out of
a seignory it would either be portentously long and thin, and
^ Accotmis and Papers (1826-7), vol. v, Third Repori on Eniigraiion^
p. 413 ; comp. Bouchette, British Dominions in North America, vol. 1,
p. 183.
2 Bouchette's * usual ' township = 10 miles x 10 miles = 11 ranges of
28 200 acre lots-h xodA^, — British Dominions in Noi'th America, vol. i,
p. 183 note.
136 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF CANADA
would abut on its old front ; or it would be formed by a vertical
split, and would have no road in front, and if the ground sloped
would drain into the next holding. The former alternative was
usually preferred, and French-Canadian colonization was by
strips, and British-Canadian colonization was by blocks. Thus
like many townships, Sorel seignory was almost a square,
and almost 36 square miles, but its normal holdings before
the conquest were loi acres, or 192 yards in front by 2,560
}ards in depth, and its deeper depths were uncultivated.
These awkward oblongs always denoted the seignory, and
were never seen in townships, where back seats sold almost
as well as front seats. Both seignories and townships were
rectangles, or as near thereto as their river-front, if any, per-
mitted. A writer once traced M'esprit rectangulaire ' of
modern Socialism to the French Revolution; but the rectangles
of Sorel were derived from those at Beauport (1635), ^^^
those of the townships were derived from New England via
Nova Scotia, Governor G. Lawrence having introduced
them into Nova Scotia at the instance of his agent at Boston,
and for the benefit of immigrants from New England^ {i759)-
being used In Canada the township was primarily an agricultural unit
%omen designed for planting yeomen in 200 acre lots ; but if the
with heal scale were enlarged a hundredfold the diagram would be
me'ir'^^^^ equally applicable to a building estate and would serve as the
plan of a town. Towns, therefore, were often carved out of
townships. Similarly, concessions, ranges, and sections were
often utilized as parishes or smaller townships; and a town-
ship, if it were bought from government by one purchaser or
group, could regulate its own roads, drains, and restrictive
covenants.
and to Again, let townships be piled on townships, north, east,
7an(l ^^// ^^^ ^^^^ — ^^ ^^^ ^2i^t way as Euclid piles rectangles on rect-
pletely ; angles in his second book — and the whole country would
become as densely covered with townships as it was once
^ Haliburton, History of Nova Scotia^ vol. i, p. 220.
THE MIDDLE EAST— QUEBEC T37
covered with timber. Seignories hardly ever fronted seig-
nories ; but in the eastern townships, townships stood behind
and on the side of townships ten deep, and twenty to thirty
wide, and fronted nothing but seignories, townships, or the
frontier. Unlike seignories, townships aggregated into
counties without leaving gaps.
Townships, too, stimulated wholesale purchases of quarter, and being
half, or whole townships, and re-sales by the purchaser in ^j].^/^7^^^
lots. The purchases and re-sales were in fee-simple, sub- tors, and
ject to an obligation to repair roads and the like, because ll^i^f^^a-
British-Americans eschewed any other form of tenure, leaders of
Fealty, homage, reliefs, and fines were until 1854 incidents ^^ ^'"^"^'
of seignorial tenure, even as they were sometimes incidents of
socage tenure in England. But feudalism and everything
that savoured of it was alien to American ideas; and com-
mercialism and everything that seemed akin to it was over-
favoured. Throughout America there was a brisk market
for buying and selling land, and real-estate offices were as
animated as a Stock Exchange. Land leases were disregarded
much as Stock leases would be disregarded.
Land speculation was created by suddenly putting one
hundred odd townships on the market, and then statesman-
ship blindly tried to control what it had created. Purchases
were limited in size, and gifts were made as well as purchases.
Gifts introduced some lazy absentees, and the limitation of
size was a dead letter. In Quebec Province only 1,200 acres
could be bought by one person ; accordingly, if the township
was 105 square miles, 40 men bought 1,200 acres each
(=75 square miles), and chose one of themselves as ' leader ' ;
the leader explored and paid costs and fees, and each
'associate ' assigned to him 1,000 out of his 1,200 acres as
recompense; so that the leader acquired 63 square miles and
the associates 12 square miles. This system became common
form ; and the one-man Company was the vogue. It was
self-evident that its business was land-jobbing ; and that this
138 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF CANADA
colonial
leaders be-
ing often
Loyalists^
and colon-
ial follow-
ers being
scarce and
British,
was the last sort of business that the Government intended
to promote. What was not so self-evident was that some of
the very best examples of internal colonization in British-
America and in Nova Scotia had been furnished by precisely
similar organizations. On the one hand, the leader and his
associates might only be speculators, in which case they
usually sold out quickly ; on the other hand, the leader might
be a real leader like the o-T/oar^yos of an Athenian KXrjpovxta,
and the associates might be heads of families who meant to
live and die together like the sociz of a Roman colony. On
the one hand, Montreal merchants and Quebec ministers
posed as leaders ; on the other hand, G. Hyatt and
W. B. Felton ^ made Sherbrooke (c. 1 800) ; Andrew Ten
Eyck made Dunham (1793); Colonel Henry Ruyter made
Potton ; Major Willard's son made Stukeley ; and Colonel
A. Cuyler and Colonel Well's heirs made Farnham ; and all
these men were ' leaders ' or associates who acted as leaders,
Cuyler, Ten Eyck, Ruyter, Wells, and Willard being American
Loyalists.
But who followed the ' leader '.^^ Townships appealed to
American Loyalists, but most of them had settled or starved
before the first Eastern township was designed. Many
Loyalists had entered Canada by the Richelieu, some of
whom lingered near the frontier, where a seigneur ^ sold them
land discharged from its mediaeval incidents; while others
lingered at St. John's, Chambly, and Sorel,^ where the
Government bought the seignory and laid out the present
town of Sorel opposite Berthier (1785). Berthier was, and
still is, a one-streeted town, and Sorel was from the first
a square-shaped town like the towns in the townships.
Nevertheless Sorel and the Richelieu were in the seignories,
and for this reason many of their British occupants drifted
^ Report on the Archives of Canada, by D. Brymner (1898), pp.
xxvi, 27.
'^ Hon. Thomas Dunn, Seigneur of St. Armand.
* 757 in 1784. Brymner, op, cit„ 1891, p. 17.
THE MIDDLE EAST— QUEBEC 139
away to the townships.' Most of the pioneers of the frontier
came, axe and compass in hand, from New Hampshire,
Vermont, and New York State, direct to their new homes ;
amongst whom many were sons or relatives of Loyalists, and
most were loyal as well as brave men ; but a very few, in
Hereford and elsewhere, were refugees from justice. After
the frontier was well settled, and for the most part settled
well, by British-Americans, the intermediate region began to
be filled, but not with Loyalists; for the Eastern townships
were too late to catch the Loyalist flood when the tide was
coming in. Land was often given to Canadian militiamen
as rewards^; thus at Drummondville, • on the St. Francis,
Colonel Heriot built mills (18 16) and a village for veterans
in the war (181 2-14); but other similar gifts elsewhere met
with doubtful success and dotted the map with blanks.'^
Nor did the mainstream of European immigrants fertilize the
townships. From 1817 to 1822 Deputy-Quartermaster-
General Colonel Cockburn resided at Quebec, and guided
civilian as well as military immigrants from Great Britain and
L'eland by different channels to different destinations; but
the immigrants, as a rule, used Quebec Province as a conduit-
pipe to Ontario, and an expert^ said that from 1815 to 1821
only 100 or 150 ' British ' immigrants (from the United King-
dom) had settled in the Province. But there were exceptions.
Colonel Cockburn settled some British colonists at Drummond-
ville; in 1830 large numbers of Irishmen were sent into the
townships to make roads and to stay ; and it was by these
exceptions from the general rule, by this residue of the west-
ward-moving multitude, that the townships were peopled.
There was never any British rush to the townships, although
a Land Company was proposed (1823-4)* in order to organize
^ e. g. Colonel Ruyter, and Cuyler.
2 Aston, Granby, Milton, Nelson, &c.
3 Assembly of Lower Canada, Report on Croivn Lands, 1821-5,
Rep. II, p. iS.
* Brymner, op. cit. (1898), pp. xxvi, xxvii.
140 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF CANADA
such a rush. Had this proposal (1823-4) been effectual
Quebec Province would have been enriched by a Land
Company at the same time as Ontario, New Brunswick, New
South Wales, and Tasmania; but it involved the partial
purchase of Clergy and Crown Reserves, and was there-
fore rejected. Under the scheme which took effect the
British American Land Company was incorporated in
London in 1833-4, and bought 1,324 square miles of Crown
Reserves and lands for £120,000, one half of which was
applicable to the land, and the other half of which was pay-
able to the vendor. Though belated, the Land Company added
new elements. The Highland setders of Compton County ^
were first introduced by the Company in 1841. The pur-
chase of the Crown Reserves involved also a new departure.
until the The imaginary township which is described on page 137
Reserves contained 105 square miles, of which 7f^ square miles
were swept ^ ~i # u ~i
away, were bought by the imaginary purchasers. They could
not buy more because 15 square miles were set apart as
Crown Reserves and 15 square miles as Clergy Reserves.
The perfection of the township system was that town-
ship dovetailed into township, and complete continuity was
secured in the matter of clearances and roads, not merely
along one front as in the seignories, but along every front,
and in and out of and between the holdings. But here two-
seventh parts of every township were cynically left vacant;
two-sevenths of the feast were wasted in sacrifice to a distant
Crown and an alien Church ; the symmetry of colonizing by
townships was marred by two fatal flaws; the only visible
superiority of the new over the old style was deliberately
neutralized; and last, but not least, the French Canadians
were estranged. No Clergy Reserves were sold until 1827,
and few before 1840, when the local Government obtained
some control over the Clergy and Crown Reserves, or their
^ Lingwick (1841), Winslow (1852), Hampden, and Scottstown were
later.
THE MIDDLE EAST QUEBEC 141
proceeds ; but the proceeds of the Clergy Reserves were
used for Protestant purposes — that is to say, for unpopular
purposes, until 1854, when they were secularized. In 182 1-5
questions were sent round to most of the parishes in ^nd
Quebec Province asking if the young men went to the town- JJ^^, '
ships. The answers were unanimous ; not a single French- dians, and
Canadian went near them. When at the end of the ^arrived
Twenties the uncultivated Clergy patches, and during the ^«^ ^^^
Thirties the uncultivated Crown patches, began to melt tTwnships
away, the French-Canadians began to appear ; and when became
during the Forties the uncultivated Crown-and-Clergy French.
patches disappeared like snow in spring, floods of French-
Canadians poured into the townships. Before 1830 or
thereabouts it seemed as though the old wine of old France
were destined to be kept in an old bottle, and the new
British wine in a new bottle ; but now the two wines mixed in
the new bottle, and every substantial difference between
bottle and bottle was removed by the legislation which
converted seignories into the similitude of modern estates in
fee simple (1854). The central block of the Eastern Town-
ships is now British-French, the British being the first comers
and having the first choice of place ; but it must begin west,
not of the River Du Loup, but of Beauce County, and south of
Bagot County; for these two counties are almost wholly
French-Canadian. The eastern wing, too, is as French-
Canadian as the oldest adjoining seignories, with which they
should now be classed. The western wing, although it con-
tains some converted seignories, resembles the central block
more or less. It is significant that the only counties which
show a majority of British origin are the frontier counties of
Stanstead, Brome, Missisquoi, and Huntingdon, and that an
English origin prevails in all these counties except Hunting-
don, which is Irish. Next to the frontier, the townships and
towns of the St. Francis are most British ; and in this case,
too, British means English. No townships or towns on the
142 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF CANADA
Nicolet show a British majority, and here nine or ten con-
form to the following type ' St. Val^re de Bulstrode ',
Bulstrode being the original township — * Population =1,192 ;
population of French origin= 1,192 ' (1901). Where the
British element is in the ascendant in Quebec Province it is
never exclusive, as the French element often is. Where,
amongst the British elements, the English element is in the
ascendant, the immigration was probably early and through
the United States. Irish ascendancy indicates immigration
from Ireland, not before 18 15, and usually in or after 1830.
Scotch Highlanders, as a rule, came still later, under the
auspices of the Land Company. All, or practically all, the
Canadians of French origin came from France before 1759,
if not before 1672.
The East' The Eastern Townships put new life into that part of
7hips ' Quebec Province which lies south of the St. Lawrence.
stimulated Formerly the south side was an insignificant addition to the
towti life north side, where the power and might of French Canada
south of the was concentrated. Between 1825 and the close of the cen-
reme, ^^^Y ^^^ southern half excelled the northern half in numbers ;
but the race was always close, and before 1901 the phenomenal
increase of Montreal tilted the balance, so that the northern
half again excels the southern half. In French times there
were no towns in the southern half, which is now honey-
combed with small-sized towns, not only in the Eastern
Townships but elsewhere. Of the towns in the townships,
Sherbrooke (pop. 11,765), Granby (pop. 3,773), Magog
(pop. 3,516), Kingsville (pop. 3,256), and Farnham (pop.
6,280) are the largest. Kingsville is the principal centre of
the recent unique asbestos mines at Thetford, on the water-
shed between the Bdcancour and St. Francis, and is the
only mineral centre of any importance in the Province. The
rest are industrial country towns, Sherbrooke being financial
centre. The largest towns elsewhere fall into three classes.
The first class consists of towns adjoining and resembling
THE MIDDLE EAST — QUEBEC 143
the township towns Hke Valleyfield (pop. 11,055^), St.
Hyacinthe (pop. 9,210^), and St. John's (pop. 4,030, or,
including Iberville, its vis-a-vis town, 5,542 ^). The second
class is Riviere du Loup (pop. 4,569^) in the far east; and
the third class of towns are vis-a-vis the northern capitals
and resemble them. Thus the two (pop. 11,999^) or ^^'^
(pop. 17,098^) more or less confluent towns known as Levis
are opposite Quebec ; and Longueuil, St. Lambert, and
Laprairie (pop. 5,648 ^), which will doubtless coalesce some
day, are opposite Montreal. It used to be said that B^can-
cour (pop. 1,992^) was the vis-a-vis of Three Rivers, and
Sorel (pop. 7,057^) of Berthier (pop. 1,364^); but of these
towns Becancour and Berthier have become stars of inferior
magnitude, and Sorel and Three Rivers alone survive. Yet,
all these districts, compared with districts of equal size and
prosperity elsewhere, are essentially rural.
The state of the country as a whole may be read in the andaffected
following table, where the reader will note that two, and not ^^^^f^^-
more than two, nationalities — French -Canadian and British south of the
—-account for all but all the population; and that the eastern ^^' ^^^^"
counties, though exclusively French, rival the mixed counties
of the Eastern Townships in numbers and apparent prosperity ;
and he will note how impossible it is to classify the counties of
the extreme west, Beauharnais and the two counties between
the St. Lawrence and Ottawa being almost as French as the
ten counties of the extreme east, Chateauguay being a little
more mixed than the Township or Gulf-Coast counties, and
Huntingdon being sui generis and forming a class by itself;
and he will note how the maelstrom of Montreal is sucking
in people from the neighbouring counties ; how steadily and
surely French-Canadians are gaining ground upon British
Canadians, and how insignificant immigration from the United
States and France has been.
^ Population, 1901.
144
HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF CANADA
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VOL. V. PT. Ill
146 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF CANADA
The north-
em towns
are the old
towns with
new in-
habitants,
and signi-
ficance^
Quebec^
Three
Rivers y
and Mon-
treal ;
We must now cross the St. Lawrence, remenlbering,
however, that rivers are the bonds, not the barriers of history,
even although this river has not yet been bridged and is still a
physical barrier below Montreal ; and here at first blush the
conditions seem similar. Quebec Province is still the arena
of two national forces which compete but do not conflict with
one another ; furthest east and (if we except the addendum)
furthest west are most alike in the results, and the French-
Canadians increase more rapidly than the British. As a
maelstrom Montreal is more potent than any other town or
centre. A British-French element exists, but it exists in
connexion with the capitals. The capitals, moreover, are
towns quite unlike any towns on the right bank of the
St. Lawrence.
Quebec (pop. 68,840 ^), the capital of the Province, is not
merely great in its memories, but for more than a quarter of a
century it has been more populous than all Canada was in 1 763.
A railway bridge is now being constructed from Cap Rouge
(Cartier's and Roberval's Cap Rouge) to the mouth of the
Chaudiere, which will stimulate its American commerce ; and
the National Trans-continental Railway, for which the bridge
is being built, will bring it into direct contact with prairie-
land. Hitherto it has never had any intercourse with the far
west except through Three Rivers or Montreal ; now, for the
first time in history, it will be able to combine the functions
of an emporium of European and west-Canadian trade. The
halo of its romantic past will hover round the prosaic crown
of a prosperous future. Three Rivers (pop. 10,739^) is
squeezed between its big neighbours, but derives an impor-
tance of its own from the St. Maurice River, which penetrates
a district with much lumber and some bog-iron. Montreal
(pop. 346,927^)^ is the commercial capital of Canada, but
not even the capital of its Province. Politically and com-
* Population, 1901.
2 I include Hochelaga, Maisonneuve, and the urban part of J. Cartier.
THE MIDDLE EAST — QUEBEC 147
mercially it stands to Quebec as New York does to Albany.
Albany, the capital of New York State, is a little larger than
Quebec ; Montreal and Quebec are a little further apart than
Albany and New York. Geographically the parallel must be
reversed. Albany, which lies upstream at the junction of the
Hudson and Mohawk, is to New York as Montreal is to
Quebec. Finance and railways centre in Montreal. It faces
two ways : towards New York and Boston, and towards
Quebec and England. The deepening of the channel between
Quebec and Montreal, and the invention of steamers, makes
Montreal a port which communicates with Europe direct as well
as with the far west; and it has a double function, just as Quebec
will have a double function when the new railway is built.
As a port for European goods, Quebec is wicket-keep,
Montreal long-stop — if the metaphor may be allowed. Its
British inhabitants are mostly English and are one-third of
the whole, which is rather more than the present ratio in the
township counties. The Scotchmen of Montreal, though
fewest, are foremost.
In old times an Indian fringe was hung round the skirts of where too
Quebec and Montreal, and along the right bank of the ^ British
St. Lawrence, to guard against the Iroquois. It is now once
frayed and faded ; nor did it ever serve the purpose for which ^^'^^^'?^-
it was meant. Since the conquest a British fringe was hung
round the edge of the French-Canadian seignories on the
right bank, partly in order to subdue the wilderness, and
partly also in order to ward off American intruders. If this
last intention actuated the authors of the policy, the intention
has long since been outgrown ; and the British fringe, while
maintaining its British character, has promoted the arts of
peace more than the arts of war. It has brought enhanced
prosperity, partly through its own independent efforts, partly
owing to the international intercourse which it has fostered.
A British (mostly Irish) fringe was also hung round Quebec,
by R. Coughtrie at Valcartier (1816), by E. Hale behind
L 2
148 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF CANADA
Portneuf (182 1), by A. and J. Duchesnay at Lac Beauport
(1821) and Faussembault (1820) — that is to say, a few miles
from the river in what was then wilderness ; and there it may
still be seen. The war which these British outposts were
put there to wage, was a war only with the wilderness, and
they waged it with success.
Argenteuil County, behind the Isle de Jesus and Montreal
Island, was the scene of a similar experiment, undertaken at
the same date with Irishmen, Scotchmen, and Englishmen
(in this order). The fruits of this experiment may be seen
in the curious phenomenon that the British are in a majority
in Argenteuil and nowhere else on the north bank. Argen-
teuil is the Huntingdon of the north bank. Further, the
railway, which now runs direct from Grenville to Joliette
almost on the edge of the limestone belt, was anticipated by
roads, all of which were the after-effects of this British colony.
A third result was the opening up of the left bank of the
entire Ottawa to Canadian enterprise. When the British
fringe at the back of Montreal had grown, Quebec Province
grew a tail of its own behind the British fringe, and mixed
the ingredients of the tail in the same proportion as that
which obtains in Montreal Island or in Chateauguay to-day ;
but the whole history of these settlements along the left bank
of the Ottawa is inextricably intertwined with the history of the
settlements on the other side of the river, which settlements
belong to Ontario. It will accordingly be postponed to the
succeeding chapter.
Authorities.
For statistical authorities see the note at the end of Chapter VII.
In addition to the authorities cited in the notes see : —
Joseph Bouchette, Topographical Description of Lower Canada with
Remarks on Upper Canada^ ^815; British Dominions in North
America^ 2 vols., 1831 ; Three Maps of Quebec^ Montreal ^ and Three
Rivers Districts^ 1831 ; Topographical Map of Lower Canada ^ 10 sheets,
3832 ; Topographical Dictionary of Lower Canada ^ 1832.
THE MIDDLE EAST — QUEBEC 149
British American Land Company, Map of the Eastern Townships^
1842 ; Pamphlets on the Eastern Townships^ 1833, ^^59, &c.
C. M. Day, History of the Eastern Townships^ 1868.
L. Gerin, Seignenrie de Siliery, in Transactions of the Royal Society
of Canada, 1900.
Major H. Holland, Map of Lower Canada as surveyed by Major H,
Holland, 1803.
A. Jodoin and H. L. Vincent, Histoire de Longtieuil, 1889,
Lower Canada, House of Assembly, Eight Reports on Waste Lands,
1821-5.
J. E. Roy, Fi'an^ois Bissot, in Transactions of the Royal Society of
Canada, 1892.
Benjamin Suite, Chronique Trijluvienne, 1 879 ; Les premiers Seig-
7teurs in Transactions of the Royal Society of Canada, 1883 ; St.
Francois du Lac, 1886; one chapter in History of Yamachiche, 1892 ;
one chapter on Seigneurial Tenure, in the third volume of J. C.
Hopkins, Encyclopaedia of Canada, 1898-1900.
C. Thomas, Contributions to the History of the Eastern Townships,
1866.
Isaac Weld, Travels through the States of N. America, and Upper
and flower Canada, i79S-7i 2 vols., 1799. Letters xxi to xxix deal with
Quebec Province.
CHAPTER VII
ONTAKIO. ONE NATION ON THBEE ST. LA WHENCE
VALLEYS AND BEYOND
At Montreal the St. Lawrence valley splits into the Ottawa, Ontario ex-
ten (is bc~
and the St. Lawrence valleys; at the Bay of Quints, into "^^ yond three
Trent valley and the valley of the inland seas ; but all three St. Law-
valleys re-unite in Georgian Bay, which is part of the inland ^talleys
sea named Lake Huron, The first task of Ontarians was to
fill and unite these valleys and river-banks and shore-lines.
Afterwards Ontario overflowed and its inhabitants reached
the Upper St. Lawrence and its sea, and the Upper Ottawa,
and then passed beyond the watershed of the St. Lawrence
to the Lake of the Woods, and beyond the watershed of the
Ottawa to Lake Abitibi; — the Lake of the Woods, Lake
Abitibi, and the hill-tops north of Lake Superior belonging to
Hudson Bay.
Ontario without its overflow — that is to say, the great tri- and the
angle between the meeting-place of the St. Lawrence and twee7i the
Ottawa, which serves as apex, the mouth of Georgian Bay, ^^^^^
and the angle formed by Lake Erie and Detroit River — is old On-
sometimes called Old Ontario ; and the overflow of Ontario ^^''^'^•
is sometimes called New Ontario. Old Ontario was built up
first, and the first stone which the builders laid was nearest
the apex ; and it was literally as well as metaphorically the
corner-stone of Ontario. It was only not in the innermost
niche of the apex, because that niche was already filled by
representatives, and formed part, of Quebec Province.
The successive provinces of Canada lie in a line, and the (0 The east
preface of one province is the appendix to the last. It was ^^-^ (^g^l
so in Tantramar Marsh and Bay Chaleurs ; and it is so in eluding
the tiny triangle of seignories (Quebec Province) which fit ^jiich
152 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF CANADA
belongs wedge-like into the notch formed by the junction of the
to Quebec) Ottawa and the St. Lawrence, and which seem to the
outward eye a part of Ontario, but are in essence Canadian-
French. Conversely, Chateauguay, Huntingdon, and Argen-
teuil, on the borderland between Quebec Province and Ontario,
though physically a part of Quebec Province, are a spiritual
anticipation of Ontario; and Scotchmen, though rare else-
where in Quebec Province, are numerous here. As soon as
we cross the line from Quebec Province to Ontario, the whole
atmosphere is Highland Scotch, and always has been High-
land Scotch ever since 1781, when the history of Ontario
began. The cause must be sought on the other side of the
Atlantic.
was peopled In the Forties of the eighteenth century Pitt turned wild
^St'^Law- Highlanders into soldiers; and the Highland soldiers who
rence by served in America were, like the colonial soldiers, rewarded
Tmers"^ with grants of land. In the Sixties New York State (United
{like the States) \. Murray Bay, and Mount Murray (Quebec Province),
Provinces^ • ^^^ ^" ^^^ Seventies Prince Edward Island received Roman
Catholic soldier-settlers who had been born and bred in Glen-
garry, Lochaber, Fraser, and other clan-lands in the neighbour-
hood of the Caledonian canal ^, and had fought against France
in the New World. The floodgates were unlocked, and in the
Seventies civilian Highlanders, both Presbyterian and Roman
Catholic, began to pour into Pictou (Nova Scotia) and Prince
Edward Island. In the Eighties the Highland soldier- settlers
in New York State, after fighting against the revolted colonists,
were re-transplanted into nine or ten townships which were
marked out on the St. Lawrence, west of Quebec Province,
1 781-4, between Cornwall and Brockville inclusively (i 781-4) ^ The
^ Thomas Douglas, Earl of Selkirk, Observations on the Highlands y
1805, pp. 166 et seq.
^ Colonel David Stewart, Sketches of the Highlanders^ 1822, vol. ii,
PP« 63-7 : see map of clans, vol. i.
^ W. Canniff, History of the Settlement of Upper Canada^ 1869,
p. 157 : Report on Canadian Archives, by D. Brymner, 1891, pp. 1-18.
THE MIDDLE EAST — ONTARIO 153
names of the townships are forgotten or thrown on one side
like dismantled scaffolding for use elsewhere ; but the names
of the counties, and of the towns which were built by means
of the scaffolding, tell their own tale. The easternmost of
these counties was called Glengarry, the second Stormont,
and the third Dundas ; and the men who occupied the first two
were priest-led Highland ex-soldiers, organized and rationed
for three years by the English War Office. As in the
Maritime Provinces, Gaelic priests attracted other Gaels from
Scotland; so that they rose in a few years from 2,000 (1784)
to ' 10,000 rapidly increasing' (1804).* These men were the
foundation-stones of Ontario. Johnston's regiment, which
was largely German and Protestant, occupied Dundas.^
These new counties soon possessed three towns, of which ^^^^^
Cornwall (pop. 6,704'), and Prescott^ (pop. 3.0198), were canHZ'
founded before 1798, and Brockville (pop. 8,940 8) before ^^''^"^^^-^^
1807. At Prescott the first rapid below Lake Ontario begins, andBrock-
and at Cornwall a nine-mile rapid, which is called the ^^'^^^ >
Long Sauk, and which is the worst rapid after Niagara,
ends ; so that both towns were resting and starting places for
boatmen who were westward bound. Both towns were also
waiting-rooms for the Loyalist refugees from New York
State ; for men went from Plattsburg (New York), through
what was then called ' the Willsbury Wilderness \ straight to
Cornwall, and from the Mohawk (New York) down the
Oswegatchie straight to Prescott. For the same reasons im-
portant towns grew up within the American border opposite
Cornwall, Prescott, and (a little later) Brockville.
Above Brockville the Archaean system casts its shadow ^'^^ other
over the shore, and only ends a Httle below the limestone settled at
city of Kingston. Both Brockville and Kingston are so to Kingston
speak in the sunshine beyond the cloud. There was, too, ^/^^ ^^^ w-
a halo of historic glamour around Kingston, for in old time Qt^int^,
^ Bryniner, op.cU.^ 1891, pp. 5, 37, 1892, p. xxii.
^ J. Croil, Dundas^ 1861, p. 129. ^ Population 1901.
154 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF CANADA
Fort Frontenac was there, and thirty miles further on the Bay
of Quintd there was a still earlier Sulpician Mission. More-
over, Prescott was only on a byway, while Kingston was on
the highway used by the Iroquois and Loyalists as they went
from the Mohawk to Canada. French, British, Provincial,
and Indian armies have come and gone to and from the
Mohawk, sometimes by Oswego, sometimes by Sackett's
Harbour, and sometimes by a port between the two ; but
Kingston has nearly always been base, goal, or rendezvous.
Accordingly a second series of townships was laid out by
Major Holland or his deputies, beginning with Kingston and
1 783-4* ending with the west end of the Bay of Quintd (1783-4);
and these townships were immediately occupied with the help
of the English War Office by disbanded Provincial regiments.
The first batch sailed from New York to Sorel in seven King's
ships and came on thence by boat ; others came direct from
the Mohawk. Between 1787 and 1790, when rations ceased
to be supplied, there was stress and famine ; then prosperity
returned, and in 1795 for more than half the year a daily
ship descended to Oswego with settlers bound for the new
district.^ In these townships Kingston dwarfed its com-
panions. It was the chief port of Lake Ontario; a dockyard
and barracks were begun there in 1789; it was naval capital
when war threatened ; and, above all, in early days it had
a Government mill, which ground flour for all those who
dwelt between Cornwall or Prescott on the east and Trenton
oti the west.^ In those days power meant water-power ; and
the mulocrat was lord paramount. Lord Dorchester at
first wished to make Kingston the capital of Ontario, and
in later days Kingston (pop. 17,961 ^) was for a short time
capital of both Canadas (1840-5). West of Kingston,
Napanee (pop. 3,143 ^), Belleville (pop. 9,117 % and Trenton
(pop. 4,217^) also began as mill-seats.
' La Rochefoucauld, Travels, 1795-7, ed. 1800, vol. i, p. 536.
'^ W. Canniff, op.cit.^ pp. 202, 206. ' Population 1901.
THE MIDDLE EAST — ONTARIO 155
Meanwhile there were the first symptoms of a move north- and move-
ward and inland. In 178^ Lieutenant French went from ^''^'^f ^'^"
* ^ land to-
Montreal up the Ottawa to the Rideau, and from the Rideau wards the
straight to Kingston, and thence by the St. Lawrence back ^^^^^^^
to Montreal, in order to spy out the land; and he reported
that the land was a land of promise everywhere, except along
the narrow granite belt between Kingston and Brockville.^
French's tour of inspection stimulated the settlers who came
after him. In 1793 three American Loyalists named Burritt 1793,
re-explored the Rideau, and settled soon afterwards at Bur-
ritt's Rapids; and another American, named Merrick, settled
at Merrickville hard by in 1799. A rough track twenty miles 1799.
long was made between Prescott and Merrickville, and only
forty or fifty miles of lonely river separated Merrickville or
Burritt's Rapids from the mouth of the Rideau close by what
is now Ottawa.^ It was thus that the Loyalists went towards
the Ottawa, for they too dreamed of the conquest of all the .
woods between Lieutenant French's base-line and the apex
where the Ottawa and St. Lawrence meet. Unaided they
could not fulfil their dream. Their one achievement was to
stretch a single continuous or almost continuous line of settle-
ments along the St. Lawrence and its inland sea between
the mouth of the Trent and the Ottawa.
Meanwhile, 140 miles south-west of Kingston, the old" {2) Loyal-
world fortress on the Niagara — with its haunting memories ^^^J^^
of La Salle — was garrisoned and became a focus to which
Loyalists' families from the Mohawk gathered for refuge in
1776. The first-comers — \5 women and 31 children, and 1776,
only one pair of shoes among them all' — were Bowmans,
Secords, and others of the best blood of Ontario.^ In 1782 1782,
there were seventeen families there ; and in 1784 a provincial
corps, called Butler's Rangers, was disbanded and planted
1 Brymner, op.cit,, 1890, p. 67.
2 J. L. Gourlay, History of the Ottawa Valley, 1896, pp. 10, 51,
150, 151.
3 E. Ryerson, Loyalists of America^ 1880, vol. ii, pp. 265-70.
156 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF CANADA
there and rationed for awhile, and the left bank of the River
Niagara, from Fort Erie on Lake Erie to Newark ^ on Lake
Ontario, became as compact and populous as the townships
on the St. Lawrence. Newark (pop. 1,258 ^), was capital of
Ontario, until the Americans established themselves in over-
whelming strength on the opposite bank half-a-mile away,
making it as indefensible as Belgrade would be if Austria
were hostile. Queenston, seven miles upstream, was the
place where sailors hauled their boats ashore and trudged
with boats on heads and packs on backs, past the Falls, to
Chippawa, eight miles away, where boating — which seems as
natural to Canadians as riding is to Tartars — recommenced.
In 1798 the first coach that ever ran in Ontario ran from
Chippawa to Queenston^; for the earliest coach- roads in
Canada were always carrying-places past rapids. Niagara
on the Falls (pop. 4,244 '^), which is the present capital of
this district, lies between Queenston and Chippawa ; but it
only attained pre-eminence long afterwards through its rail-
way, its bridge between Ontario and the States, and its
attractions for tourists. Niagara-land was an early, populous,
detached, and therefore dangerous colony. And it was also
and spread a centre of expansion ; thus a Loyalist from New York State
^ B^urlinlton ^^^ Lundy's Farm, west of the Falls, and then a farm in
Bay, 1781. Burlington Bay (1781); where in 1813 a subsequent settler
named George Hamilton created a village by cutting up his
farm into building-lots and giving his surname to what is now
one of the leading towns of Ontario.* Robert Gourlay ( 1 8 1 8)
mentions Hamilton (pop. 52,634 2); Mrs. Jameson refers to
it as a wheat market (1838), but few other writers of that
time even name it, although they all name Dundas (pop.
3,173^), which is now almost absorbed in Hamilton, or
* Niagara on the Lake (Ontario). 2 Population 1901.
3 Comp. G. Heriot, Travels^ 1807, vol. i, p. 156.
* Sir JohnBourinot in Transactions of the Royal Soc. of Canada, 1900,
vol. vi, Sect. II, pp. 3, 17, &c. ; J. H. Smith, Historical Sketch of the
Co. of Wentworthy 1897.
THE MIDDLE EAST — ONTARIO 157
Ancaster, three miles from Dundas, or both, as coming towns.
Even the earliest travellers refer to millers on the creeks
which fall into Lake Ontario between Newark and Hamilton ;
such as Twelve-Mile Creek or St. Catharine's (pop. 9,946 ^), and
Forty-Mile Creek or Grimsby (pop. 1,001 ^). Thus De Roche-
foucauld (1795) wrote : ' Forty-Mile Creek . . . before it empties
itself into the lake, turns a grist-mill and two saw-mills which
belong to a Mr. Green, a Loyalist of Jersey, who six or seven
years ago settled in this part.'^ '
The sub-settlements of Niagara crept creek by creek along {l) Long
the shores of Lake Ontario to Hamilton, but leapt to Long f^w/-^^^
Point on Lake Erie ; and for awhile it seemed as though colony from
Long Point was a third new colony as separate from Niagara ^^^^^^^
as Niagara was from Kingston and its satellites. Military
considerations suggested the origin of the new colony. In
1793 John Graves Simcoe, the first Governor of Upper
Canada, selected Turkey Point or Port Dover (pop. 2,035 ^)
— in the Bay east of Long Point — as a naval arsenal for
Lake Erie. But naval arsenals have never been of much
account on this lake because it is very shallow, and is the
only one of the great lakes of the St. Lawrence which freezes
all over in winter, so that soldiers can march over it as though
it were dry land. Nevertheless, Colonel Samuel Ryerse, a
Loyalist re-emigrant from New Brunswick to Niagara, went
thence to Port Ryerse, between Turkey Point and Port
Dover, ascended a hill, said, * Here I will be buried,' brought
his family and relations thither (1795), built a mill, and lived 1795
and died there. Other re-emigrants from New Brunswick
and Niagara followed in his wake, and the little group had
its little capital in Vittoria, which was the Court-town of the
surrounding districts until 1828.^
The garrison of the military posts at Amherstburg (pop. (4) ^^-
2,222^), or in later times Windsor (12,153^), opposite "Du Jas a^^^
1 Population 1901. detached
2 Travels^ r79.5-7> trans, by Neuman, 1800, vol. i, pp. 460-3. nuhtary
' E. Ryerson, Loyalists of America, 1880, vol. ii, pp. 232, &c. colony^
158 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF CANADA
Luth's and La Mothe's Detroit (United States), constituted
a fourth detached centre of attraction to Loyalists of French
as well as of British extraction, and also to disloyalists dis-
guised as Loyalists. Some of these colonists concentrated
in Sandwich (pop. 1,450 ^) or elsewhere under the protection
of the garrison, while others scattered ; and amongst the
latter one went up the River Thames and established a mill
'of curious construction' at what Simcoe (1793) called
Chatham (pop. 9,068 ^). In 1803 the small military coterie
was reinforced or re-enfeebled by some Highland settlers
whom Lord Selkirk shipped from Scotland and planted at
Baldoon on Lake St. Clair. Nearly half the settlers died in
the first year, and the remnant were saved from famine by
the soldiers of Amherstburg and then went elsewhere.^
These four Each detached centre almost formed a colony by itself and
colonies ^^^^ fringed by friendly Indians, Iroquois on Grand River
fringed by from source to mouth, Delawares,^ at Moraviantown on the
Indians. Thames, Hurons on Lake St. Clair, Mississaguas ^ on Credit
and Trent Rivers, and Iroquois again in a small reserve on
Quinte Bay ; on each and all of whom tight control was kept ;
indeed, the Iroquois, Hurons, and Delawares were as much
exiles and victims of civil war as the Loyalists themselves.
Nevertheless, the settlements at Niagara, Long Point, and
Sandwich were separate and remote from one another, and
still more separate and remote from the settlements near
Kingston and on the St. Lawrence. The Loyalist movement
did not by itself create Ontario, but only created four living
units which afterwards grew into Ontario. How were these
units unified ? Partly by far-seeing rulers, partly by isolated
adventurers, and partly by co-operative schemes, which had
their head and source in England.
In order to Simcoe's Specific for unifying the units was fourfold :
^^ni!ef^^ soldiers, towns, a through road, and a central capital.
^ Population 1901.
2 Brymner, op, cit.y 1886, pp. xv, xvi. ' Algonquins.
THE MIDDLE EAST — ONTARIO 159
Soldiers would create towns : for ' towns ', he said, ' will simcoe
spring up where troops are stationed ' ^ ; soldiers, too, would ff^.^^^f ^
build the road on which the towns would grow, and he used road,
the Queen's Rangers, of which he was colonel, as road-makers.
The road was to go from Amherstburg by Chatham (pop.
9,068 2), London (pop. 37,981 2), Woodstock (pop. 8,833 '^),
Dundas (pop. 3,173 ^), and Toronto, all of which were as yet
mere names but would some day be towns, to Kingston and
Montreal; with branch-roads leading from Dundas (or
Ancaster), east to Niagara, and south to the intended arsenal
near Long Point. Simcoe' s plan was realized, but not by
the instruments of his choice ; thus the road from Kingston
to Dundas was finished by an American contractor (1798-
1801), and the road from Dundas to the Thames by the
earliest Loyalist settlers. The roads were built and coaches
soon ran between Montreal and Kingston (1808), Kingston
and Toronto (1817), Toronto and Niagara (1816), and
Ancaster and Detroit River (1828).^ The new through road
shadowed and shortened the waterway from Montreal to
Detroit, leaving the old capital at Niagara on one side.
A new capital was required. Simcoe fixed on an inhnd and a new
capital at London, and if this plan had been executed, the ^^Z^^^^-
peninsula between Niagara, Lake Erie, and Lake Huron
might have solidified earlier than it did; and it probably
would have solidified into a separate Province or foreign state.
But Lord Dorchester, who had at first chosen Kingston, now
chose Toronto as the capital ; Toronto (pop. 208,040 ^) being
midway between his first choice and Simcoe's first choice, and
midway between the beginning and end of the new through
road.
When Bouchette surveyed the new capital one wigwam Toronto
was the only sign of human habitation, and that was one ^^^^/''^, ^^^
capitaly
1 Brymner, op. cit., 1891, Part II, p. 39. ^ Population 1901. i793>
3 W. Cannitf, History of Upper Canada^ tfc,^ 1869, p. 595;
H. Scadding, Toronto of Old, ^^^73, p. 49; comp. J. C. Hopkins,
Canada Encyclopaedia, vol. ii, p. 224.
l6o HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF CANADA
and the
starting
point of a
new road
towards
Georgian
Bay;
more sign than London had at the same date (1793).
After Toronto had been the capital for four years it boasted
of twelve houses (1798). Its value was not material so
much as spiritual, and it served as a guarantee — so far as
Government could give a guarantee that, come what may,
the Peninsula of Ontario and the Ontario of Kingston should
not be allowed to fall asunder.
Simcoe, who had no fancy for mere river-and-lake-side
capitals, immediately found a new use for the new capital.
Toronto was thirty-five miles by water north of Niagara
portage, and thirty-five miles by land south of Lake Simcoe,
which flows by Lake Couchiching and Matchedash River
into Matschedash— that is to say, into Georgian Bay. Why
should not Toronto become half-way house, not only between
east and west, but between north and south ? Why should
it not become the one and only Canadian city of the cross-
ways ? Accordingly he set his soldiers to build Yonge Street to
Lake Simcoe, laid out lots on each side of it, and opened it in
1796. Moreover, north of Lake Simcoe the River Matsche-
dash has many rapids, to avoid which, sequels to Yonge
Street were built from Lake Couchiching, and in later times
from Barrie (pop. 5,949^) to Penetang (pop. 2,422 ^). The
latter sequel was the best, and was built partly by Dr. Dunlop
during the war (181 2-14), and partly by the North-west
Company, which recognized at an early date the utility of this
new-old route as a highway of trade ^. Penetang, the goal
to which both sequels led, was selected as naval arsenal and
d^p6t by Simcoe (1793), and was used as such during the
War (1812-14) and for many years after 1829.^ Simcoe's
revival of these disused routes was a stroke of genius to
which Toronto owed its subsequent commercial prosperity.
^ Population 190T.
Brymner, op. cit., 1890, pp. 53-5 ; comp. H. Scadding, Toronto of
Old, p. 389.
' Mrs. Jameson, Winter Studies^ <Sr»^., in Canada, vol. iii, pp. 338
et seq. ; Sir R. Bonnycastle, Canadas in 1841, vol. i, ch. xvi.
THE MIDDLE EAST — ONTARIO i6i
And it had other results. Yonge Street was soon lined by and new
farmers, some of whom were re-emigrants from Nova ^^^^ly{
Scotia and the West Indies, and in later times from Lord were at-
Selkirk's Red River Colony, but most of the early settlers ^'^ardVthl
belonged to very different categories. In 1794 a large con- road,
signment of Germans was drafted by an adventurer named ^^94-9>
William Berczy into Genesee valley (New York State), where
inadequate preparations were made for their reception.*
Sixty families wandered on to Niagara in Canada, and
Simcoe re-planted them inland east of Yonge Street in
a township of one hundred square miles named Markham,
where they still remain. A little further north, close by the
watershed, many French Royalists settled in 1799, but few
remained.^ Beyond them again were Pennsylvanian Quakers,
then Dutch Mennonites, then an American sect called the
Children of Peace. Luck threw these odds and ends in
Simcoe's way at the very nick of time. Meanwhile there and to-
were sporadic settlers at Dundas, Ancaster, Port Hope (before ^^^^•''f^/f ^.
1798) (pop. 4,188'), and elsewhere on the great through Z^^?^^^
road; in 18 16 there were three houses at Cobourg* (pop. J^/^-^;'^^'_
4,239'), and in 1819 Whitby (pop. 2,110') was hdngsembleda
founded by J. Scadding. A fifth detached colony, between -^^'''^'^^^'''^'•
the Kingston settlements and the settlements on the peninsula,
was already in being. But before this date other forces had
come into play and were beginning to blend the five colonies
into that single finished colony, which Loyalist and Highland
soldiers^ strong rulers, stray settlers, and luck were vainly
conspiring to create.
The first of these forces was that pure spirit of indomitable r^en (i)
enterprise which began to pervade the New World, and to ^"^^^/^^^^
drive men out mto the lonely wilderness, towards the close began, and
of the eighteenth century. Philemon Wright, of Woburn ^^^^
' Brymner, op. cit., 1891, pp. xvii ; G. Heriot, Travels, pp. 137, 141. ^^^^ Ottawa,
' H. Scadding, Toronto of Old, p. 469; C. P. Lucas, History of ^19^'^^
Canada, 1763- 181 2, pp. 230-2.
' Population 1901. * W. Canniff, op, cit., p. 500*
VOL. V. PT. in M
l62 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF CANADA
near Boston (Massachusetts), fought against England in the
War of Independence, then traded between Boston and
Montreal, then (1796-8) took three trips up the Ottawa to
the falls of the Chaudiere, 130 miles beyond Montreal and
70 miles beyond the Long Sault of the Ottawa, where
Daulac and his heroic twenty-one fought the Canadian
Thermopylae. Next year Wright persuaded some comrades
to join his prospecting trip, and they and he cut little trees
and leaned them against larger trees, climbed as high as they
could, and agreed that the sea of trees beneath and around
and found' them boded well (1799). So in February 1800 he and they,
1800" ' ^^^^ families, servants, horses, oxen, and £10,000, sledged
from Boston to Montreal, by the St. Francis, over three
hundred miles or so of snow ; and thence to the new home
nearly one hundred miles beyond the nearest habitation on
the Ottawa. The last seventy miles, from Grenville to Hull
— if modern names may be used — were the loneliest but
easiest, for they were on smooth river-ice, there being no rapids
between the Long Sault and the falls of the Chaudiere.
Indians met Wright, ate a white dog raw, and dubbed him
the White Chief of the Ottawa. Soon after his arrival the
White Chief turned Lumber King, for Canada was beginning
to export lumber to Europe. Philemon Wright w^as pioneer,
patriarch, and founder, and whenever he returned to Hull
(pop. 13,993^), as his settlement was named, bells rang.
His sons and his sons' sons peopled the whole valley of
the Gatineau ; Hull radiated colonists not only to Chelsea,
Wakefield, and Masham on the Gatineau, but to Buckingham
on the east and Eardley on the west; moreover, Papineau,
father and son, visited Wright in i8o8, and soon afterwards
began to people the mouth of the Petite Nation River half-
way between Hull and the Long Sault. All these places are
north of the Ottawa and in Quebec Province. But what
Wright did, fired the torch of energy in other brave men, and
* Population 190I.
THE MIDDLE EAST — ONTARIO 163
near where Ottawa now stands, that is to say on the south
side of the river, the first white settlers began to appear.^
In 1810-11 Ira Honeywell of Prescott, son of a Loyalist others
mother and an anti-Loyalist father, having married a Loyalist -^^^^^^j^^^^
lady, drove off with his bride from Prescott past Merrickville, on the
where there was a house, and thence through unpeopled y-^^ ^^ -,■
wastes to the south bank of the Ottawa, where he settled Amprior ;
close by the left bank of the Rideau. Lumberers, named
Billings, settled opposite him on the right bank of the Rideau
a little later. Thus Ottawa began to exist, but not as a town.
Sundry chances scattered other germs along the Ottawa.
Seventy miles east of the Rideau, Mears's famous mills on an
island at Hawkesbury (Quebec Province), began to attract
labourers and lumberers (1805 et seq.); and Alexander
MacMillan, of Lochaber, Scotland, brought Scotch Glen-
garries to join their kith and kin and co-religionists in
Glengarry (Ontario Province) (c. 1804), bought Grenville
(Quebec Province), and Lochaber (Quebec Province) on the
Ottawa for himself and his associates, turned ' Leader \ and
lived and lumbered with his family opposite Hawkesbury at
Grenville 2 (iBio et seq.) Some Ottawans went westward
from the Rideau along the Ottawa; Mr. Charles Sherriff,
formerly of Leith, then of Port Hope, went further west, and
lumbered at the mouth of a tributary of the Ottawa called
the Mississippi, by Chats Rapids (18 19); the MacNab, fresh
from the Highlands, in kilt, sporran, and tartan, preceded by
a piper playing the Hacks o' Cromdale, and followed by
members of his clan, went furthest, and settled west of the
mouth of another tributary of the Ottawa called the Mada-
waska, and south of Lake Chats, as the expansion of the
Ottawa above the Chats Rapids is called. And for many
years to come the MacNab passed to and fro with a retinue
^ John Mactaggart, Three years in Canada^ 1829; Bertha Harris,
Life of Philemon Wright ^ 1903; J. L. Gourlay, ^2J^. of the Ottawa
Valley, 1896.
^ C. Thomas, Hist, of the Country o^ Argenteuil and Prescott^ 1896.
M 2
164 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF CANADA
of new Highland recruits; and the piper always marched
and piped in front of him. Where he settled, Arnprior (pop.
4,152 ^) now flourishes.
andColonel Americans sometimes wondered why, when they were going
'^f^^^-ed ^"^ alone into the wilds, cultured Europeans wrote fine prose
Port and poetry about the splendour of solitude, and stayed at home
Talbot. ^,j^j^ ^YiQ madding crowd. Colonel Thomas Talbot was not one
of these Europeans ; he was a man who did. Born at Mala-
hide, a descendant of the Tyrconnels, he served under Simcoe
in Ontario, and then sold his commission, and settled in the
township of Dunwich on Lake Erie, midway between Long
Point and Pointe aux Pins, at Port Talbot (1803), where he
built the inevitable mill. At first he was his own star and
almost alone ; then he was authorized to receive two hundred
acres in an adjoining township for every family settled on
fifty acres of his own. Yet he claimed, and for a long time
obtained, his reward, although his settlers were planted in
adjoining townships along the line of a projected road, which
was to run parallel to the coast about eight miles inland from
Delhi (pop. 823 ^), which is behind Long Point, by Aylmer
(pop. 2,204^) and St. Thomas (pop. 11,485^), to a point
west of Aldborough. This road was called Talbot Street,
and his settlers were obliged by the terms of their grants to
make it. But the road did not make the settlers, and in 1809
only twelve families had gathered round him, mostly from
Pennsylvania or Long Point ; and then war undid everything.
When peace returned his time came. Europe for the first
time set to work to cure pauperism by collective emigration,
and the self-help of a few choice spirits was supplemented by
social efforts on a large scale from beyond the Ocean. Until
then, Simcoe and the adventurers had been drawing large
cheques on future possibilities.
{2) System- The systematic emigration of weavers, Lowlanders, Celtic
attcemi' ^nd Ulster Irishmen, Englishmen, and ex-soldiers was the
^ Population 1901.
THE MIDDLE EAST — ONTARIO 165
second great force which filled Ontario. This force only began, of
began to work when the Napoleonic wars were over. In ^^^ti^^^
18 15 the British Government issued a paper proclamation Cel/ic
offering free passage, rations, tools, and land to intending ^" !"^^^'
settlers in Canada ^ ; and the proclamation, though not backed
by cash, was widely circulated in the Lowlands, where emigra-
tion societies were formed. In 1826, 4,653 Renfrewshire-
men, and about 8,500 Lanarkshiremen, asked aid to emigrate ;
and all, or almost all, were handloom- weavers, who occupied
their leisure on farm-work.- They were starving minute by
minute at home. ' I remember,' said the son of an emigrant
weaver, ^ often waking in the middle of the night and seeing
my father working still at the loom as if he would never give
over. ... I remember I was always hungry then — always.' ^
British agony was Canada's opportunity, and the dying men
went to live again in a land where ' almost every farmer . . .
has a loom in his house, and their wives and daughters not
only spin the yarn but weave the cloth '.^ Celtic Rom^iu underPeUf
Catholic Ireland became the scene of two experiments con- ^ohnsott,
ducted by Peter Robinson with funds provided by the British
Parliament. In both experiments the emigrants came from
County Cork. In tl e first experiment 568 persons were
with difficulty persuaded to take part (1823). In 1825,
50,000 wished to go, and envied the good fortune of the
2,024 who were allowed to go.^ No Celtic Roman Catholic
Irishmen ever emigrated to the New World except to New-
foundland before the War of Independence, and after the
war hardly any went to Canada until Robinson created in
them the taste to go. Some of the emigration societies which aitd othersy
now spread from end to end of the old country were friendly
* R. Gourlay, Statistical Account, vol. i, p. 528.
2 Report II of House of Commons Coinmittee on Emigration, 1826-7,
vol. V, pp. 19, 51, 52.
^ Mrs. Jameson, op. cit., vol. ii, p. 163.
* John Macgregor, British America^ vol. ii, p. 182.
^ Report I of House of Commons Committee on Emigration, 1826,
vol. iv, pp. 286 et seq., 330 ; Report III, 1826-7, p. 344 •
l66 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF CANADA
self-helping societies, others owed their existence to the bene-
volent landlord; the manufacturing districts of Yorkshire
were the principal homes of the former, and of the latter the
Petworth Emigration Committee (1832) may be ^taken as
a type. Petworth is a tiny village in Sussex, on the borders
of Surrey, and was owned by Lord Egremont, who gave his
tenants a free passage to Canada, and provided cheap passages
for any other intending emigrants. He employed a Village
Committee to sort the applicants before starting, and skilled
agents to locate them when they arrived; and in 1832 com-
menced operations by sending out two ships'-full to Canada.
of ex- Ex-soldier emigrants were numerous, but they were no
soldiers, ^^^ feature. Hitherto, however, they had had Provincial
experience or were Gaels. Now some of them came direct
from all parts of the United Kingdom into the primeval
forest, where they not unnaturally proved less deft than their
American brethren-in-arms ; for ' the Americans ... are our
masters in these matters', and 'No people can wield the
hatchet as well as they '} Nevertheless, many of these
despised ex-soldiers were skilled sappers, miners, and en-
gineers, many proved apt pupils, and even the most useless
as a rule drew pensions, or had commuted pensions, and
brought useful coin into districts where money had never yet
and of half- passed. About this time hosts of half-pay naval officers
pay officers, appeared from end to end of Ontario — and lived by its river-
banks and lake-shores as though they were seas ; and they
too brought coin, and not only coin but sea-craft and a sense
of order, into a province whose habitable parts were one-
third liquid and two-thirds destitute of law. Said Captain
Andrew Wilson, R.N. : ' He had body and soul to look after;
he had the county of Bathurst to govern ; the Perth lawyers
to regulate ; the roads to lay out ; and more to do than all
Downing Street';* and many other naval officers did quite
' Basil Hall, Travels^ vol. i, p. 322 ; J. Mactaggart, Three years in
Canada, vol. ii, p. 295.
2 Mactaggart, op. cit,^ vol. i, p. 272.
THE MIDDLE EAST — ONTARIO 167
as much, although no others thought quite so much of what
they did, as Captain Andrew Wilson, R.N., thought of what
he did.
Individualism was chiefly American, social energy was (3) Catmls
chiefly British, and the third force which directed the stream "'^^^^ ^^^^^'
of immigrants hither and thither was wielded by the American,
Canadian, and British Governments alike. It may be summed
up in the one word — Canals. A great canal was being made
between the Hudson River and Lake Erie by the Americans
(1818-25), who almost persuaded themselves and their rivals,
that trafiic from the West would leave the St. Lawrence for
the Hudson. The Canadians responded by canals, not from
watershed to watershed, but from smooth water to smooth
water on their great river. The first small Canadian canals
of this kind had been made in the early days of the English
regime on the St. Lawrence (1779-83), and at Sault St. Marie
(1797)^ but now a line of canals began to be constructed
past every rapid between Montreal and Lake Ontario. Oi e.g,the
these canals the Lachine Canal, which is immediately above L.achine^
Montreal and holds the key both of the Ottawa and the
St. Lawrence, was made by the Government of Lower Canada
(182 1-5); canals on the St. Lawrence above Lachine were
made by local effort, and the Welland Canal between
Lakes Ontario and Erie was made by private companies
(1824-9). 'T^® Welland Canal made Port Dalhousie (pop. the Wel-
1,1252), St. Catharine (pop. 9,946 '^), and Port Colborne ^^«^>
(pop. 1,253^) into towns; and as at Niagara, a few miles
east, the inland town derived most benefit. It was thus
that Canada was saved from the commercial ruin which
Canadian pessimists and American optimists foretold. Canal the Long
fever infected the British Government, which regarded the ^^l^j^ ^^f
matter from a military and naval point of view, and built
^ Brymner, Report for 1886, pp. xxi, xxix ; 1889, P* xxxvii ; comp.
J. C. Hopkins, Canada Encyclopaedia (1898-1901), vol. iii, pp. 326 et
seq. ^ Population 1901.
l68 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF CANADA
canals at the rapids of Carillon and the Long Sault on the
Ottawa between Lachine and Hull, and up the Rideau, across
the watershed, and down the Cataraqui between Ottawa and
Kingston (1827-31), at the Imperial cost. Its object was to
provide a way between Montreal, which is the last ocean port,
and Kingston, which is the first fresh-sea port of Canada, by
which stores and ships of light burden might penetrate inland
out of range of American guns in case of war. Safety was
its object, not trade. The route followed was not unlike that
of Lieutenant French in 1783; and the scheme was often
mooted, though it was never perfected until the vulnerable
canals of commerce between the inland seas and Montreal
were more or less complete. The completion of the St. Law-
rence Canals was the response by Canada to the United States,
and the Ottawa and Rideau Canals were the British postscript
to the Canadian response.
and jjiili' In order to defend the Rideau Canal three military colonies
tary and ^^j.^ founded in its neighbourhood — one at Richmond, on
othe?* colO' °
nies zvere a western tributary of the Rideau ; a second at Lanark, on the
posted by Upper Mississippi; and the third at Perth, on the upper Rideau
atithorities near Lanark (i 8 1 6-2 o). But in the events that happened
citizens assisted soldiers, and the civilian overshadowed the
military element in these colonies from the very first.
at Pert h^ Deputy-Quartermaster-General Colonel Cockburn left
1815, Prescott in 1815, and after 'passing through the woods,
for not a stick had been cut', chose Perth^ which was
occupied by veterans and Scotchmen in 1816, and became
the depot whence stores were issued gratis for a while to
civilian as well as to military colonists. The way to Perth
lay from the St. Lawrence ; and Perth, though inland, grew
quickly into a minor capital (pop. 3,588 *)."
RichfHOJid, Richmond, which was reached from where Ottawa is now,
1818,
' Population 1901.
2 Accounts and Papers, 1828 (vol. xxi^ ; Colonel Cockburn, Report
on Emigration J p. 11.
THE MIDDLE EAST — ONTARIO 169
was occupied by officers and soldiers of the 99th and looth
Regiment in 18 18, and was almost exclusively military and
European.
At Lanark Colonel Cockburn or Captain Marshall planted Lanark,
some 3,000 immigrants, chiefly from Lanarkshire, 'under ^^^°'
particular instructions from H. M. Government,' in 1820.
They enjoyed the same terms and privileges as ex-soldiers,
some of whom seem to have settled amongst them. Scotch-
men attracted Scotchmen, and other Scotchmen settled at the and ehe-
same time at Beckwith (18 18) and Ramsay (182 1) on the^^^^^'
Mississippi, and Ramsay was the hive from which Scotchmen
swarmed and flew north of Lake Chats to Bristol and
Clarendon.^ In 1831 and 1842 writers described the
MacNab colony on the south and the Clarendon colony
on the north of Lake Chats, much as Pindar wrote of the
Pillars of Hercules, as the verge of this solid inhabitable
world, beyond which only phantoms and shades of men
flitted fitfully. And it was at Lake Chats that limestone
ended and gneiss began. So, too, the colonies on the
Mississippi, a few miles west of the Rideau, occupied the
debatable land between gneiss and limestone, and have now
blossomed into the prosperous towns of Arnprior (pop.
4,152^)5 where the MacNab piped, of Carleton Place (pop.
4,059 '^), and Almonte (pop. 3,023^), while Smith's Falls
(pop. 5,155^), and Merrickville (pop. 1,024'^) on the Rideau
are also on the debatable land. Geology went hand in
hand with strategy, in determining the new positions.
The three primary inland settlements in this district — for the
Richmond, Lanark, and Perth — were primarily military ; ^f^^"^.^^^
and their avowed object was ' to establish a communication caiial ;
with Upper Canada distinct from that of the River
St. Lawrence '.^ They were organized and subsidized by
^ J. L. Gourlay, History of the Ottawa Valley ^ 1896, p. 21.
2 Population 1901.
^ Accounts and Papers, 1826 (vol. iv), Report I of House of Commons
Committee on E7nigration^ Question T497.
I70 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF CANADA
the War Office until 1822, and the first crop consisted of
armed men, planted, nursed, and nurtured by the War
Office. At an early period Scotchmen were admitted side by
side with the soldiers, and they too came in under the same
auspices, and as additions to and expansions of the original
Thebean design.
and Irish- Then four new elements were introduced, (i) In 1823
men, Peter Robinson's wild Irishmen were sown broadcast along
weavers^ °
Glen- the west flank of the Rideau, between Perth and the mouth
games, ^f ^j^^ Mississippi. They were paid for by the British
Parliament, not by the War Off.ce. (2) On the Long Sault
of the Ottawa, weavers, exported by a Glasgow Emigration
Society, settled at Grenville in 1819 (pop. 495 ^), opposite
Hawkesbury (pop. 4,150 ^). (3) In 1827 a Glengarry captain
of militia went inland from Prescott and settled on the east
flank of the Rideau at Osgoode. Strayed cattle from the
north led to the discovery that there was a new town called
Bytown on the north of him, and Bytown thenceforth became
Colo7telBy, his market.^ (4) Bytown — now called Ottawa (pop. 59,928 '^
>^w^<?;' of — became a town after Colonel By made it the headquarters
of the Rideau Canal Works which he directed (1827-31).
It stands on a bold blufl" fronting the lumber-town of Hull,
and is itself a lumber-town as well as the capital of the
Dominion. For the latter purpose it is well fitted, because
\i commands the alternative or war route from Quebec to
Upper Ontario ; because the indistinguishable timber of both
Provinces drifts past it ; because the first union between the
two Provinces took shape here in the form of Union Bridge
between Bytown and Hull (1826-7); ^"<^ finally, because
Ottawa owed its existence to the Imperial initiative, recon-
ciling and directing the efforts of both Provinces to a common
end. To Colonel By the first beginnings of the city of
Ottawa are due, and when the canal was finished * there
' Population 1901. 2 j l^ Gourlay, op, cit.j pp. 118, 119.
5 Population 1901, including New Edinburgh.
THE MIDDLE EAST — ONTARIO 171
was an influx of discharged labourers that scattered ovtx' a mi Colonel
and settled in the intermediate country between the Ottawa, ^/^ canal-
diggers
St. Lawrence, Rideau, and Mississippi.^ The War Office, settled be-
the State, and the man, militarism, philanthropy, and ad- ^'^'^^ ^^^^
venture, had done their work ; Colonel By ended what and St.
Lieutenant French began ; and the building of a canal added Lawrence,
a crown to a process which, under many disguises, had been
essentially a process of colonization. Lower Ontario was
peopled from end to end. The cup was filling before the
canal was built. It now began to run over the brim, and
helped to swell the human tide, which was already over-
spreading the region between Lower Ontario and the
Ontario of Toronto and of the sea-girt peninsula beyond.
West of the Bay of Quints on Lake Ontario, Cobourg Peter-
became the starting-point of a new departure in which ^^^'V^f/^
individual enterprise and systematic subsidized emigration Trent
played equally important parts. In 18 16 James Buchanan, ^^^^l.l^l!fllfl ,
the British Consul at New York, forwarded at the cost of dtte to
Government some Protestant Ulstermen from New York to ^^^^^^ (^) >
Ontario, and they were settled in ' County Cavan ' near
Rice Lake, which is an expansion of that tortuous many-
named river the Trent, and lies twelve miles north of
Cobourg.2 Some miners and Scotchmen seem to have
found their own way to the Lakes (alias the Trent) further
north in or before 1820.^ In 1822 a lonely EngHsh gentle-
man wandered with wife and children from Cobourg, by
Rice Lake up the Ottonabee (alias the Trent) to Scott's
Plains, where there was ' a tumbling down grist and saw mill'.
He built a house three miles beyond, in Douro, boiled sap
one hundred yards from his house, and ' so close were the
trees that I had my dinner carried to me, thinking it too far
off to return myself. Ague, poverty, and despair were
^ J. L. Gonrlay, op. cit.y p. 124.
^ Report I of House of Conwwns Committee on Emigration ^ 1826,
p. 169. Comp. Mrs. S. Moodie (Strickland), Roughing it in the Bush,
1852.
3 Basil Hall, Travels, vol. i, pp. 293-4, 31 1 ('vSmyth Town ').
172 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF CANADA
driving him away, when Peter Robinson swept down upon
the district with 2,024 wild Irishmen (1825), and a Govern-
ment mill was built at Scott's Plains, which was thenceforth
re-named Peterborough (pop. 11,239'), not because it is
seventy-six miles from its capital, but in order to com-
memorate the founder's Christian name.^ State-aided ex-
periments saved the situation. The magic wand waved ;
a second minor inland capital arose out of the depths of the
forest ; a new compact block of Settlements touched those
behind the Bay of Quints on the east, and almost touched
Lake Simcoe on the west; and only on the north of the
River Trent and its lakes the old Archaean edge barred
progress.
and the Meanwhile Lake Simcoe was peopled from Toronto.
foe seuie-' Highlanders fresh from the war (181 2-14) were given land
ments to at the north end of Yonge Street, near where Lord Selkirk's
%tin^^^^ waifs and strays arrived; and limestone was quarried by
Toronto Talbot River, which 'almost reaches Balsam Lake' (alias
and other ^j^^ Trent), Before 1841 all the Lake shores were lined
causes i '
with * half-pay naval and other officers ', and the sequels to
Yonge Street with old soldiers and negroes, who did not
stay. Barrie (pop. 5,949^) was a 'flourishing village where
not ten years ago there was not a single house ' ; Coldwater
River had a State mill ; Penetang attracted settlers, although
the mouth of Nottawasaga River (near Collingwood), which,
like Penetang, had been a naval base, was deserted ; and only
Nottawasaga Bay remained 'forest never ending and im-
penetrable ', although thinkers prophesied a great future
and these for Owen Sound and Colpoys Bay.*
^mmts fused "^^^^P^ ^^^ Nottawasaga Bay and the Archaean district on
Middle atid the north, civilization overspread the whole land between
Lower 1 Population 1901.
Ofttar70. 2 Basil Hall, Travels, vol. i, pp. 307-323.
3 Population 1901, including Allandale.
* Sir R. Bonnycastle, The Canadas in 1841, vol. i, p. 285; vol. ii,
pp. 8, 9, 28, 29; Mrs. Jameson, Winter Studies in Canada, vol. iii,
p. 350.
THE MIDDLE EAST— ONTARIO 173
Toronto and the resuscitated route from Toronto to Georgian
Bay on the west, Lake Ontario on the south, and the old
waterway — along the Trent or the lakes represented by the
Trent — on the north. Middle Ontario, or the Ontario be-
tween Toronto and Kingston, was reclaimed; the east of
Middle Ontario touched the west of Lower Ontario, and
both Middle and Lower Ontario were not merely river-banks,
lake-shores, or streets, but solid bodies between the river-
courses and lakes which had suggested the new streets and
settlements, and had from time immemorial controlled the
destiny of Ontario.
South-west of Middle Ontario lies Upper Ontario, or the ThePmiu'
Peninsula between Credit River at the west end of Lake Ontario, "^if^^ ^
Ontario
Niagara River, Lake Erie, Lake Huron, and the rivers and was fused
lakes between the two last-named lakes. The progress of
the Peninsula towards unity with itself and with Middle
Ontario is associated with the names of Brant (the Mohawk),
Thomas Talbot, John Gait, and Dr. Dunlop.
The Mohawks, who had hitherto divided Niagara and by Mo-
Hamilton from the more westerly settlements, began now to ^^Zurazed
sell parts of their reserves on Grand River, directly or in- individual
directly, to white colonists ; and in 1835 towns already existed ^^^^^P^^^^^
at Brantford (pop. 16,619^), Paris (pop. 3,229*), Gait (pop.
7,866^), and Berlin (pop. 9,747^). Gait was founded by
a Dumfriesman (18 16); Paris was so called because plaster-
of-Paris was quarried there by a speculative American settler;
and Berlin became, and still is, the most German centre in
the older provinces. It originated, like Markham, from the
Germans of New York State, and soon became a rendezvous
for Mennonites. In 1835 it had its German newspaper, and
it is still thoroughly German, although a German may pass
many days there without once hearing any language spoken
-except English.'^ These new settlements united Niagara-land
1 Population 1901.
2 Patrick Shirreff, Tour through North America (1835), chap,
xviii; Mrs. Jameson, op» cit., vol. ii, pp. 101 et seq.
174 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF CANADA
and Hamilton with Long Point, and with the colony, which
Colonel Thomas Talbot was before 1 8 1 6 vainly trying to found
somewhere near Port Talbot on Lake Erie.
by system- After i8i6 settlers came pouring into Talbot's lands
atic tm- without any effort on his part, and his visionary setdements
migration ' . rr.i • i i o
towards and Streets became livmg realities. The original Talbot Street
the Talbot ^yg^g ^ straight line seventy miles long, neither on Lake Erie
under ' nor on the River Thames, but between and parallel with
Colonel |3Q|;h and proved a link in the colonial chain of first-rate
Talbot, ^
importance. The road was (1835) — and it and its continua-
tions between Windsor and Simcoe (160 miles) are still — the
best in the Province ; and it was connected at an early date
by cross-roads with Simcoe's trunk-road between Dundas and
Sandwich. Amongst early settlers on or near Talbot Street
and its cross-roads, Highlanders — some of whom were for-
warded by James Buchanan from New York, while others
were flotsam and jetsam from Earl Selkirk's ruined colony in
the far west (181 7), — and Protestant Irishmen brought by
Richard Talbot ^ from Tipperary (181 8), may be noted. The
Colonel preferred English applicants for land, misliked High-
landers, who thought him a land-grabber, hated Yankees and
set his dogs on them, and abhorred teetotallers. His eccen-
tricities added to the gaiety of nations, and his services were
of sterling use to Ontario. A village was named St. Thomas
(pop. 11,485^) after the Colonel, and became his capital,
where anniversaries of this most unsaintly saint were celebrated
by his admirers during his lifetime ; and a document exists
in which the ' settlement ' is called ' St. Talbot ' settlement.^
Colonists poured in to the number of 70,000 (1816-51),
reaching from Long Point to Pointe aux Pins, and his posses-
sions would have been large indeed, if Government had
admitted his interpretation of his grant, and, as it was, his
^ No relation to Colonel Thomas Talbot.
2 Population 1901.
^ Letters from Sussex Emigrants j 1833, p. 14.
THE MIDDLE EAST — ONTARIO 175
estate was valued at his death at £50,000. He had the
credit of having fixed settlers throughout (what is now)
Elgin County, the west end of Norfolk County, and the south-
ern parts of Kent, Essex, and Middlesex Counties, without
expense to Government, but not without profit to himself;
and it is now usual to call all this district the Talbot Settle-
ment— an expression which is not only geographically vague,
but misleading, for it might imply that the Colonel introduced
the settlers or owned the land on which they settled ; either
of which was very seldom the case.^ He was something less
than founder except in his own original township, and some-
thing more than agent except in London.
In Middlesex County, Richard Talbot's settlers occupied the and to-
site then occupied by wolves ( 1 8 1 8), but afterwards occupied by '^^J^^
London (1827)-^ Then Scotchmen,^ ex-soldiers, Lowland under
weavers (1820 et seq.), and Lord Egremont's Sussex and Surrey ^^/^^J^^^^
settlers* (1832-3), came into the neighbourhood, sometimes others,
with and sometimes without the assistance of the State or of
philanthropists. London City was laid out in 1 8 2 6, and sold to
settlers by Colonel Talbot as Government agent in 1827, and
is sometimes included in and sometimes excluded from that
elastic expression 'The Talbot Settlement'. In 1828 it
became the judicial capital of the district, and soon served as
the common capital of the Long Point, Talbot, and surround-
ing settlements, and it is now the fourth city in Ontario (pop.
37,981 ^). Only one thing was now wanting to complete
the continuous civilization of the Peninsula, and this was
done by the Canada Company, which was represented in
Canada by John Gait and Dr. Dunlop.
^ C. O. Ermatinger, The Talbot Regime, 1904; J. H. Coyne, The
Talbot Papers, in Transactions of the Royal Society of Candda, 1907,
sect. 2, p. 15.
2 E. A. Talbot, Five Years' Residence in the Canadas^ 1823.
^ Report III of House of Commons Committee on Emigration (1827),
pp. 405 et seq,
* Brymner, op. cit., 1900, p. 432 ; Letters from Sussex Emigrants ^
1833. s Population 1901.
176
HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF CANADA
and under
the Canada
Company
towards
Guelphy
and Gode-
rich on
Lake
Huron.
The Canada Company was incorporated in England in
1826, and was empowered to buy from the Crown, and
re-sell to settlers, 1,875 square miles of various Crown
Reserves and 1,562 square miles of Crown property between
the Upper Thames and Grand River and Lake Huron, and
one- third of its purchase-money was to be spent on improve-
ments instead of being paid to the Crown. So Gait and
Dunlop sallied forth on foot on April 23, 1827, from Gait to
found a capital, lost their way in the forest, stumbled on an
ex-Dutch ex-French ex- American shoe-maker, took him as
guide, and arrived towards evening, drenched to the skin,
at a shanty built by an Indian murderer. There the doctor
stripped, and put on two blankets — one as toga and the other
as kilt ; and again they went forth, felled a tree, and christened
the place with whisky * Guelph City ' (pop. 1 1,496 *). A high
place was reserved for Roman Catholic buildings out of
gratitude to Bishop MacDonell of Glengarry, and the acropolis
of Guelph is now crowned by the ' largest Roman Catholic
Church in Canada ', around which kindergarten schools and
the like cling in clusters. The earliest settlers were British
victims of a British Agricultural Association, which had
exported them to Caracas in Venezuela, then called Columbia,
whence revolution drove them to New York, whence James
Buchanan forwarded them to Hamilton (1829). Capitahsts
too arrived, and before the year of the discovery of a capital
had elapsed, the capital possessed 76 houses and many mills.*
Most business men of to-day at Guelph bear Scotch names.
Having discovered a capital, Gait and Dunlop set out to
discover a port for it on Lake Huron, which they did in the
same year at Goderich, 75 miles away (pop. 4,158^); and
a road was built between the capital and its port, which,
like Talbot Street, took a line of its own and became a
^ Population 1901.
2 John Gait, Autobiography y 1833, vol. ii, pp. 56-63; Mactaggart,
Three Years in Canada^ vol. ii, p. 272.
THE MIDDLE EAST — ONTARIO 177
nucleus for settlement.^ At this date Goderich was the only
port on Lake Huron, its nearest port south was Windsor
and its nearest port north was Penetang ; for Sarnia (pop.
8,176 2) was only laid out in 1829, and, as we saw, the
history of Nottawasaga Bay began in the Forties.
In the early Forties lines drawn between Goderich, Guelph, Ontario
Toronto, Barrie, Penetang, Orillia, the Lakes of the Trent ^^-^ ^^^»''^^-
and Mississippi, and the mouths of the Madawaska and
Ottawa, roughly marked the northern limits of Ontarian civiliza-
tion. Above it was the wilderness; below it a series of mutually
connected settlements. Then new forces came into play.
The Forties were the decade of great railway plans, and Then Rail-
the Fifties were the decade of great railway completions. ^^"^ ^ ,
Trains ran from Montreal to Toronto in 1856, and in 1858 the Union,
two railroads led from Toronto to Sarnia, one by Stratford ^850'?^^^^v
(pop. 9,959^) and the other by Hamilton. Trains already
ran from Hamilton to Niagara Falls and to Sandwich (1854),
so that Ontario was knitted together from end to end in
a way which more than realized Simcoe's wish. But British
colonization was never content to run in one direction at
a time ; and Simcoe's cross-roads were now represented by
two railroads, ending respectively at Goderich (pop. 4,158^), extending
of which no one had heard before 1827, and at Collingwood ^j^^J^*^
(pop. 5,755^), which Sir R. Bonnycastle described as ^forest Huron and
in the midst of unending impenetrable forest' (1842). The ^^^^i^^^
Toronio-Barrie ^-Collingwood cross-line was begun in 1849
and finished in 1854; and the Goderich-Seaforth- Stratford-
Fort Erie cross-line was opened in 1858. The lines to
Midland (pop. 3,174^), Penetang (pop. 2,422^), Meaford
(pop. 1,916 ^), Owen Sound (pop. 8,776 ^), Colpoys Bay (pop.
2,443 ^), Southampton (pop. i>636^), and Kincardine (pop.
2,077^), were only later amplifications of these original and
historic cross-lines.
^ Patrick Shirreff, Tour, 1835, PP- ^5° et seq.
2 Population 1901. 3 I include Allandale in Barrie.
VOL. V. PT. Ill N
178 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF CANADA
Minerals^
&Cj en-
riched
out-lying
districts,
1^60 etseq
This railway development doubled or trebled the great
through waterway of the St. Lawrence, and Simcoe's great
through roadway from Montreal to Windsor and Sarnia, and
introduced variants of old short cuts between Lakes Erie,
Ontario, and Huron, and Georgian Bay, these lakes being
themselves parts of the St. Lawrence. The St. Lawrence
was still the presiding genius of Ontarian development.
These railways also doubled or trebled the importance not
only of Windsor or Sarnia, but of Hamilton, Toronto,
Stratford, Collingwood, Goderich, and London, all of which
dominated the short cuts between the St. Lawrence under
one of its names with the St. Lawrence under another of its
names.
In the Sixties petroleum was obtained in the neighbour-
hood of Petrolea (pop. 4,135^), ten to twenty miles from
Sarnia,^ and salt between Seaforth and Goderich and
Southampton on Lake Huron. Natural gases were after-
wards discovered in these neighbourhoods ; and Southampton
became fishing capital of Bruce County, which in 1848 w^as
uninhabited, but is now almost as full of Scotch Highlanders
and Islanders as Glengarry or Cape Breton Island itself In
the Sixties, too, a very little gold was worked at Madoc (pop.
i»i57 % and a very little iron at Marmora (pop. 961 1), just
beyond the threshold of the Archaean region behind the
Bay of Quintd, where the blast furnaces at Deseronto (pop.
3^527 ^), more than supplied the humble demands of the men
of iron.
The Archaean region of what I have called Old Ontario
<^haeandtS'.^^^ invaded by settlers after 1868, when free land-grants
trtct of Old ^
Ontario Were offered to immigrants in Muskoka and Parry Sound
7e/ay«'^z;^. Districts, which figure in the 1871 census for the first time.
loped, 1868 > o /
et seq. The southern gate- way of this region is * the granite notch ,
a few miles north of the limestones of Orillia (pop. 4,907 \
^ Population 1901.
* Canada: Report of Geological Survey, 1901, p. 160 A, &c., Trans-
actions of the Royal Soc, of Canada, 1887, Sect, iv, p. loi.
The Ar-
THE MIDDLE EAST — ONTARIO 179
and 107 miles north of Toronto ; and its northern gateway is
North Bay on Lake Nipissing, 170 miles further north. In
1859 there was * no European town or village from Orillia to
the north pole \ In the Seventies the first railway passed
north of the granite notch to Gravenhurst (pop. 2,146 *) ; but
many years were destined to elapse before it reached North
Bay and linked Ontario and its capital to the Canadian
Pacific Railway. At present this district is largely dedi-
cated to sportsmen and tourists; though many a farmer
finds good soil here and there on the shores of some lake,
and Parry Sound is a considerable lumber-port. Graven-
hurst (pop. 2,146^), Bracebridge (pop. 2,479^), ^"^^ Hunts-
ville (pop. 2,152 ^), on the avenue between the two gateways,
are its tourist capitals. Memories of another kind linger
round Lake Nipissing, which is on the old Indian water-
route up the Ottawa, and down French River, to Georgian
Bay. French River and the Archaean parts of Georgian Bay
are the north-w^estern borders of the Archaean region of Old
Ontario; and the Ottawa lies near its north-eastern border,
which is vague. While settlers came in by twos and threes
through its southern gateway, lumberers were stealing
towards it up a tributary of the Ottawa named the Bonne-
chbre, north-west of the settlement of the MacNab;
and lonely wayside farmers dotted the Musk Rat Portage of
the Ottawa, which was still further north-west, as early as
1830. Before the advent of railways there were 850 settlers
in Ontario near Lake Timiskaming and Lake Nipissing
(1871), and rapid progress came with the railways, which led
from Ottawa to Lake Nipissing and beyond in the Eighties
(Canadian Pacific Railway), and which also led from Ottawa to
Parry Sound (pop. 2,884^) in the Nineties (Grand Trunk
Railway), thanks to which Renfrew (pop. 3,153^) on the
Bonnechere, Pembroke (pop. 5,156^) on Musk Rat Portage,
and North Bay (pop. 2,530^), on Lake Nipissing, became
' Population 1901. ^j q Kohl, Travels, td., i86i,vol. ii, p. 66.
N 2
l8o HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF CANADA
important towns. A railway from Toronto to Sudbury was
built in the first decade of this century as a companion to the
railway which had been finished long ago from Toronto to
North Bay. The pace was accelerated, and Muskoka,
Parry Sound, and the railway lines through and round these
lakelands, though populous compared to what they were, are
desolate indeed, compared to the civilized districts of Old
Ontario, around which we have been lingering so dispropor-
tionately long, as some may think.
In New As in Quebec, so in Ontario, the historical geographer
develop- ^^^^ \y2i^Q two standard measures— one a foot-rule and the
ment was other a sextant. Parts of the country are crowded, and these
^1/ ^^^ " parts were first entered in Old Quebec by members of some
which were family, and in Old Ontario by some social group, inch by
^mineral •'^ ^^^^' district by district ; so that their history is written on
genealogical trees or tombstones or parochial registers. The
chief difference between Old Quebec and Old Ontario was that
civil war — or what the Greeks called orrao-tg — did for Ontario
what religious fervour did for Quebec Province; and that
while the founders of Quebec Province crept along the banks
of a single river, spreading slowly up and down in one
dimension from three points, the founders of Ontario over-
spread intervals as broad as long between two or three rivers
and three or more fresh seas, like a multitude of distinct
cloudlets which coalesced at last into a single complicated
pattern, so that the entire earth was overcast. When that
process was complete, when the outline was apparently filled
in and intelligible, historical geography stops ; for subsequent
elaborations and permutations belong to history or some
other kindred science. Thus far the student goes as with
leaded cowl through some small dense country like a larger
Scotland or a lesser England. The comparison is not
unjust; for Old Ontario, excluding the Parry Sound and
Muskoka District, is exactly the same size as Newfoundland
and has only 40,000 square miles, some of which just trench
THE MIDDLE EAST — ONTARIO l8l
upon the Archaean region, and what is now called the Parry
Sound and Muskoka District only adds another 5,000 square
miles or so.
When we pass northward through the granite notch, we are
in a country of big distances and little history, and our progress
should be at astronomical, or at any rate railway speed.
Indeed, we are in a country where, as a rule, railways
preceded roads, and were the only events, or almost the
only events, of history ; and the railways were built, partly, it
is true, for the purpose of colonizing the lean country through
which they passed, but partly too for the sake of developing
fat far-off countries, and partly for purely political purposes.
The Parry Sound Railway opened up a new port for the far
west, and the other railways to North Bay and Sudbury were
feeders of the great through line of the Canadian Pacific
Railway Company.
North Bay is the railway junction for several mineral e.g. rail-
districts; Cobalt, of which we have spoken, Sudbury, Bruce 'ctbali'
Mines, and Michipicoten, and of these Cobalt and Sudbury
are already of world-wide significance.
'The town of Sudbury' (pop. 2,027 ^) 'is a creation of the the Sud-
Canadian Pacific Railway' (1882),^ being on the main line '^^
80 miles west of North Bay, and the starting-point of a branch
line 182 miles long to Sault St. Marie (pop. 7,169^). In
1883, Sudbury was the imaginary junction of two unbuilt
railways, but it had real workmen and surveyors, and a real
magistrate named Judge MacNaughton. One day the judge
went for a walk, lost his way three miles from home, and
when night came perched on a rocky knoll. A search party
was formed, and found the judge, and noted that where he
had been sitting there were things that looked like shining
stones. These things were shown to an expert, who declared
^ Population 1901.
2 Canada, Geol. Survey, A. E. Barlow, Report on Stidbury, 1904,
printed in vol. xiv, p. 46 H.
l82 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF CANADA
that there was copper in them, but not enough to pay, and
that the brightest nest-egg was nickel, and therefore valueless.
In 1886 a Canadian Copper Company started work in the
neighbourhood; in 1889 MacNaugh ton's Bethel became
Murray Mine, and Sudbury began to experience the chances
and changes to which copper industry is invariably exposed.
Meanwhile bicycles, and the invention of nickel steel (1888),
and the new treatment of nickel ores (1891) supplied a more
secure foundation for its prosperity (1891 et seq.), and thanks
to the railways from North Bay to Toronto, and from Sudbury
to Sault St. Marie, help came from far, and Power and
Refining Companies at Sault St. Marie and Hamilton (1899)
assisted the nickel-miners of Sudbury, who now supply the
world with most of the nickel which it more and more greedily
consumes.
to^Satilt ^ Sault St. Marie (pop. 7,169*) was, until recent railways
St Jl'Idfi^
' ' were built, as much isolated from the rest of Ontario as the
Bosphorus was in classical times from Hellas. It was the
strait gate to the innermost inland sea ; and there have been
missions, trade ' forts \ or military forts there on and off since
1640, or long before similar posts occupied those other
wicket-gates between its sister seas at Detroit and Niagara.
In English times it gradually grew into a lumber and mill
town; some copper-mining was done at Bruce Mines
(1846-76), thirty-five miles to the east; and these mines
were re-opened (1901) after the whole of the Sault-and-
Sudbury branch line was opened. Sault St. Marie is now
connected by a bridge with its vis-a-vis rival in Michigan
(United States) ; and besides being a fresh seaport is one of
the three land-channels by which Canadian produce passes to
Chicago (United States) ; Sarnia (with its tunnel) and Windsor
(with its steam-ferry) being the other two. Sault St. Marie
has copper to west of it as well as copper to east of it ; and
Michipicoten Island, which is one hundred miles west of it,
* Population 1901.
THE MIDDLE EAST — ONTARIO 183
has been of romantic interest, as the starting-point of a canoe-
route up the Michipicoten and down the Missinaibi and
Moose Rivers, to James Bay; a route which De Troyes^s
companions are said to have used on their return from raiding
Moose Factory (1676-7),^ but of late years its interest has
been of a more material character. In 1901 the Helen
Mine, near Michipicoten river-mouth, began to yield iron
under the direction of a Power Company at Sault St. Marie ;
and immediately the production of iron in Ontario leapt up
from 25,000 to 272,538 tons a year. Blast-furnaces have
been, or are being, erected at Sault St. Marie and Colling-
wood, and a railway has been pushed on from Sault St.
Marie to Michipicoten Harbour, which is no longer a mere
distant isolated port upon an uninhabited coast. Two hundred
miles beyond Michipicoten the River Nipigon flows into
Lake Superior, and near its mouth is Fort Nipigon, which .
was the westernmost outpost of the French fur-traders, until
Duluth went seventy miles further along the shore to Fort
Kaministiquia, which was built in 1678 and rebuilt in 171 7,
and has since 1801 been represented by Fort William. Here,
however, we enter upon a new arena ; and the west shore of
Lake Superior owes its inspiration to a changed country lying
far away towards the west. Not that the country has not been
changing somewhat ever since we passed into Lake Superior.
Along the north coast of Lake Superior, except at Nipigon, and along
we are very close to the watershed between James Bay and ^jl^J'^^^
the Gulf of St. Lawrence : and the rose-red rocks are some- Superior
times terraced or abrupt, or capped with flat levels or truncated
cones in a way which is said to be rare in Archaean Canada.
Moreover, there is hardly a tunnel in all Canada east of the
Rockies except here, and the traveller is prepared for change
of historic associations as well as of scenery when he arrives
at Fort William and Port Arthur.
^ Alexander Henry the elder. Travels, ed. by James Bain, 1901,
pp. 231, 232.
184 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF CANADA
to Fort Fort William (pop. 3,997 ^) and Port Arthur (pop. 3,2 14 ^)
^^dP^t are twin towns, three miles apart, but rapidly growing together
Arthur y into a joint town (pop, 7,211^); and their gigantic elevators for
storing the grains of the far west are, since 1885, the outward
and visible reasons of their being. They do what Grand
Portage once did for Canada.
which also In former days Grand Portage, forty miles south, was
trairies ^^ ^ great gathering-place of the western and eastern servants
of the North- West Fur Company of Montreal; for the
servants who plied east of Grand Portage were usually distinct
from those who plied west, and what was the goal of one was
the starting-point of the other. Then Pigeon River, on which
Grand Portage is situate, became the dividing line between
Canada and the United States, so that part of the old route
lay through a foreign land. Consequently Fort William was
substituted for Grand Portage in 1801 ; and it was there
that Lord Selkirk played the part of the avenging angel. In
1870 Lord Wolseley's base was a little north of Fort William,
and he called it Prince Arthur's Landing, after the Duke of
, Connaught, and it is now called Port Arthur. At that time
a Montreal firm was working silver-mines in its neighbour-
hood; and some years later Silver Islet on Thunder Bay,
close by, yielded £700,000 worth of silver before it was in
imminent danger of being submerged. Like Sault St. Marie
and Michipicoten, Fort William and Port Arthur were and
are to some extent mining centres. But they were and are
the one and only fresh- sea port for the produce of the far
west.
e.g. by In 1870 there were two ways from Fort William to the
Lord^ Wol- ^ggj . up-stream by the River Kaministiquia to Dog Lake,
rQute,\%iQ, and up-stream by the Kaministiquia and its affluent the
Matawin to Lake Shebandowan. The first lay more to the
north, and the second more to the south. Each route led
over the usual flat boggy watershed to Lac des Mille Lacs,
* Population 1901.
THE MIDDLE EAST — ONTARIO 185
which contains the headquarters of most of the affluents
of Rainy River.^ But the Kaministiquia has falls which
may be compared to a small Niagara, and the sixty miles'
ascent from Lake Superior (602 feet s, m.) to the water-
shed (1,584 feet J". 771.) was famous in Canada for its steepness.
Therefore S. J. Dawson cut, or tried to cut, a portage road
forty-eight miles long, which was the first road in these parts,
and which went from Port Arthur direct to Shebandowan
Lake. But this Yonge Street of the far west was incomplete
in 1870, and Lord Wolseley used the second more than he
used the third way. After Lac des Mille Lacs it might seem
that the old scenes were left behind and new scenes were
dawning. But for the next three hundred miles or so there
is a reversion to the old type of Archaean Canada. The
comparative diversity of contour and boldness and brilliancy
of the North Shore of Lake Superior disappears, and stone,
bog, knoll, and lake alternate with a monotony which is not
excelled elsewhere.
As Lord Wolseley drifted down Sturgeon River, to Rainy
Lake, down Rainy Lake to Rainy River, down Rainy River
to Lake of the Woods, down Lake of the Woods to Winnipeg
River, and down Winnipeg River to Lake Winnipeg; he
passed Fort Frances on Rainy River, at the outlet of Rainy
Lake — which was only a little less lonely than its predecessor
Fort St. Pierre, which La Verendrye built close by, and
Kenora on Winnipeg River, at the outlet of Lake of the
Woods, which had ' three log houses roofed with bark and
enclosed by a high wooden palisading'.^
After Lord Wolseley's expedition, the vulgar error that Aften^io,
Lake Winnipeg and Lake Superior belong to the same water- ^/^^.^J^'
system disappeared, but a new confusion arose. To ^hich frontier
province — if any — did the wilderness west of Lake Superior ^^j^^ ^"
^ Or ' Lake of the Thousand Islands', see Sir John Franklin's Map of
the Expedition ^1825, published 1828.
^ Captain G. L. Huyshe, Ked River Expedition, 1871, p. 170.
r86 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF CANADA
belong? Had Ontario a valid claim to the district, whose
natural capitals were Fort William (pop. 7,21 1 ^), Fort Frances
(pop. 466^), and Kenora (pop. 6,358^).^ The question was
set to rest by an order in Council (August 11, 1884) and an
Act of the Imperial Parliament (1889), under which the
western and northern frontiers of Ontario were defined (i) by
the north-west angle of Lake of the Woods ; (2) by a line
thence due north to English River, which is an affluent of
Winnipeg River; (3) and by English River and its watershed
and Albany River as far as James Bay.'^ Civilization began
in this district partly with Lord Wolseley's expedition against
Riel, partly with RieFs second rebellion and defeat (1885),
partly with the completion of the Canadian Pacific Railway
(1885), and partly with this final settlement of the provincial
boundaries. It began more from military and political
necessity than by choice. But such progress as has been
attained is due to its unexpected wealth.
roads, sett- Dominion surveys were made in 1876, but settlers had
the'c!^P. '^l^^^^y come since 1874 from the United States to fertile
Railway alluvial flats along Rainy River in the neighbourhood of Fort
Jo owe , Yxzxic^'s^. Then when the boundary question was settled,
Ontario built an 80-mile road along Rainy River, between
Rainy Lake and Lake of the Woods ; townships were marked
off, free grants of land were offered, and settlers came, not
from the south but the east. Then the Canadian Pacific
Railway came (1885), and its way from Fort William lay
first along the Dawson Road, towards, but not so far as Lake
Shebandowan ; then north, but not so far as Dog Lake; then
along the north shore of Lac des Mille Lacs to the north shore
of Lake of the Woods. Here Kenora (pop. 5,202 ^) and its twin
Keewatin (pop. 1,156 ^), on the other side of the outlet of the
Lake of the Woods, became railway towns, were united by a
bridge, and became the principal mill seats not only for that
^ Population 1901.
^ John P. Macdonell, Ontario Boundary Controversy, with map,
1896.
THE MIDDLE EAST — ONTARIO 187
district, but for the far west. East of Kenora we have seen twin
town and vis-a-vis towns innumerable^ and a few bridge-towns;
but they have always cut Canada's line of life, which runs.
east and west, at right angles, and have been the outcome of
emulation, imitation, or opposition. Kenora-Keewatin are the
first but not the last looking-glass places, both of which the
Canadian passes through rather than abides in ; for in Canada
movement east and west, west and east, rather than rest, is
the first law of life. In 1894 a pioneer farm was made at
Wabigoon on the Canadian Pacific Railway, 218 miles from
Fort William and 218 miles from Winnipeg. Due south oi^^^^^^^^^^
TTT t . 1.1 1 . 1 mineral
Wabigoon there is the usual composite waterway up the discoveries
Wabigoon and down the Manitou to Rainy Lake, near which ^'^^ other
copper and gold are worked. There is also copper and gold
along the River Seine, which runs westward into the north of
Rainy Lake, and nowadays the Canadian Northern Railway
Line runs along the Dawson Road to Lake Shebandowan,
and thence by the Seine River (instead of by the Sturgeon
River by which Lord Wolseley went) to Rainy Lake and
Fort Frances, and thence by the southern edge of the Lake
of the Woods (United States) to Winnipeg. There is copper
and gold too in the neighbourhood of Whitefish Bay, which
is an eastern inlet of Lake of the Woods; so that uncivilized
Ontario preserves some of its mineral as well as its lumbering,
milling, and agricultural reputation to the last. Thus Kenora
and Fort Frances, like Fort William, Michipicoten, and Sault
St. Marie, owe prosperity to the bounty of nature as well as
to the art of engineers ; and both Nature and Art are putting
human rubble into the interstices between railways, roads,
and water-routes, wherever they do not coincide.
In the preceding paragraphs special allusions are made to Onta7'ian
towns, because towns of a certain size and number are ^^^^^"^v^ ^^
■ more vigor-
characteristic of Ontario as distinguished from Quebec Pro- ous than
vince. Toronto (pop, 208,040 ^) is a lesser Montreal (pop. ^pf^^f^^
^ Approximate population 1901.
i88
HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF CANADA
and in
Ontario
there are
three
national-
ities,
British
being para-
mount.
350,000), Ottawa (pop. 60,000) a lesser Quebec (pop. 69,000),
Kingston (pop. 18,000) a larger Ldvis (pop. 17,000^), and
Windsor (pop. 12,000) a lesser Hull (pop. 14,000); but
there are no towns like Hamilton (pop. 53,000) and London
(pop. 38,000) in Quebec Province; towns of 11,000 inhabi-
tants are only represented by Sherbrooke and Valleyfield in
Quebec Province, but by Windsor, Guelph, Peterborough,
and St. Thomas, in Ontario; and towns of less than 11,000
and more than 8,000 inhabitants by Three Rivers and St.
Hyacinthe in Quebec Province, but by Stratford, Berlin,
Chatham, Woodstock, Brockville, Belleville, and Owen Sound
in Ontario ; and if we lower the standard to 2,500 inhabitants
the proportionate number of towns in Quebec to towns in
Ontario is five to twelve. Town life is more energetic in
Ontario; although, like the elder province, Ontario is essen-
tially agricultural, and the people are and have been yeomen
from the beginning. At the very moment when English
writers began to bewail vanished yeomen who never existed,
Englishmen were deliberately founding colonies of yeomen
for the first time in history.
The towns which grew up in Ontario were the symptoms
and results of agricultural success. Rural industries, as time
went on, were able to spare more and more of their devotees
to manufacturing industries, and the country created the
towns. The same process has gone on in Quebec Province,
but with less vigour. Perhaps Ontario is more fertile, and
the peach-growing peninsula of Ontario is certainly more
fertile than any part of Quebec Province; or perhaps the
difference is due to the different nationalities of the provinces.
By nationality ultimate European origin is meant. In this
sense three nationalities are universally conspicuous in On-
tario,— British, French, and German (including Dutch), — but
British is vastly superior to its rivals, and the ratio of the
rivals differs widely in different census districts.
In its widest sense.
THE MIDDLE EAST — ONTARIO
189
1
Per
Cent.
1881
1901
siuvaSuu
-mj 's-'-n
M'«*-MM«M«MfON
M
mox
On tJ-00 ONt^t^OO t>.00 •»>•
ONONONONONOsONON ONOO
i^
UVtUAdf)
M On t>. ro ^VO 0 «^ fO i>«
MM M VO
0 0
1(0U9A^
10
ro M Tj- M
10 i^
ysptxff
00 0 VO f>« C« ONVO 10 0 fO
to !>. i>. ON ONOO t>. CO ifiVO
eg s
ysui
rCOO rOONThONC* X^^Q
MMrO'>*-rOMM «ro
CO ON
CO M
ipfo^s'
CN'^<M ONONMQO M-MVO
rOMMMMMMMl-tHi
ON 00
yst^Su^
VO 00 M tJ- 0\ ONVO "^ »0 i>.
cOrOMfOfOcOM M
00 c<
«s CO
Pop, 1000
in these
Districts
1
ONOO J>.M in-^O rOcOPO
M M '^h iTi T^ MM
CO
00
M
M
00
00
too ONO toiOf* rO'^O
^lOM rOtOtOThTj-OOO
CO
M
OS
'spiApiQ
M r« VO 00 CO ONOO M '^f- 'rf
r« M M
00
00
1. Glengarry, &c.
2. South-west.
3. Dundas, &c.
4. Kingston, &c.
5. Peterborough, London, &c.
6. Toronto, &c.
7. Lennox, Hamilton, &c.
8. Berlin, &c.
9. Ottawa and East, &c.
10. North-west.
w
^'5
TJ ^
*! O
a c
O 2
c/iW
"to «3
biO C •
fl O >
,r«?> <u
O ^ tn
^W fl
►^ .- . fl
.•^c/DW o
C V JJ C "^
S)^^^ a
S § o g^
o P m Iz; r
. . . .Iz;
M CO ^ to
C/3
fl
O
"So
w
o
O
fl"
o
I
1^^-^
•M u h^ fl ci
C/3 fl^ O tj
S fl .§ ^ fl S
.-B 8 -^ fi ^
• M C fl '^
;> pm H-i . <^g
o
o rw^. r !2
l^'^fl-gflj
^ o -^1 fl 8 c'^
. 0 2;2g^^
flH .-<c/5J>U
2 .;?; .^ . .
^ VO*"; i^a 00 o
a 5? «« -^
>H^ O 12;
190 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF CANADA
Census districts usually contain 20,000 inhabitants, be the
same more or less, and in the accompanying table census
districts are grouped, not geographically, but according to the
proportion of different nationalities represented in the group.
British, German, and French nationalities virtually occupy the
whole field. The fifth, sixth, and seventh groups are the
largest, and therefore represent normal Ontario ; the second,
third, and fourth 'may be regarded as stepping-stones to the
fifth, and the eighth as an appendix and exaggeration of the
seventh group.
The three big groups contain two-thirds of the population ;
of which two -thirds, one-third is partly German and two-
thirds ultra-British. Though more populous by one-fifth
than Quebec Province, Ontario is not populous. Old On-
tario equals England minus Wales in area and Wales minus
England in population; but then it only began life in 1786.
APPENDIX TO CHAPTER VII
Let a = 10 years; x = 26,000 people; « = a negligible
fraction ; and the formula of the progress of Ontario since
1 781 will read thus : 3^ = 3^—;/; 6a=:i8x—n; "ja^-
^6x-\-n\ ioa = 74J\;; 12^ = 84.1:.
The arrangement of these typical groups may be inferred
by watching the decline and fall of the British, Irish, French,
and German figures in their respective columns ; and it is an
undesigned coincidence that the Highlanders of the first, and
the British of the third, fourth, fifth, sixth, and half the
seventh group, have been and are drifting westward, and
therefore diminishing in number, except at great towns, like
Toronto, London, and Hamilton; while the other districts
or half-districts and great towns have been and are increasing
all along the line. Again, the ethnical order of progression
reveals as though by accident geographical order.
In the ensuing analysis it will be noted that, with the
exception of the second item, six successive types may be
encountered by a traveller up the St. Lawrence in the order,
or almost in the order, in which they are given in the tables.
The reason of this rule is that with one exception distance
from Quebec Province diminishes French influences, and
nearness to Niagara increases German influences, these two
nationalities being antipathetic; and the reason of the ex-
ception is that in the. far south-west Detroit is, and always
was, a minor focus from which Frenchmen spread. On the
other hand, the ninth and tenth types contain every district
on the Ottawa, and no other district in Old Ontario, except
north Essex, which is as closely in contact with French
surroundings at Detroit as the Ottawa colonies are with those
of Quebec Province on the Ottawa.
We will now discuss the ten groups in detail.
(i) Glengarry is the only county with a Scotch majority.
The proximity of Quebec accounts for its French population ;
Scotch and French diminishing as we go upstream. The
presence of Germans, who increase as we go upstream,
reminds us that we are no longer in Quebec Province. The
far north-east division only contains two counties, and,
192 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF CANADA
Strange to say, its nearest analogy — if we substitute English
for Scotch — is
(2) In the far south-west near which French elements were
present at Detroit before Ontario began to exist. The un-
specified six per cent, in Kent and Essex consist partly of
runaway American Negro slaves, who came here in order to
be free. Ontario negroes number 8,900 ^ but were half as
much again in 187 1, and three-fourths of them live here or
hereabouts.
(3) In Dundas and the Bay of Quintd a large proportion
of the early Loyalists were Germans, who are already more
than three times as numerous as the French. The residue
of the population chiefly consists of 1,100 Iroquois Loyalists
who have since 1784 {circa) resided at Tyendenaga on the
Bay of Quint^. Their relatives, over 3,000 in number, have
since the same date resided on Grand River near Brantford,
and account for most of the deficiency in the sixth group.
(4) In the Kingston group British preponderance, which
has been steadily growing, reaches its zenith; and in this
case British means Irish, for the workmen on the Rideau
were largely Irish, and the seed which was scattered broad-
cast by Peter Robinson grew and spread.
(5) The district typified by Peterborough and London is
equally British; considerable Indian reserves south of the
Trent Lakes (Mississaguas), on the Thames below London
(Delawares), and on St. Clair River and Lake (Hurons, &c.),
account for most of the undefined residue ; and Frenchmen
are at vanishing point except in Muskoka, where other
nationalities — Scandinavian, Swiss, and Italian — also appear.
(6) The Toronto type is only a little less British and
un-French than its two predecessors ; Penetang accounts for
nearly half the Frenchmen in the group. There are Algonquin
reserves in the Peninsula of Bruce County, as well as Iro-
quois reserves on Grand River, and a few American negroes
have inhabited Oro on Lake Simcoe from almost the first.
(7) The Germans who now dispute, and in two districts
(8) usurp, British paramountcy, came for the most part
through Niagara from the western frontier of New York
State, where they were pioneers.
(9, 10) The ninth and tenth types represent the growing
end of Ontario, which is also in contact with the growing end
* Population 1901.
THE MIDDLE EAST— ONTARIO 193
of Quebec Province almost as far west as North Bay. In the
north-easternmost county Frenchmen are more than half; in
the next county they are all but half; in Ottawa, which comes
next, they are about one-third ; then they are a little more,
and then a little less, than one-eighth ; after which British only
exceed French by a few hundred in Nipissing, while west of
Nipissing British ascendancy is once more unchallenged as
far as the western frontier ; and French are almost as rare as
Germans. Germans are very few except in Renfrewshire
just east of Nipissing, where they are one-fifth of the popula-
tion; and in the same county 2,400 Russians, or more than
half the Russians of Ontario, dwell. The Scandinavians
of Ontario were in 190 1 fewer even than the Russians, and like
the Russians dwelt mainly in the wilder districts of the north-
west. Indians, of course, increase as we move west ; nearly
half of them residing in Algoma, where the principal Algon-
quin reserve is on Manitoulin Island in Georgian Bay. The
Indians of Ontario are 20,000, against 15,000 in 1881.
The population becomes more and more miscellaneous, its
type is less fixed and definite, the more we advance westward ;
and the railway stations west of Fort William are named
Finland, Linko, Upsala in order to denote the origin of their
occupants.
Authorities.
Census figures for the Canadas were published by the authorities at
Quebec for 1851-2, and 1 860-1, and have since then been published
decennially by the authorities of the Dominion at Ottawa for 1870-r,
1 880-1, 1 890-1 , and 1 900- 1. The fourth volume of the publication which
deals with 1870-1 contains also in a summary form the census figures
for the different provinces before 1870-1, including the figures for 1 860-1,
and 1 85 1 -2, and of eleven previous Ontarian censuses between 1851 and
1824. For dates prior to 1824 see Robert Gourlay, Statistical Account
of Upper Canada^ 2 vols., 1822; Sir Charles Lucas, History of
Canada, 1763-1812, 1909, Chapter IV; Report for 1891 on the
Archives of Canada, by David Brymner ; and the Introduction of the
1 870-1 Census Report, vol. iv.
James White, Atlas of Canada, 1906, contains Statistical details from
the Census of 1901, presenting differences of nationality, &c., in different
colours, and giving lists of towns, &c.
Data for the previous physical condition of the Province are obtain-
able in —
(i) General Descriptions of which Joseph Bouchette*s books
VOL, V. PT. Ill O
194 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF CANADA
mentioned at the end of Chapter VI, and Robert Gonrlay, Statistical
Account of Upper Canada, 2 vols., 1822, and G. M. Grant, Picturesque
Canada, 1881, are examples.
(2) General Histories such as William Kingsford, History of
Canada, 10 vols., 1887 et seq. ; Francis Parkman, Works, 12 vols., 1899 ;
Sir Charles P. Lucas, History of Canada, 1763 to 181 2 (1909); The
Canadian War of 1812, 1906.
(3) Local Histories.
William CannifF, History of the Settlement of Upper Canada with
special reference to the Bay of Quints, 1869.
James Croil, Dundas, 1861.
Charles O. Ermatinger, The Talbot Regime, 1904.
J. L. Gourlay, History of the Ottawa Valley, 1896.
Egerton Ryerson, The Loyalists of America, 2 vols., 1880.
Henry Scadding, Toronto of Old, 1873.
J. H. Smith, Historical Sketch of the County of Wentworth, 1897.
Edward A. Talbot, Five Years' Residence i7t the Canadas, 2 vols.,
1824.
C. Thomas, History of the County of Argent ettil and Prescott, 1896.
(4) Travels.
Captain Basil Hall, Travels in North A??ierica in 1827 and 1828,
3 vols., 1829.
Sir Richard Bonnycastle, The Canadas in 1841, 2 vols., 1842.
John Gait, Autobiography, 2 vols., 1833.
Bertha Harris, Life of Philemon Wright, 1903.
George Heriot, Travels through the Canadas, 1807.
Captain George L. Huyshe, The Red River Expedition, 1871.
(Mrs.) Anna B. Jameson, Winter Studies a?td Summer Rambles in
Canada, 3 vols., 1838.
John MacGregor, British Afnerica, 2 vols., 1832.
John Mactaggart, Three Years in Canada, 1826-8, 2 vols., 1829.
F. A. F. de la Rochefoucauld Liancourt, Voyage dans les Etats Unis
d'Amirique fait en 1795-7, 8 toms., 1799; English translation,
2 vols., 1799, 4 vols., 1800.
Patrick Shirreff, A Tour through North America, 1835.
James Strachan, A Visit to the Province of Upper Canada in 1819,
1820.
Eliot Warburton, Hochelaga or Englaftd in the New World, 2 vols.,
ed. 2, 1846.
(5) Emigration Reports and Pamphlets.
Three Reports of the Select Co?nmittee of the House of Commons on
E??tigration, 1826 (vol. iv), 1826-7 (vol. v).
Report of Colonel Cockburn, Commissio7ier on Emigration, 1828
(vol. xxi of collected edition of Reports).
Thomas Douglas, Earl of Selkirk, Observations on the Highlands, 1805.
Colonel David ^t&vf2ixi, Sketches of the Highlanders, 2 vols., 1882,
new ed. 1885.
Robert Gourlay, General Introduction to his Statistical Account of
Upper Canada compiled with a view to a grand system of Efnigration^
1822.
Letters from Sussex Emigrants who sailed ... in April, 1833,
2nd ed., 1833. British Museum Library, 10470 c. 32.
0 2
CHAPTER VIII
THE MIDDLE WEST
Prairie-land.
Somewhere on the threshold of Manitoba woods vanish, East of
rouerh places are made smooth, the earth is a level lawn, ^^^^^^P^S
, . . prairie-
lakes and rivers are not what they were, and the horizon land
widens. To the east an infinite series of wooded hills, ^^.^'^•^»
watery hollows, lakes, swamps, and rocks^ cramps while it
diversifies the scenery, and perplexes while it enchants the
imagination; and as we move westward the maze becomes
more intricate and stone-strewn or wet up to a point, beyond
which there is an utter change ; but the point is not definite
nor is the change sudden. The lovely, well-named, many-
islanded Lake of the Woods is the last west lake which is a
true lake, so that the point of change is west of this lake.
The east frontier of Manitoba is a mere line of longitude
drawn due north from the north-west angle of the lake ; and
henceforth provinces, like parallelograms enclosed by four
straight lines of longitude and latitude, and sub-divided into
square townships six miles by six, begin to disfigure the map
as though we had reached a region destitute of geographical
outline. But the dividing line between woodland and plain
is west of the provincial frontier, and is the first of several
real lines which now begin to straggle and stray across the
map from south-east to north-west. It may be discerned by
the traveller from the east somewhere near Whitemouth,
forty miles or so north-east of Winnipeg ; or, if he travels to
Winnipeg by the Dawson road from the north-west angle of
the Lake of the Woods, somewhere near St. Anne des Chenes,
forty miles or so south-east of Winnipeg. There he sees his
first plain. For 1,700 miles east of him, right to the Atlantic,
there is nothing like this, except perhaps in miniature on the
198 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF CANADA
Acadian salt-marshes ; and for 900 miles west of him, right
to the Rockies, there is hardly anything but this. Here, well
to the east of Winnipeg (pop. 95,300^), which is the
provincial capital of Manitoba and the commercial capital of
prairie land, prairie-land begins, and there in the Rockies
prairie-land ends. But prairie-land is not all prairie, and the
prairies are of several sorts. What, then, are the Canadian
prairies ? It is easier to say what they are not, than what
they are.
which an- A Canadian, when asked before a Royal Commission,
^three * -^^^ \^.^xQ no tracts of land such as the Americans call
steppes ; prairies in Canada.?' replied, 'None in the Canadas' (1826),^
for the Canadas meant nothing to him but the old forest
provinces where water is the only level surface. The old
provinces were the very antithesis of prairie, which is dry,
level, and bare. Again, the mossy, treeless marsh-lands and
stone-lands of Arctic Canada between Great Bear Lake, Great
Slave Lake, Fort Churchill, and the northern seas, are called
in Canada ' barrens ', and in Lapland and Northern Siberia
' tundras ', and are sometimes flat ; and early travellers mis-
took 'prairies' for 'barrens'; but 'barrens' are the parodies
of prairies, which are smooth, grassy, and dry, like our
English Downs. Prairies are barer than barrens, flatter than
downs, and better than the best parts of the forest provinces.
But prairies do not monopolise prairie-land, and the parts of
prairie-land which are not prairie are the most characteristic
parts of prairie-land, and differ widely in three tracts, which
lie side by side between Eastern Manitoba and the Rockies.
As these tracts are at diff'erent levels — 700 to 950 feet s.m.
in the east, 1,250 feet to 1,950 feet s.m. in the middle, and
2,200 to 4,000 or 5,000 feet s.m. in the west — they are
called steppes, like the steppes of Western Asia and Southern
Russia, which also lie on almost the same parallel of latitude.
^ Population 1906 includes St. Boniface; c. 150,000 now.
'^ Second Report on Emigration, 1826-7 • Felton's evidence.
THE MIDDLE WEST 199
A steppe is a table-land; but the first, that is to say the {i) the Red
easternmost, of the Canadian steppes, though it looks like a ^^'^^^
flat table, is really a concave basin between two rims. The which is
eastern rim is the impalpable watershed betwen the Red bounded
^ ^ on the east
River and the Lake of the Woods, which watershed is i,\oo by a hill-
to 1,200 feet s.m. The western rim is a very palpable scarp, ^^^^P^
360 to 400 feet high, which runs 300 to 400 miles north-
north-west, from Pembina Mountain on the frontier (49°
N. lat.) to the River Saskatchewan at a point somewhere
nearer Fort La Corne than Cumberland House. The wooded
heights of Pembina, Riding, Duck, and Thunder ' Mountains ',
and Porcupine and Pasquia * Hills ', serve as successive
towers, and countless hillocks serve as turrets to the scarp;
but, as in the Great Wall of China, its towers and turrets are
not much higher than its top. From the foot of the scarp
the basin slopes insensibly some 200 feet down to Red River
and Lake Winnipeg, which are mere dents in its middle, and
so up again to the eastern rim.
The basin is now divided into three tracts — lake, marsh, and con-
and dry land — which were once one ; for the lakes and ^^^HJ^i'akes
marshes are relics of the past, and the dry land of to-day is with
the marsh of yesterday and the lake of the day before, l^^^/^^f^
Long before history began, somewhere in the Post-Tertiary them,
Age, one lake — to which geologists have given the fancy
name of Lake Agassiz — is said to have filled the whole basin
between rim and rim. The lake bottom planed itself into
curves so gradual as to resemble flats, and the black lake-
silt left by the receding waters is the most fertile soil in the
world. While the surfaces of Eastern Canada were rough-
hewn during the Primary Age, the Post-Tertiary Age moulded
the first steppe of prairie-land, so that it might be thought
that the contrast between the old Canada and the Canadian
prairies is as striking geologically as it is geographically.
But the geological contrast is only superficial ; for the lake-
mud is only a carpet, immediately beneath which there is a
200 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF CANADA
rock floor of Silurian or Devonian limestone, like that of the
valley of the St. Lawrence, or that of south-westernmost
Ontario. Sometimes the rock protrudes ; thus the thin, low
rock-rib — rarely more than fourteen feet high — which runs
off and on for two hundred miles along the west side of Lake
Winnipeg, from Grassy Narrows in the south to Limestone
Bay in the north, is like an attenuated reminiscence of
Niagara and Quebec, and sometimes a rock-bone sticks in a
channel and forms rapids; but, as a rule, the rocks are
invisible and do not disturb the surface. The lakes them-
selves— Lake Winnipeg, Lakes Manitoba and Winnipegosis,
which resemble a split shadow of Lake Winnipeg, and their
satellites. Lakes Red Deer, Swan, Dauphin, Waterhen, and
St. Martin, are mutually connected, like the great inland seas
of the St. Lawrence, but are mere puddles in comparison,
Lake Winnipeg being until recently put down as twenty-nine
feet deep at most,^ and Lakes Manitoba and Swan being
only a little deeper than the so-called lakes in Hyde Park and
St. James's Park respectively. Nevertheless, Lakes Winne-
pegosis, Manitoba, and Winnipeg are 828 feet, 810 feet, and
710 feet above the sea respectively, so that if, as is supposed,
they were once one vast lake filling the whole of the first
steppe, they must then have been almost as deep as Lake
Erie, which is by far the shallowest of the inland seas of the
St. Lawrence ; but nowadays they are mere lagune vtve, and
the marsh-lands between them are a little more than lagune
morie. As a rule, however, these lakes have firm, tree-clad
shore-lines; sometimes natural raised causeways of pebbles
' like pigeons'-eggs \ and forty miles long, cross the marshes ;
and Inter-Lake-Land varies from time to time. In 1868 a
writer declared that ' the land ' between the western rim and
Lake Winnipeg might 'almost be said to be water '.^ In
^ Description of the Province of Manitoba (ofificial), 1893, p. 30;
but there is a cut 96 feet deep, Geological Survey , 1898, p. 13 F.
* M. T^z\\€, Sketch of the North-West of America^ 1868 (translated
by Captain D. Cameron), p. 81.
THE MIDDLE WEST 20I
1874 the surveyors of the Canadian Pacific Railway thought
this very land so dry, that they decided that their railway
should go north-west from Selkirk, cross the Narrows of
Lake Manitoba by a bridge, and so reach Edmonton ; but in
J 879 wider experiences caused this decision to be revoked.
The revocation was fortunate; for in 1881 John Macoun
found ^ the whole country afloat ' west of the Narrows ; and
to this day Inter- Lake-Land, though one of the earliest to be
reached by settlers, is thinly peopled and all but destitute of
railways. Natural accidental variations of solidity suggested
drainage, and efforts at reclamation have been made here or
hereabouts during this century on a scale and with a success
greater than elsewhere in Eastern Canada. Possibly, then,
some parts of Inter-Lake-Land will be converted in the future
by the operations of nature or the efforts of man into prairies
or the semblance of prairies.
The area of possible future prairie-land is bounded on the
north by the region of Archaean Gneiss, w^hich extends from
a little north of Lake Winnipeg, and of the north bank of the
Saskatchewan, towards Hudson Bay and the Arctics. So far
as is known the uselessness of this Archaean tract is irre-
mediable. Its very rivers are unfit for navigation. Thus
Nelson River, which conducts the waters of Lake Winnipeg
into Hudson Bay, is so shallow and rocky, that it is avoided
even by canoes. The most primitive forces of the earth and
of history still fashion the hinterland of Inter-Lake-Land,
which is and remains, what God made it, and the Hudson Bay
Company made of it.
South of Lakes Winnipeg and Manitoba prairies stretch as well as
from the eastern border of prairie-land to the western rim of ^^^^. .
the first steppe, and right down to the frontier, more or less.
The qualification ' more or less ' is necessary because, as a
rule, the banks of rivers are clothed with trees, and tree
clumps may be seen on the level land like sails on a still sea ;
so that on a clear day isolated trees of sorts are said to be
202 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF CANADA
and whose
chief rivers
run at
right
angles to
one an-
other,
making
develop'
ment
oblong ;
(2) the
second
always discernible from the highest Manitoban house-tops or
elevators. This narrow strip is thickly peopled, for it contains
all the prairies, which contain all the famous wheat fields,
which Manitoba ever had, or was ever thought likely to have.
There are only two principal rivers of the Manitoban
prairies, the Red River and its affluent the Assiniboine.
The Red River flows north from its source — close by the
source of the Mississippi, far within the border of the United
States ; and the Assiniboine flows east in so far as its course
threads the first steppe for it comes from far, and belongs
more to the second than to the first steppe. Both wind, for
they are characteristic prairie rivers, and the rich soil makes
Red River tawnier than the Tiber, or than any river between
Red River and the marshlands of the Bay of Fundy. Simi-
larly, Lake Winnipeg, which means '^muddy water ' — because,
as the Crees say, a bad god was once so pelted with filth by
womenfolk that in trying to clean himself in the lake he only
muddied it^ — is a characteristic prairie lake, if it may be
called lake, and points north more or less; while the Sas-
katchewan, turbid amongst other things with prairie mud,
meets it at its north corner after coming from furthest
west; but the Saskatchewan belongs more to the second
than to the first, and more to the third than to the
second steppe. Widely sundered river-lines run eastward,
and widely sundered lines of river, lake, and hill run north-
ward or north-north-westward. If, then, geography deter-
mines development, it might be expected that the first steppe
would develop, not like Quebec Province along a single line,
nor like Old Ontario within triangles bounded by water, but
as an oblong. And this is what happened ; but it must be
remembered that development in Inter-Lake-Land presented
a very diff^erent problem to the problem of development on
the compact continuous prairies to the south.
The second steppe begins with the scarp with which the
^ Sir J. Franklin, Narrative of a Journey to the Polar Sea^ 1823, p. 43.
THE MIDDLE WEST 203
first steppe ends, and may be described as an extension o{ steppe
the scarp-top three hundred miles to the west. The scarp is ^CreLceous
innocent of rocks, and consists of shale, sand, clay, and marl
of Cretaceous, that is to say, of the uppermost Secondary
Age. There is no Canadian tract which represents the
Secondary Age east of the second steppe, if we except
* recognizable fragments' of this formation embedded here
and there in the first steppe; therefore the second steppe,
being almost wholly Cretaceous, is a novelty in Canada.
Its fertility and populousness equals that of the Manitoban
prairie, its ' deep blue clays ' of Cretaceous Age either enrich-
ing its surface, or intercepting rain a little below the surface,
so as to provide well-water within easy reach. Where
Cretaceous formations are not uppermost, this steppe dis-
plays anticipations of the next steppe on its west, which
steppe is a still greater novelty in Canada.
The middle steppe slopes gradually upward towards its is inter-
western boundary, which is a scarp, sometimes woody and %g]\^jfck
sometimes not, known as the Coteau du Missouri, and of Cdteau and
about the same apparent height as the scarp between the first fjH^^J^st %
and second steppes. Geographically this scarp is the eastern the Cdteau
edge of the third steppe ; geologically it is a moraine, formed of xertiary
boulder-drift and earthy materials belonging to the lowest
Tertiary Age ; and it is the easternmost tract of Canada
where tertiary formations prevail, if we except fragments of
itself which are scattered along the middle steppe. This
scarp runs north-west 350 miles or so just west of the
Estevan-Moose Creek Railroad, or of Moose Jaw Creek and
Long Creek, reaching the South Saskatchewan near Swift
Current, resuming further north as Bad Hills and Eagle Hills,
and perhaps (north of the North Saskatchewan) as Thick-
wood Hills. In the middle of the middle steppe there is a
disconnected series of tree-crowned flat-topped hills, a few
hundred feet high, but sometimes with declivities fourteen miles
long, known successively as Turlle and Moose Mountains,
204 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF CANADA
and Wolfe, Brandon, File, Pheasant, Little Touchwood,
Touchwood, and perhaps Lumpy and Birch Hills, which lie
parallel with and seem to mock the Coteau. These ten mild
* mountains' and 'hills' are also composed of boulder-drift,
and also point north-west. Between the mock and the real
Coteau the second steppe exhibits its longest stretches of
pure prairie, and vivid descriptions of some of these stretches,
which figured in books of forty or fifty years ago, used to
pass as typical of all prairie land. A thin belt of salt-plain
connects Long Lake and Quill Lake north-west of Touch-
wood Hill; from Birch Hill Thomas Simpson saw, as he
gazed along (not across) this stretch of prairie, ^ barren hills
and hollows like a petrified sea — said to extend to the
Missouri'. John Macoun, too, crossed forty-five miles of
fissured, shrubless plain, between Moose Mountain and the
Coteau.^ Observers noticed the vices and exceptions before
the virtues. What seemed limitless prairie is common enough
on the second steppe, but it is rarely hummocky or saline or
fissured (except by the plough) ; and trees or hills are almost
always near at hand. Thus between Winnipeg, Fort Pelly,
and Carlton (on the bend of the North Saskatchewan),
Simpson steered by woods in the day and slept in woods by
night ; for the large Lakes were fringed with oak, elm, poplar,
and pine ; and countless bluffs, crowned with aspens, and
ponds, girt with willows, dotted the plain between the white
poplars and birch trees of Duck Mountain and of the South
Saskatchewan. His course was west by north. Further west,
the road to the north presents a similar interchange of plain,
pond, and tree, and during Kiel's Rebellion (1885) Colonel
Mason's company marched 243 miles from Qu'Appelle Fort
northward to Batoche, finding * firewood and water in abund-
ance ' all the way ; and further south the road to the west lies
^ e.g. John Macoun, Manitoba and the great Northwest^ 1882, pp. 56
et seq., p. 86; Thomas Simpson*, Narrative of Discoveries^ 1845, ch. 2 ;
Professor H. Y. Hind, Canadian, &c,, Expedition, i860, vol. i, p. 339.
THE MIDDLE WEST 205
within sight of the valley-walls and trees lining the rivers of
the second steppe.
These rivers are shallow, sinuous, devious shadows of what is threaded
they once were. Absence of rock makes them meander ^^-^^^^ ^^
aimlessly ; the high, dry air of the plateau has shrivelled
them, and accident has turned them awry. If the Assini-
boine is followed up past its affluents, the Souris and
Qu'Appelle, to its source, the differences between the rivers
of the plain and the rivers of Eastern Canada are apparent.
The Souris seems to come from, and to beckon wanderers ^. ^. //^^
towards the regions of the Missouri and Yellowstone in the ^"^'"^'
far south-west ; but the Coteau in Canada is its real source,
and between Melita and Alameda it takes 180 miles to
accomplish what the modern train accomplishes in 60 miles.
The Jordan is not more tortuous. The Qu'Appelle looks on Qu'Appelle,
a small-scale map as though it pointed 220 miles due westward
from Fort Ellice to its source ; but its valley, which is no to
320 feet deep and a mile or more wide, is far longer; and
the river in the valley exceeds 500 miles in length, is on an
average 8 or 12 feet deep, and 80 feet wide or so, winding
like thin yarn in a winding skein, or if perchance it fills its
valley it is called a lake. The Assiniboine, after luring wan- Assini-
derers westward, north-westward, and northward, turns back ^^^^^'
upon itself at Fort Pelly, where it approaches Swan River,
which, with its northerly companion Red Deer River, belongs
to those large lakes of the first steppe to which there are no
analogies on the second steppe. The guiding rivers are
crooked instead of straight, and are probably more crooked
than they once were. One valley encloses the Qu'Appelle
right to its source, and also encloses Aiktow Creek, which
rises from the same source, and flows westward into the South
Saskatchewan twelve miles away. Probably at one time the
South Saskatchewan ran eastward through this valley, right
from the Rockies to Winnipeg, keeping — like the Canadian
Pacific Railway of to-day — between the 50th and 51st degree
2o6 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF CANADA
of latitude all the way; if so, an 85-foot cutting or dam
would restore the ancient course. Similarly the Qu'Appelle
might be, and possibly was once, diverted down Elbow Bone
Creek into the Souris.
and North The livers are the playthings of chance; although the
ivan • ' presence of definite river-valleys and banks, like those of the
Qu'Appelle, suggests that they were once comparatively
straight and deep. The North and Main Saskatchewan is
the only river which has held its course consistently and per-
sistently through the ages. It is by far the straightest river
in prairie-land. Nevertheless below where the Sipanok
Channel leaves it, its banks are low and its course capricious ;
thus it can hardly be mere coincidence that its expansion
called Cedar Lake is on the same level as Lake Winnepegosis,
which is separated from it by four miles of flat, ten feet high.
Even above the Sipanok paddles are exchanged for poles for
the next nine hundred miles; and it has one great bend,
which doubles the distance between Carlton House and
Battleford, or Prince Albert and Fort Pitt. It is a great river
and has played a great part in history ; but it is quite unlike
the St. Lawrence or Ottawa. The lucid waters of the old
provinces were always the only, and often the nearest way
between point and point; but the discoloured waters of
prairie-land were never the only, and were always the longest,
way between point and point. In prairie-land landways were
direct and unobstructed, and waterways circuitous and some-
times obstructed, the converse being the case down east. On
the second steppe it was possible to move in any direction,
and to settle anywhere between five degrees of latitude, and
in some places seven degrees of longitude, so that not triangles
but oblongs once more symbolized progress. But the civil-
ized oblongs on the first and second steppes differed in size
as well as in character. Manitoba resembles a long low
1 H. Y. Hind, Narrative of Canadian Exploring Expeditions, i860,
vol. i, pp. 355, 428.
THE MIDDLE WEST
207
building — every inch of it alive with men, busy, and rich,
with towers and spires shooting upward here and there, — the
highest and most solid on its west where it touches the second
steppe ; the civilized parts of Saskatchewan resemble a square
— like the great square of Pegasus — not quite so full as the
living-rooms, but far higher than the highest pinnacles of its
eastern neighbour, and with the same inevitable wastes
above it.
The third steppe consists of those drifts and earths of the (3) and the
Coteau, which are superimposed upon those earths and shales ^^j^f^l^f/^
of the second steppe, which are superimposed upon those tertiary,
limestones, which lurk underneath the first steppe. It '"^^^te Rockies
higher, drier, barer, and hillier than its fellows. The highest
altitude on its west is more than 2,000 feet higher than the
highest altitude on its east, and seems, when looked at from
above, the uptilted end of a rolling plain, and, when looked at
from below, a platform upon which mountains stand. It
is really both ; for the Rocky Mountains are rocks and
glaciers piled up abruptly and confusedly upon the western
extremity of prairie-land.
When Sir George French led the newly formed North-West has arid
Mounted Police on their historic ride along the frontier from^^^^"^'
the Red River to * Fort Hamilton ' ^ and Macleod, wood,
grass, and water began to fail on and after the C6teau ; then
Wood Mountain and Cypress Hills yielded both for more
than one hundred miles ; afterwards he reached Milk River
(which belongs to the Missouri), Belly River (which is the
second greatest branch of the South Saskatchewan), and the
plain changed imperceptibly into foot-hills, much as a calm
sea changes into a stormy sea when the breeze stiffens, and
he was safe (1874). When the Marquis of Lome rode 260
miles south-west from Battleford to Blackfoot Crossing '^ on
Bow River (which is the chief branch of the South Saskat-
1 Near Lethbridge on the Mary-Belly Junction.
2 Near Gleichen.
2o8 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF CANADA
chewan), he found no wood north-east of Red Deer River
(which is the third greatest branch of the South Saskatchewan)
except at Sounding Lake, and neither wood nor water between
Red Deer River and Bow River (1881); and Sir John
Palliser had a similar experience between Red Deer River, at
Hand Hills, and Bow River in 1858. When Bow River was
reached, wood and water were abundant, and the undulations
of the plain were already swelling into the foot-hills of the
Rocky Mountains. The railway traveller of to-day enters
the same arid zone at Moose Jaw and leaves it at Gleichen,
between which he sometimes sees * hard, white, sun-cracked
clay', with scarce, tufty buffalo-grass, or even sage-brush,^
and sometimes a sand-dune or two, and sometimes an old dry
river-bed littered with quartzite stones, smooth as pebbles on
a sea-beach ; and the ponds by the wayside are rarely fresh,
as their white crystals and crimson salicornea show. The
extent of this arid zone was once wildly exaggerated. Pro-
fessor Hind, who was an optimist in his day (i860), described
it as beginning at Pembina Mountain on the frontier and
curving upward along the Assiniboine to Touchwood Hills on
the mock C6teau (50° N. lat.), running straight thence to
where Red Deer is now, and redescending abruptly from Red
Deer to the frontier near the sources of the Belly ; within
which rude arch lay what he called desert, and above which
lay what he called the Rainbow of the West. Modern author-
ities trace the upward curve along the real C6teau, and
describe the land inside the curve as pastoral land, with
patches of agricultural and patches of barren land, much of
the latter being easily reclaimable. Indeed, on its borders
the Alberta Railway and Irrigation Company drew water
from the St. Mary River, and made the Lethbridge district
into a beet-garden ; and the Canadian Pacific Irrigation and
Colonization Company drew water from the Bow, and
reclaimed large tracts east of Calgary. These efforts began
1 Artemisia.
THE MIDDLE WEST 209
in the Nineties, and similar efforts are in process of being
made near the junction of the Bow with the Belly and else-
where. What drainage is doing for the northern parts of the
first steppe, irrigation is doing for that southern fraction of
the third steppe, which reflects on a small scale and in a mild
degree the characteristics of the so-called Central American
deserts of the United States. Clearly the civilized oblong of
Alberta has disadvantages from which its eastern neighbours
are free, and which suggest that it will never be quite so full
and busy as they are. But there is another side to the picture,
and Alberta enjoys advantages which they do not enjoy.
A strip between the dry tract and the Rockies is influenced and parts
by warm winds from the Pacific.^ In mid-winter, thaws dis- ^'{/^^'^f^^
perse the snow from time to time, and cattle fatten out oi winds, e.g.
doors, but the re-freezing of the exposed earth injures its crops. y^^^^%\.
A little north-west of the northernmost latitude of the dry trict^
tract, alternate ridged and swampy forests encompass the
head-waters of the Athabasca beyond Lake St. Anne (near
Edmonton), and all traces of prairie-land are effaced ; but
prairie-land recurs further north in the Peace River District,
or that district through which the Peace River and its south-
ern affluents flow, and which includes Lesser Slave Lake on
the east, but excludes the mountain gorges of the west and
the Arctic lands north of Fort Vermilion,^ or thereabouts.
Here valley-walls reveal the same stones and earth as the
constituents of the second and third steppes ; rolling prairies
alternate with pine and poplar thickets ; and west of Smoky
River, which joins the Peace River at what is now the Hudson
Bay Company's Fort of Peace River Landing,^ there are
3,000 square miles of true prairie. Near Fort Vermilion Mac-
kenzie first noted the effects of the Pacific winds in winter
(1792-3); at Peace River Landing he built a fort on what is
now a potato patch, and near where pumpkins are growing ;
and in 1907 there was a saw-mill, a flour-mill, and * quite a
1 Chinook winds. 2 c. 58° 25' N. lat. ^ <,. 56° 10' N. lat.
VOL, V. PT, in p
2IO HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF CANADA
Settlement at Fort Vermilion \ wheat being the ' staple crop'. ^
Beet, tomatoes, and apples ripened on an experimental farm
which was carried on by the Dominion Government, and
the Hudson Bay factors led the new departure. These open
tracts to the north of the shut tracts of the Upper Athabasca
are to prairie-land what real is to Indian summer, or after-
math is to harvest. The Peace and Athabasca flow north
into the Mackenzie, and the North and South Saskatchewan
east into Lake Winnipeg ; yet here, at all events, prairie-land
ignores watersheds. This strip of prairie-land has no natural
boundaries on its north and shoots up indefinitely towards
the Arctics, or merges in the valley of the Mackenzie.
or e.g the The whole valley of the Mackenzie from Athabasca Land-
Basin - '^^S ^^ ^^^ Arctics is also a land of hope. Edmonton is now
the one and only gateway to the Mackenzie. A portage, one
hundred miles long, which is now a coach-road and will soon
be a rail-road, leads from Edmonton to Athabasca Landing on
the Athabasca River, which having risen in the south-west
henceforth flows north and north-west, merging successively
in Lake Athabasca, Great Slave River and Lake, and Mac-
kenzie River, and reaching the Arctic Ocean nearly two
thousand miles from the Landing. Athabasca Landing has
two or more competing stores — the principal competitors
being the Hudson Bay Company and R^villons Fr^res — a
French Roman Catholic and an English Protestant mission ;
and these two trading and proselytising establishments face or
alternate with one another from end to end of the Great River,
reproducing in the oddest and friendliest way the piebald
uncivilization of the Red River Colony of nearly a century
ago, or the piebald civilization of the Quebec Province of to-
day. The line of life is very frail, and keeps strictly to the
river banks. The trade and mission stations on the river are
always more than a house and less than a village, are on the
average one hundred miles apart, and, usually command, as
^ Official Handbook^ Alberta^ i907> P« 54?
THE MIDDLE WEST 211
the old forts on the St. Lawrence once commanded some
rapid, some affluent, or some inland sea. There are only
two important rapids, Fort Macmurray is just below the first,
and Fort Smith ^ is just below the second. There are two
inland seas, and Fort Chipewyan is to Lake Athabasca what
Fort Resolution is to Great Slave Lake, or what Kingston
or Fort Frontenac once was to Lake Ontario. Three great
affluents join it on the west, the Peace, Liard, and Peel, and
Forts Chipewyan, Simpson, and Macpherson control their
respective points of junction. The mouths of three important
eastern affluents are commanded by Forts Macmurray, Nor-
man, and Good Hope ; there is one outlying fort on the east
of Lake Athabasca, and another on the north of Great Slave
Lake, and Fort Macpherson and its dependency, Arctic Red
River Post, although situate on the spot where the Delta of the
Mackenzie begins, send out feeders to the far north-west and
north-east. On the north-west Herschel Island, where there
are American whalers, an Anglican mission, and a post of the
Royal North- West Mounted Police, trades with Fort Macpher-
son ; and from time to time there is an outpost of the Fort on
the north-east near Cape Bathurst. Steamers ply regularly
between the rapids at Macmurray and Fort Smith, and between
Fort Smith and Macpherson. Timber lines the valley up to
68° 55 ' N. lat. ; and potatoes, turnips, carrots, and cabbages
are habitually grown at Fort Good Hope,'^ The barest
minimum of white-man's civilization penetrates along this
favoured channel withotit one break from the crowded centres
of the western steppe into that desolate uninhabitable region,
with which the first chapter of this book dealt. It would
almost seem as though we had wheeled round again to the
solitudes of the starting-place. But there is nothing cyclical
about the shape or destiny of Canada; and if, as is probable,
the Mackenzie basin and Peace River District, instead of
having only a few hundred white men — as is the case now—
1 c. 6o° N. lat. 2 c. 66^ 20' N. lat.
P 2
212 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF CANADA
becomes as populous as the analogous Russian Province
upon the Lower Ob and Irtish — where there are already
a million and a half free Russians — that result will be due
partly to the fertility of the strip between Athabasca Landing
and the Arctic region, but partly too to the fact that the courses
of the Athabasca, Peace, Liard, and Peel lure men across the
western mountains ; for Canada has always been and still
is racing westward.^
and Uadi The Strip between the dry lands and Rockies is of peculiar
to \ipasses interest as the approach to the mountain passes, of which
Rockies, thirteen are well-known and six are famous in Canadian
history. These passes are given on the opposite page in
their geographical order from north to south, and the order
of their discovery so far as it is known is not very different
from their geographical order.
The third The Steppes have their special minerals and coal. The
^coal^ ^^ lowest tertiary, and possibly the highest secondary beds of
the third steppe yield coal at Estevan on the frontier; at
Frank and Fernie on Crow's Nest Pass ; at Canmore, near
Kicking Horse Pass, and Pembina River west of Edmonton ;
and lignite or coal are visible at Red Deer River (52^ 19' N.
lat.), Edmonton, Dunvegan on the Upper Peace, and else-
where on the third steppe, and even in the far north, a little
below Fort Macmurray and a little above Fort Norman.^ East
of the third steppe or its outliers, there is an interval of 1,600
or 1,700 miles without actual or possible coal, for the earth
here is too old for coal. As in south-westernmost Ontario,
so along the railway lines between Medicine Hat and Calgary,
natural gases well up from Devonian depths ; there is near
Pincher Creek in the south, and Fort Macmurray in the north,
^ Geological Survey of Canaday Reports on Peace River District by
William Ogilvie, 1892; and by James Macoun, 1903; Alfred H.
Harrison, In search of a Polar Continent ^ 1908 ; A. Deans Cameron,
The New Norths 1910.
* Sir A. Mackenzie, Voyages^ 1801, ed. by R. Waite (1903), vol. ii,
p. 347 ; Journals of Alexander Henry the Younger ^ 1799-1 8 14, cd. by
E. Cowcs, pp. 679, 703.
coaly
THE MIDDLE WEST
213
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214 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF CANADA
the second
has brick,
all had
bisoHj ami
grizzlies.
Jhe chief
hidians
were
Chippe-
ways,
oil as well as gas ; and the bitumen of Athabasca River, and
the salt-springs worked since 1819 on the south-west shore
of Lake Winnipegosis and at Swan Lake, are also Devonian.
The second steppe is without minerals, but bricks are made
at Moose Jaw, Regina, and Sidney,
Bison, miscalled buffaloes, are the characteristic animals of
prairie-land. They were seen by Kellsey (169 1-2), La Ver-
endrye (1732 et seq.), and Hendry (1754-5), madly careering
over the three steppes. Hearne saw them on the south shore
of Great Slave Lake (1772)/ and Mackenzie heard of them
there, and on the Liard,^ north-west of that lake. They still
existed on the Liard in a wild state in 1872. Millions
roamed over the prairies, and in one day in 1769 a fur-trader
counted 7,360 drowned bisons in the Lower Assiniboine ^ ;
in 1 858-1 875 their tracks rutted the neighbourhood of Turtle
Mountain, but their selves had long since passed westward ;
and now the bison of the plain survive only in ' parks *, as in
Lithuania, and the woodland bison are being preserved with
difficulty from total extinction by the efforts of the Royal
North- West Mounted Police at Fort Smith. Elk ^ and red-
deer ^ had nearly the same range as the "bison, except that
the bison shunned marsh-lands, and the red-deer were often
replaced by reindeer ^ in the north. In the time of Alexander
Henry the Younger (17 99-1 8 14), grizzly bears were 'abun-
dant * on Pembina Mountain, and though * not numerous
along Red River', frequented the three steppes, but with the
passing of the bison the grizzlies slunk back to their moun-
tain lairs west of prairie-land.
When bison waned the Indians of the prairie dwindled;
and now the former are in preserves and the latter in reserves.
East of the Rockies, south of the Saskatchewan, or of 54°
1 S. Hearne, /oiij'ftej^, p. 250. 2 1789-93.
3 John Macdonnell, in L. R. Masson, Les Bourgeois de la Compagnie
du Nord-Ouest , 1889, Series I, p. 294.
* Moose. ' Wapiti. ^ Caribou.
THE MIDDLE WEST 21 5
N. lat., and north of the frontier, Chippeways ^ dwelt near the Crees,
Lake of the Woods, Crees on the first, Assiniboines on the ^{^<^^/^^^'
' ' who were
second, and the Blackfoot Confederacy on the third steppe. Algonquin,
All, with two exceptions, were Algonquins and akin to all the
Indians of Eastern Canada, except to the Hurons. The two
exceptions were the Assiniboines and Sarsis. The Assini- Assini-
boines w^ere offshoots of the Sioux, who dwelt in Dakota \^l^!^^
(United States) and were not Algonquin ; and the Assini-
boines allied themselves to the Crees, and were to the Sioux
what the Hurons of Quebec Province were in old times to
the Iroquois of New York State. The Sioux, too, were
waging war in 1680, 1731, and 1854, and probably in all
the intermediate years, against the Chippeways, who for a
similar reason became the allies of the Crees. The Sarsis Sarsis
were offshoots of the Chipewyan '^ stock, which frequented the ^^yX)'
River Churchhill, and every river lying north of 54° N. lat.
and leading to the Arctic Ocean, but the Sarsis seceded from
their kith and kin of the River Peace in order to join the
Blackfoot Confederacy. Horses and guns changed Indian whose
boundaries, but did not change Indian alliances. In 1738-9 f^an/ed^^
the horse seems to have been unknown in prairie-land ; in ivhen
1742-3, *Gens des Chevaux' are mentioned in the far west, fS^t^^^Z^
somewhere south of the frontier; Anthony Hendry (1754-5) introdticed
called the Blackfoot Confederacy of the third steppe ' Eques- ^^^^^ '^^
trian Indians \ because they were the only mounted Indians;
finally in Henry the Younger's time (1799 et seq.) all prairie
Indians were mounted, and the Assiniboines used to steal
horses from their western neighbours and sell them to their
eastern neighbours for guns. ^ The Blackfeet were the first
to get horses, and the Crees were the first to get guns. As
the horse stole, or was stolen, into prairie-land from south-
west and west, Frenchmen and Englishmen brought their
1 = Ojibbeways. ^ = Athapascan.
^ Sic A. Henry. Comp. Sir J. Palliser, Report on Exploration, p. 13,
in Accounts and Papers, 1859, vol. xxii, p. 653.
2l6 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF CANADA
more deadly gifts from east and north-east. The Assini-
boines got both swiftness and strength at second-hand, and
were squeezed between friends and foes ; and the Crees, with
the Chippeways at their heels, enlarged their range at the
expense of the Assiniboines, Blackfeet, and Chipewyans,
but especially the defenceless Chipewyans. Thus in the
eighteenth century they invaded the Peace River District,
enslaved and made peace with the Chipewyan natives, — hence
the words Slave River and Peace River — and now reach
along the valley of the Mackenzie to Lake Athabasca. Horses
and guns accelerated the doom of the bison, nor did the
self-dependence of the Indians survive the bison, which had
hitherto been their clothes, houses, bridles, saddles, bags,
boats, weapons, fuel, meat, and very life.
Authorities.
The following are indispensable books for students of exploration in
prairie- land : —
L. Burpee, Search for the Western Sea, T908 (an excellent history of
exploration, with bibliography, &c.).
Sir W. F. Butler, Great Lone Land, 1872 ; Wild North Land, 1873,
new ed. 1904 (popular classics).
G. M. Dawson, Report 07i the Geology and Resources of , , . the \^th
parallel J 1875.
Sir S. Fleming, Report on . , , Canadian Pacific Railway, 1880.
G. M. Grant, Ocean to Ocean, 1873, new ed. 1877 (a popular classic).
IT. Y. Hind, Narrative of the Canadian Red River, &c,, exploring
Expedition, 2 vols., i860.
Alexander Henry the Younger and D. lL\iom^?,on, Journals of edited
with notes, by E. Coues, 3 vols , 1897 (a mine of information).
J. Macoun, Manitoba and the Great North-West, 1882.
Lord Milton and W. B. Cheadle, North-west Passage by Land, 1865;
new ed., 1901 (a popular classic).
Sir J. Palliser's Expeditio7is, including those of Sir James Hector (the
New Zealand geologist) and T. W. Blakiston (the explorer of China)
are contained in Parliameiitary Reports, printed in Accounts and Papers,
1859, Sess. 2 (vol. xxii) and i860 (vol. xliv).
Important Historical Maps are contained in D. Brymner, Report on
Cancidian Archives, 1887, p. ex. (C. F. Hanington) : 1890, p. 53
(Peter Pond) ; in Eliot Coues*s edition of A, Henry (u. s.), vol. iii
(David Thompson) ; and in Palliser's Reports (u. s.), passim.
CHAPTER IX
THE MANY NATIONS OF PRAIRIE-LAND
Down to 1870, Europeans invaded prairie-land from two British
sides — Hudson Bay, Nelson River, and Hayes River on the l%^^y^^_
north-east ; and Canada, Lake Superior, and Lake of the land from
Woods on the east — and they reached its threshold in canoes. ^ay^^i6Qi
In 1 69 1-2 Henry Kellsey explored the second steppe, and in 1754, &c.y
1754-5 Anthony Hendry explored the third steppe; both
came from Hudson Bay, both journeys were on foot, and
both were isolated; for in those days the Company, which
they served, received but never returned Indians' visits.
Meanwhile La Verendrye and his sons came from Canada Canadians
and explored Lake Winnipeg (1732),^ Winnipeg {i 1 34), cZada,
and Portage La Prairie on the Assiniboine (1737),' where 1732, ^'t-.,
they planted forts at confluences and portages in the usual
Canadian style. From Portage a flying visit was paid to the
Missouri (1738-9) and the spurs of the Rockies (1742-3) in
the United States. Except at the start, where they followed
the apparent direction of the Souris, the travellers who went
on foot paid no heed to waterways. These were the first
dashes across dry land in Canadian history. From Lake and the
Winnipeg, other expeditions were made up the Saskatchewan ^^f^^^J^^^f
fZt/CfS Of
to its forks ; and forts were founded at Cedar Lake,* Le Pas Manitoba
Crossing,^ and near La Corne^ on the way (1740-9). Two ^^/^fif^^L
long lakes and three short straits lay between the two forts at Cafiadian
Cedar Lake and Portage; accordingly a third fort*^ was-^^^^"^*
founded on the strait between Lakes Manitoba and Winni-
pegosis in order to connect these two forts. These men
clung to waterways, and threw a necklace of permanent forts
1 Fort Maurepas. 2 jrQj.j- Rouge. ^ Fort La Reine.
* Fort Bourbon. ^ P'ort Poskoia.
* Fort Nipawi and St. Louis. ^ Fort Dauphin.
2l8 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF CANADA
round the wet parts of the first steppe, including however the
Assiniboine, and some parts of the Saskatchewan, which just
lay within the second steppe. La Corne, for instance, was
within the second steppe ; and one flying expedition up the
South Saskatchewan is said to have reached the third steppe.
The Indians who dealt with the French-Canadian forts were
Chippeways, Crees, and Assiniboines ; but the British of
Hudson Bay still monopolized the Chipewyans, who came
thither by the Churchill. Long walks on foot and away
from rivers were new in Canada and left little mark on its
history ; but the chain of posts on the lake-shores and river-
banks endured, and meant that the history of prairie-land
had at last begun.
Rivalry Shortly before and after the conquest of 1759 prairie-land
fhe^Saskat'^'''^^ left alone. In 1767 James Finlay and Thomas Curry
chewan, retraced the old French waterways from Montreal as far as
^whlnce ^ip^wi on the Saskatchewan; in 1772 the Frobishers fol-
Canadians lowed, and built a house at Cumberland on a backwater of
^Rockies via ^^ Saskatchewan within easy reach of Frog Portage, where
Cumber- they intercepted the Chipewyans on the way down the
^AthabaTca Churchill to Hudson Bay. The Hudson Bay Company took
Lakeland up the challenge, sent Matthew Cocking by Hendry's route
River ^^ Nipawi in order to spy out the land (1772), and estab-
1793; lished their first inland settlement at Cumberland House
(1773). But the Frobishers, Peter Pond, Alexander Henry
the elder, and other Canadians were already flitting still
further into the heart of the Chipewyan country, where they
built 'houses' and forts at Frog Portage (1774), La Crosse
Lake (1776), and Athabasca River (1778-84) and Lake
(1788); whence Sir Alexander Mackenzie ascended the
Peace River, building forts as he went, and crossing the
Rockies (1793). Commercial rivalry diverted the way to the
far west from the Saskatchewan at Cumberland House ; and
the first through-way lay north of what is usually called
prairie-land, through a labyrinth of rivers and lakes, like
THE MANY NATIONS OF PRAIRIE-LAND 219
those in the Archaean regions of Quebec Province. This
through-route persisted until the close of the century. Cum-
berland was always on the main through-route so long as
men went to the west solely by water, and it is still sometimes
used as a junction for Arctic Canada.
Indian politics obstructed for awhile the natural through- and, later,
way to the west along the North Saskatchewan. Eagle Hills, ^^4/
near Battleford, was reached, built on (1779), and abandoned Saskat-
(1780) owing to native attacks; a lonely adventurer named '^ ^^^'^"
Peter Pangman arrived near the head-waters of the North
Saskatchewan, saw the Rockies, carved his name upon a tree
and returned (1790) ; and a chain of forts was erected along
the river at Prince Albert,^ Carlton House,^ Forts George
(1792),' Saskatchewan (1798),^ Edmonton (1797,)" and the
Rocky Mountains (1802)^ Then the way by the North
Saskatchewan superseded the older and more circuitous way.
The multiple northern chain was woven first; the single
chain which supplanted it came second, and both chains
depended partly or wholly on the Saskatchewan and North
Saskatchewan.
A third chain might have been, but was not stretched but not via
across prairie-land along the course of the Saskatchewan and ^saska^-^
South Saskatchewan, where there were forts near Batoche cheivan ;
(1790), and at the junction of Red Deer River (1791, 1805,
182 ly the latter being abandoned from time to time because
of the hostility of the Blackfeet. Beyond this point no one
penetrated from the east ; but Peter Fiddler, of the Hudson
Bay Company, darted down from Fort George on the north
of the third steppe to Bow River and back (1792-3); and
David Thompson or his men traced Red Deer River and
Bow River down-stream from the west (1800), so that the
1 Fort Providence.
2 Fort Hudson Hope before 1794, Carlton House 1797.
3 Tio° 41' W. long. ■* Old Fort Augustus.
5 New Fort Augustus. '^ Rocky Mountain House.
' Chesterfield House.
220 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF CANADA
the Assini-
boine being
used to go
north not
west and
the South
Saskat-
chewan
being
avoided.
last links in this chain were put on late in the day, and
sideways or backwards. But these last links were never used
as one chain.
Alternative first links in the same chain were, or might
have been added along the Assiniboine, and its principal
tributary the Qu'Appelle ; but these too were never used as
such. The Assiniboine was chiefly used for circulating
round and through the lakes* of the first steppe. From
Portage La Prairie (1794) men went by White Mud River
(1799), Birtle Creek (1801), the junctions of the Assiniboine
with the Souris (1797V and with the Qu Appelle (1790)/
Fort Pelly (1797), Swan River, Red Deer Lake (1800), and
then either by Le Pas and the Lower Saskatchewan, or by
Lakes Dauphin (1775?), and St. Martin (1797), back to
Lake Winnipeg, and their starting place ; and at all of these
points there were forts at or before the dates mentioned.
All, or nearly all the adventurers revolved in a circle, only a
little larger and better held than under the French regime.
There was no systematic advance along the Souris or the
Qu'Appelle, although isolated visitors reached the Missouri
from the Souris on horseback and returned ; and an advanced
post was stationed near Qu'Appelle on the Qu Appelle and
withdrawn (1804). Through-ways were waterways; yet the
through-way along the Qu'Appelle and South Saskatchewan,
which seems so obvious to students of Professor Hind (i860),
was shunned, and Sir John Palliser wrote that west of
Qu'Appelle Fort ^the whole country in this latitude is un-
t ravelled by the white man ' and therefore ' unknown. ' (1857).^
Only one route was used across the whole of prairie-land
from east to west, and that was the water-route by the
Saskatchewan and North Saskatchewan. Canadian instincts,
which clave to one long water-way, with many short cuts,
1 Stone Indian River House.
2 Fort Esperance, near Fort Ellice.
^ Accounts and Papers, 1859, Sees. 2, vol, xxii, p. 653 ; Palliser*s
Report on Explorations ^ See, p. 14.
THE MANY NATIONS OF PRAIRIE-LAND 221
preferred this route and made it supreme, at all events until
1870. Before that date men thought exclusively in water;
thus the east of prairie-land seemed spacious to them because
it presented an uninterrupted water-base 300 miles long from
north to south ; and, west of the large lakes, lines of movement
seemed narrowing and tapering towards the North Saskat-
chewan. Capitals w^ere water-capitals. At the lower end of the
base, Winnipeg, being a ganglion of waterways and portages
to the north, east, south, and west, was important ; and at the
apex, Edmonton, being a similar ganglion for Athabasca
Landing, Peace River (via Lesser Slave Lake, 1799), and the
sources of the Athabasca and of both Saskatchewans, rivalled
Cumberland as a water-junction. Le Pas, Prince Albert, and
Battleford were not only water-junctions, but fords for horses ;
and horses supplemented boats in a way unknown in Eastern
Canada. Posts, where men exchanged boats for horses,
became even more important than fords ; and Prince Albert,
Carlton House, and Battleford became starting-points and
goals for short cuts — or, rather, long rides — either across the
bed of the North Saskatchewan, or in later times from the
Saskatchewan, to the Swan River, Assiniboine, and Qu'-
Appelle, at Forts Pelly, EUice, and Qu'Appelle. These long
rides over treeless levels often exceeded two hundred miles,
and must not be confused with the portage roads of Eastern
Canada, which seldom exceeded ten miles, and were always
artificially cleared, although the effects produced on history
were similar.
The belief that the development of prairie-land must pro- Settlers
ceed along rivers and lakes and their banks affected history . /^^^^.^'^^
° ^ similar
The permanent settlement of prairie-land by men who were water
not hunters began in 187 1, but for twelve years or more dawn ^o^^^^i
had been visible, and sixty years ago there had been a false
dawn. The settlements of the real settlers, like those of the
hunters, concentrated on the river-banks near Winnipeg ; but
there were also the germs of settlements on the Saskatchewan
222 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF CANADA
and North Saskatchewan. The first real settlers were Lord
Selkirk's colonists, isolated ' freemen ', and the immigrants of
the Seventies.
e, g. Lord Of Lord Selkirk's colonists, some came from Sutherland-
settlers ^ ^^^^^ ^^^ Sligo to Hudson Bay, and then southward by Hayes
1 812, &C.J River and Lake Winnipeg to Winnipeg (18 12 et seq.), and
others were Swiss mercenaries who fought for Canada, and
came thence westward by Lake Superior, Rainy Lake, and
Lake of the Woods, to German Creek ^ above Winnipeg. In
winter these settlers usually flitted for food to Pembina across
the border, and most of them soon fled for good, the British
flying by the usual waterways to Eastern Canada, and the
Swiss flying up the Red River to Dakota (United States)
(1825). Thus two human currents met in Winnipeg from
afar, and retired diff"erent ways, leaving deposits behind.
and French Then two Other currents set in from the eastern and
freemen^at ^^^^^ern waterways, and bore 'freemen' to Winnipeg.
^or near French-Canadians, after serving in prairie-land with Canadian
Wtnmpegy j^^sters (1732 et seq.), used to marry Indian wives and beget
half-breeds, and settle where there was fish, fowl, fun, and
salt, and not further than could be helped from bison. As
in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Newfound-
landers touched at Waterford, and hired cheap indentured
Irish servants, of whom they had a monopoly ; even so, after
1 71 1, Hudson Bay factors touched at the Orkneys and in-
dentured and monopolized cheap Scotch servants, and when
the Hudson Bay Company invaded prairie-land, the Orkney-
men did what the French-Canadian servants did, when their
indentures expired, after Lord Selkirk had shown the way. All
these freemen farmed or pretended to farm along the banks of
the Red River for a few miles — Scotchmen west and French-
Canadians east, and the banks of the lower Assiniboine —
Scotchmen north and French-Canadians south.' The farms
were wretched, were twenty times as deep as broad, and after
1 = River Seine. ^ Milton and Cheadle, oj). cit.^ 1862, p. 44.
THE MANY NATIONS OF PRAIRIE-LAND 2.2^^
1870 were replaced, even as the farms of the early Dungharee
settlers around Sydney (New South Wales) were replaced by
the law of the survival of the fittest. Houses straggled with
long gaps as far as Portage la Prairie, fifty-six miles west of
Winnipeg (c. 1850); Portage was regarded in i860 as the
most westerly limit of civilization, and * the last house ' lay
ten miles west of it in 1872. For the sake of these settlers
of a bygone age, Winnipeg became a cathedral city for Roman
Catholics (1822) and Anglicans (1849). After 1859, ^ ^^w
traders settled at Winnipeg from the United States.
From 1859 to 1871 newspapers (1859)^ mails (1864), the {which
first Governor (186 9), steamers {1870), Commissioners (1870), J^C^^J''
Sir William Butler (though a member of the Red River wholly on
Expedition) (1870), Fenians, food, travellers, telegraphs, ^^^^^-^^^^^
(1871), Hudson Bay Company's stores, everything came
from the United States to Winnipeg.^ Commercially Winnipeg
was an appanage of the United States and owed its growth
in the Seventies to this fact.
In these longitudes the Americans of the United States
were a quarter of a century ahead of the Canadians, and the
latter sometimes shone with the reflected prosperity of the
former. Almost continuous prairie stretched westward from
near Chicago, and Germans and Scandinavians were pouring
in solid masses into Wisconsin in the Forties and into
Minnesota in the Sixties.* St. Paul's, Minnesota, was also a
Mississippi port, and a steamer bore Lawrence Oliphant thence
southward in 1854. In 1870, and even afterwards, St. Paul's
was the rich uncle and patron, Winnipeg the lonely orphan.
Civilization at Winnipeg was composed of many opposing
types, which met there beneath the shadow of many churches,
and looked for material help exclusively to the United States.
Freemen had not only cathedrals and churches at Winnipeer, and near or
^ ^ ^ at Prince
^ Alex. Begg, The Creation of Manitoba, 1871 ; 7'he Great Canadian Albert and
North-west, 1881. Edmonton,
2 L. 01iphant,Af«««<?j^/a(i855), p. 158, &c.; J. G.Kohl, Travels, 1861,
vol. i, pp. 321-2 ; Sir W. Butler, Great Lone Land, 1873, pp. 53, 89, &c.
224
HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF CANADA
{Edmon
ton be-
coming
dependent
on Mon-
tana).
All writers
believed in
water-
routes and
some in
U.S. routes
only.
but mission churches at Lac la Biche, Lac St. Anne, and
Victoria, which are over fifty miles north, west, and east of
Edmonton respectively ; afterwards at St. Albert, nine miles
north of Edmonton (1859), and lastly at Edmonton (1872),
which became their chief resort. There were also freemen
at Prince Albert, whither Scotch and English missions
attracted them in the Sixties. Nor were missions mere con-
centration camps ; but the missioners did for prairie-land
what the monks did for mediaeval Europe by teaching culti-
vation of the soil. As in the south-east corner, so in the
north-west corner of the great oblong of prairie-land, economic
dependence upon the United States began and grew. Fort
Benton on the Missouri (United States) had a steam-service
to the Mississippi in 1857. In 1863 miners reached Bow
River from the w^est, and while prospecting were refreshed
from Fort Benton. In 1870 Edmonton sent fur thither; and
whisky sellers came thence to the Belly, where they built ' Fort
Hamilton' near Lethbridge.^ Before 1875 a Fort Benton
firm began to trade at what was afterwards Calgary, midway
between Edmonton and Lethbridge. Thus Americans began
to trace the third line of the oblong and to open a new trade
route along it; and Fort Benton became the back door, just
as St. Paul's was the front door of the Canadian prairie-land <
Shortly before 1870 predictions were rife as to the channels
along which population would flow to and between these
fixed points. Palliser (and Hind) held that there were ' no
means of access ' to the Red River, * save those via the United
States '—that is to say, via the Red River ; ^ George Dawson,
who, ever since 1859, had been prospecting and trying to
perfect roads over portages between Winnipeg and Lake
Superior, championed this route, and held that civilization
would after reaching Winnipeg flow down the Red River
^ Sir \V. Butler, Great Lone Land^ ed. 1873, pp. 375 et seq.
Accounts and Papers y 1864 (40^)> Correspondence respecting Sioux,
vol. xli, p. 597.
* Accounts and Papers : Further Papers (2732), i860, vol. xliv, p. 5.
THE MANY NATIONS OF PRAIRIE-LAND 225
Valley and up the Saskatchewan and North Saskatchewan to
its sources beyond Edmonton, to which there would also be
access by the American trade-route from the south ;^ and Hind
and Blakiston urged the superior attractions of an alternative
route from Winnipeg up the Assiniboine, down the Swan, up
the Red Deer, and down the Carrot Rivers to the Saskat-
chewan. All believed in water, few in the Qu'Appelle, fewer
in the South Saskatchewan, and no one in the open prairie,
as the line of progress. They accounted for three external
sides of the oblong, but not for the fourth side, which is dry
land and follows the frontier. Their gods were gods of
river and woodland, and they were sure that the prairie
would be skirted on the north, east, and west, and scouted
except for pastoral purposes.
Then four events occurred which turned these predictions Then Wol-
awry, or fulfilled them with a difference. These four events ^L^IJ^'
were the Red River Expedition (1870), the establishment oi destroyed
the Royal North- West MountedPolice (1874), the arrival of the ff/^f''''
colonists of the Seventies, and the Railways of the Eighties. U.S.,
In 1870 Lord Wolseley proved that the route between ^ ^°'
Lake Superior and Winnipeg which Dawson championed
was feasible for an army; and after him. Governors (1870)
and bodies of immigrants from Eastern Canada (1872) came
that way. Prairie-land was weaned from the United States
and restored to its natural mother. In the Seventies Winni-
peg once more turned its face eastward, and faced two ways,
eastward and southward equally.
Military intervention was temporary, but the Royal North- the Police
West Mounted Police, which was largely recruited from Lord ^^^^^^ ^^^
Wolseley's officers and soldiers, was a permanent influence. MacUod,
The first feat of the new military police was to ride eight ^^o^ndon-
^ ^ . ° tng water
hundred miles from Emerson on the Red River, along the routes,
frontier, to Forts Hamilton and Macleod near the Rockies. ^^^"4;
They went boldly across the prairie, without regard to water-
> G. M. Dawson, Geology and Resources ^ 1875, p. 301.
VOL, V. PT. Ill Q
226 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF CANADA
courses and with compass as guide. To some extent the
International Frontier Commission anticipated them ; but it
did not keep to Canada as the police did/ The police were
the true white pioneers of the fourth side of the oblong, and
they were urged by four political motives to do as they did.
First, the War of the Sioux against whites raged in the
American prairies 1862-82, and refugees and their pursuers
frequently crossed the border. Secondly, the Americans
between Fort Benton and Edmonton lived without law, and
must be reached at all costs. Thirdly, bison were scarce,
and half-breeds and Indians were moving uneasily westward
towards the international frontier at Wood Mountain and
Cypress Hills, where they had no right. Fourthly, it was
a characteristic Canadian maxim that soldiers should be or
should precede immigrants. They were meant to be, and were,
the advanced guard of civilization. They proved that on the
prairies there were no definite lines by which bodies of men
must go, and that Geography imposed no limits. They too
asserted Canadian supremacy and self-reliance; though it
sounds odd that the expedition of the new Police force came
to Emerson through Chicago, and on reaching Fort Macleod,
which they created, drew supplies from Fort Benton. But the
police became self-sufficient ; they took ploughs and cows to
Macleod, bought American cattle (1876) and ranched at
Pincher Creek hard by (1878-9), and occupied Calgary
(1875), near which the Cochrane Company introduced the first
large ranches in 188 1. Except in Inter-Lake-Land they went
from end to end of prairie-land on horses with carts ; cross-
country routes between Estevan and Fort Ellice, and between
their older posts at Macleod, Edmonton, and Swan River
(1874), and their newer posts at Calgary (1875), Carlton
(1875), Cypress Hills (1876), Qu'Appelle (1876), and
Wood Mountain (1877), were patrolled. The prairies were
at last conquered through and through ; and old trails along
^ Accounts and Papers^ 1875, c. 1131, vol. Ixxxii, p. 53.
THE MANY NATIONS OF PRAIRIE-LAND 227
river-banks, or cutting off the corners of rivers, were, if
boggy or wooded, improved into roads. Theirs were the
first farms on Cypress Hills (Maple Creek) and at Battleford;
their head-quarters at Livingstone (Swan River), Battleford,
and Regina became capitals of the North- West Provinces in
1875, 1877, and 1882; and Regina is still the capital of
Saskatchewan.^
Meanwhile new colonists came in flocks and crept from «^^ colon-
point to point. First came the Mennonites, or disciples of a ^-^ ^ o-.
Frisian named Menno or Menno Simons (c. 1536), \>iho -^^mtO'
preached doctrines similar to those of the Baptists and ^" ^^^
Quakers of to-day. War against war made them flit from
country to country; some wandering to America (1661-2)
and others to Prussia (1670), thence to the Lower Dnieper,
the Molotchna, and the Lower Volga (1786), and thence to
Manitoba (1874), where they settled in compact masses
between the Red River and Pembina Mountain in the foot-
prints of the Royal North-West Mounted Police ; but some
loitered by the way and settled in Nebraska and Kansas
(United States).^ They preserved their native language,
which was Frisian, German, or Flemish, but never Russian,
and reproduced the old German village, with its rundale
agriculture and pastoral communism ; but these survivals
of the past are dying out^ as they have already died out
among the Mennonites of Ontario.^ Recently they numbered
upwards of 1 5,000 * in Manitoba ; and they still crowd the
frontier, chiefly on the west, but also on the east of the Red
River. Religion made them fly from conscription like the
plague, and they became collective emigrants, almost by
profession.
In 1876 a similar large body of Icelanders arrived, 2S\tr and Ice-
shedding some of their members in North Dakota (United ^^ ^^^*
^ E. J. Chambers, Royal North-West Mounted Police^ 1906.
2 A. Brons, Ur sprung der Taufgesinnten oder Mennoniteny 1884.
3 Ante^ pp. 161, 173. * In 1901.
Q 2
228 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF CANADA
States), but they came for different reasons and went different
ways. They came because, until 1894, boys and girls of
sixteen years of age were compelled by law to work for
wages in Iceland, and girls who earned 32^*. per annum in
Iceland earned £41 per annum in Manitoba. As with the
Orkneymen, the wage-rate w^as their goad and bait. From
Winnipeg they went down stream by boat to Gimli — which
in Icelandic means heaven — on the west coast of Lake
Winnipeg. There they cut down trees — though most of
them now saw trees for the first time — minded cattle and
sheep, and fished, and there are still 3,000 Icelanders near
Gimli, all or nearly all of whom are bilingual and speak
better English than any other foreigners in Canada; but
most of the Icelanders have scattered throughout Manitoba,
some northward to the Grassy Narrows of Lake Winnipeg,
and others westward to the west shore and Narrows (1888)
of Manitoba Lake; some near the frontier at Grunde (1881
et seq.) learned and taught agriculture to their fellow country-
men at Gimli (before 1895); and the intellectuals leavened
the cosmopolitan city of Winnipeg.
on the National colonies, composed of Scandinavians or Germans,
^Red River ^^^'^ already common on the American prairies,^ and there
V alley, and y^^xQ massed Mennonites in Ontario; but an exclusive Ice-
'^nthe ^ landic settlement was a complete novelty. The Icelanders
frontier; are Still in the van of real settlers on the west coast of Lake
Winnipeg, and they who flew first flew furthest down the
Red River Valley. The Mennonite settlements on the
frontier were, on the other hand, but a beginning of westward
expansion, which left Pembina Mountain behind it in 1876,
and lined Rock Lake and the edge of the Souris Plain in
1878-9, French-Canadians from the United States (1878) '^
and Icelanders (i88i)' carrying on where German Men-
nonites left off.
^ Ante^ p. 223, note 2. • At St. Alphonse, St. L6on, &c.
8 At Grunde Baldur, &c.
THE MANY NATIONS OF PRAIRIE-LAND 229
The main stream of development lay north of the colonists and other
of the frontier and south of the colonists of the large lakes- ^fjill^l^^
West of Portage La Prairie, Rapid City (1877), which '<^2.% the Assini-
colonized direct from England, Birtle (1879), Odanah, Min- ^^in/'
nedosa (1879-80), Shell River (1879-80), — half-way \i^\.-^^tvi predicted.
Forts Ellice and Pelly— and Red Deer River (1879-80) ^
near Carrot River, marked the direction; and it was the
same direction which Hind and Blakiston foretold.
Then three towns were built which proved that a new Railways
force had appeared whose workings had not been foretold. Jj^/^^Jf^^^
Emerson (1875) '^ on the frontier was the first pure railway /<?w;/j, 5.^.
town, attaining its zenith in 1879, when the first Manitoban ^J^^^^y^^^^
railway was completed between Winnipeg and St. Paul's Brandon ^
(United States). It was the gateway from the South. Selkirk Z'ay7we7e'
(1875)^ was the second pure railway town, and would \i2LVQ compara-
been the gateway from the east, had not Winnipeg, fearing ^aaomu^'^
eclipse, offered to build a railway bridge over the Red River
(1879), and so lured the Canadian Pacific Railway to
Winnipeg, although Winnipeg is out of the direct way to its
far western goal. By means of this bridge Winnipeg sup-
planted Selkirk as the gateway between east and west.
Then a third railway town sprang into life. In 1879 i^ was
decided that the Canadian Pacific Railway should pass south
of Lake Manitoba (instead of across its Narrows), and so to
Edmonton. Two years later plans were re-shuffled ; and its
present course, which is a long way south of Edmonton, was
resolved upon. Immediately Brandon was transformed from
an empty meadow to a town (1881).* Brandon was the
crucial example. But for the railway there was no reason for
the existence of Brandon; and men knew now that the
railway could go wherever it would in prairie-land, and that
men and towns would follow, in the same way as effect
follows cause, or noon sunrise.
1 Macoun, Manitoba and the Great North- West, pp. 94^6, 467 et seq.
2 Population in 1906 = 900. ^ Population in 1906 = 2,700.
^ Population in 1906 = 10,400.
230 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF CANADA
the C.P.R. From Brandon westward to Calgary the Canadian Pacific
afierBran- ^ .. , r^r^ \ -, ..1 ,
don follow- -K-ailway (188 1-2) pursued a course as original as that
ingnoriver pursued by Sir George French and his police, and equally
but only ^ ^ _ , ° . , a.m., ,. ,
the general momentous. Brandon is on the Assinibome, but a little west
direction of Brandon the railway takes to the open prairie until it
oftheQtl'- . ^r ^' • TT , r^ 1 ^ , ,
Appelle reaches Medicine Hat, on the South Saskatchewan, more
and South tj^^n four hundred miles away, and almost on the same
Saskat- . r 1 . -I T
chewan, mmute of latitude. Its course is not an air-line, for it
wanders north as though it would shadow the Qu' Appelle,
and then south as though it would shadow the South
Saskatchewan ; and it seems to strike a compromise between
the route by these two rivers and the plain prairie route on
its south. As it swept westward, Moosomin, Indian Head,
and Regina (1882) rose from the dust and became markets
for settlers on the Qu'Appelle ; and Regina, Moosejaw, Swift
Current, Maple Creek Town, and Medicine Hat,^ when they
were founded (1882-3), drew the Police northward from their
hill-stations on the frontier, and became centres. Between
Medicine Hat and Calgary the railway followed from afar or
abbreviated the long-neglected course of the South Saskatche-
wan. The new power was creative, conjuring up towns from
nothing, and scattering men from nowhere in its wake.
Although Meanwhile water exercised its old magnetic power to guide
'^sUlUn-^^ civilization. Steamers ascended the main and North Saskat-
duced chewan to Edmonton (1875), a^d the Assiniboine to Fort
'andZerl ^^^^^^ (1879); Pnnce Albert boasted of a steam saw-mill
more used; {1875) and attracted the half-breeds, who sold their so-called
farms near Winnipeg, and settled on what they called farms,
sixteen times as long as wide, between where the prongs of
the South and North Saskatchewan diverge (1875). Settlers
too settled on Carrot River, near Red Deer River, and between
Swan River and the Saskatchewan, before 1885; on many
prairie lakelets — Foam Lake, Quill Lake, and Nut Lake —
^ Population in i9o6of these seven towns c. 1,200, 1,500,6,200,6,200,
600, 700, and 3,000 respectively.
THE MANY NATIONS OF PRAIRIE-LAND 231
one or two men lived like hermits in a desert minding cattle ;
and at Humboldt two women minded a telegraph station
(1880), so that the historic circle of settlements round the
large lakes and their immediate feeders was now widening
westward across the second steppe and becoming fuller from
day to day. Prince Albert^ became a nucleus for these
settlers on its east as well as on its west.
Then Riel's rebellion broke out, and war cast its search- thtisin
light over the problems of prairie-land. The puzzle was how Hinon^'
to get to the Mesopotamia of the half-breeds, and what 1885,
should be base, rest-camp, or goal, and whether to go there
by steamer, railway, or horse ; and this was how the puzzle
was solved.
First Carlton was evacuated, and large bodies of the police Prince
galloped across the prairie from Regina by Qu'Appelle and ^^^^ ^^^
Batoche to Prince Albert, which became the rallying-point in soldiers
the war and has ever since supplanted Carlton. Then came ^ays^^
the soldiers, all of whom used the Canadian Pacific Railway — prairie-
which was then complete from Ottawa to Calgary, except for ^j^^ 'saskat-
short gaps near Lake Superior — some leaving the train at chewan
Qu'Appelle, others at Swift Current, and others at Calgary, ^^^^ ^*
whence they marched straight across lonely prairies to Batoche,
Battleford, and Edmonton respectively. Prisoners were taken
straight from Batoche and Battleford to Regina. The un-
conventional railway was supplemented by the traditional
two-hundred mile short cuts or long rides. Nor was the
river neglected. The Edmonton detachment descended the
North Saskatchewan or its banks to Mesopotamia, and some
of them returned thence by steamer to Lake Winnipeg and
Winnipeg, having completed half of their circuit of prairie-
land by water or river banks. A steamer which was prepared
at Medicine Hat descended the South and main Saskatchewan
with supplies; and a place called Saskatoon on the South
Saskatchewan, where there chanced to be one or two houses,
1 Population in 1906 = 3,000.
232 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF CANADA
received the wounded. Reliance was placed on the new
railway, the older rides across the plains, and the oldest
waterways ; but amongst the latter, thanks to the new railway,
the South Saskatchewan for the first time took its rightful
place. All three methods were used in harmony with one
another, and each made for Canadian unity, the railway on a
large, the river on a medium, and the open prairie on a small
scale — if the scale of a hundred miles to an inch may be
applied. This war was the third national movement which
knit prairie-land to itself and to Canada; and it was even
more national than the war of 1870, and the police move-
ments of 1874. Nevertheless, the Canadian general in com-
mand reached Winnipeg by way of Chicago. The foster-
mother was still just visible in the background behind the
real mother. ^
yet main Since 1 885 lines of development, except in Inter-Lake-
develop' Land, follow, unless they are followed by, a railway. The
ment began line is always from east to west except in the far west and
^foUowrail' ^^^^^^ where cross lines run north and south. Lines of
way^ lines y development may therefore be learned from railway lines :
'^eizht • ^^^^^ ^^^ ^^^ following numbering indicates the geographical order
from north to south of the six railway lines which run west.
(i) The Canadian Northern Company took on the task of
connecting Portage ^ with Edmonton. Between Portage and
Dauphin,^ and between the North Saskatchewan and Edmon-
ton, it followed, or but slightly varied, the historic waterways ;
but between Fort Pelly and the North Saskatchewan'^ it went
by the usual two-hundred-mile short cut across the prairie, to
which, however, there is a circuitous variant (i a), by Red Deer
River, Prince Albert, and the south Saskatchewan, which
shadows waterways more or less, and is the work of more
than one Company. (3) South of this first through>route the
^ Rev. R. G. Macbeth, The Making- of the Canadian West, 2nd ed.,
1905 ; J. Mason, The Northwest Rebellion of 1885, in Can, Encyclo-
paedia^ by J. C. Hopkins, vol. iv, p. 519.
2 Population in 1906 = 5,000. 3 Population in 1906 = 1,700.
THE MANY NATIONS OF PRAIRIE-LAND 233
Grand Trunk Pacific defies natural ways and makes straight
for Edmonton (1909), and below it branch -lines from Saska-
toon or thereabouts to Calgary and Wetaskiwin are being
built by other Companies, with equal disregard for natural
features. The Grand Trunk Pacific Railway is flanked on
either side by incipient railways through (2) the Yorkton ^
and (4) Pheasant Hill districts, which mimic or vary the
respective courses of the Assiniboine and Qu' Appelle ; and the
Pheasant Hill branch now reaches Saskatoon. (5) Further
south is the pioneer railway from east to west, namely, the Cana-
dian Pacific, which now forks near Medicine Hat, and leads not
only to Calgary (5 ^), but to Lethbridge, Macleod, and
Crow's Nest (5 d). (6) Along or near the frontier railways
go from the Red River to Estevan and Alma, and thence,
hugging or parallel with the Coteau, branch off to Moose
Jaw and Regina. Probably the more southerly of these
railways will soon be continued from the Coteau to Lethbridge
in the very footprints of Sir George French. {7) Lethbridge"^
has two railways to the border, and a third railway joins it,
or rather Macleod,^ with Calgary* and Edmonton.^ This
railway from Macleod to Edmonton is by far the most impor-
tant railway running south and north, and it follows more or
less the old American trade-route of 1870. (8) The Regina-
Saskatoon railway, which also goes from south to north,
represents a ' short cut ' often used in the war of 1885. As
lines of development the six railway lines which run west-
ward are of primary importance, and the cross lines are
only of secondary importance.
Of these routes i, i a, 2, and 4 represent water-routes, and only the ^
7 represents a trade-route, which men foresaw ; 5 ^, 5 <^ and ^ ^^ ^j^^
perhaps the idea of 5, represent water-routes w^hich men did west being
not foresee as the destined line of progress ; i 3, 8, and parts ^ ^^^^ '
of 6 were well-known short cuts which men thought of as
* Population in 1906 = 1,400. ^ Population in 1906 = 2,300.
3 Population in 1906 = 1,100. * Population in 1906=12,000.
^ Population in 1906 = 14,100.
234 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF CANADA
roads only, but which have proved lines of progress ; much
of 6, and perhaps the idea of 5, came from the frontier ride ;
and much of 5, and nearly all of 3, were so simple and
straight that they were unexpected and came last.
Theprocess The one obvious characteristic feature of prairie-land,
setT/emmt ^^^^ty^ i^s capacity to develop in any direction whatever, was
followed unexpected ; and its less obvious capacity to attract and
^sTlf^emdent accommodate settlers from everywhere was equally unexpected.
and groups Nowadays the former characteristic seems self-evident, but
d^samed^^ the latter still seems a paradox. Instead, then, of tracing the
progress of population along the railroads, where people grew
like primroses by a pathway in spring, or of tabulating results
which would be out of date while these pages are passing
through the press, I will note a few of the motley national
groups which are scattered along the various lines of advance,
and which distinguish prairie-land from the rest of Canada.
Associated families, Presbyterian, Baptist, and Roman Catholic
congregations, Regiments, and other social groups in eastern
Canada were usually British or American, and there were two
or three instances of American- German groups in Ontario ;
but there is nothing like the large quantity and diversity of
* colonies composed almost exclusively of persons speaking the
same language and following the same social and religious
customs'^ which permeates prairie-land throughout. The dates
in brackets indicate the year at or before which these groups
made their earliest appearance. The lists, too, are as arbi-
trary and eclectic as the lists of a vagrant collector of insects
or butterflies. In omitting the British element, which
advanced silently and seldom in groups, the hero and more
than half the story is omitted, and the reader should always
keep before his imagination the following figures, which speak
for themselves, and which it would be idle to encumber with
commentary.
^ Canada : Rep. of the Commissioner for Immigration^ 1892.
THE MANY NATIONS OF PRAIRIE-LAND 235
The Population of British Origin preponderates : —
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236 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF CANADA
The Population doubled formerly every ten, latterly every
five, years : —
Population x 1,000 includes Half-Breeds^ Indians, &c.
1871
1881
1 901
1906
Manitoba
25?
66
255
366
Saskatchewan
I 24?
33 1
91
258
Alberta
73
185
Total
49
99
419
809
Men born in the British Empire are diminishing relatively
to those born elsewhere : —
Manitoba and Saskatchewan and Alberta
Born in
Canada
Elsewhere
in Br, E.
Total
Br,E.
Born
in U. S.
Other foreign
places
Total
foreign
22 p.c.
30 p. c.
I90I
1906
66 p.c.
55P-C.
12 p. c.
15 pc.
78 p.c.
70 p.c.
5PC
II p.c.
17 p.c.
19 p.c.
In the following sketches of samples of the composite minor-
ity of foreigners it should be remembered too that * at ' means
* near \ and * near ' means ' fairly far off ' ; for the only settle-
ments of any interest were rural, and were in townships,
or groups of townships, and not in towns or villages,
(i) Groups (i) Passing from south-east to north-west along the rail-
on^the^ first ^^^^ from Portage, the Germans of Tupper (1893) are
railway succeeded by the French Canadians of Makinak (1907) and
z nclude
St. Rose (1893), and the Galicians of Dauphin Lake {1897);
on the direct route thence to the west {1 b) by Doukhobor
Russians at Kamsack and Good Spirit Lake (1899), by
American Icelanders at Foam Lake (1904) and Quill Lake
(1906), and by Mennonites at Humboldt (1903); on the
northern detour (i a) by Doukhobors near Thunder Hill
THE MANY NATIONS OF PRAIRIE-LAND 237
(1899), Scandinavians near Duck Mountain (1903), English-
men and Austrians towards Prince Albert, German Roman
Catholics from Minnesota at Hoodoo Plains (1903), and
South Russian Germans (189 1), Mennonites {1893), Galicians
(1893), Frenchmen (1894), Doukhobors (1899), Hungarians
and Roumanians (1902) side by side with the half-breeds of
Mesopotamia. Between Prince Albert and Fort Pitt, and
between Carlton, and Battleford human bridges are almost
finished along the old short cuts across the Great Bend of the
North Saskatchewan ; and between Battleford and Edmonton
the architects of history set to work at either end and met
midway in 1904, the Rev. I. M. Barr's EngHshmen creating
Lloydminster from the east (1903-4) ; and Moravians (1892),
Galicians (1892), and Scandinavians (1896) starting the work
from the west at Brudersheim, Wostock, and Edna respec-
tively. Of these experiments in wholesale national colonizing
the Galician and Doukhobor experiments were the most
striking and original.
The Galicians are Ruthene or Little Russian peasant- Galicians,
farmers, of the Greek Church, from Galicia in Austria, where
for many centuries Roman Catholic Polish nobles and
townsmen outnumbered and oppressed them. Thus they
were compelled to acknowledge Papal supremacy, and to call
themselves ' Uniats \ so that they might be severed from
communion with their ' orthodox ' Russian relations. But
religion only aggravated a feud which was essentially racial
and social, and the trek to the Canadian prairie-land which
only began in 1892 sometimes brings more than 5,000 immi-
grants in a year.^ The immigrants were nearly all farmers
of small farms, which they sold in order that they might
emigrate ; they are especially valuable where woods have to
be cleared or labourers are wanted, and their adaptability to
British ways and speech equals that of the better Mennonites,
^ See Law Reports, 1908, Appeal Cases, p. 65, Zacklynski versus
Polushie.
238 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF CANADA
is only excelled by that of the Icelanders, and far excels
that of the Doukhobors. Moreover, unlike the Mennonites
and Doukhobors, they are individualistic ; nor is their religion
peculiar, like the religion of the Doukhobors.
and Douk' The Doukhobors are pure Russian heretics, who lived
^ ^^'^' before 1841 on the Molochnia River, near the Mennonites,
whose pacific tenets they exaggerate. They are ultra- Quaker
and ultra-anarchist; but anarchism generally implies des-
potism, and since 1775 or thereabouts they have been led by
a hereditary Messiah, the present Messiah basing his claim
on the alleged adultery of his mother with the last Messiah
but one. His name is Peter Verigin ; he is a cultured dis-
ciple of Count Tolstoi, whose writings he often repeats as his
own, and his influence is beneficent and almost supernatural.
In 1 84 1 these sectarians were removed from South Russia to
the Caucasus ; whence conscription, disputes about the Messiah^
and Count Tolstoi's influence caused the removal of over
7,000 in one year to prairie-land, which they occasionally
enliven with pilgrimages as nude and unintelligible as the
pilgrimages of lemmings. But they are high-minded en-
thusiasts for a purer religion ; and they repudiate, because, as
a rule, they are too good for political constraint. They began
by being communists; but their communism is breaking
down on Thunder Hill and in the Mesopotamia of the Saskat-
chewan, as was once the case on the Molochnia ; and near
Kamsack their arrangements for buying from and selling to
the outside world are indistinguishable from those of co-
operative producers elsewhere. The position of Kamsack is
between Fort Pelly and the Yorkton settlements, which were
already populous, before they arrived in prairie-land.^
(2) Groups (2) Roman Catholics from Hungary came to Hun's Valley
on the (1885, 1892), Scandinavians to new Scandinavia (1885),
second Galicians to Ranchevale (1005) on or near Riding Mountain ;
railway \ ^ u, o
^ A.yi2i\xAQf A Peculiar People: The Doukhobors ^\^ot^\ J. Elkinton,
The Doukhohorsy 1903 ; Robert Pinkerton, Russia^ 1833, pp. 165-187.
THE MANY NATIONS OF PRAIRIE-LAND 239
Austrian (1885) and South Russian Germans (1891) came to
Beresina, Icelanders to Logberg (1886), Bavarians to Land-
shut (1889), Hungarians to Otthon (before 1895); Crofters
(1890) and Patagonian Welshmen (1902-3) settled near
Saltcoats; South Russian Germans (1888), Galicians (1897),
American Poles (1898), and Hungarians (1898) settled near
Yorkton ; Danes settled at New Denmark (1890) and German
Americans at Sheho (1891), further west along the second
railway-line. As to these colonists, the Hungarians were the Hunga-
first of their kind in prairie-land, but their chief centre now is ^'^^^^^
among the hills at Esterhazy. Religion, and what a writer
calls ' Magyar Ethnophagy ', were potent causes of Hungarian
emigrations, of which there were many earlier instances in
Pittsburg, Cleveland, and elsewhere in the United States.
The Welshmen were re-emigrants. After living for over and Welsh-
thirty years in Patagonia,^ which they irrigated, Spanish ^^^^'^'
economic and political pressure induced J. Dyke to lead
a colony from this colony to prairie-land. The easternmost
of these multifarious colonies have, as time went on, leaned
more on corn than on cattle; and in 1903 the Commissioner
for Immigration wrote that 'at Yorkton ranching will soon
be a thing of the past '.
(3) As to the third line, in 1906 pastoral was changing to (3) TJwse
agricultural occupation on the Touchwood Hills; Saskatoon ^^/^^
began steam-ploughing in 1904, its population rose from 113
to 3,011 between 1901 and 1906, and it is rapidly becoming
a secondary capital like Calgary; there were American-
Germans (before 1905) and French-Canadians (1907) on
Tramping Lake; in 1910 German farmers came to Goose
Lake ; Manitou Lake became a spa ; Rivers, Melville, Scott,
Wainwright, Kindersley, Delisle, and other towns sprang up
Hke mushrooms on waste land in 1909; and motorists were
scouring the prairie around Tramping Lake for vast distances
without let or hindrance in the same year.
1 Introduction to this Series, ch. iv, p. 29.
240 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF CANADA
(4) and (4) The fourth line passes American Finns at New Fin-
waysTn-'^^"^^ (1889), Hungarians at Esterhazy and Kaposvar (1888,
dude 1892), Swedes at Stockholm {1886), Austrians at Neudorf
(1890), Hungarians (1903) and Roumanian (1905) and
Moldavian Jews at Pheasant and File Hills (1905), and
Germans at Strassburg (1885), of whom the first and the last
American are most remarkable; the first because they were the first
Ft7tn5, Finnish settlers in prairie-land and were re-emigrants from
Dakota (United States) ; and the last because they were not
and Ger- re-emigrants. Before 1899 almost all Germans who came to
^^^•^/^^^'f, prairie-land were from the United States, Austria, or South
Russia and ^ ^ -r, • i.
even Ger- Russia. Many of the American-Germans were Baptists, who
viany ; jgf|. ^-j^q Palatinate for America in the eighteenth century, and
were akin to the German colonists of Halifax (1749 et seq.);
the Austrians were often Moravians in race and religion ; and
the South Russian Germans were farmers on the only
European lands which in any way resemble prairie-land, and
being mostly Molokani, Stundists, or Baptists, were, like the
Mennonites, driven from Russia by conscription and by the
policy of Russifying Russia. Of them it may be said, as of
the Spaniards and Anglo-Irish of the sixteenth and early
seventeenth centuries, that the internal colonization of the
Old World gave rise to and supplied a pattern for the coloni-
zation of the New World. In 1895 there were fifty- two
colonies of Germans in prairie-land, and now there are far
more ; yet even now Germans from Germany are very rare,
rarer even than such Russians as are neither Jews, Germans,
nor Doukhobors.
{t;) those on (5) On the Canadian Pacific main-line near Moosomin
the fifth tijgi-g ^gi-e Welshmen at Kirkella (1903), Swedes at Fleming
(1883), and Lady Cathcart's crofters at Wapella (1883-4) S*
near Indian Head, German -Austrians at Josephsburg (1887)
and Lord Brassey's tenants (before 1895); near Regina,
South Russian and Roumanian Germans at Edenwold (1886),
* A. Begg, History of the North-West (1895), vol. iii, p. 159.
THE MANY NATIONS OF PRAIRIE-LAND 241
Balgonie, Davin, Josephsthal (1890), and Kronau (1892),
Hungarians (of Zichy-falva) (before 1899), ^^^^ Roumanians
(1903); near Moose Jaw, American- Swedes (1903) and
French-Canadians ( 1 907) ; and near Medicine Hat, American-
Germans (1889, 1903). Swift Current and Medicine Hat
were, with the aid of the steam-plough, passing from the
pastoral to the agricultural stage in 1905.
(6) On the frontier east of the Red River, French- (6) and
Canadians (1887) and Galicians (1897) almost surrounded ^^^,j ^V^. '
the Mennonites of the Seventies ; and beyond the Western ^^«^^ ^'^f^'-
Mennonites of 1874 Frenchmen introduced lace-making ^^ alitles ;^^^'
Lourdes (1897), State-sent crofters occupied Pelican Lake
(1888), and Germans Alcester (1889) ^^^^i' Turtle Mountain.
Beyond them, again, Belgians occupied Clairiere (1888),
Frenchmen Deloraine (1891), Icelanders Melita (1892),
Canadian-Frenchmen and American- Germans Alameda (1897)
and agricultural Jews sent from Eastern Europe by the Anglo-
Jewish Association, Hirsch (1894), all of which places are
somewhere near Moose Mountain ; while Scandinavian and
other settlements at Estevan (1891), Yellowgrass, Weyburn,
and Milestone (1902), all of which places are under the
shadow of the Coteau, joined the frontier to Moose Jaw.
West of the C6teau there is an interval ; after which Wood
Mountain and Cypress Hills, which are now served by the '
Canadian Pacific main-line, and are already or will soon be
served by a more direct branch -line from Weyburn, retain
their half-breed settlers, and there were large ranches here in
1903.
(7) The seventh line, which leads from south to north, {f)thoseon
and was once an American trade-route, witnessed a singular ^^ii!^^
social experiment in its southern quarter. In 1889 Mormons include
from Utah, having undertaken to abjure polygamy (December, ^fj^ratd-
1888), settled at Cardston^ under C. O. Card ; and after the stony
introduction of irrigation by C. A. Magrath, new Mormon
^ Population in 1906 = 1,000.
VOL. V. PT. HI R
242 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF CANADA
others at
ranching
and other
centres^
settlements * sprang into existence as if by magic ' at Stirling
and Magrath (1899), ^^^ ^^^^^ ^^ Raymond (1902),^ whose
speciality is beet. Americans not from Utah have recently
been farming at Spring Coulee, between Raymond and
Cardston, near Lethbridge, and in the coal-district, where
Hungarians (1896) and others assist. At Pincher Creek —
the earliest ranching centre in Alberta — ' the sound of the
hammer and ring of the anvil resounded all the year (1900)
through the streets' — and agriculture superseded ranching
between 1901 and 1905. Near Calgary ^ Cochrane, the
second ranch-capital of Alberta (1881), underwent the same
transformation in 1907, when one hundred square miles were
converted from pastoral to agricultural uses. Further north,
Scandinavians occupied Olds and Svea (1893); American
Icelanders (i888) and American Finns (1904) occupied Red
Deer ^ ; European Germans or Swiss, and French-Canadians
occupied Stettler (1907); American (?) Germans occupied
Lacombe'* (1894) ; Welshmen Ponoka (before 1907), Swedes
New Sweden (1892), American and South Russian Germans
Wetaskiwin (1892),''' Germans and Scandinavians (1896)
Stoney Plains, South Russian German Baptists (1893) and
Galicians (before 1905) Leduc and Rabbit Hills — which bring
us close to the twin capitals of Alberta, Strathcona cum Ed-
Edmonton. rnonton, which face one another from either side of the North
Saskatchewan in the same way as St. Boniface and Winnipeg
face one another on either side of the Red River. The
North Saskatchewan is finer, and its banks nobler, than those
of the Red River ; but Edmonton * is more distant than
Winnipeg '^ and its history is more recent — for Winnipeg was
at least a village in 1879, which Edmonton was not, and
Winnipeg is as much more opportune as it is less picturesque
than Edmonton ; so that perhaps it is premature to compare
^ Population in 1906 = 400, 900, and 1,600 respectively.
^ Population in 1906 = 12,000. ^ Population in 1906 = 1,400.
* Population in 1906=1,000. ^ Population in 1906 = 1,650.
^ Population in 1906 « 14,100. "^ Population in 1906 = 95,000.
up to
THE MANY NATIONS OF PRAIRIE-LAND 243
them. Water and railways conduced to their pre-eminence ;
Edmonton, in consequence of its railway, diverting the
northern fur-trade from Cumberland to itself. Father Morin
has of late years been indefatigable in bringing back French-
Canadians from the United States to the neighbourhood of
Edmonton.
(8) This railway line is peopled largely by British-Ameri- The eighth
cans, many of whom are Canadian by origin or descent. ^^^ ^^.
The colonization of prairie-land differs from that of Coloniza-
Eastern Canada in the absence of soldier and sailor settlers, tionof
and of a war or of an industrial revolution at home ; in the land^differs
presence of returned emigrants from the United States, ^xAfrom that
in the wider area from which groups of associated families are Canada!^
drawn. In prairie-land, Icelanders and Scandinavians, as
well as Highlanders and Islanders, represent the clan ;
Americans from the Western as well as the Eastern States
represent the neighbourhood guild ; Germans, who lived in
the Palatinate two centuries ago. South Russian Germans,
Doukhobors, Galicians, Finns, Jews, and others from Eastern
Europe represent foreign victims of political and religious
intolerance. Persecution enriched the New World with
those denizens of the Old World, who did not agree with their
environment, and North America proved the safety valve of
European discontents. Prairie-land is an epitome of the
modern history of all Europe, except the centre and the south ;
and is the result of a free trade in men, of which no European
nation or thinker has ever dreamed, since the days of the
Roman Empire. Cosmopolitanism originated in Pennsylvania,
and is now the characteristic creed of the United States. But
American cosmopolitanism has an English bias, and it is this
kind of cosmopolitanism which is moulding the destinies of
prairie-land.
In applying cosmopolitanism to prairie-land three maxims Its cosmo-
have been observed. First, extreme types of one kind are /^^^^^^^-^^'^
planted near extreme types of different kinds, in order that/«jw«.
R 2
244 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF CANADA
alkalis may neutralize acids, and something which is neither
may result, and become the salt of the earth. Secondly,
colonists, though introduced in groups, are planted as indi-
vidual yeomen — each on his free i6o-acre homestead — so
that before treatment the compound is resolved, as far as may
be, into colourless, self-subsisting atoms. Thirdly, Britons
are superior in numbers, all-pervasive, and hold the keys of
the commercial situation ; so that foreigners are compelled to
be bilingual, the second language being always English. It
is believed that numerical, commercial, and linguistic pre-
dominance will create a new British type, like and yet unlike
the Cymric, Gael, Erse, Huguenot and Danish types of the
old United Kingdom ; and that the thousand and one
nationalities will fuse themselves in a single crucible, and will
emerge British, not exactly in the sense which we know, but
in a sense very like the sense which we know.
Authorities.
For descriptive works see last chapter. For the movements of
population see the Annual Reports on Emigration presented before
1892 by the Ministry of Agriculture, since 1892 by the Ministry of the
Interior of the Dominion of Canada. Other authorities are cited in the
notes.
BRITISH COLUMBIA
<^Y.<Baxi»ieU<«; ete|«ni^mo
CHAPTER X
THE FAB WEST AND NOBTH-WEST, OB
THE LAND OP MOUNTAINS
East of the Rockies and west of the Appalachians there The Range
are no mountains in Canada, and even the wooded Appa- ^V^l-
lachians are only tamer Apennines, so that the first glimpse separates
of the wild white crowded summits of the Rockies from the ^^^^^^i
east is like the revelation of a new world. They are a range, rivers, but
but are not like other ranges. They lie parallel with the ^JJ^47<?^'
coast. Their eastern side is gradual, and part of their
gradual side consists, as we have seen, of three inclined plains
800 miles long, descending from west to east, from dais to
dais, upon the topmost of which rude rocks, sharp ice peaks,
and smooth snow domes, high as the Rothhorn and of every
shape and hue, tower like a row of ruins. On this side the
range has two great rivers ; the Athabasca- Slave-Mackenzie,
which follows in bold wide curves along the feet of the moun-
tains from 100 miles above Edmonton for 1,500 miles or so
right into the Arctic Ocean ; and the Saskatchewan, which
writhes and wriggles away from the range for 800 miles or
so to the east and then makes for Hudson Bay. The
western slope is steep, and western rivers, whether they
belong, like the Columbia and Eraser, wholly, or like the
upper Peace and Liard, partly, to the west, cling close to the
skirts of the mountain for many hundreds of miles before
they double back and make for the Ocean, whither they are
bound. The eastern are unlike the western slopes and
rivers ; yet the Rockies do not form a true watershed like the
Caucasus Pyrenees or Alps.
As we follow the Rockies to the north, rivers which are thus^
eastward-bound rise more and more to the west of the ideal ^^fJ,Z!^,,,„,
ilTJciS C0771C
line which geographers identify with the true range ; xYitfrom be-
248 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF CANADA
kind it, in South Saskatchewan rising before, the North Saskatchewan
t e north ; ^j|.]^jj^^ ^j^^ Athabasca further within, and the Peace behind
the range, and the Liard behind a range behind the range.
Strangely enough, the rim which bounds the plains and big
lakes of Manitoba on their west, and which lies parallel with
the great range as though it were some distant shadow or
projection of the range, has the same characteristic, its more
northerly streams rising further and further behind it.
it was first Northerly waterways went furthest west ; therefore adventurers
7he^m>Hh ^^^^ ^^^^ westward from the Peace which feeds the Mackenzie,
then from the North Saskatchewan, and lastly from the South
Saskatchewan. Therefore, too; those east-bound rivers,
whose heads are hidden most within the folds of the moun-
tains, yield most gold; the North Saskatchewan yielding
a little, the Peace more, and the Liard most, British Columbia
and on the being the only source of this gold. Again, it was partly because
north It IS gQ many of the affluents of the Mackenzie play fast and loose
neither .11,.,,
watershed With natural barriers, that the north and north-eastern boundary
nor bound' Qf British Columbia has been changed from time to time.
Under an Act of 1858, the Rockies bounded British Columbia
on its east, the beds of the Skeena and Findlay or Upper
Peace River on its north, and the Pacific on its west.^ Its
boundaries seemed for a while wholly natural. Then it was
shown that nature defied natural boundaries ; an illogical
compromise was struck, and the eastern boundaries of
British Columbia were defined as the range of the Rockies
up to lat. 54° — that is to say, up to and including the sources
of the Athabasca ; and north of lat. 54° as the meridian of
120°, which lies east of the range and a long way east of the
watershed ; while its northern boundary was defined as the
parallel of 60°, apparently because that parallel is also
the northern boundary of Alberta and Saskatchewan. The
effect of this northern boundary is that it includes in British
Columbia not only the whole of the Skeena, the Upper
^ 21 & 22 Vict., c. 58.
THE FAR WEST AND NORTH-WEST 249
Peace, and the Canadian Stikine, but also fragments of the
river-systems of the Liard and Yukon, thereby producing
irreparable confusion as between British Columbia and the
Yukon district, especially at the junction of the Frances River
with the Upper Liard, at Teslin and Atlin Lakes, and at
Rainy Hollow and Bennett. Not that the confusion does
harm ; for these regions are very thinly populated, and the
Governments of British Columbia and Yukon district are
often only represented there by the Royal North- West
Mounted Police, who act as their common agent. North of
the 60th parallel, the eastern boundary of the Yukon district
includes the Liard and its affluents west of 124° 16^ W. long.,
and the Peel and its affluents up to 67° N. lat., and then
follows the Rockies for awhile ; and it, too, is a mere artificial
amalgam of natural and mathematical lines.^
West of the Rockies there are nothing but high mountains 7^he Range
in whose shadows mountain valleys hide. The mountains ^^P^^'^^^^
different
rise in echelon, like the Himalayas and Trans-Himalayas, kmds of
and are parallel with one another and with their deep ^f>^untry ;
dividmg valleys. They may be classed as five ranges or west there
ideal lines, although the actual lines often exceed five in ^^'^ ^uY^ '
number : — The Rockies ; an intermittent range of which the ranges
Selkirk, Babine, and Cassiar mountains are the most con- "^^^"^^'f^^^-^
' or coal ;
spicuous examples; 'a sea of mountains*, composed of waves,
so to speak, from the ranges immediately on its east and west,
and which narrows at one place to the Gold Range, and to
the familiar Eagle Pass between Revelstoke and Sicamous ; the
Coast Range, which defends the coast between New West-
minster and the mountains of St. Elias ; and the fragmentary
ridges which penetrate Vancouver, Queen Charlotte, Texada,
and other islands along their longer axis, making them fish-
shaped. Each of these ranges is associated with a special
type of country, and each yields minerals ; the gold mountains
of Cariboo, and the copper and gold of Rossland, Grand
^ Canada, Revised Statutes, 1906, cap. 63, Schedule.
250 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF CANADA
Forks, Boundary and Trail Creeks belonging to the third
class ; the silver-lead of Moyie, Kimberley, and the Slocan,
and the silver and gold of Nelson and the Lardeau belonging
to the second class ; the gold of Hedley to the fourth class,
the iron of Texada to the fifth class, and the copper of the
inlets and the islands to the fourth and fifth class respectively.
Coal of Cretaceous Age and excellent quality makes Crow's
Nest Pass in the Rockies, and Nanaimo, Wellington, and
Comox, on the east of Vancouver Island, rival Cape Breton
Island ; while Tertiary coal is found on uplands of the fourth
type near Nicola. Geologically, the first and fifth types are
similar, ranging chiefly from primary to lower secondary
formations ; the second type has Archaean elements, and the
fourth is largely intrusive granite. Tertiary volcanic elements
lie over many uplands of the third class ; but there are no
modern volcanoes, unless, as has been surmised, the traces of
lava in the valley of the Nass ^ point to an eruption a few
hundred years ago. The Rockies attain 13,700 feet, the
Selkirks 10,800 feet, and the island mountains 7,000 feet ;
on the coast St. Elias exceeds 18,000 feet, and its companion
Mount Logan 19,000 feet, but they are exceptions, and the
rest of the coast mountains do not often exceed 9,000 feet.
and valleys ^^ ^^^^ western land the scenery is always bold, and
are deep, mountains are visible everywhere barring the way ; there-
an7fofie- ^ore valleys are, or should be, to British Columbia what they
are to Switzerland, Tirol, and Scotland.
The valleys are threaded by rivers which expand into
lakes, and the lakes are real deep lochs, and as unlike Lake
Winnipeg as unlike can be ; thus Shuswap Lake is almost
as deep as Lake Ontario, and its sister lake. Lake Adam, is
deeper than Lake Superior ; and the great rivers are navi-
gable from source to mouth, except where they rush through
e.g, the gorges, often many miles in length. The sources of the Colum-
^th^^C f ^^^ ^^^ Fraser, which are the two greatest rivers of British
bia-Fraser- 1 North of the Skeena.
Peace^
THE FAR WEST AND NORTH-WEST 251
Columbia, lie in the longest and most characteristic valley of
British Columbia. It is about 2,500 feet above the sea,
extends at least 800 miles north-west and south-east, and has
at least six rivers, three of which start north-west and three
south-east. The Kootenay runs south-east, the Columbia
north-west, and they rise back to back ; for the watershed
between the two is * a large morass \ and ' it is impossible to
cross even on foot between the two without going in water ' ^;
but low, wet watersheds between two rivers flowing opposite
ways are not rare in Canada, and may be seen in a mild
version as far east as the Petitcodiac and Annapolis. The
Columbia, as it flows north-west, meets the Canoe River
front to front ; and they two become one and pass westward,
forming one of those T-shaped rivers which are common in
mountainous countries, and are therefore wanting east of the
Rockies. The uppermost Fraser, between which and the
Canoe there is a second low short watershed, prolongs the line,
flowing north-west until it reaches a third similar watershed,
2,160 feet high, on the other side of which are the Parsnip
(Crooked Branch) and Finlay (Tochieca Branch), which
together constitute the cross-bar of the T-shaped east-flowing
Peace, and prolong the line of the Kootenay-Colombia-Canoe-
and-Fraser valley, which has now reached its eight hundredth
mile. Even here the valley does not wholly end, but is con-
tinued in a manner by the Kachika and Frances, which are
the outstretched right and left arms of the Liard, for another
two hundred miles. Frances Lake, at the extreme end of
the series, is a characteristic British Columbian Lake — very
deep, very narrow, hemmed in by mountains 4,000 feet
above it, and splitting into parallel arms which repeat these
characteristics. This immense valley, or succession of con-
fluent valleys, lies parallel with the coast, and invites travellers
to wander, and colonists to settle, not, as elsewhere in Canada,
^ Sir James Hector in Accounts and Papers^ 1859, ^ess. 2 (vol. xxii,
P- 653}, P- 37-
252 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF CANADA
east and west, one nearer to and another further from the
Atlantic or Pacific Ocean, but up and down nine or more
degrees of latitude, north-west and south-east, without coming
nearer at any moment of the journey to or further from the
Pacific Ocean. In this respect it differs from other main
or 'bend' valleys in habitable Canada. Those valleys lead westward
ran^fs attd ^^^"^ ^^^ Atlantic to the Rockies, after crossing which this valley
ovei' other diverts wanderers from their quest, and sends them aimlessly
river- tnes. ^^ ^^^ ^^^^ ^p ^^^ down the map, or would do so but for
three or four great bends in the rivers and river valleys.
The First, the Kootenay dips below the frontier, bends west-
river- ^^^ ward, and emerges in Kootenay Lake, where it meets the
system River Duncan from the north — forming a second long line
lines and "P ^^^ down the map, more or less parallel with the great
one great composite valley where it rose. Here, too, it resembles a
Kootmay ^^isshapen T, whose tiny stalk goes down by Nelson into
Lake, &c, the Middle Columbia at Robson. For the Columbia, in the
meantime, has made its great bend, two hundred miles north
of Robson, towards which it then flows south-west by Revel-
stoke and the Arrow Lakes, driving a third great straight
furrow, about 1,500 feet above the sea, down the map. Soon
after passing Robson, the Columbia passes the frontier, and
the principal river of Western America, and its chief satellite,
which is the Kootenay, vanish from Canadian history. Not
so its lesser tributaries. Li addition to the three long Hues
drawn lengthwise by the Columbia or Kootenay, other
tributaries, or tributaries of tributaries, contribute five or six
similar, but smaller, streaks to the map of British Columbia ;
Slocan valley between Arrow and Kootenay Lakes ; then
North Fork, Boundary Creek, and Kettle valleys between
Arrow and Okanagan Lakes; and then the Okanagan and
Upper Similkameen valleys, whose rivers join the Columbia
within the United States. In each of these nine valleys
history is being made.
The Fraser The bend of the Columbia is of wider span than that of the
'bends'
THE FAR WEST AND NORTH-WEST 253
Kootenay, but the bend of the Fraser is still wider and over the
overarches the bend of the Columbia. The Columbia en- ,^S!^^tl^
sons, ana
compasses the Selkirk Mountains, but the Fraser encompasses through
the Cariboo Mountains, which have been described as ' a sea j^an^e^to
of mountains, 7,000 or 8,000 feet (high), and pine-clad hills,' the Coast.
with 'hardly a foot of level ground, except at the bottom of the
narrow gullies between the hills V and in which the Selkirks
and other mountains are merged. Then the Fraser travels
southward for 350 miles, gradually nearing, then shaving, and
finally cleaving the Coast Range slantwise, for the Coast
Range runs not southward but south-eastward. Meanwhile,
between the pillars of this stately arch, the North Thompson,
which plays towards the Fraser a part like that played by
Duncan River plus Kootenay Lake towards the Columbia,
traces down the map an intermediate slit from north to south,
and joins the South Thompson at Kamloops, whence the
South Thompson, imitating the Kootenay at Nelson, runs for
once in a way due west to meet the Fraser Valley at Ashcroft,
and the Fraser River at Lytton. Between Lytton and Hope
the Fraser, reinforced by the Thompsons, bursts its way
through the Coast Range by a mighty gorge, after which it
bends once more westward and crawls lazily through fertile,
flooded flats to the Ocean a little beyond New Westminster.
In British Columbia the Skeena, as well as the Fraser, Between
makes a breach in the Coast Range. In the interval of five ^^^^^kema
hundred miles between these breaches, there are many passes the Coast
of historic moment to which affluents of the Fraser ^"^^f^^fg/L
oceanic fiords, sounds, or inlets point from either side. Thus means of
the Nechaco affluent leads from the top of the great bend of-^^^^^{^^^
the Fraser towards Gardner Inlet ; the Nechaco, Blackwater, not by
and Chilcotin affluents towards Bella Coola, Dean Inlet, *^^^^^'
Burke Channel, and Fitzhugh Sound ; the Chilcotin towards
Homathco River and Bute Inlet ; Seton and Anderson Lakes,
^ Milton and Cheadle, The North-west Passage by Land^ ed. 1875,
P- 369«
254 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF CANADA
which just belong to the Middle Fraser, by a difficult route
towards Howe Sound, or by an easy route down Lillooet and
Harrison Lakes and Rivers to the Lower Fraser, to which
they belong, and so to the sea. The inlets are high-walled,
narrow, straight, and deep ; some, like Fitzhugh Sound and
Bute Inlet, running due north; others north-west, like the
coast; and a few, like Bella Coola and Gardner Canal,
running at right angles to the predominant direction.
TheSkeena The Skeena — about whose mouth are Port Simpson, Prince
^Coast ^^^ Rupert, and Port Essington — is navigable by steamers up to
Range and Hazelton, i8o miles away ; beyond which three affluents join
^thTupplr ^^ ^"^ ^^^ ^^^^' ^^ Bulkley, Babine, and uppermost Skeena,
Fraser and each of which forms, or helps to form, long valleys, stretching
far'lineTtr south-east and north-west. The Bulkley, if followed upward,
bends. is prolonged by the valley of the Endako River, which flows
in the opposite direction into the Nechaco River, near Fort
Fraser. Close by the sources of the uppermost Skeena, the
valley of the Stuart Rivers and Lakes begins, and this valley
runs parallel to the Bulkley-Endako Valley, and it too ends
in the Nechaco River, fifty miles below the Endako, and fifty
miles above the confluence of the Nechaco with the Fraser,
near Fort George. Lake Stuart is engarlanded by mountains
more than 2,000 feet above its level, and suggested to its first
visitor the name of New Caledonia, by which British Columbia
was known until 1858 ; and on its shores Fort St. James was
built. Between the Stuart and Bulkley-Endako Valleys the
Babine Valley intervenes, and it, too, is parallel with its sister
valleys and with the coast. On. the east of, and parallel with,
the Stuart Valley is the valley of the Parsnip and Findlay,
which is a part or continuation of the great composite valley
with which we began, and into which all ways seem to lead
back. On the Parsnip (Crooked River Branch) Fort Macleod
was built, and forthwith Forts St. James, Macleod, Fraser, and
George wielded joint dominion over British Columbia on
behalf, first, of the North- West Company, then (182 1) of the
THE FAR WEST AND NORTH-WEST 255
Hudson Bay Company. If the Findlay River is followed
further to the north-west, some of its tributaries curl round
towards the uppermost Skeena, which also curls round
towards them; so that on ill-drawn maps the two curves
almost meet like some broken, far-off reflection of the perfect
arches formed further south by the Fraser and Columbia.
This false curve used to round off" British Columbia on old
maps; and the Skeena and Findlay, or their basins, were
the northern boundaries of British Columbia in the Act of
1858.^ But the boundary w^as impossible, because amongst
other things it ignored the Nass, which enters the sea north
of the Skeena and is wholly British. Indeed, the Nass is the
last of the wholly British rivers.
A little north of the mouth of the Skeena is a north- TheStikine
pointing fiord, called Portland Canal, which divides the British ^^f^J^^f'^-^
and Alaskan or American possessions. Beyond the canal there Liard
are many rivers which are of vital importance to Canada, '^'^^^/'^ ^'^^^'^
such as the Stikine (near Cross Sound), which is navigable Yukon,
by steamer up to Glenora and Telegraph Creek (138 miles). ^j^^^S^ ^^'
Telegraph Creek lies behind the Coastal Range, and a 62^ the Mac-
mile pack-trail leads thence along the river-banks and over a ^^^^^^ y
watershed, 2,730 feet high, to Dease Lake and Dease River,
which is a tributary of the Liard, which is a tributary of the
Mackenzie ; and on Dease Lake is Laketon, the centre of the
so-called Cassiar mining district. The Liard is easily reached
from Laketon by the placid waters of the river Dease, and the
spot where the Dease and Liard meet is a junction, if so
lonely a spot can be called a junction, not only for the
Mackenzie on the east, but for the great long valley of the
Peace, Fraser, and Columbia on the south, and for Lake
Frances and the Pelly on the north and west, the Pelly being
a tributary of the Yukon. North of the Stikine, the Taku and the
enters the Pacific offering difficult access to Lakes Adin and Taku and
Teslin, which belong to the Yukon river-system, and which canal lead
' ^«/^, p. 248. y,,^^^^
256 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF CANADA
can also be reached from Glenora. After the Taku a straight
north-pointing fiord, called Lynn's Canal, offers the shortest
way either over the Chilcat, or the Chilcoot, or the White Pass,
to the Yukon District. Here, too, or hereabouts, there are
minglings of glacier and sea which are wilder than on the
Jokul Fjeld in Norway. But north-west of Portland Canal,
Canada is as clean cut off from the sea as coastless Abyssinia.
The coast-strip beyond Portland Canal is part of Alaska, and
therefore the Lower Stikine, the Lower Taku, Lynn's Canal,
and the southern slopes of the White, Chilcoot, and Chilcat
Passes, are American; while the Upper Stikine, the Upper
Taku, the northern slopes of these passes, and all the sources
of the Yukon River are Canadian.
Then are The one way which has superseded every other way to the
^wav7^o7he ^^^^^^^ region of Yukon District lies by Lynn's Canal and the
Yukon by White Pass, for the White Pass soon eclipsed the Chilcat and
^anal ^ Chilcoot Passes. The front door of the treasure-stores of the
north is owned and guarded by foreigners ; or, let us rather
and the say, Canada's big brother keeps the key. The mouth of the
The^ Yukon Yukon in Bering Sea is the back door to Yukon District, and
is wholly American. The following side-doors are wholly
and five Canadian. One side-door is at Telegraph Creek on the
overland ^^^^ine, from which there is a trail to Lake Atlin, along the
telegraph-wires, or to Lake Teslin — along what was once
a projected railroad — both lakes being part of the Yukon
water-system. Telegraph Creek itself is reached by the wires
direct from Fort Fraser near the bend of the Fraser, via
Hazelton on the Skeena. A second side-passage is from
Telegraph Creek by Laketon, the Liard, Frances, and Pelly ;
and a third uses the same three rivers, but starts from Edmon-
ton and the Mackenzie. A fourth ascends Peel River (Wind
River Branch), and crosses either Bonnet Plume or Braine Pass
to the Stewart, which flows into the Yukon a little above the
Klondike; and a fifth comes from Peel River (Rat Branch) to
the Porcupine, which flows into the Yukon in Alaska. As to
THE FAR WEST AND NORTH-WEST 257
these two first by-routes, the first route was made an eight-foot
trail by the Royal North- West Mounted Police in 1907, and
three hundred cattle once came overland from the Fraser to
Laketon, but travellers almost invariably sail to Telegraph
Creek up the Stikine, that is to say through the territory of
the United States. The tortuous and arduous Middle and
Lower Liard makes the third route difficult. The other routes
start from the Arctic Circle, one encroaching on Alaska.
Therefore the front door is the only door which Canadians use.
After passing Lynn's Canal, Skagway, and White Pass, The White
the traveller reaches Bennett, which belongs to British ^^iy^^^fl
Columbia. The tangle of Lakes near Bennett — Lakes is along the
Bennett, Tagish, and Atlin — are reservoirs of one arm of the ^^^^^o^h
Lewes, as the Upper Yukon is called; and Teslin Lake,
which is further east, is the reservoir of Teslin River, which is
the other arm of the Lewes. Except for three miles near
Whitehorse, the whole Yukon is navigated by steamers from
Bennett to its mouth, 2,000 miles away, during the three ice-
free months. It is a shallow river, although it has great
tributaries, especially from the east. At Selkirk the Pelly
joins it, and it ceases to be called the Lewes and is thence-
forth called the Yukon. If the Teslin may be regarded as the
main stream, the Yukon flows straight north-westward from
Teslin Lake to Selkirk. Between Selkirk and the mouths of
the White River, which comes from the St. Ellas Glaciers, and
of the Stewart River, which comes from the Rockies, and of
the little river called Klondike, which joins it at Dawson, the
Yukon is crooked, but its general direction is the same.
Between Dawson and what was once Fort Yukon, at the
junction of the Porcupine, it again flows straight north-west.
Here, having touched the Arctic Circle, it wheels round
towards a more genial sea than that towards which it was
moving hitherto. In its course through Canada it preserves
the characteristic British Columbian trend, which is the trend
of the Rockies and the Mackenzie. But it is the last to do
VOL. V. PT, HI S
258 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF CANADA
which is
the last of
the great
Canadian
Rivers,
The valleys
of British
Columbia
are char-
acteristic^
so are its
trees,
SO and has no imitators; and on leaving Canada it desists,
swerves round, and makes towards Asia. If rivers of one
country may be compared with those of another, the St.
Lawrence recalls the Nile, the Mackenzie recalls the Ob, or
Yenisei ; and the rivers of British Columbia combine the longi-
tudinal parallelism of the Salween, Mekhong, and Dichu, with
the bendingness of the Yellow, Congo, or Niger ; but perhaps
there are no true parallels in geographical contours any more
than there are in historical events.
Terraced valleys are also characteristic of the Kootenay,
Columbia, Fraser, and every other main river-valley of British
Columbia. Thus near Ashcroft the Fraser has three visible
tiers about 80 feet, no feet, and 400 feet above, and each on
both sides of the present bed ; and Lake Frances, 900 miles
away, has two clear terraces each on both sides, 90 feet and
300 feet high respectively. One supposed explanation is that
the present valleys were scooped out to their present depths in
the Tertiary Age; then the Glacial Age filled them with
rubble ; then the rubble was swept away at different periods
in two or three successive stages. Pre-glacial river-beds are
still found choked with rubble, which is the chief source of
placer gold in the Cariboo Mountains.
British Columbia possesses not only mountains, rivers, and
valleys, but also trees different from those of the rest of
Canada. The Douglas Fir^ is sometimes as high as the
North Tower of the Crystal Palace, and its lowest branches are
higher than the Crystal Palace roof; within the trunk of a red
cedar '^ a whole family might live in comfort ; and the hem-
lock'— which is the particular glory of Queen Charlotte
Islands — and the white spruce * are akin to the Douglas Fir,
and the yellow cedar ^ is akin to the red cedar. The Douglas
Fir, like the black pine,* overlaps the Rockies from the Yellow-
^ Pseudotsuga Douglasii,
^ Tsuga mertensiana.
^ Thuya excel sa.
2 Thuya gigantea.
* Picea (a hies) Sitchensis.
* Pinus Murrayana.
THE FAR WEST AND NORTH-WEST 259
head Pass to the south, but none of these trees exists far north,
except the black pine, which flourishes beside Frances Lake,
and on the left bank of the Yukon at Selkirk. The forests are
as dense as splendid. A writer describes Alberni in Vancouver
Island thus : ' The density of the forest is marvellous : . . .
one mile in four hours was very quick work.' Elsewhere,
' The forest was composed of enormous cedar, and spruce,
300 feet high at least ; . . their lowest branches had died or
were lifeless and covered with long matted moss. Overhead
the thickness of black branches met far away and seemed
gently to sway with some distant breeze. There w^as nothing
green or young in this forest. The colouring was that of
old, tarnished silver-gilt. ' ^ The British Columbian trees,
mountains, valleys, and rivers, are on a grand scale. Prairie-
land is the world's greatest corn-land, British Columbia is one
of its two or three greatest tree-lands.
Climate, of course, affects plants. In Yukon, Fort Cudahy plants,
barracks were built by the North- West Police on tw^o feet of ^ ^^^^^^'
moss ; Dawson was a marsh, and miners find the earth frozen
at four foot deep. Nevertheless the wild rose blooms at
Dawson, and early pioneers found grass and pasture for their
horses on the sunny side of the river-banks. The climate is
dry, and glacial traces are few. In the far south of British
Columbia there is a strange alternation from wet to dry land.
The coast is wet. In one year there were 64 inches of rain on
the Lower Fraser, and 7 1 inches at Port Simpson ; behind
the Coast Range there were 8 inches at Kamloops, and 8 at
Barkerville ; the Selkirks were very wet indeed, and behind
them again there were i o inches only on the Upper Kootenay.
These dry strips surprise the traveller with the spectacle so
common in Europe, and so strange in Canada, of hills which
are thinly dotted with hardy trees,^ or are wholly bare, not
because they are too high, but because they are too dry.
' F. MacNab, British Columbia, 1898, pp. 190-1 (abbreviated
quotation). '^ Pinus ponderosa.
S 2
26o HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF CANADA
On the westernmost dry strip, which extends from Kamloops
up to Stuart Lake more or less, and down by Okanagan to
the frontier, the hopes of graziers, farmers, and fruiterers are
- fixed ; or rather on those parts of the strip where there are
valleys or where the sea of mountains is comparatively calm.
Farms flourish up to 2,500 feet and cattle up to 3,500 feet
s. m., but irrigation is as necessary here as dykes and dams
are in the Lower Eraser.
fauna, Mountain-sheep^ and reindeer or caribou roam over the
whole country, and grizzly bears over the whole mainland.
The coyote ^ is a bond between prairie-land and parts of
British Columbia ; so are the elk or moose,^ and red deer or
wapiti,'' which survive on the Arctic slope and in Vancouver
Island respectively. There are no bison west of the Rockies,
although Sir A. Mackenzie and David Thompson saw bison
just west of the Passes which they crossed. There were, or
are, fur-seals ^ on the Straits of Juan de Fuca, and sea-otters*
in every inlet ; while innumerable salmon still frequent every
river from the Naas to the Fraser.
and There are far more Indians of different stock in British
Indians. Columbia than elsewhere in the whole of Canada. Every-
thing north of Nelson River in Hudson Bay, the Yellowhead
Pass, and the headwaters of the Chilcotin affluent of the
Fraser, belongs to the Chipewyan Athapascan or V>ixi€ race,''
if recent Cree invaders between Edmonton and the Peace,
still more recent Iroquois colonists at the Yellowhead, and the
occupants of the coast are excepted. Eskimos occupy the
coast from Churchill (Hudson Bay), by the Arctic and North
Pacific Oceans, to St. Elias (Yukon). On the coast line south
or east of St. Elias, Eskimos are succeeded by Tlinkits near
Bennett, by Haidas on Queen Charlotte Islands, by Tsimp-
* Ovis Canadensis. 2 Canis latrans.
^ A Ices Ainericamis, * Cervus Canadensis.
^ Latax Lutris, ^ Otaria nrsina,
■^ e. jj. Sikanni, Carrier, Chilcotin, Babincs, &c., in British Columbia.
THE FAR WEST AND NORTH-WEST 261
seans near Port Simpson and the Skeena, by Kwakiutl-Noot-
kas from Gardner Canal to Bute Inlet (except at Bella Coola and
Dean inlets) and on Vancouver Island (except near Victoria),
and by Salish ^ near Victoria, and on Bella Coola and Dean
inlets. Salish also occupy the Lower Ffaser, the Middle
Fraser, the North Thompson, the South Thompson and the
Middle Columbia, and Kootenays occupy the Upper Colum-
bia and Kootenay. Probably these six nations are as different
from one another as Algonquins are from Chipewyans ; yet
these two nations cover vast masses of land over two-sevenths
of the earth's circumference; and those six nations are
crammed into the western coast, and along the southern
frontier of a single British province.
Mountains and fiords split the Indians into isolated frag-
ments. Not that the fragments were ever sedentary. Thus
the Haidas periodically visited the mainlands, and the
Shuswaps the Yellowhead. But their area and their ideas of
movement were ' cabin'd, cribbed, confined ' by the grandeur
of their mountains and the intricacy of their shore line.
1 Shuswap, Okinakan, Kawitchin, &c.
CHAPTER XI
THE PEOPLING AND CIVIIiIZATlON OF
THE FAB LATEST
Russians, 'Y'&E white men who first landed in British Columbia
Spaniards^ . i . i i i . r r>..i . r>. . -r^
English- brought With them the memories of Siberia, Spam, France,
men, j^^ Pacific Islands, India, China, and every country except
Canadians, Canada. Vitus Bering, a Dane in Russian service, sailed
and {xox£i Okhotsk, and saw and named Cape (and Mount)
x^fenc/itjicn x \ /
discovered St. Elias (1741), which separates Yukon from Alaska, and
B. C, from Russian traders followed him to the Aleutian bridge of islands
Asia, east
and west between Asia and America. When Captain Cook reached
cT'''h' Nootka and Cross Sounds (1778) from the Cape of Good
the South- ^^V^ and Australia, Don Juan de Ayala and J. F. de la
West Pad- Bodega, who were Spaniards, had already reached Cross
Europe, Sound from Mexico (1775),^ and the Russians had already
1 741-95) reached Kadiak, w^hich is this side of the Aleutian bridge
(1776). After Cook, Russian traders occupied Kadiak
(c. 1784) and Alaska (c. 1792); La P6'ouse, after doubling
Cape Horn, visited Cross Sound on behalf of France (1786);
Captain J. Hannah (1785), Captain Barclay (1787), Com-
mander John Meares (1788), and other Englishmen traded
between London, India, Nootka Sound, and China ; and there
was a London merchant named Brown in Portland Canal
before 1793. Meanwhile, New England traders sailed round
Cape Horn, discovered the mouth of the Columbia, and
helped Englishmen and Spaniards to discover or re-discover
the Strait, of which a Greek pilot, known as Juan de Fuca,
spoke in 1592, saying that it led straight across the continent
to the Atlantic ^ ; so that old-world fables and old-world inter-
national rivalries were revived, and hovered over the British
1 Daines Barrington, Miscellanies, 1781, p. 504.
2 Between 47° N. lat. and 48° N. lat., Purchas, Pilgrims, ed. 1907,
vol. xiv, p. 415.
THE CIVILIZATION OF THE FAR WEST 26;^
Columbian coast. Then Captain Vancouver was sent out from e.g-. Van-
England, by the Cape of Good Hope and Australia, to dispel 'Macken^f
these ghosts of a dead past ; sailed between Vancouver Island in 1793.
and the mainland (1792) ; explored and named the creeks and
islands of the coast, and amongst others Burke Channel and
Bentinck Arm (May and June, 1793). Exactly one month
later Canada flashed upon the scene in the person of
Sir A. Mackenzie. His route was up the Peace River, over
the Peace River Pass, up the Parsnip, down the Eraser to
Alexandria, back to the Blackwater affluent of the Phraser, up
the banks of the Blackwater, over the Coast Range, and down
the Bella Coola to Bentinck Arm and Burke Channel.^
The Scotchman travelling westward across one-third of
the world, and the Englishman, sailing eastward over the
other two-thirds, all but met in this lonely fiord. Both men
were idealists, but there was no common plan ; each went
about his own business, and between them they ran a girdle
round the earth. The so-called all-red route of to-day is an
echo of the Vancouver-Mackenzie route of 120 years ago.
Forts or trading-posts followed in Mackenzie's footsteps Forts Mc-
but slowly. Simon Eraser, while discovering and exploring /^^J^ ^*
the Nechaco affluent of the Eraser, built McLeod's fort for Fraser.and
the Sikanni, St. James, Eraser (1806), and George Eort (1807) ^^g^flu-n^
for the Carriers ; and thence discovered the mouth of the (i7id rtded
Eraser from inland (1808), even as the mouths of the Niger %J^Jff^^
and Murray were discovered. These four fur-forts ruled the 1806-13,
country of the Eraser from inland and from the north. Then ike Upper
D. W. Harmon went thence to the Babine country on the ^keena,
north, the Babine being tributary to the Skeena, and John
Stuart went thence to the Upper Columbia on the south ; so
that the four forts now connected critical parts of the three
principal water-systems of British Columbia (18 10-13). ^^^^ Upper
Meanwhile, David Thompson explored, and almost exhausted, anJ^co-
^ Captain George Vancouver, Voyages^ 1790-5, ed. by J. Vancouver, ^^ ^^»
3 vols, 1798 ; Sir A. Mackenzie's Voyages ^ ed. by R. Waite, 2 vols., 1903.
264 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF CANADA
the Columbian water-system, from the Canoe River on the
north to Fort Astoria (United States), which was founded near
its mouth in 1810-11 ; and amongst other things he founded
Fort Kootenay (1807-8), at the head of the Columbia, and
completed a circle of travel and commerce between the
Kootenay Fort, the Kootenay River (British Columbia and
United States), the Kootenay Lake, the Arrow Lakes of the
Middle Columbia, and Fort Kootenay (181 1).
the N. and Then David Stuart reached Okanagan Lake from Astoria,
sonmid"^' ^^^^^^^^ i^> crossed to the junction of the Thompsons, which
Okanagan. had already been reached from Fort George, and founded
Fort Kamloops (1811-13) at the junction^ A second
circular travel-and-trade way was now complete between the
great bend of the Fraser, the Columbia-Kootenay source, the
Columbia (British Columbia and United States), the Oka-
nagan, the South Thompson, and the great bend of the Fraser.
Like the other irregular circle, it dipped below the border,
and its long axis lay north and south, not east and west.
Six Pacific The coast and the coast-tribes seem to have been forgotten
founZ7^ since Mackenzie and Frazer; for the valleys drove men
frofnCol' north and south, and the Coast Range and coast-tribes
^ea, 1827'- checked the white inlanders. Ultimately the coast was
42. reached by fur-forts, but not from the interior. Fort Alex-
andria (1821), — which eclipsed Fort George, — and the short-
lived Fort Chilcotin (after 1826), were founded lower down
on or near the Fraser ; but the Lower Fraser was not reached
from this side. Then settling traders sailed north from the
Columbia and founded Forts Langley (1827) on the Lower
Fraser, Forts Simpson (1831, 1833) ^^^ Essington (1835)
on the mouth of the Skeena, Fort McLaughlin (1833), just
north of Fitzhugh Sound, and Forts Rupert (1835) and
Victoria (1842),^ on the north-east and south-west respec-
tively of Vancouver Island.
* Alexander Ross, Adventures ^ P-*T5i ; Washington Irving, Astoi-ia,
ed. 1 86 1, p. 285. 2 Aij^g Port Camosun.
THE CIVILIZATION OF THE FAR WEST 265
Meanwhile exploring traders pushed north from the four The four
forts to Forts Babine on Lake Babine (1822), and YoxX.^'^V^^
\ f^ forts were
Connolly (1829) on the uppermost Skeena ; but these inland discon-
forts were as unconnected with the forts on the mouth of the ^iTcoastal
Skeena as the four forts were with Fort Langley. It was/^^^^,
easier apparently to get from the inland forts to the Atlantic
or Hudson Bay, than to the Pacific coast of Canada.
Next, John Macleod (1834 et seq.) and Robert or Roderick although
Campbell (1838 et seq.) explored the southern tributaries ^f^;^,^7iS^
of the Liard, and crossed from the Dease to the Upper with forts
Stikine, and others crossed from the Dease to Fort Connolly Tenzie^nd
on the uppermost Skeena. Campbell then followed the Yukon,
northern tributary of the Liard into Frances Lake, which is ^ ^"^'"^ '
its origin, and crossed to the Pelly, which he descended to
the Yukon (1840-3). Forts were founded on Dease Lake
(1838) and the Upper Pelly (1842), and Fort Selkirk was
built at the junction of the Yukon and Pelly (1848). The
Peel-Porcupine-Yukon route was explored between 1842 and
1846, when Fort Yukon was built at the junction of the
Porcupine and Yukon in Alaska, and the Yukon was navi-
gated between Forts Selkirk and Yukon. The earliest news
of these remote forts on what was then a new unknown
water-system reached England from searchers engaged in the
Franklin Relief Expedition/ so that the last chapter leads
back to the first chapter of this book, as though the narrative
ran in a circle. The four forts of the Eraser were now con-
nected with the Liard, the Stikine, the Mackenzie, and the
Yukon, but not with the Pacific on Canadian soil.
The impulse communicated by the fur-traders of one The settle-
great company to historical geography had now reached its ^^^^^^^/^^^^
grand climacteric, and a new force came into play which was began to
single, world-wide, and purely political in its character. ^''"jf "f"
^ Sir John Richardson, Arctic Searching Expedition, 1851, vol. ii, coastal
pp. 204-7; Papers relating to the Arctic Relief Expedition, \^zp,fofts ;
No. 107, p. 4 (vol. XXXV, p. 184) ; Further correspondence cojinected with
the Arctic Expedition^ 1852, No. 1449, pp. 204-5 (vol. 1, pp. 878-9).
266 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF CANADA
In 1846 the Anglo-American frontier was fixed at 49° N.
lat., but gave Vancouver Island to England, although part of it
is south of 49° N. lat. Immediately the scattered posts upon
the coast, and the long-drawn lines in the interior, drew together,
and one capital for both was selected upon the Pacific.
the history The Hudson Bay Company, which now governed Vancouver
^and^Van-^ Island, made Victoria the seat of government. Esquimault,
couver which is the twin city of Victoria, became until 1905 the
l^emn- principal British naval station on the Pacific, being as it is
the only first-rate Pacific port south of 49° N. lat., except San
Francisco (United States) and Acapulco (Mexico). Con-
sequently, whalers and sealers bound for Alaska used Victoria
as a d^p6t from the first, and fish and lumber began to be
exported thence even to the Hawaii Islands. Salmon was
exported in barrels from Victoria as early as 1853; and
eight British settlers arrived from England at Sooke Harbour
twenty miles west of Victoria, in 1849. Coal was worked
temporarily at Fort Rupert (1849), then permanently at
Nanaimo (1851), which is seventy-three miles north of
Victoria, and Victoria soon became to the East Pacific what
one Sydney is to the North-west Atlantic, and another Sydney
is to the South-west Pacific. These crude facts almost con-
tain a complete epitome of the industrial geography of the
island. The canned-salmon trade began to prosper in 1876 ;
the Wellington coal-mines, five miles beyond Nanaimo, in
187 1 ; the Comox coal-mines, sixty miles beyond Nanaimo,
in 1888; and Malcolm Islet, opposite old Fort Rupert, yielded
coal in 1908. A line of settlements connect Victoria with
Wellington, and the sixteen-mile Saanich peninsula north-east
of Victoria is fertile and inhabited throughout. Agriculture
flourishes round the coal-mines. Otherwise settlements are
discontinuous, and consist largely of fishermen and lumberers,
who are scattered on many streams, and in many islets. The
condition of the island in 1853 ^^d 19 10 differs only in
degree and most of these differences are due to discoveries of
THE CIVILIZATION OF THE FAR WEST 267
precious metals. Precious metals have had three effects
upon the island history. First, they scattered miners about
the mouths of many inlets. Secondly, the connected districts
of the island now reach beyond Nanaimo to the opposite
side of the island, through the copper-mines of Alberni and
Central Lake, where there is cultivable land. A railway is
now being built from sea to sea between Nanaimo and
Alberni. Not that we know much of the interior even now,
and officials wrote in 1908 that 'its Geology and Topography
is practically unknown '. Thirdly, Victoria grew with, and
became knit to the mainland.
On the mainland the concentration produced by political routes were
events feebly united the Middle and Lower Fraser. In-^^^^^^^f'
•' tween the
1846 A. C. Anderson discovered what are now known 2,^^ Middle and
the Seton-Anderson-Lillooet route and the Hope-Nicola- 4^^^^^
^ rraser ;
Kamloops route between Alexandria on the Middle and
Langley on the Lower Fraser,^ and the first loose links were
forged between the coast and the interior. Fraser {1808)
and Simpson (1828) had shot through the gorge; but the
gorge was impracticable for ordinary purposes, and until
1846 white traders did not cross the Coast Range anywhere.
Forts Hope and Yale were then built at or near the lower
end of the gorge (1848), in order to bind the uplands with
the sea-shore. Nor were they the only bonds between west
and east.
On the Middle Columbia, below Arrow Lake, P'ort Shep- between the
Upper
hard, which had hitherto been beyond the border, was shifted Columbia
on to Canadian soil. The east was accessible from the new Middle
Fort Shephard without trespassing on the United States — by ^^^ Loiver
going up the Lower Kootenay, across Kootenay Lake, then Fraser,
by a short cut which John Sullivan, an assistant of Sir John*^^^
Palliser, discovered (1859), to the Moyie, and up the Moyie and Frontier;
over a Pass often used by Thompson (1807-11), and so to
^ A. G. Morice, History of the North-west Interior of British
Columbia, 1906, p. 253.
268 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF CANADA
the Upper Kootenay at or near Fort Steele, and to the
Rockies. But was Fort Shephard accessible from the west ?
Sir John Palliser reported that with the utmost difficulty he
had penetrated in 1859 from Fort Shephard to 119° W.
longitude, keeping just within the border ; and that a trail
made by the Hudson Bay Company ran from the point
reached by him to Langley. Thus the Lower Fraser was
just connected with the Middle Columbia, which was con-
nected with the Upper Columbia, which was connected with
the Canadian prairies, and the through route was all-red,
direct, and near the frontier. It was deemed, however, too
difficult for use. But strange things were happening in 1859,
because gold, which can remove mountains, was already in
the air.
and men The Upper and Lower Skeena, and the Upper and Lower
7heUpp7r Stikine were still more inaccessible one from the other, than
to the lower the Middle and Lower Fraser, the cause being that jealousy
Stikine, ^^ coastlanders and mountaineers which is universal among
savages of different origin. Indeed, Major William Downie
was the first white man to pass between the coast-forts and
the forts on the Upper Skeena ; and this too happened in
1859.
The dis- Gold not only found out new ways, but transformed
cffvery of gntish Columbia from a network of trade-centres into
gold in the
Fraser and 2^ living colony ; and its advent was the signal for new
^n^f^'^t developments. It swept like a storm up the American banks
united the of the Columbia from the south, and there were rumours of
^lw!r^^^ its coming down the Thompson from the north in April, 1856.
Fraser and\xi 1 857 gold gleaned from the Thompson was minted at
iS^e^f^^^* San Francisco. In 1858 one red-shirted, armed Californian
seg.y crowd struggled up overland by the Okanagan to Kamloops,
and another sailed into Victoria, where quiet people took
them for pirates, and up the Fraser to Hope, near which they
winnowed gold-dust from the river in the forbidding gorges
of the Fraser. One miner strayed upstream to the Chilcotin
THE CIVILIZATION OF THE FAR WEST 269
far beyond the gorge, heard from Indians of Horsefly Lake,
somewhere out east under the arch of the Great Bend of the
Fraser, and found gold there (1858). In 1859 Quesnel
River, to the north of Horsefly Lake, and in i860 Antler
Creek, still further north, were found to be auriferous ; and
Lightning Creek and William (Dietz's) Creek, which are
near Antler Creek, and on which Barkerville stands, came as
a climax in 1861. Antler on Antler's Creek, and Keighley
near the forks of the Quesnel, became towns in 1861, and
Barkerville was in 1865, and still is capital of the Cariboo
District, as these three new far-off gold-fields were called.
Placer gold is still strained there, but since 1893 (c) by
hydraulic machinery, which has superseded individual sieves,
and sometimes fails owing to the scanty rainfall.
In 1859 there were less sensational discoveries near Lillooet
on the Middle Fraser, on the Similkameen, sixty miles east
by south of Hope, and at Rock Creek — 119° W, longitude —
150 miles east by south of Hope, and just within the frontier.
Sir John Palliser, who reached Rock Creek from the east in
September of the same year, had heard of the discoveries on
the Similkameen, but not of those at Rock Creek. The
madding crowd rushed from Hope to Rock Creek through
the valley of the Similkameen in i860.
These events riveted the Middle to the Lower Yx2.'^tx, and caused
The way between Harrison River and Lillooet was perfected, ^^^^-^"^/^/^
a good coach-road being built over thirty miles of portage tween coast
before 1862. Simcoe's Yonge Street was also a good coach- ^^^^ J^/^^^
road over thirty miles of portage, but that portage was very tween
different to this. Then a coach-road was built from Hope ^^^^{^i ^^^^
^ south,
through the great gorge between the Lower and Middle
Fraser, past Lytton and Clinton — where another coach-road
from Lillooet met it — to Quesnel, Alexandria (1863), and
Barkerville (1865), which is 370 miles from Hope. Once
more we recall Dundas Street, but there is no analogy east
of the Rockies to the country which this great new road
270 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF CANADA
subdued. Parts of it were built by the Royal Engineers, parts
by miners, but most by Chinese labourers. Fate strewed its
potent gold- bait in the most impossible and important spot,
and the greatest obstacle was converted into the greatest aid
and immi- to development from the coast, whence all immigrants now
grants to Q.2cmQ except casual Americans, who from time to time drifted
arrive. ^ '
in from the south — except, too, those 193 Ontarians whom
the fame of the Cariboo mines drew from their homes 3,000
miles away, overland by the Yellowhead Pass, and down the
Upper Fraser or the North Thompson to Quesnel and Kam-
loops (1862). These Ontarians were the first overlanders
from Canada, and they came to stay.^ Indeed, most who
came to mine stayed as farmers in the country or traders in
the towns. Barkerville, Lillooet, and Kamloops became
farming centres and general markets; and the Lower Fraser
became what it is to-day — a series of farms, orchards, and
ruit-gardens. Langley, Hope, Yale, Lytton, Douglas,
Lillooet, and CUnton were described as towns in 1862, all
of which lay along the great road ; and New Westminster had
been built in 1858-9 at the lodge-gate of this long avenue to
the gold-fields. Nor was the Hope-Similkameen-Rock Creek
trail neglected, over which in 1861 the Governor rode from
end to end. Trails as well as roads converged on the Lower
Fraser, and the Lower Fraser led to New Westminster, which
was provincial capital during the short time that the mainland
was detached from Vancouver Island. These trails and
roads, for which the gold rush was responsible, are the A.B.C.
of British Columbian history, as well as of its geography.
They made the dwellers on and beyond the Middle Fraser
and its affluents live, and lead one life, and draw breath, so to
speak, through one tube from one source, the tube being the
Lower Fraser and the source being the Pacific Ocean.
The dis' The trail to the Similkameen and Rock Creek also united
coveries of
gold at 1 See Milton and Cheadle, North-west Passage by Land, 1863 ; Mrs.
M. McNaughton, Overland to Cariboo^ 1896.
THE CIVILIZATION OF THE FAR WEST 27 1
the Lower Fraser to outliers of the water-system of the Rock
Columbia on or near the American frontier. And that was <^f^^^> «^^
only the first link in a long chain. kameen
Part of the Similkameen where gold was found in 1859 ^^^^'
constitutes what I have called the ninth longitudinal valley of
the Columbia, reckoning from the east. Graziers followed
miners into the open uplands in the neighbourhood.
Rock Creek, where gold was found in 1859, is an offshoot
of Kettle River, which forms the seventh valley.
In 1863 Wild Horse Creek (near Fort Steele) was dx^- near Fort
covered in the first valley; and in 1864 there was a rush ^g^^^^'
thither, but from the south. Said the Governor : ' It was
from the American newspapers that I became aware of a rich
and prosperous mining town existing within our limits about
500 miles east of New Westminster.' Fort Steele had
become a town.
In 1875 and 1876 a creek near Kelowna in the eighth near Oka-
valley, where there had been a Roman Catholic mission for ^^^^
nearly twenty years, showed signs of gold, and settlement 1875-6,
began on Okanagan Lake. Miners were succeeded by
graziers and farmers, and the Lake-lands blossomed into
Summer-lands and Peach-lands, which now vie with the
Lower Fraser as the fruit-garden of the west.
In 1886 Toad Mountain, south of Nelson, began to pro- near Nel-
duce silver and copper near the second valley; and in 1889-91 ■^^^» '^^^'
the Sandon-and-Slocan District, which is north of Nelson,
and occupies the third valley, began to produce silver-lead,
which was also produced to the east of Nelson at Hot Springs,
and Hendryx, near Balfour, at Ainsworth, at Kaslo, and on
either side of the second valley.
The gold-quartz of Rossland and Trail in the fourth valley near Ross-
belongs to the years 1888-92, soon after which Greenwood j'^gg',*^'^**
(Boundary Creek), in the sixth valley, became a copper
capital; and Grand Forks in the fifth valley yielded gold. near Sio-
In 1 890-1 Rossland and Nelson, and before 1893 Sandon, can, &c.,
1890-T,
272 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF CANADA
Slocan, Kaslo, Ainsworth, and Balfour, and between 1895-
1897 Greenwood and Grand Forks, sprang into existence;
and Nelson soon afterwards became an agricultural and
business centre, and began to outstrip Rossland as the inland
capital of British Columbia.
near Gran- Then a wonderful thing happened out east. In the first
brook, 1^2 valley, Fort Steele was the only town south of Golden, 180
et seq.y
miles away. It was the market of a few scattered farms,
mostly pastoral. Wild Horse Creek was still running ; so
were the wild horses after which it was named. The post
came once a month, or (1897) week, from Golden. There
was a Roman Catholic mission for Indians near. In 1892
miners discovered silver-lead near Kimberley, on St. Mary's
River, to the west of it. Then the mission-priest wrote that
' a larger church was needed ' for the miners, * but where to
get the money was a hard question. Divine Providence came
to the rescue.' In other words, the priest sent out an Indian
to the south-west, to St. Eugene on Moyie Lake ; and Divine
Providence, prompted by the canny priest and clever Indian,
brought to light what proved the greatest silver-lead mine in
Canada, until Cobalt was discovered. After 1893, and
before the discovery of Cobalt, British Columbia produced
all but all Canadian silver, which often exceeded £500.000
per annum in value. Cranbrook, which was in 1887 'a large
farm ' ^ on Thompson s trail to the Moyie, was built a few
years later, and supplanted Fort Steele as local capital.
near Hed- And a wonderful thing happened out west. In or near the
ley, &c., ninth valley, Hedley was discovered in 1896, and became in
^^° ' 1908 the largest gold-producing camp in British Columbia.
Princeton is the chief town here, although Osoyoos, in the
fertile Okanagan valley, is the official local capital.
and of coal Meanwhile the coal of Fernie — near Crow's Nest Pass and
at Crow's fifty miles east of Fort Steele — which geologists described
eUeq^, ^' 3,s Mittle known' in 1889, ^^^ ^^ 'phenomenal' in 1891,
^ J. A. Lees and W, J. Clutterbuck, British Columbia, p. 210.
THE CIVILIZATION OF THE FAR WEST 273
attracted its railway from the east. Passing west from Fernie caused
(pop. 1,540^) there were already nine stepping-stones of-^^^^/^^^
solid rock-hewn gold, silver, and copper at Cranbrook railways
(pop. 1,196 0, Moyie (pop. 582^), Nelson (pop. 5,273'), ^898^!^'^^'.
Trail (pop. 1,350^), Rossland (pop. 6,159^), Grand Forks
(pop. 1,012^), Greenwood (pop. 1,359^), Osoyoos, and
Princeton (pop. 316 ^); and Princeton was on the way to the
coal-district of Nicola. The fact that each of these towns is
near the frontier would suggest to a European a strategic
road or railway. A road has been, and a railway is being
built, but it is as little strategic as natural ; and it is certainly
not natural, for it cuts straight across the grain, hitting more
than nine rivers and many more mountains at right angles.
The roads and railways — for both were built piecemeal — were
purely mineral. The section of railway, which was available in
1898 between Crow's Nest Pass and Kootenay Lake, followed
more or less a trail, most of which was used by miners in the
Sixties, and by Sullivan and David Thompson long ago. The
Nelson-Greenwood-Midway section is complete; and a further
section to Osoyoos, Princeton, and Yale, or to Spence Bridge
via Nicola, or to some other point on the Lower Fraser, will be
probably ready before this book. If so, a second through-
railway will zigzag from the tidal waters of the west,
certainly to Alberta, possibly to Red River, always within
fifty miles of the frontier, attesting the triumph not of political
idealism, nor of strategy, but solely of gold, silver, copper, and
coal over Nature.
The first through-railway was built long before ; but its
origin was political, and the mineral-thread must be followed
further afield before politics are broached.
The gold-thread led north beyond Quesnel and the four Golddis-
fur-forts. The Parsnip was reached in 1861,2 the Findlay ^^^f^'^^
^ ' •' took men
in 1862,^ the Omineca, which is a western affluent of ihQ north from
the four
^ Population 1 90 1. forts to the
2 By ' Bill Cust \ ^ By Pete Toy.
VOL. V. PT. Ill X
274 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF CANADA
Upper Findlay, in 1864, Germanson, Vital, and Manson Creeks,
Skeena, which belong to the Omineca and Findlay, in 1867 ^; after
and Liardy which miners rushed to the Omineca, sometimes from the
^ ^* south, but usually up the Skeena, by Hazelton and the
Babine, from the western Ocean. The Omineca is still
haunted by gold-seekers, and the Findlay drew fresh crowds
in 1908. In 1861 the Stikinewas searched for gold between
Glenora and Telegraph Creek — so called because of a pro*
jected telegraph-wire between America and Asia, which
reached it from Bulkley Valley and Hazelton in 1866-7 ; and
miners went further upstream and crossed to Dease Lake,
where miners from the east found gold among the Cassiar
Mountains in 1872. Here a little alluvial and a very little
quartz mining still continues. We are now near 60° N. latitude,
where British Columbia ends ; and in these northern latitudes
Fate spun its threads more and more from the east and the
west, and less and less from the south, and every thread was
thin. After this point it snapped, and made a new beginning
more than four degrees further north in Yukon.
Golddis' The mineral history, of Yukon began in 1880. Stewart
coverus on River, sixty miles above Dawson, on the east of the Yukon,
the Yukon , , . x- n^.i ^^ 1 , -r^
had a was worked m 1885; Forty Mile Creek, below Dawson, on
separate the west of the Yukon, in 1886; and Sixty-Mile Creek,
near the between the Stewart and Dawson, on the west of the Yukon,
Arctic in 1893. The Klondike, whose river-mouth is at Dawson,
1880, '&c,y was being gradually approached ; and its gold was discovered
late in 1896. Immediately Canadian gold rose to equality
with that of South Africa and Australia. During seven years
the output of gold from the Yukon was nearly worth three
millions a year ; while the annual output of British Columbia,
then at its zenith, exceeded one million for the first time in
1 90 1, and was £1,126,108 in 1906. British Columbia
nowadays just surpasses Yukon in its annual production of
gold, Yukon producing £1,120,000 in 1906; moreover,
^ Compare Sir W. Butler, Wild North Land, pp. 300 et seq.
THE CIVILIZATION OF THE FAR WEST 275
British Columbian gold is more than three-fourths rock-gold,
and is therefore permanent, while Yukon gold is wholly gravel
or placer gold, and is therefore of doubtful permanence. The
usual mob flowed and ebbed from creek to creek of the
Klondike, and plied the usual tools, with simple devices for
thawing buried river-beds; and, as might be expected,
hydraulic machinery superseded the work of men s hands
before 1908. Meanwhile, Yukon began to resemble a
province. Dawson was founded in 1897, and in 1901 had
over 9,000 inhabitants. The Royal North- West Mounted
Police arrived there among the first ; in consequence of which,
pistols, locks, and keys are scarce, because useless, although
the riff-raff of the wild west often drifts thither from Alaska.
Horses were plentiful there in 1899, and motors in 1908, for
the roads are good. In 1897 the first Canadian overlander
arrived via the Mackenzie, Peel, and Porcupine ^ ; and in
1898 via the Liard and Pelly. In 1900 the Governor-
General paid his first visit, coming by Lynn s Canal, the
new White Pass Railway, and the river steamers of i\iQ progressing
Yukon. Minerals and coal soon stimulated expansion up "^^^ toToiuhat
down stream. Tertiary coal was worked on the right bank or near 60"*
of the Yukon, between Dawson and the north-east frontier ' ^ *
(1899), and at Tantalus between Selkirk and Bennett (1906).
Selkirk at the Pelly-Lewes junction had a few cabins in 1899,
and is now a centre for hay-and-potato farms. The Upper
Stewart (north-east of Selkirk) and Livingstone Creek (near
Tantalus) yielded gold (1898); Whitehorse, the railway
terminus, yielded copper (c. 1908); and Kluane, on the
northern slopes of the St. Elias, 143 miles by wagon-road
from Whitehorse, also yielded copper (1903). Bennett Lake,
still further upstream, is connected with two parallel north-
pointing lakes on the east — Lakes Tagish and Atlin — which,
like Lake Bennett, are wholly or mainly in British Columbia.
On Lake Atlin and Lake Tagish (Windy Arm) there were
1 Mr. William Langworthy of Edmonton.
T 2
276 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF CANADA
gold discoveries of some importance in 1898 and 1907
respectively ; and west of Bennett, but reached usually by the
Chilcat Pass from Lynn's Canal, copper was worked at Rainy
Hollow in 1898. The mineral thread has now been retraced
from the extreme north — not indeed to the very spot, but
to the very parallel where its progress to the north was
interrupted. In its progress east and west along the southern
frontier of British Columbia agricultural invariably accom-
panied mineral development. This has hardly been the case,
except on a very humble scale, north of Barkerville.
Eniku- The final impulse towards development came from idealists,
^l^lYci whose idealism, mad as it once seemed, proved to be sober
unity sense, and their faith to be wisdom in disguise. When its
^d!«j^^ the godmother named British Columbia, and gave her name to its
the Cana- capital, she expressed her * hopes that this new colony might
^fic^aU-^' be but one step ... by which ... her dominions might
way^ ultimately be peopled in an unbroken chain from the Atlantic
to the Pacific by a loyal and industrious population.'*
Echoes of the Psalms '^ and a sense of British greatness brooded
over its birth, and a spirit of national rivalry stimulated its
growth. Alfred Waddington complained in 1868 that the
new colony was * entirely indebted to the United States ' for
the carriage of its letters and immigrants, and even its food ;
others too wrote in the same strain. In 187 1 the new colony
joined the Dominion, in order that it might lean on the east
rather than on the south, and stipulated for a through-railway
to the Atlantic, like that which San Francisco had already.
The railway was to be a symbol and instrument of union with
Eastern Canada, and for this purpose was to pass through
two thousand miles or more of solitude. A passionate desire for
the union of Canada with itself made Canadians run risks of
what seemed certain material ruin.
for which Two of the proposed routes for this railroad, which
two routes
were pro- 1 Queen's Speech, 1858 : Hansard, Ser. iii, vol. cli, p. 2372.
posedf 2 « fjg shall have dominion also from sea to sea.'
THE CIVILIZATION OF THE FAR WEST 277
visionaries set to work to build through vacancy, may be re-
called. Its first proposed course lay through the Yellowhead
Pass, by the Upper Fraser, Forts George and Fraser, the
Bulkley Valley, and Hazelton to Port Simpson; with variants
or tentacles from the Upper to the Middle Fraser, and so
either to Gardner Canal, Dean Channel, or Bute Inlet, up
which last Waddington built a road at his own expense in 1 864 .
All these routes are natural routes and have been described ^ ;
but were rejected on the ground that they led no whither. The
inlets to which they led were as vacant as the great spaces which
were traversed. A further proposal to build a bridge across the
archipelago from Bute Inlet to Vancouver Island, and so reach
the capital, was too expensive to be adopted. The second,
which is the actual route of the Canadian Pacific Railway, one to
crosses the Kicking Horse Pass over the Rockies, and Rogers' creating ^'
Pass over the Selkirks, which passes resemble two Brenner settlement
Passes in quick succession; and a third easy pass over the Gold ^^J^ '^^^
Range called the Eagle Pass ; after which it passes through
the broad lovely Thompson Valley, which is comparatively
civilized, through the narrow gloomy Fraser Gorge, which
a road already traversed, and through the fertile levels of the
Lower Fraser to the neighbourhood of New Westminster,
where Burrard's Inlet was the terminus. At Burrard's Inlet
there was nothing but high thick trees and deep still water,
when the railway reached it. Immediately after it was reached,
Vancouver City sprang up like the prophet's gourd, and in 190 1
was more populous (26,133 ^), ^^^ is now far more populous,
than Victoria (20,816 2), although Victoria is the prettiest and
oldest town in western Canada, and has gained by whatever
has happened in the province during sixty years or more.
On the railway-track Golden (pop. 705 ^), Revelstoke (pop.
1,600^), Kamloops (pop. 1,594^), and Ashcroft (pop. 475^);
and south of it, Vernon (pop. 802^) on Lake Okanagan,
Arrowhead, on Lake Arrow, Kaslo (pop. 1,680 2) on Lake
^ Ante^ pp. 253-4. 2 Population 1901.
278 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF CANADA
the other by
the route
now adop-
ted by the
G. T. P,
Railway,
which is
also creat-
ing settle-
ment.
Bella Coola
settlement
is detached
and was
created
otherwise
than by
raihvay,
1894.
Kootenay, and Gerrard, on Trout Lake, owed their growth
to the railway or its branches, but Vancouver City owed its
very existence to the railway. The biggest town in the
colony was created by a railway out of nothing in a moment.
Why, it was asked, could not this miracle be repeated?
The Grand Trunk Pacific Railway, which is now being built
over what I have described as the first projected course for
the first main railway, is the answer to the question. Prince
Rupert, its proposed terminus near Port Simpson, was vacant
in 1907, and had 4,000 inhabitants in 1909. There are
farmers already in the Bulkley Valley, and some copper and
coal. Opposite Prince Rupert are the Queen Charlotte Islands,
Graham Island in the north, Moresby Island in the south,
like Corsica and Sardinia halved in size. Cretaceous coal
has been known (1859), and worked a little from time to
time (1871, 1890), in the south of Graham Island; and
copper was worked by Francis Poole (1862-4),^ and is now
being worked, amongst others, by the Japanese of Ikeda Bay
in the south of Moresby Island. Coal extends into the heart
of the northern island, right amongst its mountains, 5,000
feet high, and its all-pervading forests, where cattle run wild.
The climate is mild, and everything except mankind abundant.
The new through- rail way is already beginning to galvanize
these islands, and many an inlet on the mainland into life.
One inlet began to be civilized long after it was known
that the Canadian Pacific Railway would send no branches
that way, and long before the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway
existed. This was Bella Coola Inlet. A group of Nor-
wegians, who had formerly setded in Minnesota (United
States), began to hanker after mountains and seas, like those
in the home of their fathers. Accordingly, under the leader-
ship of their pastor, seventy-five went north in October, 1894,
furnished themselves with supplies in Winnipeg, which became
their base of operations, and took the train for Vancouver.
^ Francis Poole, Queen Charlotte Islands, 1872.
THE CIVILIZATION OF THE FAR WEST 279
Thence they sailed to Bella Coola Inlet, where Vancouver and
Mackenzie just failed to meet a century ago, and formed
a nucleus around which their kith and kin from afar clustered.
In 1906 wagon-roads penetrated twenty-two miles, and settlers
occupied seventy-five miles of the valley, and were still pushing
towards the Middle Fraser. If, as is probable, a third railway
is built along the Middle Fraser between the Upper and
Lower Fraser, it will be partly a junction-line between the
two great political lines, partly a mineral line for the Cariboo
and Lillooet Districts ; and if, as is also probable, it should
some day send out a spur to Bella Coola, this spur will be
wholly due to the agricultural enterprize of these pioneers,
and will be unique in British Columbia, where railways have
usually been the cause, not the effect, of agriculture, and where
colonizing communities are as rare as lumber-camps,
canneries, and Indian villages — served by a trader and
a missionary in true Pacific fashion — are common on its
coastal indentations. The story of the peopling of Bella
Coola recalls the Icelanders of Gimli, and reads like a distant
recollection of Prairie-land.
The following statistics explain themselves ; they are statistical
somewhat belated ; but more recent statistics are not avail- ^^-^w'''^-
able for comparative purposes : —
Total
Population x 1000 in 1901
British
Origin ^
Chinese and
Japanese
Americait
Indians
Half-
breeds
Others
British Columbia
Yukon
178.6
27
106.4
i0'6
19*5
.1
25-5'
3-3
3-5 »
.02
13 =
* Includes Americans ;
to Scotch or Irish origin. " = T
3 = ^1^ of all the half-breeds in all Canada,
* French (Canadians) = 4-6 ; Germans = 5'8
^ Fr. Can. = 1.8; Germans ^2.1; Scand.=
half (53,000) are of English as opposed
2 = f of all the Indians in all Canada.
; Scandinavians = 4-8, &c.
•6; Unknown = 6.6, &c.
The pro-
spects of
B,C,
280 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF CANADA
The population nearly doubles in ten years, but Indians
were 25,000 in 1881, as well as in 1901 : —
Population of
1871
1881
1891
1901
British Columbia
36
49-5
98
178.6
Population x 1,000 includes Indians, &c.
Men born in Canada form the vast majority ; and men
born elsewhere in the British Empire are twice as many as
those born in the United States : —
Year
Born in
Canada
Elsewhere
in Br.
Empire
Total
Br, Empire
Born
in U, S.
Born
elsewhere
Total
foreign
1881
1901
68
56
II
18
79
74
5
9
16
17
21
26
Birthplaces of the population by percentages.
Emigration from Eastern Canada is the chief feature in the
situation, although Emigration from Great Britain has also
left traces more deep than numerous. Chinese and Japanese
immigrants are conspicuous here, as they are, or have been,
in every Pacific Dominion and colony. The Far East of Asia
casts its shadow over the Far West of Canada ; but not, to an
appreciable extent, over Central or Eastern Canada. Although
Chinamen wash linen from Louisbourg to Victoria, nearly
thirteen out of every fourteen Chinese residents in Canada
resided in British Columbia in 1901, and the disproportion
has increased since then.
British Columbia and the provinces of Prairie-land are
the newest provinces of the Dominion of Canada. All of
them are totally unlike the rest of the Dominion ; and British
Columbia is the very antithesis of Prairie-land. British
Columbia is all mountain and the prairie is dead level. The
THE CIVILIZATION OF THE FAR WEST 281
dead levels are being peopled at lightning speed ; the mountain
province, though covering an area equal to Austria and the
United Kingdom, has far less inhabitants than square miles.
In discussing its population we are discussing its future ; and
its future depends on two unknown factors.
First, what will happen in China, Japan, and the Pacific?
Will China awaken } Will Japan trade more and more with
Europeans ? Will the Panama Canal and Western America
make the Pacific as busy, or anything like as busy, as the
Atlantic? After all, the Atlantic was as lifeless a few
centuries ago as the Pacific was a few decades ago ; and in
human history centuries count for little.
Secondly, will British enterprise be as successful among
the mountains, as it has been among the bare plains and inter-
minable forests of Eastern and Central Canada, and among
the park-lands of Australia ? British colonists have rarely,
if they have ever, grappled with mountains. Mountains are
a comparatively new factor in British history, and in European
history symbolize slow progress and secluded lives. Statistics
of size and pace must not dazzle us ; small numbers multiply
with delusive rapidity, especially under the stimulus of mineral
wealth, and colonists must not be expected on mountain-tops.
On the other hand, British Columbia is in many respects
the greatest, as it is the grandest, of the provinces ; and into
it its eastern neighbours are still draining their superfluous
numbers and riches, a process which is likely to grow more
and more common. Their future is assured, and it is their
residuary legatee.
What was said in every chapter of this book holds of Is B, C.
British Columbia. Nova Scotia Province is the link with It^^^p^o.
Europe, New Brunswick with Quebec //«,r Ontario ; Ontario, vince of
at all events out west, is a mere link with the provinces of ii^^be- ^
Prairie-land ; and British Columbia is also a link between what tween east
is east and west of it, between continent, and ocean, and ^^ '^^^ '
what is beyond the ocean, and its future depends wholly
282 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF CANADA
upon the next links on its east and west. Looked at by itself,
its development ran along its valleys or coasts, v^hich lie north,
and south, or north-west and south-east, contrasting in this
respect with that of every other province of Canada. Looked
at as a part of Canada, it is the end of a series and depends
solely on its eastern sister-provinces. But Canada itself
resembles a link in a larger chain, a word in the middle
of a sentence, or a hyphen between two half-words. The
whole, of which it is an essential part, is the British Empire,
which seems working towards unity in a way which our
ancestors never contemplated. The unity is due to geo-
graphical facts, the most important of which are that the
provinces of Canada lie in this order, east and west, and that
Great Britain is the only European Power, except Russia,
which holds continents or half-continents on the western
side of the Pacific. Purely political ideals welded these
provinces together ; and it is possible that purely political
ideals will weld these continents and half-continents together.
Vast economic results have ensued from what political idealism
has already achieved ; but economics have not supplied the
motives of the process. The series of provinces points from
the Atlantic to the Pacific ; and the continuation of the series
across the Atlantic points to England, and the continuation of
the series across the Pacific points to Australia and India, and
thence by South Africa and an island chain respectively to
England. The chain which is being run round the earth is
not exclusive ; indeed, in all its links it touches some other
European power ; and in North America, which contains its
most important series of continuous links, every part of every
link is continuous with the United States of America for
many thousands of miles.
Nor has it any prospect of proving to be an exclusive
chain even in the least of its links ; but it has a far better
prospect of proving to be a complete chain than any which
any other Power upon the surface of the earth possesses.
THE CIVILIZATION OF THE FAR WEST 283
The dumb consciousness of this paramount mission has been
the mainspring, economic and material factors have only
been wheels within wheels, carrying on the British race
irresistibly towards their common destiny.
The processes are very complex, and work sometimes in
obedience to, and sometimes in spite of design, sometimes
like automata and sometimes like an unspoken instinct, but
work in harmony ; and the harmonious working of diiferent
tendencies is the greatest driving force, just as sane idealism
is the greatest ruling force in history.
Authorities.
Alexander Begg, History of British Colu/nbia, 1894-5. [This author
is not the same as the historian of Manitoba.]
Ernest J. Chambers, History of the Royal North-West Mounted
Police, 1906.
British Cohimbia, Gold Fields of, 1862 (a pamphlet in the British
Museum Library, 10470 d 27); Handbook of, 1858, 1862, &c. ;
Information for intending settlers in, 1884, &c. ; Maps of, by Philips,
1858, Stanford, 1859, Wyld, 1865?, Trutch, 1870, Martin, 1905, and in
Handbooks, Yearbooks, and Geological Survey, nbi infra ; Guide Map
of, 1891 ; Mining Record of, edited by A. Begg, 1895, in progress;
Reports of Minister of Mines of'. Year-book of, 1897.
Lawrence J. Burpee, The Search for the Westertt Sea, 1908.
Sir William Butler, The Wild North Land, 1873.
Canada, Annual Reports of the Geological Survey of.
George M. Dawson, Mineral Wealth of British Colwnbia, 1889;
British Columbia, its present Resources, 1893.
R. E. Gosnell, History of British Colunibia, 1901.
George Monro Grant, Ocean to Ocean, 1873.
Alexander Henry and David Thompson, Journals of, ed. by Elliott
Coues, 3 vols., 1897.
James Lynch, Three Years in the Klondike, 1904. [This is a fair
description by an American resident; and there are several other
similar books.]
Archibald MacDonald, Peace River, a Canoe Voyage from Hudson
Bay to Pacific by Sir G, Simpson, ed. by M. MacLeod, 1872.
Frances Macnab, British Columbia, 1898. [This is probably the
best book by a traveller on the south of British Columbia.]
L. R. Masson, Bourgeois de la Compagnie du Nord-Ouest, 2® ser.,
1889-90.
Lord Milton and W. B. Cheadle, The North-West Passage by Land,
1865.
284 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF CANADA
A. G. Morice, History of the Northern Interior of British Columbia^
1906. [Father Morice corrects several current minor errors, and adds
original information of importance about Indians, roads, &c.]
Sir John Palliser, Reports by. See reference at the end of Chapter IX.
Francis Poole, Queen Charlotte Islands, 1872.
Alexander Ross, Adventures of the first Settlers on the Oregon or
Columbia River, 1849 J ^^^ Hunters of the Far West, 2 vols., 1855.
Sir George Simpson, Narrative of a Journey round the World, 1847.
F. Mortimer Trimmer, The Yukori Territory, 1898, contains at
length Reports on the Yukon, by W. H. Dall, 1866-8, G. M. Dawson,
1887, William Ogilvie, 1896-7. [This is the chief authority on the
Yukon.]
Alfred Waddington, Overland Route through British North America,
1868. [This is a pamphlet in the British Museum Library, 10470,
bbb 38.]
Beckles Willson, The Great Company^ 1899.
INDEX
Abitibi Lake, 105, 106, 112.
Abuptic, 57.
Acadians, 36, 37 etseq., 52 et seq.,
67-9. 73» 77-80, 92, 95, 98-9.
Adam Lake, 250.
Aiktow Creek, 205.
Ainslie Lake, 35.
Ainsworth, 271, 272.
Alameda, 205, 241.
Alaska, i, 14, 255, 256, 257, 262,
265, 266.
Albanel, Father, 105.
Albany River, 6, 103, 108, 186.
Alberni, 259, 267.
Alberta Province, 209, 248.
Alberta Railway and Irrigation
Company, 208, 209.
Aldrich, Lieutenant R. D., 17-18.
Alexander, Sir William, 77.
Alexandria (Fort), 263, 264, 267,
269.
Algoma, 102, 193, j^^ New Ontario.
Allen's River, 39, 40.
AUumette Island, iii, 120.
Alma (N. Br.), 84.
Alma (Sask.), 233.
Almonte, 169.
Alright Island, 94.
Amherst, Baron, 130.
Amherst, 57, 67.
Amherstburg, 157, 158, 159.
Amherst Island, 94.
Amundsen, Captain Roald, 26.
Ancaster, 157, 159, 161.
Anderson, A. C, 267.
Anderson, James, 24.
Anderson Lake, 253, 267.
Andover, 76, 84.
Annapolis, 33, 38-40, 43, 49> 52,
67.
Annapolis River, 32, 38, 40, 41,
61, 67, 122, 251.
Anticosti Island, 95-7.
VOL. V. PT. Ill
Antigonish, 56, 58, 63, 6^, 68.
Antler (Creek), 269.
Appalachian Mountains, 31, 91,
113, 122, 132, 247.
Arctic Red River Post, 211.
Ardoise, 59.
Argenteuil County, 148, 152.
Arisaig, 61.
Arnold, Benedict, 129, 130, 132.
Amprior, 164, 169.
Aroostook River, 76.
Arrowhead, 277.
Arrow Lakes, 252, 277,
Artillery Lake, 15.
Ashcroft, 253, 258, 277.
Aspey Bay, 66.
Assiniboine River, 202, 205, 214,
217, 220, 221, 222, 225.
Assistance, The, 17-18, 21-3.
Astoria, Fort, 264.
Athabasca Lake, 8, loi, 109, 310,
211, 218.
Athabasca Landing, 210.
Athabasca Pass, 213.
Athabasca River, 9, 210, 212, 213,
214, 218, 247-8.
Atlin Lake, 249, 255, 256, 257,
275.
Au Bushee, 58.
Avon River, 41.
Aylesford, 60.
Aylmer, 164.
Babine Fort and Lake, 265.
Babine Mountains, 249.
Babine River, 254, 263, 274.
Back, Sir George, 13-15.
Baddeck, 64, 66.
Bad Hills, 203.
Baffin, William, 3, 5.
Baffin Bay, 5, 1 1 et seq.
Baffin Land, 26, 103.
Bagot County, 141.
286
INDEX
Baldoon, 158.
Baleine, 46.
Balfour, 271, 272.
Ball's Creek, 59, 65.
Balsam Lake, loi, 172.
Banks, Sir Joseph, 10.
Banks Island or Land, 11 et seq.,
19 et seq.
Baptists, 86, 234, 240, 242.
Barclay, Captain, 262.
Barkerville, 259, 269, 270, 276.
Barlow, George, 7.
Barrens, 104, 198.
Barrie, 160, 172, 177.
Barrington, 52, 67.
Barrow, Sir John, 10.
Barrow Strait, 1 1 et seq.
Bathurst, Henry Earl, 10.
Bathurst, 33, 74, 85.
Bathurst Cape, 211.
Bathurst Island, 11 et seq.
Batoche, 204, 219, 231.
Battleford, 206, 219, 221, 227,
231, 237.
Beaubairs Island, 74.
Beaubassin, 42.
Beauce County, 141.
Beauharnais, 143.
Beauport, 124-5.
Beauport Lake, 148.
Beaupre, 124-5.
Beaurivage River, 132.
Beausejour, 42, 47.
Beaver Lake, 10 1.
B^cancour, 129, 143.
Becancour River, 127-8, 142.
Beckwith, 169.
Bedeque Bay and Harbour, 48,
54» 63.
Beechey, F. W., 11, 14.
Beechey Island, 18 et seq.
Belcher, Sir Edward, 21-3.
Belcher Channel, 21.
Belfast (P. E. I.), 55.
Bella Coola Canal or Inlet, 253,
254, 261, 263, 278, 279.
Belleisle River (N. Br.), 75, 77.
Belleville, 154.
Bellot, Lieutenant, 18.
Bellot Strait, 18, 24.
Belly River, 207-9, 213, 224.
Beloeil Mountain, 129, 131.
Bennett, 249, 257, 275, 276.
Bennett Lake, 257, 275.
Bentinck Arm, 263.
Berczy, William, 161.
Bering, Vitus, 8, 25, 262.
Bering Strait and Sea, 8 et seq.,
256.
Berlin, 173.
Berthier, 138, 143.
Best, George, 3.
Best Cape, 4.
Big River, 6.
Birch Hills, 204.
Bird Islands, 94.
Birtle (Creek), 220, 229.
Bissot, Fran9oiSj 96, 126.
Blackwater River, 253, 263.
Blakiston, T. W., 213, 225, 229.
Blanc Sablon, 97, 98.
Blissville, 83.
Boies, Thomas, 84.
Boiestown, 84.
Bonnechere River, 179.
Booth, Sir Felix, 10.
Boothia Felix Peninsula, 1 2 et seq.
Boucher, Pierre, 121, 127, 128.
Bouchette, Joseph, 105, 159.
Boularderie Island, 34.
Boundary Creek, 250, 252, 271.
Bourgeois (C. B. I.), 59.
Bow River, 207-9, 213, 219,
224.
Boydville, 62.
Bracebridge, 179.
Bradford, Dr. A. R., 17, 18.
Brandon, 229, 230.
Brandon Hills, 204.
Brant, 173.
Brantford, 173, 192.
Bras d'Or Lakes, 32, 34, 35, 44,
Brest, Port, 99.
Breton Cape, 31.
Bridgetown, 39, 40, 67.
Bridgewater, 39, 52, 67, 69.
British Agricultural Association,
176.
British- American Land Company,
140.
British Columbia, 247 et seq.
British Columbia, Boundaries of,
114, 247-8, 255, 256.
INDEX
287
Broad Cove, 33, 56.
Brockville, 102, 152, 153.
Brome County, 14T.
Brooke, Sir John, Lord Cobham,
3.
Brooke Cobham Island, 7.
Brookfield, 62, 69.
Browne, Lieutenant William, 17,
19. 25.
Bruce County (Ont.), 102, 178,
192.
Bruce Mines, 181-2.
Brudersheim, 237.
Buchanan, James, 171, 174, 176.
Buctouche, 74.
Bulkley River, 254, 274, 277, 278.
Bulstrode, St. Valere de, 142.
Burke Channel, 253, 263.
Burlington Bay, 156.
Burlington Heights, 102.
Burritt, Mr., 155.
Burritt*s Rapids, 155.
Bute Inlet, 253, 254, 277.
Butler, Sir William, 223.
Button, Sir Thomas, 3, 4, 5.
Button Islands, 4.
By, Colonel, 170-1.
Byam Martin, Sir Thomas, 10.
B)'am Martin Channel, 18 et seq.
Byam Martin Island, 11.
Bylot, Robert, 3, 5.
Bylot Island, 4.
Bytown, 171.
Cain's River, 75.
Caledonia, 62, 69.
Calgary, 9, 224, 226, 230, 231,
233, 242.
Cambridge Bay, 20.
Campbell, R., 265.
Campbellton (N. Br.), 74, 82, 85,
92.
Campobello Island, 81.
Canada Company, 175, 176.
Canadian Copper Company, 182.
Canadian Northern Railway, 187.
Canadian Pacific Irrigation, &c.,
Company, 208.
Canadian Pacific Railway, 86,
114, 179, 181, 186-7, 213, 229-
33, 276-8.
Canals, 167-8.
Canard River, 41.
Canmore, 212.
Canoe River, 251, 264.
Canso Cape, 31, 43, 44, 50, 58.
Canso Gut, 32, 35, 44, 95.
Cape Breton Island, 31, 34-5, 44,
45» 56, 64-6.
Cap Rouge, 120, 146.
Cap Rouge River, 125.
Caraquet, 58, 74.
Card, C. O., 241.
Cardston, 241, 242.
Cariboo District, 269, 279.
Cariboo Mountains, 249, 253, 258.
Carleton, Sir Guy, 84, 159.
Carleton, 92.
Carleton House, 204, 206, 219,
221, 226, 231, 237.
Carleton Place, 169.
Carrot River, 225, 229, 230.
Cartier, Jacques, 92, 94, 99, 103,
104, 119, 1 20-1, 146.
Cassiar District, 255, 274.
Cassiar Mountains, 249, 274.
The Castor, 15.
Caughnawaga,i29,
Cavan, 171.
Cavendish (P.E.I.), 54.
Cedar Lake, 206, 217.
Chaleurs Bay, 45, 74, 75, 78, 79,
85, 9i-4> 151-
Chambly, 122, 123, 126, 127, 128,
129, 130, 133, 138.
Champlain, Samuel, 104, 11 1, 120.
Champlain, 127.
Champlain Lake, 122, 130-1.
The Charles J 5.
Charles Fort, 6.
Charlottetown, 54, 63, 64.
Charlton Island, 5.
Chat, Cape, 93, 128.
Chateauguay, 131, 143, 152.
Chats Lake, 102, 163, 169.
Chats Rapids, 163.
Chatham (N. Br.), 74, 83.
Chatham (Ont.), 158, 159.
Chaudiere Falls (Ottawa), 162.
Chaudiere River, 120, 122, 127,
128, 129, 130, 131, 132, 134.
Chauvin, Captain, 104.
Cheboggin, 40.
Chebucto, see Halifax Harbour.
288
INDEX
Chedabucto, see Guysborough.
Chester, 52, 60.
Chester Bay, 41.
Chesterfield Inlet, 23.
Cheticamp, 58, 59.
Chezzetcook, 58.
Chicoutimi, 105.
Chidleigh, John, 3.
Chidleigh Cape, 4, 97.
Chignecto Isthmus, 32, 33, 35, 42,
43, 45, 57, 73.
Chilcat Pass, 256, 276.
Chilcoot Pass, 256.
Chilcotin Fort, 264.
Chilcotin River, 253, 260, 268.
Chimmo Fort, 98, 104.
Chinese immigrants, 270, 280.
Chipewyan Fort, 8, 9, 211.
Chipman, 82, 83, 86.
Chippawa, 156.
Churchill, Colonel, 42, 80.
Churchill Fort, &c., 5, 8, 109.
Churchill River, 6, 7, loi, 103,
108, 109, 215, 218, 260.
Clare, 57, 60.
Clarendon, 169.
Clemensport, 60, 67.
Clinton, 269, 270.
Coast Range, 249, 253, 259, 264,
267, &c.
Cobalt, 104, 106, 112, 181, 272.
Cobequid Bay, 41.
Cobequid Mountains, 32, 33, 42.
Cobourg, 161, 171.
Cocagne, 74.
Cochrane, 242.
Cochrane Company, 226.
Cockburn, Colonel, 139, 168, 169.
Cockbum, Sir George, 10.
Cockburn Land, 12, 26.
Cocking, Matthew, 218.
Coffin, Sir Isaac, 95.
Coffin Island, 94.
Col bourne. Port, 167.
Cold water River, 172.
Collingwood, 172, 177, 178, 183.
CoUinson, Sir Richard, 19-23,
Colpoys Bay, 172, 177.
Columbia River, 247, 250 et seq.,
253 etseq., 271 et seq.
Comox, 250, 266.
Compton County, 140.
Confidence Fort, 17.
Connolly, or Connelly, Fort, 265.
Contrecoeur, 127.
Cook, Captain James, 8, 262.
Coppermine River, 8, 9, 11, 13,
15.
Cormack, W. E., 63.
Cornwall, 114, 152, 153.
Cornwallis, Colonel Edward, 49.
Cornwallis, Sir William, 10.
Cornwallis, 53.
Cornwallis Island, 1 1 et seq.
Cornwallis River, 32, 40, 41, 61.
Coteau du Missouri, 203, 204, 208,
241.
Couchiching Lake, loi, iii, 112,
160.
Coughtrie, R., 147.
Couillard, Guillaume, 124, 126.
Couture, Guillaume, 126.
Cove Head (P. E. L), 54.
Craig, Sir James, 132.
Craig's Bridge, 132.
Craig's Road, 132-3.
Cranbrook, 272, 273.
Credit River, 158.
Cresswell, Lieutenant S. G., 19.
Cross Point, 92.
Cross Sound, 255, 262.
Crow's Nest Pass, 212, 213, 233,
250, 272, 273.
Crozier, Captain Francis, 12, 17
et seq.
Crozier Channel, 25.
Cudahy, Fort, 259.
Cumberland, George, Earl of, 3.
Cumberland Fort and Town (N.
Sc), 42, 52.
Cumberland House (Sask.), 218,
221.
Cumberland Sound, 4.
Curry, Thomas, 218.
Cypress Hills, 207, 226, 227, 241.
Dalhousie (N. Br.), 74, 85.
Dalhousie, Port, 167.
Dalhousie Settlement, 61, 62.
Daniel, Port, 91.
D*Anville, Due, 49.
Dartmouth, 42, 49, 62.
Daulac, Adam, 123, 162.
Dauphin, 217, 232.
INDEX
289
Dauphin Lake, 200, 220, 236.
Davis Inlet, 4.
Davis Strait, 4.
Davison, Mr., 82.
Davys (or Davis), Captain Jolin,
3-5-
Dawson, George, 224.
Dawson, S. J., 185.
Dawson Road, 185-7, 197.
Dawson City, 257, 259, 274, 275.
Dealey Islet, 21.
Dean Channel or Inlet, 253, 277.
Dease, Peter Warren, 15.
Dease Lake, 255, 265, 274.
Dease River, 255, 265.
Dease Strait, 15.
De Brouillan, 41.
De Haven, Lieutenant, 18.
Delhi, 164.
De Meule or Meules, 79, 84.
De Monts, Pierre du Guast, 37.
Denys, Nicolas, 37, 38, 44, 45, 66,
74, 93.
De Razilly, Isaac, 37.
De Saussaye, 37.
Deseronto, 178.
Detroit, 112, 114, 158, 159.
De Troyes, Pierre, 106.
Deux Montagnes, Lac des, 113,
129.
De Vitre, 37.
D'Iberville, Pierre Le Moyne, 106.
Dick, Mr., 51.
I^igby, 31-2, 60, 67.
Digby Gut, 38.
Digges, Sir Dudley, 3.
Digges Island, 4.
The Discovery (of Baffin, &c.), 4, 5.
The Discovery (of Cook), 8.
Doaktown, 82.
Dobbs, Arthur, 7, 8.
Dog Lake, 184, 186.
Dolphin and Union Strait, 14, 20.
Dominion (C. B. I.), 64.
Dominion of Canada, i, 77-8, 102,
1 1 3-4, 170, 270 et seq.
Dorchester, 73.
Doublet, 37, 94.
Douglas, 270.
Douglastown (N. Br.), 74, 92.
Doukhobors, ^36, 237, 238 et seq.
Douro, 1 7 1-2.
Dover, Port, 157.
Downie, Major William, 268.
Druilletes, Pere, 126.
Drummondville, 134, 139.
Duchesnay, A. and J., 148.
Duck Mountain, 199, 204, 237.
Du Loup River, 129, 132, 134.
Duncan River, 252, 253.
Dundas, 156, 157, 159, 161.
Dundas County, 153.
Dundas Street, 158-9.
Dunham, 138.
Dunlop, Dr., 160, 173, 175, 176.
Dunvegan, 212.
Dunwich, 164.
Eagle Hills, 203, 219.
Eagle Pass, 249, 277.
East Bay, 35, 64, 66.
East Cape (P. E. I.), 63.
East River, 55-6, 62.
East Main River, 6.
Eastern Townships, 134 et seq.
(Les) ]£boulemenls, no, 124, 128.
Economy, 41.
Edmonton, 210, 212, 219, 221,
224, 226, 230, 231, 242-3.
Edmunston, 76, 77, 79, 80, 84.
Eel Brook, 57.
Eel River (N. Br.), 76, 77, 86.
Egg Island, 96, 97.
Eglinton Island, 21.
Egmont Cape, 59.
Egremont, Lord, 166, 175.
Ellice, Fort, 205, 221, 226, 229,
230.
Ellis Bay, 96.
Elson, Mr., 14.
Emerson, 225, 226, 229.
Endako, 254.
English River, 186.
The Enterprise i 19-23.
Entry Island, 94, 95.
The Erebus, 17 et seq.
Erie, Fort, 156, 177.
Erie, Lake, 101-2, 112, 157.
Escasoni, 66.
Eskimos, 6, 8, 9, 11, 12, 16 et seq.,
260.
Esquimault, 266.
Essington, Fort, 264.
Essington, Port, 254.
VOL. V. PT. in
290
INDEX
Esterhazy, 240.
Estevan, 203, 212, 226, 241,
Falmouth, 53.
False Bay (C. B. I.), 59.
Farnham, 133, 138, 142.
Faussembault, 148.
Fernie, 212, 272, 273.
Fiddler, Peter, 219.
File Hills, 204, 240.
Finlay, James, 218.
Finlay or Findlay River, 248, 251,
254, 255, 273, 274.
Finns, 240 et seq.
Fitzhugh Sound, 253, 254, 264.
Fitzjames, Captain James, 17 et
seq.
Foam Lake, 230, 236.
Forsyth, Captain C, 18.
Fort William, 112, 114, 183, 184,
186, 187.
Fourch^, 35.
Fourch^e, 39.
Fox, Captain Luke, 3, 5.
The Fox, 24-5.
Fox Channel, 2, 5, 7, 12.
Frances, Fort (Ont.), 185, 186,187.
Frances Lake (B.C.), 251, 255,
258, 259, 265.
Frances River (B.C.), 249, 251,
255, 256.
Frank, 212.
Franklin, Sir John, 11, 13, 14, 16,
17-26, 112, 265.
Franklin, Lady, 24.
Franklin, Fort, 14.
Franklin, Cape Jane, 13, 25.
Franklin, Cape Sir John, 18, 21,
25-
Franklin, Cape Lady, 18, 25.
Franklin Point, 13.
Franklin's Channel, 25.
Eraser, Simon, 263, 267.
Eraser, Fort, 254, 256, 263 et seq.,
277.
Eraser River, 247, 250-1, 253 et
seq., 258, 263 et seq.
Eredericton, 35, 75-6, 79, 80, 81,
82, 83.
French, Lieutenant, 155, 168, 171.
French, Sir George, 207, 233.
French River, iii, 114, 179,
French Village (N. Br.), 80.
French Village (N. Sc), 58.
Erobisher, J. and T., 218.
Erobisher, Sir Martin, 3, 4.
Erobisher Bay, 4.
Frog Portage, 107, 109, 218.
Eundy Bay, 33 et passim.
The Ftiry^ 1 2.
Fury and Hecla Strait, 12, 13, 16,
26.
Gagetown, 75, 80, 81.
Galicians, 236, 237 etseq.
Gait, John, 173, 175, 176.
Gait, 173.
Gardner Canal or Inlet, 253, 254,
261, 277.
Garry, Nicholas, 10.
Garry, Cape, 12.
Gasp6 Bay, 92, 94.
Gasp^ Cape, 44.
Gaspd Peninsula, 91 et seq.
Gaspereau River, 39, 61.
Gatineau River, 120, 162.
Gentilly, 127.
George, Fort, (Alta.) 219.
George, Fort (B.C.), 254, 263, 264,
277.
George River, 107.
George IV*s Coronation Gulf, 13.
Georgetown, 54.
Georgian Bay, 101-2, iii, 112,
178, 179.
German Creek, 222.
German Settlers, 47, 51-3, 81,
i53> 161, 173, 191-3, 223, 236
et seq.
Germanson Creek, 274.
Gerrard, 278.
Gibson, Alexander, 84.
Gibson, 76, 84.
GifFard, Robert, 124, 126.
Gimli, 228.
Glace, 64-5.
Glass, Rev. G., 86.
Glassville, 86.
Gleichen, 208.
Glencoe (N. Sc), 62.
Glencoe(C. B.L), 35.
Glengarry County, 153, 163.
Glenora, 255, 256, 274.
Godefroy, Jean and Thomas, 121.
INDEX
291
Goderich, 176, 177, 178.
Gold Range, 249, 277.
Golden, 272, 277.
Good Hope, Fort, 211.
Goodsir, R. A., 17-18.
Goynish River, 96.
Granby, 142.
Grande Riviere (C. B. I.), 59.
Grand Falls, 35, 76, 77, 78, 84, 86.
Grand Forks (B. C), 250, 271,
272, 273.
Grand Lake (N. Br.), 80.
Grand Portage, 112, 114, 184.
Grand Pre, 40, 53, 61.
Grand River (N. Br.), I6.
Grand River (Ont.), 173, 192.
Grand Trunk Railway, 179.
Grand Trunk Pacific, see National
Trans-Continental Railway.
Grant Land, 27.
Granville (N. Sc), 52.
Gravenhurst, 179.
Great Bear Lake, 14, 17, 100, 104.
Great Fish River, 14, 15, 24-5.
Great Slave Lake, 8, 9, 13, 15, 24,
100,101,103,104, 210,211, 214.
Great Slave River, 8, 9, loi, 210,
247.
Greenwood, 271, 272, 273.
Grenville, 102, 148, 162,163, 170.
Gridley, Mr., 95.
Grimsby, 157.
Grindstone Island, 94.
Grinnell, Henry, 18.
Grinnell Land, see Grant Land.
The Griper J 11.
Grosbois, 127.
Groseillers, M^dard Chouart, 121.
Grosse Island, 94.
Grunde, 228.
Guelph, 176.
Guysborough, 45, 52, 60.
Habitants River, 41.
Haldimand, Sir Frederick, 84.
Hale, E., 147.
Halifax, 48-52, 67, 68.
Halifax Harbour, 38, 39, 48.
Hall, Christopher, 3.
Hamilton, George, 156.
Hamilton City (Ont.), 102, 156,
177, 178, 182, 188.
Hamilton, Fort (Alta.), 207, 224,
225.
Hamilton Inlet, 4, 98, 107.
Hamilton River, 107.
Hammond's Plains, 61, 62.
Hampstead (N. Br.), 75.
Hampton (N. Br.), 75, 80, 81.
Hand Hills, 208.
Harmon, D. W., 263.
Harmony, 62.
Harrison Lake and River, 254, 269.
Harvey, Sir John, 84.
Harvey, 83.
Hastings, Port, 65.
Has well. Lieutenant W. H., 19.
Hatton, Sir Christopher, 3.
Hatton Headland, 4.
Hawkesbury (N. Sc), 65, 66.
Hawkesbury (Ont.), 163, 170.
Hayes River, 6, 317, 222.
Hazelton, 254, 256, 274, 277
Heame, Samuel, 8, 214.
Hebert, Louis, 96, 124, 126.
Hebert River, 42.
Hebertville, 105.
Hebron, 98.
The HeclUj 11, 12.
Hecla and Griper Bay, 11, 22.
Hector, Sir James, 213.
The Hector y 55.
Hedley, 250, 270.
Hendry, Anthony, 214, 217, 218.
Henrietta Maria Cape, 3, 5.
Henry, Alexander, The Elder, 218.
Henry, Alexander, The Younger,
214, 215.
Hereford, 139.
Heriot, Colonel, 139.
Herschel Island, 27, 31, 211.
Hertel, Jacques, 121, 128, 133.
Hillsborough, 73.
Hind, H. Y., 208, 220, 224, 225,
229.
Hirsch, 241.
Hobson, W. R., 24.
Homathco River, 253.
Honeywell, Ira, 163.
Hood, Robert, 13, 14.
Hood River, 13.
Hood, Port, 35, 47, 54, 56, 59, 65.
Hope, 253, 267, 268, 269, 270.
The Hope, 55.
U 2
292
INDEX
Hope, Port, 161, 163.
Hopedale, 98.
Hopetown, 91.
Hopewell, 73.
Hoppner, H. P., 11, 12.
Horsefly Lake, 269.
Horton, 53.
Howe Sound, 254.
Howse Pass, 213.
Hubbart, Mr., 3.
Hubbart's Hope, 5.
Hudson, Henry, 3, 4.
Hudson Bay, 2 etseq., 97-8, 103,
108.
Hudson Bay Company, 6 etseq.,
97-8, 103, 106, 209-12, 218,
222, 223, 255, 266, 268.
Hudson Strait, 2 et seq., 97-8,
107-8.
Huguenots, 37, 58.
Hull, 162.
Humboldt, 231.
Hungarian Settlers, 237 et seq.
Huntingdon County, 141, 143, 152.
Huntsville, 179.
Huron Lake, loi, 177, 178.
Icelanders, 227-8, 236 et seq.
Icy Cape, 8, 9.
Indian Head, 230.
Indians :
Algonquins —
generally, 125, 129, 192, 193.
Abenaki, 120, 126, 128, 130.
Atticamegues, 120, 121.
Blackfeet, 215, 216.
Crees, 97, loi, 105, 202, 215,
216, 218, 260.
Chippeways, 215, 216, 218.
Delawares, 158, 192.
Maliceet, 79, 87.
Micmacs, 39, 42, 44, 49, 66,
79, 87, 92.
Mississaguas, 158, 192.
Montagnais, 97, 105.
Nascaupi, 97.
Nipissings, 121.
Ottawas, III, 120, 121.
Athapascan alias Chipewyan
alias 'Dini —
Chipewyans, loi, 215, 216
218, 260.
Babine, Carrier, Chilcotin,
and Sikanni, 260, 263.
Sarsi, 215.
Haidas, 260, 261.
Iroquois —
generally, 122, 129, 147, 158,
192, 260.
Hurons, iii, 119, 121, 125-6,
158, 192.
Mohawks, 119, 122-4, 173.
Kootenays, 261.
Kwakiutl-Nootkas, 261.
Salish (Kawitchin, Okinakan, and
Shuswap), 261.
Sioux generally, 215, 226.
Assiniboines, 215, 216, 218.
Tsimpseans, 260.
Tlinkits, 260.
Ingonish Bay, 46.
Inhabitants River, 46, 56.
Intercolonial Railway, 86.
The Intrepid y 17-18, 21-3.
Inverness (C. B. I.), 65.
Inverness (Q. P.), 132, 134.
The Investigator., 19-23.
The Isabella, 11, 13.
Ivuktok Inlet, see Hamilton Inlet.
Jackman, Charles, 3.
Jacques-Cartier River, 125.
James, Captain Thomas, 3, 5.
James Bay, 5 et seq., 97-8, 105,
106, 186.
Jemseg, 80.
Jerseymen, 58, 59, 91.
Jews, 240 et seq.
Jogues, Pere, 123.
John River (N. Sc), 58.
Johnson Mountain, 131.
Joliette, 102, 148.
Jolliet or Joliet, Louis, 96.
Jones, Sir Francis, 3.
Jones Sound, 5, 21.
Juan de Fuca, 262.
Juan de Fuca Straits, 260.
Judique, 56.
Kachika River, 251.
Kaministiquia Fort aiid River,
183-5.
Kamloops, 253, 259, 260, 264,
267, 268, 270, 277.
Kamsack, 236, 238.
INDEX
293
Kaslo, 271, 272, 277.
Kater, Henry, 10.
Kater Cape, 12.
Keewatin, 186, 187.
Keighley, 269.
Kellet, Captain Henry, 21 et seq.
Kellsey, Henry, 214, 217.
Kelowna, 271.
Kempt, Sir James, 85, 132.
Kempt Road, 85, 86.
Kempt's Bridge, 132.
Kemptville, 62.
Kendall, Mr., 14.
Kennebecasis River, 75.
Kennedy, Captain William, 18.
Kennetcook River, 60.
Kenora, 185, 186, 187.
Kent (N. Br.), 84.
Kentville, 67, 69.
Kettle Creek or River, 252, 271.
Kicking Horse Pass, 212, 213, 277.
Killinek, 98.
Kimberley, 250, 272.
Kincardine, 177.
King, Dr. Richard, 14, 15.
King William Land, 13, 15, 17 et
seq.
Kingston (N. Br.), 75, 80, 81.
Kingston (Ont.), 102, iii, 112,
153-5.
Kingsville, 142.
Kirkella, 240.
KlondikeRiver, 256, 257,274, 275.
Kluane, 275.
Knight, James, 7.
Knowles, Rev. Charles, 86.
Knowlesville, 86.
Koksoak River, 108.
Kootenay Fort, 264.
Kootenay Lake, 252, 253, 267,
273, 278.
Kootenay River, 251, 252, 253,
259, 267.-
The Krusentern^ 12.
La Biche, Lac, 224.
Labrador, i, 95, 97-9, 104.
Lacolle Mills, 131.
Lacombe, 242.
La Come, Fort, 199, 217, 218.
La Crosse, He a, Lac, loi, 218.
La Heve, 37-40.
La Heve River, 39, 52.
Laketon, 255, 256.
Lanark, 168, 169.
Lancaster, Sir James, 3,
Lancaster Sound, 5 et seq.
Langley, Fort, 264, 267, 268, 270.
La P^ronse, 262.
La Prairie, 123, 126, 130, 143.
La Prairie River, 123.
Lardeau River, 250.
Larder Lake, 106.
La Salle, Rene Robert de, 112,
123, 155.
La Tour, Charles de, 37, 42-3.
Latour Fort, 43, 57.
La Tuque River, 105.
La V6rendrye, 121, 185, 214, 2x7.
Lawrence, Fort, 42.
Le Borgne, 37.
Le Caron, iii.
Leeds, 132, 134.
Le Moyne, Pere, 112.
Le Moyne, Charles, 127.
Le Pas, 217, 220.
Lesser Slave Lake, 209.
Lethbridge, 208, 224, 233, 242.
Levis, 126, 143.
Lewes River, 257, 275.
Liard River, 211, 212, 214, 247-9,
251. 255, 257, 265, 275.
Liddon, Captain Matthew, 11.
Liddon Gulf, 18.
Lillooet, 269, 270.
Lillooet Lake, 254, 267.
LTslet, 126.
Little River (N. Br.), 80.
Little Whale River, 7.
Liverpool, 39, 52, 62.
Livingstone, 227.
Livingstone Creek, 275.
Lloydminster, 237.
Lochaber (N. Sc), 62, 63.
Lochaber (Quebec), 163.
Loggins, 68.
London, 159, 160, 175, 178.
Londonderry (N. Br.), 84.
Londonderry (N. Sc), 53, 68.
Long Lake, 204.
Long Point, 157, 158, 159.
Longueuil, 126-7, ^43'
Louisbourg, 38, 45-8, 65.
Ludlow, 82.
294
INDEX
Lumpy Hills, 204.
Lundy's Farm, 156.
Lunenburg, 39, 52, 67.
Lyall, D., 21-3.
Lynn's Canal, 256, 257, 275.
Lyon, Captain George, 12.
Lytton, 253, 269, 270.
Mabou, 56, 65.
Maccan, 68.
Maccan River, 42, 57.
MacDonell, Bishop, 176.
MacGregor, Rev. James, 55.
Mackenzie, Sir Alexander, 8, 9,
209, 214, 218, 260, 263.
Mackenzie River, 8, 9, 14, 15, 17,
19, 27, 98, 100, loi, 210-12,
247, 248.
Mackenzie Valley, 210-12.
Maclean, John, 98.
Macleod, John, 265.
Macleod(Alta.),2o7, 225, 226, 233.
Macleod, Fort (B. C), 254, 263
et seq.
Macmurray, Fort, 211, 212.
The MacNab, 163, 164, 169, 179.
MacNaughton, Judge, 18 1-2.
Macoun, John, 201, 204.
Macpherson, Fort, 211.
Macquereau Point, 91, 92, 93.
Madame, Isle, 46, 58, 59.
Madawaska River (N. Br.), 76.
Madawaska River (Ont.), 163, 177.
Madeleine, Cape, 93.
Madoc, 178.
Magaguadavic River, 77, 81.
Magdalen Islands, 58, 59,94-5,98.
Magdalen River, 93.
Magrath, C. A., 242.
Magrath, 242.
Makkovik, 98.
Malagash, 39.
Malcolm Island, 266.
Manchester (N. Sc), 61.
Manicouagan River, 108.
Manitoba, 197 et seq.
Manitoba, frontier of, 114, 185-6.
197.
Manitoba Lake, 200, 201, 229.
Manitou District and River (Ont.),
104, 187.
Manitou, Lake, 239.
Manitoulin Island (Grand), loi,
193-
Mansel, Sir Robert, 3.
Mansel Islands, 5.
Manson Creek, 274.
Maple Creek, 227, 230.
Marble Island, see Brooke Cob-
ham I.
Margaree, 56, 59.
The Maria, 5,
Markham, Sir Clements, 17.
Markham, 161.
Marmora, 178.
Marshall, Captain, 169.
Marysville, 76.
Mascarene, Colonel, 40, 41.
Matapedia Lake, 85, 92.
Matawin River, 184.
Matchedash River, 160.
Matheson, 106.
Mattawa River, 1 1 1 .
Maugerville, 75, 81.
May, W. W., 21-3.
McClintock, Sir F.Leopold, 17-26.
McClintock's Channel, 19 et seq.
McChire, Sir Robert, 19-23.
McCormick, Dr. R., 21-3.
McEachran, Bishop, 56.
McLoughlin, Mr., 10.
McLoughlin, or McLaughlin, Fort,
264.
McNutt, Colonel Alexander, 53.
Meares, Commander John, 262.
Mecham, Captain George, 17-18,
21-3.
Medicine Hat, 230, 231, 233, 241.
Megantic Lake, 132.
Melita, 205, 241.
Melville, Robert Viscount, 10.
Melville Island, 11 etseq.
Melville Peninsula, 12 etseq.
Memramcook, 73.
Memramcook River, 42.
Mendry, Dr., 98.
Menier, M., 96.
Mennonites, 161, 173, 227, 228,
236 et seq.
Merigomish, 61.
Merrick Road, 132.
Merrickville, 102, 155, 169.
Mersey River, 39.
Methodist Settlers, 57, 73.
INDEX
295
Methye Portage, loi, 109.
M^is, 85.
Michikamau Lake, 107, 108.
Michipicoten, 104, 18 1-3.
Middle River, 55-6, 62.
Middleton, Christopher, 7, 8.
Middleton (N. Sc), 39,67.
Midland, (Ont.) iii, 177.
Midway, 273.
Milk River, 207.
Mille Lacs, Lake, 184-6.
Milltown, 77.
Mines Basin, 32, 39, 41, 52, &c.
Mingan, 96.
Mingan Islands, 95-6.
Minnedosa, 229.
Minudie, 58.
Miquelon Island, 58, 59.
Miramichi, 45, 58, 73-6, 82.
Mire Bay, 33,35,47.
Miscou, 73, 74.
Missiquash River, 42.
Missisquoi County, 141.
Mississippi River, 163, 168, 169,
177-
Mistassini Lake, 97, 105.
Moncton, 66, 73, 80, 81, 82.
Montarville Mountain, 131.
Montgomery, Richard, 130.
Montreal, 102-3, iio> ii9> 120,
123-4, 127, 128, 129 et seq.,
143, 145 etseq., et passim.
Moor, "William, 8.
Moose Fort and River, 6, 103, 183.
Moose Jaw, 203, 208, 214, 230,
233, 241.
Moose Mountain, 203, 241.
Moosomin, 230, 240.
Moravian Missions, 98.
Moravian Settlers, 237 et seq.
Moraviantown, 158.
Mormons, 241 et seq.
Mount Royal, 103, 131.
Moyie, Lake, &c., 250, 267, 272,
273.
Mulgrave, 66 y 69.
Murray Bay, 131, 152.
Murray, Mount, 152.
Muskoka, 102, 178-181, 192.
Muskrat Portage, 1 79.
Musquash Harbour, 43.
Musquodoboit, 58, 60, 6^,
Naas or Naase River, 250, 255.
Nain, 98.
Nanaimo, 250, 266, 267.
Napanee, 154.
Nappan River, 57.
Nares, Sir George, 21.
Nashwaak, 79, 80.
Nashwaak River, 76.
Natashquan, 99.
National Trans-continental Rail-
way, 86, 106, 115, 146, 213,
233, 278.
Nechaco River, 253, 254, 263.
Negro Cape, 39.
Negroes, 62, 87, 172, 192.
Nelson, Mr., 3.
Nelson (N. Br.), 74.
Nelson (B.C.), 250, 252, 271, 272,
273.
Nelson, Port, 4, 109.
Nelson River, 6, loi, 107, 108,
201, 217.
Nerepis River, 75.
Newark, 156.
New Brunswick Province, 33-4,
73 et seq. ; Boundaries of, 43-4,
77-9.
New Caledonia, 254.
New Campbellton, 33.
New Canaan, 82, 83.
New Carlisle, 91.
Newcastle, 74, 82, 85.
Newfoundland, i, 44, 46, 62, 64,
65> 96, 97, 98.
New Germany, 52, 69.
New Glasgow (N. Sc), 67, 68.
New Glasgow (P. E. I.), 63.
New Lorette, 125-6, 129.
Newport, 53.
New Richmond, 92.
New Severn River, 5.
New Wales, or New South Wales,
4, 5-
New Westminster, 253, 370.
Niagara District, 155-7, ^5^, ^59?
161.
Niagara Fort and Town, 112, 114,
155, 159-
Niagara River, 102, 112.
Niagara Town and Falls, 1 56, 177.
Niagara-on-the-Lake, see Newark.
Nichicun Lake, 97.
296
INDEX
Nicola, 250, 267, 273.
Nicolet River, T27, 128, 142.
Nictaux River, 39, 68.
Nine Mile River, 60.
Nipawi, 217, 21 8.
Nipigon Fort, Lake, and River,
108, 109, 121, 183.
Nipisiguit, 45, 73, 74, 79.
Nipissing Lake, 106, in, 179.
Noel, 41, 53.
Nootka Sound, 261.
Norman, Fort, 211.
North Bay (Town), 106, 179,
180, 181, 182.
North Cornwall, 21.
North Devon, 1 1 et seq.
North Fork, 252, 271.
North Kent, 21.
North Point (P. E. I.), 48, 59, 64.
North Somerset, 11 et seq.
ThQ Noiih Star, 21-3.
North- West Company, 97-8, 160,
218 et seq., 254.
North-West River, 107.
Nottawasaga River and Bay, 112,
172, 177.
Nottaway River, 103.
Nottingham, Charles Earl of, 3.
Nottingham Island, 5.
Nova Scotia, 31, et seq., 43-4, &c.
Nova Scotia Land Company, 83,
84.
Nut Lake, 230.
Ochiltree, Lord, 46.
Odelltown, 131.
O'Hara, F., 92.
Okanagan Lake, 252, 260, 264,
268, 271, 272, 277.
Okkak, 98, 104.
Omineca River, 273, 274.
Ommaney, Captain Horatio E.,
17-18.
Onslow, 53.
Ontario Lake, 101-2, in, 112.
Ontario Province, 151 etseq.
boundaries of, 112-4, 185-6, 197.
population and towns of, 187-93.
Ontario, New, 151, 180, et seq.
Ontario, Old, 114, 151, 172, 180.
Ontario, Upper, Middle, & Lower,
173.
Orillia, in, 177, 178, 179.
Orleans Island, 120, 124, 125, 126.
Oromocto, 75, 76, 79, 83.
Oromocto River, 75, 80, 81.
Osborn, Captain Sherard, 17,
21-3-
Osgoode, 170.
Osoyoos, 272, 273.
Otnabog, 87.
Ottawa Canals, 168.
Ottawa City, 170-1.
Ottawa River, 102, no, in, 112,
120, 123, 151, 161-4, 177.
Ottonabee, 171.
Owen, Lieutenant William, 81.
Owen Sound, 172, 177.
Palliser, Sir John, 208, 213, 220,
224, 267, 268, 269.
Pangman, Peter, 219.
Papineau, Louis, 162.
Paris, 173.
Parrsboro, 42, 60, 61, 67.
Parry, Sir William Edward, 11-13,
22.
Parry Sound District, 178-81.
Parry Sound Railway, 181.
Parsnip River, 251, 254, 263, 273.
Paspebiac, 58, 91.
Pasquia Hills, 199.
Passamaquoddy Bay, 33, 77, 81-3.
Peace River, 209, 210, 211, 212,
213, 218, 247, 248, 249, 251.
Peace River District, 209-10, 216.
Peace River Landing, 209.
Peace River Pass, 213, 218, 263.
Peel River, 211, 212, 249, 256,
265, 275.
Pelly, Sir John, 10.
Pelly Bay, 23.
Pelly, Fort, 204, 205, 220, 221,
229, 232, 238.
Pelly River, 255, 256, 257, 265,
275-
Pembina Mountain, 199, 208, 214,
227, 228.
Pembina River, 212.
Pembroke, 179.
Penetang, 160, 172, 177.
Penny, Captain William, 17, 18.
Pereau River, 41.
Perce, 93, 94.
INDEX
297
Perth (N. Br.), 76, 84.
Perth (Ont.), 168, 169.
Peterborough, 102, 171-2.
Petitcodiac, 76, 77.
Petitcodiac River, 42, 74-5, 79,
122,251.
Petite Nation River, 162.
Petit Rocher, 34.
Petrolea, 178.
Petworth Emigration Committee,
166.
Pheasant Hills, 204, 233, 240.
Pictou, 33, 54, 55-6, 61, 62, 68.
Pictoii Landing, 6"]^ 68.
Pigeon River, 114, 184.
Pincher (Creek), 212, 226, 242.
The Pioneer^ 17-18, 21-3.
Pitt, Fort, 206, 237.
Placentia, 38, 46.
Pleasant River, 62.
Pointe au Baudet, 113.
Pointe des Monts, 97, 113.
Pokemouche, 73, 74.
The Pollux, 15.
Pomquet, 58, 61.
Pond, Peter, 218.
Ponoka, 242.
Pontgrave, 37.
Poole, Francis, 278.
Porcupine Hills, 199.
Porcupine Lake, 106.
Porcupine River, 256, 257, 265,275.
Portage la Prairie, 217, 220, 223,
232.
Port Arthur, 183-6.
Portland Canal, 255, 256, 262.
Portneuf, 148.
Portneuf River, 125.
Potton, 138.
Poutrincourt, 37.
Presbyterian Settlers, 53, 55, 56,
86, 234.
Prescott, 153, 154, 155.
Presqu' He (N. Br.), 84.
Preston, 61, 62.
Prevost, Sir George, 84, 134.
Prince Albert, 206, 219, 221, 224,
230-1, 232, 237.
Prince Albert and Victoria Land,
14, 15, 17, 19, 20, 26.
Prince Edward Island, 34, 48, 53-
5, 59» 63-4.
Prince Patrick Island, 21.
Prince Regent Inlet, 1 1 et seq.
Prince Rupert, 254, 278.
Princeton, 272, 273.
Prince of Wales Island, 18 et seq.
Prince of Wales Strait, 19, 20.
Pubnico, 39, 57.
Pullen, Captain W. J. S., 17, 21-3.
Quakers, 161.
Qu'Appelle Fort, 204, 220, 221,
226.
Qu'Appelle River, 205, 206, 220,
221, 230.
Qu'Appelle on the Railway, 231.
Quebec City, 103, no, iii, 115,
1 19-12 1, 143 et seq., et passim.
Quebec Province, 119 et seq. .
boundaries of, 97, 11 2-1 3.
population and towns of, T42-8.
Queen Charlotte Islands, 249, 258,
260, 278.
Queen's Channel, 1 8 et seq.
Queenstown (Ont.), 102, 156.
Quesnel, 269, 270, 273.
Quesnel River, 269.
Quill Lake, 204, 230, 236.
Quints Bay, in, 151, it;4, 158,
178.
Radisson, Pierre Esprit, 121.
Rae, John, 16.
Rae Isthmus, 16, 23.
Rainy Hollow, 249, 276.
Rainy Lake and River, 185-7.
Ralegh, Sir W., 3.
Ralegh Mountain, 4.
Rama, 98.
Ramsay, 169.
Rapid City, 229.
Raymond, 242.
RecoUets' Missions, 73, 79, 119.
Red Deer, 208, 242.
Red Deer Lake, 200, 220, 229.
Red Deer River (Alta.), 208, 212,
219.
Red' Deer River (Man.), 205, 225,
230, 232.
Red River, loi, 199, 202, 222-3,
229.
298
INDEX
Regina, 214, 227, 230, 231, 233,240.
Reindeer Lake, 109.
Reliance, Fort, 15.
Remsheg, 47.
Renfrew, 179.
Repulse Bay, 8, 9.
The Resolute, 17-18, 21-3.
The Resolution (of Button), 4.
The Resohitio7i (of Cook), 8.
Resolution, Fort, 211.
Resolution Island, 4.
Restigouche River, 45, 66, 74, 75,
77.
Revelstoke, 249, 252, 277.
Rice Lake, 171.
Richards, Captain G. H., 21-3.
Richardson, Sir John, 13, 14.
Richelieu River, 122-3, 127-9,
132, 133, 134.
Richibucto, 73-5, 83, 87.
Richmond (Ont.), 168, 169.
Richmond (Q. P.), 132, 133.
Richmond Bay, 48, 54, 64.
Richmond, Fort, 6, 7.
Richmond Gulf, 6, 98, 104.
Rideau Canal, 168, 170-1.
Rideau River, 102, 155, 163, 168-
71.
Riding Mountain, 199, 238.
RieFs Rebellions, 186, 204, 231-2.
Riveron, Sieur, 93.
Riviere du Loup, 76, 80, 84, 103,
143.
Riviere du Sud, 126.
Roberval, Sieur de, 104, 119, 120.
Roberval (place), 105.
Robinson, Lieutenant, 17.
Robinson, Peter, 165, 170, 172.
Robson, 252.
Rock Creek, 269, 270, 271.
Rocky Mountains, 8, 207, 211,
219, 247-9.
Rocky Mountains House, 219.
Rocky Mountains, Passes, 212, 213.
Roe, Sir Thomas, 3.
Roe, Sir Thomas, Welcome, 5, 7, 8.
Rogers, Robert, 128, 133.
Rogers Pass, 277.
Rosiers Cape, 44, 93.
Ross, Sir James, 11- 13, 17.
Ross, Sir John, 11-13, 17, 18.
Rossignol, 37, 39.
Rossland, 249, 271, 272, 273.
Rougemont Mountain, 131.
Rouville Mountain, 129.
Roxburgh, 84.
Royal North-West Mounted Police,
211, 214, 225-7, 249» 257, 259,
275.
Rupert, Fort (B. C), 264, 266.
Rupert River, 6, 97, 103, 105.
Rupert's Land, i.
Rustico Harbour, 48, 59.
Ryerse, Colonel Samuel, 157.
Ryerse, Port, 157.
Saanich Peninsula, 266.
Sabine, Sir Edward, 11.
Sabine Peninsula, 21.
Sable Cape, 39, 50, 52.
Sackville, 52, 57, 73, 80.
Saguenay River, 97, 98, 104-5.
St. Albert, 224.
St. Andrews, 77, 79, 80, 81, 82,
83, 85.
St. Anne (Q.), 93.
St. Anne (C. B. I.), 38, 45, 46, 56.
St. Anne des Chenes, 197.
St. Anne de la Perade, 127.
St. Anne de la Pocadiere, 126.
St. Anne Bay, 33.
St. Anne, Lake, 209, 224.
St. Anne Mountain, no.
St. Anne River, 125.
St. Catharine's, 157, 167,
St. Charles, 129.
St. Charles River, 119.
St. Croix or Dochet Island, 40, 43.
St. Croix River, 41, 77, 78.
St. Elias Cape and Mountain,
249, 250, 257, 262, 275.
St. Esprit, 46, 56.
St. Francis, 128, 129, 132.
St. Francis District, 133-4.
St. Francis River (N. Br.), 78.
St. Francis River (Q.), 122, 127-8,
130, 132, 133, 162.
St. George, 77, 79, 80, 81.
St. Hyacinthe, 129, 143.
St. James, Fort, 254, 263 et seq.
St. Jean, Lake, 97, 104-5.
St. John, 43, 75, 79, 80, 81, 83.
St. John River, 35, 75-7, &c.
St. John's (Q.), 130, 133. 138, 143-
INDEX
299
St. Lambert, 143.
St. Lawrence River, loi et seq.,
no et seq., 178 et passwi,
St. Lawrence River, Canals of,
167.
St. Margaret's Bay, 35, 41, 58.
St. Martin Lake, 200, 220.
St. Mary Mission (Ont.), in.
St. Mary River (Alta.), 208.
St. Mary River (B. C), 272.
St. Mary River (N. Sc), 62.
St. Maurice River, 105, 119, 120,
146.
St. Ours, 127.
St. Paul Bay, 124, 131.
St. Peter's (P. E. I.), 48, 54.
St. Peter's Isthmus, 35, 44-7, 64,
St. Pierre Island, 58, 95.
St. Regis, 113, 129, 134.
St. Roch, 126.
St. Stephen, 77, 81.
St. Thomas, 164, 174.
Salisbury, Robert Earl of, 3.
Salisbury Island, 4, 5.
Salmon River (N. Br.), 75, 77, 82.
Saltcoats, 239.
Sandon, 271.
Sandwich, 158, 177.
Samia, 177, 178, 182.
Saskatchewan, Fort, 219.
Saskatchewan Province, 207, 248.
Saskatchewan River, loi, 199,
201, 206, 219 et seq., 247, 248.
Saskatchewan River, North, 203,
206, 219-22, 225, 248.
Saskatchewan River, South, 203,
204, 205, 207, 208, 218, 219,
220, 225, 230-2, 248.
Saskatoon, 231, 233, 239.
Sault St. Marie, loi, 112, 114,
167, 181-3.
Savalet, 37.
Scadding, J,, 161.
Scandinavian Settlers, 51, 192, 193,
223, 237 et seq, 278, 279.
Seaforth, 177, 178.
Seine River (France), 36, 37.
Seine River (Man.), 222.
Seine River (Ont.), 187.
Selkirk, Thomas Earl of, 55, 158,
161, 172, 174, 184, 222.
Selkirk (Man.), 201, 229.
Selkirk (Yukon), 257, 259, 265,
275.
Selkirk Mountains, 249, 250, 253,
259.
Selkirk Mountains Pass, 277.
Seton Lake, 253, 267.
Shebandowan Lake, 184, iS?,
186.
Shediac Fort, Bay, &c., 54, 73, 74.
Shefford, 131.
Shefford Mountain, 131.
Sheho, 239.
Shelburne, 39, 60, 67.
Shell River, 229.
Shephard (Fort), 267, 268.
Shepody, 33, 42, 83.
Sherbrook, Sir John, 62.
Sherbrook, 63, 68.
Sherbrooke, 132, 133, 138, 142.
Sherriff, Charles, 163.
Shickshock Mountain, 31, 91.
Shubenacadie Canal, 49.
Shubenacadie River, 41, 42, 49.
Shuswap Lake, 250.
Sicamous, 249.
Sillery, 125-6.
Silver Isle, 184.
Simcoe, John Graves, 157-61.
Simcoe, 174.
Simcoe Lake, 101-2,112, 160, 172.
Similkameen River, 252, 269, 270,
271.
Simpson, Sir George, 267.
Simpson, Thomas, 15, 19, 204.
Simpson, Fort (B. C), 264.
Simpson, Fort (Mackenzie), 211.
Simpson Pass, 213.
Simpson, Port (B. C), 254, 259,
261, 277, 278.
Simpson Strait, 15.
Skedaddler Ridge, 87.
Skeena River, 248, 253-5, 264,
265, 268, 274.
Slave River, see Great Slave River.
Slocan, 250, 252, 271, 272.
Smith, Sir Thomas, 3.
Smith, Fort, 211, 214.
Smith Sound, 5.
Smith's Falls, 102, 169.
Smoky River Pass, 213.
Sooke Harbour, 266.
300
INDEX
Sorel, 122-3, 126-7, 129, 138, 143.
Sounding Lake, 208.
Souris River, 205, 217, 220, 228.
Southampton, Henry Earl of, 3.
Southampton (Ont.), 177.
Southampton Islands, 5.
Spring Coulee, 242.
Springhill, 68.
Stanstead, 132.
Standstead County, 141.
Steele, Fort, 268, 271, 272.
Stellarton, 68.
Stettler, 242.
Stewart, Captain Alexander, 17,18.
Stewart River (Yukon), 256, 274,
275-
Stewiacke River. 41.
Stikine River, 249, 255, 256, 257,
265, 268, 274.
Stirling, 242.
Stormont, 153.
Stratford, 177, 178.
Strathcona, 242.
Stuart, David, 264.
Stuart, J., 17, 18. ,
Stuart, John, 263.
Stuart Lake, 254, 260.
Stuart River, 254.
Stukeley, 138.
Sturgeon Lake, loi.
Sturgeon River, 185, 187.
Sudbury, 104, 180, 18 1-2.
Summerside, 54.
Summit Lake (Labrador), 108.
Summit Lake (Ont.), 108.
The SmtshinCf 4.
Superior, Lake, loi, 112, 121, 183
-4 et passim.
Sussex (N. Br.), 75, 76, 77, 8 1, 82.
Sutherland, Dr. P. C, 17, 18.
Sutton, 133.
Sverdrup, Captain Otto,. 27.
Swan Lake, 200, 214.
Swan River, 205, 220, 221, 225,
226, 227, 230.
Swift Current, 203, 230, 231, 241.
Sydney, 38, 46, 56, 64-5, et passim.
Tadoussac, 104, 105.
Tagish, Lake, 257, 275.
Taku River, 255, 256.
Talbot, Richard, 174, 175.
Talbot, Colonel Thomas, 164,
173-5.
Talbot, Port, 164.
Talbot Settlement, 175.
Talbot, Street, 164, 174.
Tantalus, 275.
Tatamagouche, 47, 58, 61.
Telegraph Creek, 255, 256, 257,
274.
Temiscouata Lake, 76, 80, 84-5,
134-
The Terror, 1 7 et seq.
Teslin Lake and River, 249, 255,
256, 257.
Texada Island, 249, 250.
Thames River, 158.
Thetford, 142.
Thickwood Hills, 203.
Thompson, David, 219, 260, 263,
264, 267, 272, 273.
Thompson River, North and South,
253, 261, 264, 268, 270, 277.
Thousand Isles, 10 1, 102.
Three Rivers, (Q.) no, in, 119,
121-2, 127-8, 146-7.
Three Rivers (P.E.I.), 48, 54, 55.
Thunder Bay, 184.
Thunder Moimtain or Hill, 199,
236, 238.
Tillard(C.B.I.), 59.
Timiskaming, Lake, 105-6, 112,
179.
Tobique River, "jS, 86, 87.
Toronto, 102, 112, 159, 160, 177,
178, 187.
Touchwood Hills, 204, 208, 239.
Touchwood Hills, Little, 204.
Tourmente, Cap, 103, no, 124.
Tracadie(N.Sc.), 58.
Tracadie (P. E.L), 48, 54.
Trail Creek, 250, 271, 273.
Tramping Lake, 239.
Traverse, Cape, 54.
Traverse River, 48.
Trembling Mountain, no.
Trent River, 101-2, in, 151, 158,
i7i» 173, 177.
Trenton (N. Sc), 68.
Trenton (Ont.), 154.
Trout, Lake, 278.
Truro, 32, 33, 41, 47, 53, 60, 62-3,
67.
INDEX
301
Turkey Point, 157.
Turtle Mountain, 203, 214, 241.
Tusket Bay and Island, 39, 57.
Tweedside, 83.
Two Mountains, Lake of, see Deux
Montagnes.
Ungava Bay, 33, 98, 107, 108.
Uniacke (Mount), 61, 69.
Utrecht, Treaty of, 6.
Valcartier, 147.
Valleyfield, 143, 188.
Vancouver, Captain George, 263.
Vancouver City, 277.
Vancouver Island, 249, 250, 264,
266, 267, 277.
Varennes, 127.
Vaughan, D., 7.
Vercheres, 123.
Vermilion, Fort, 209.
Vernon, 277.
Verte, Bale, 47, 54, 61.
Vesey-Hamilton, Sir R., 17-18,
21-3.
Victoria (B. C), 264, 266-7, 268,
277.
Victoria, Fort i Alta.), 224.
Victoria Land, see Prince Albert
and Victoria Land.
The Victory y 12.
Victory Point, 13, 25.
Vital Creek, 274.
Vittoria, 157.
Wabigoon (Ont.), 104, 187.
Waddington, Alfred, 276, 277.
Wagamatcook, 56.
Wager, Sir Charles, 7.
Wager Inlet, 8.
Wallace Bay, 47, 61.
Walsingham, Sir Francis, 3.
Walsingham, Cape, 4.
Walton, 41.
Wapella, 240.
Washademoak, 75, 77, 82.
Waterhen, Lake, 200.
Welland Canal, 167.
Wellington (B.C.), 250, 266.
Wellington Channel, 11, i8etseq.
Welsh Settlers, 83, 239 et seq.
West Bay, 56.
West Chester, 61.
Westfield, 75, 76, 79, 83.
West River, 55-6, 62.
Westville, 68.
Wetaskiwin, 233, 242.
Weyburn, 241.
Weymouth, 57, 60.
Whale Cove, 7.
Whitby, 161.
Whitehorse, 257, 275.
Whitemouth, 197.
White Pass, 256, 257, 275.
White River, 257.
Whittle, Cape, 98.
Whycogomagh, 66.
Wickham, 75.
Wicklow, 84, 86.
Wild Horse Creek, 271, 272.
William IV's Land, 15.
Willow Grove, 87. »
Wilmot, 60, 61.
Wilson, Captain Andrew, 166.
Windsor (N.Sc), 32, 41, 47, 50.
53, 60, 67.
Windsor (Ont.), 157-8, 174, 178,
182.
Winnipeg, 185, 187, 198, 217, 221 ,
222, 223, 229, 242.
Winnipeg, Lake, loi, 185, 199,
200, 201, 202, 217.
Winnipeg River, 185, 186.
Winnipegosis, Lake, 200, 206, 214.
Wolf Island, 94.
Wolfville, 32, 33, 67.
WoUaston, Lake, 109.
WoUaston Land, see Prince Albert
and Victoria Land.
Wolseley, Lord, 184-7, 225.
Wolstenholme, Sir John, 3.
Wolstenholme, Cape, 4.
Wood Mountain, 207, 226, 241.
Woods, Lake of the, 185-7, 197,
199, 217.
Woodstock (Ont.)» 159-
Woodstock (N. Br.), 76, 77, 78,
79, 81, 84, 85, 86.
Wooler, 83.
Wostock, 237.
Wright, Philemon, 161, 162.
Wynniatt, R., 19.
302
INDEX
Yale, Fort, 267, 270, 273.
Yamachiche, 127.
Yamaska Mountain, 131.
Yamaska River, 127, 129, 134.
Yarmouth, 39, 52, 57, 67, 69.
Yellowgrass, 241.
Yellowhead Pass, 213, 260, 261,
270, 277, 278.
Yonge Street, 160, 161, 172.
York, Fort, 6.
Yorkton, 233, 238, 239.
Young, Allen, 24.
Yukon District and River, 349,
255-8, 265, 274-6.
Yukon District, Boundaries of,
249, 262.
Yukon, Fort, 265.
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