Newfoundland to Cochin China
TextCHAPTER III.
BY THE GOLDEN WAVE TO THE FAR WEST
Our journey to the Far West, through golden wheat, began at Fort William; from there the Canadian Pacific takes us across to the ocean.
The C.P.R., with its 2990 miles of railway, is the iron girdle that binds Canada together from the Atlantic to the Pacific Oceans. She gives cohesion to this conglomerate whole, with its varieties of climate and production. Every mile of the line is worth a mile of gold to the country, for at every place where she lays down a station, that place becomes a town, a centre of population, civilization, and wealth to the surrounding district. This railway has been the great explorer, the great colonizer, the great wealth producer of Canada. It is the artery of the body of the Dominion.
One has constantly to remember that six or seven years ago all this country through which we are passing was an unexplored wilderness. A little band of plate-layers, headed by a surveyor, true pioneers, must have forced their way through, hewing trees, blasting rock, and making the silent woods resound with the voice of civilization, occasionally coming across the track of some Indian encampment or the marks of a bear. It must have required great forethought and organization from headquarters to have the plant and stores ready to push on day by day, whilst the railway in rear acted as the pioneers' single communication with the outside world, as they plunged deeper and deeper into the forests. The average speed of construction was about five miles a day, and the greatest length laid in one day was twelve and a half miles. The portion of line between Port Arthur and Fort William was the most difficult to devise. Indeed, several times the engineers despaired. The railway is divided into divisional sections, with a superintendent at each. These again are divided into sections, with a surveyor in charge; and we frequently pass their lonely section houses. Every portion of the line is inspected once a day, the workmen using a trolly, which can be lifted on and off the track. It is a single line, and there is only one passenger train daily east and west.
The trains are very long and heavy, often consisting of eight or nine cars some eighty feet in length, weighing as much as fifty tons each. They would jump the track if lighter. Our train to-day was of this length, and carried a human freight of 286 persons, exclusive of the numerous officials. The sleepers or sleeping-cars are most elegant, with their polished pine wood inlaid with mother-of-pearl, and their pale sea-green brocade hangings.
The colonist cars on these trains are excellent, and always, we noticed, well filled. They have berths like the sleeper, only with no upholstery, but the colonist can buy a mattress and pillow at Montreal for a dollar or two. They have a stove where they can cook their own provisions, and on landing from the ocean steamers they get into this car, live in it, and come as far west as they want to without change or stoppage.
From Fort William we passed through a wild, rocky country, following the line of the Kaministiquia, a shallow river scrambling over a rocky course. There are a few of these soft liquid Indian names, embodying some symbolical or romantic ideal, still left; but they are fast dying out, and the practical settler is changing them to a more prosaic but pronounceable nomenclature.
It was through this lonely district, then, unexplored by white man, that for ninety-five days Wolseley, in 1870, led his troops against the Indians. They marched 1000 miles from Fort William to Fort Garry, utilizing the waterway of the lakes and rivers where possible. At Savanne we see two of his flat-bottomed boats, lying rotting in the stream near an Indian village.
We have dinner in the private car of Mr. Howland and Mr. Wilkie, the chairman and general manager of the Imperial Bank of Toronto. Seated at the end of the train, we watch the twin lines of railway uncoiling themselves in a straight line for mile after mile. An occasional section-house, a station, which is often only a wooden shed on a platform, a board with the number of the section on it, and, at long intervals, a huge red tank for watering the engine, is all we see. Night closes in on this lonely country, and we sleep in our berths, while the engine steams and pants along into the darkness, hour after hour through the long, long night.
In the cold early morning we reach Rat Portage, passing from the state of Ontario into Manitoba. Rat Portage is a wooden village of 1400 inhabitants (this is considered quite a goodly population for this sparsely-peopled country); and has the largest flour mill in Canada. It lies at the outlet of the beautiful Lake of the Woods, which is forty miles long and studded with islands.
A brake has broken and the train is divided, the first half taking on the dining-car. Hungry and impatient, the passengers wait for another to be attached, and stand on the carriage platform ready to rush on board. But, as it passes, a howl of disappointed hunger goes up, for some knowing ones have jumped off the cars, and filled it before it leaves the siding.
We are still travelling through the same rock-bound country, ungainly masses of rock protruding through a scrub growth of dwarf trees. We continually pass beautiful lakes, placid sheets of water hidden away in hollows. This is succeeded by a run through some "muskeg" or black peaty bog land, where flourish rank grasses against a background of bushy poplar trees.
Thirty or forty miles from Winnipeg the country opens out and gradually assumes a prairie character. The land is quite flat now, covered with coarse yellow grasses, and sprinkled with wild flowers. It is a rich feast of colours. There are great patches of gorgeous wild sunflowers, masses of purple and white michaelmas daisies, growing more plenteously here on the open prairie, than when cultivated in our cottage gardens at home; there are bluebells and lupins, blue, pink, and white, marsh mallows, cyclamen, and acres of that weed-like growth, the golden rod. Isolated houses, becoming more frequent, tell us we are nearing Winnipeg. We cross the Red river and are in the station.
Winnipeg is the old Fort Garry settlement of the Hudson Bay Company. Twenty years ago, or in 1871, population was 100, now, in 1891, it is 30,000.
The town is set down in the midst of the prairie. Main street follows the winding of the old Indian trail which takes in the deep bend of the Red river. The City Hall in this street, or "on" as the Canadians would say, is a very handsome new-looking structure. It front of it stands the column erected to the memory of the soldiers who fell in the North-West rebellion of 1870. It is surmounted by a volunteer on guard, wrapped in his fur coat, and with his fur cap on his head. The streets are paved with blocks of wood, but the foot pavements are still boarded; indeed Winnipeg is a strange mixture, with Eastern civilization meeting in this border city, the Western or rough-and-ready methods of the settler. It is only interesting on this account.
In the streets there are bullock carts bringing in cradles of hay from the prairie; sulkies, which are constructed of two wheels and a tiny board for a driver's seat; and buckboards, used for purposes of all kinds. Nor must I forget the little carts with their tandems of dogs. These are a mongrel breed, and are much used, especially in winter, when they are driven four, six, or a dozen in hand in sleighs. As we get further west, the breed of horses improves. There are country yokels with burnt faces, coarse straw hat, and flannel shirt, gazing open-mouthed at the store windows, for Winnipeg is to them what London is to our country lads. Here is a family party of Indians emerging from a shop with numerous parcels, to the evident joy of the squaw. But what strikes you so much is, that you may pass from this handsome street of fine stores, straight out on to the broad expanse of prairie.
On the block of Government land stands the fine group of stone buildings of the Parliament House, together with the Ministerial offices for the Province of Manitoba, the Governor's residence, and the wooden barracks enclosed in a square. We stayed at the Clarendon Hotel, whose days are I fear numbered, as the Northern Pacific Company are just completing a magnificent red sandstone hostelry. It is shown as one of the sights of Winnipeg.
Mrs. Adams, wife of an old Royal Welsh brother-officer of my husband's, kindly took me for a drive in the afternoon. On the outskirts of the town the Assiniboine river takes a deep bend, in which there is some woodland. Trees are scarce on the prairie, and what there are—poplar, oak and maple—are all stunted in their growth from exposure to the north-west blast, which sweeps in winter across the great waste, a piercing, biting wind blowing from over acres and acres of snow. In this green belt there are many handsome houses, built in an ambitious style of architecture, with towers and porticoes and balustrades. They were chiefly constructed during the great "boom" of nine years ago, a disastrous event that has left its mark. The town still suffers from the troubles which quickly followed. Families are yet living under the cloud of the financial bankruptcy which then overtook them.
In 1872, Winnipeg, with a sudden awakening, realized the immense future before her as the capital of the Far West. Land was quickly bought up. Large prices given and realized. Houses were built on a magnificent scale. Crowds flocked in from all parts of Canada to share in the coming prosperity, A complete collapse followed. The bubble had burst.
The meaning of a "boom" may be thus simply exemplified. A buys a piece of land from B, and pays half the price down as a first instalment. He sells to C at an increased price, who, in his turn, does ditto to D. At length B, the original seller, calls for payment. C and D are unable to meet the call, and are ruined in endeavouring to do so, and the land is thrown back on A, who is in the same position, and B has it thrown on his hands, and never having in the first place received full payment, is also ruined, for he has speculated with the money. All classes had taken part in this "wild land speculation," and all were involved in the collapse. Houses were closed (for they could not be sold, as there were no purchasers) or are only, as we now see them, partially lived in. Winnipeg is slowly recovering from this "boom," and with the youth and energy of a young city will renew her prosperity.
Passing the ruined gateway of the old Fort Garry, we appropriately come to the Hudson Bay Store. It is contained in a large block of buildings, and is a new departure in the trade once absorbed by that great and powerful fur-trading company. They first explored the country, owned it, and kept up friendly relations with the Indians. It was one of those great trading monopolies, owned by merchants, and which have done so much for the wealth and commerce of England. The Hudson Bay Company has accomplished in a minor degree for Canada, what the East India Company did for India. This shop may truly be called the Army and Navy stores of the West, for it contains everything from brocades and Paris mantles (which are bought by the squaws) furs, carpets, groceries, to Indian blankets, pipes and bead work. In this bead work the blending of colours is exquisite. At the last Louis Riel rebellion, the wholesale department outfitted and provisioned at twenty-four hours' notice, 600 soldiers for thirty days.
We then visited the tennis club. I am impressed with the immense utility of this popular game, which, if useful in England, performs a large social duty in all Canadian towns. It forms a mild daily excitement, and a meeting place for all, and is especially useful in a country where, with the impossibility of obtaining servants, entertaining is a difficult matter.
Canon O'Meara took us one morning to the outskirts of the city to see the cathedral. Lying out in the country and built of wood, it resembles a simple village church. The surrounding cemetery is full of handsome monuments, and here lie many victims of the boom. The most interesting monument is the granite sarcophagus, engraved with seven names, surrounded by laurel wreaths of the victims of the last rebellion. Their remains were brought back here to be buried, with an impressive public funeral.
We visited the Bishop of Rupert's Land in his adjoining house. He is Metropolitan of eight bishoprics, and has an enormous diocese reaching into the unexplored regions of the Mackenzie River. He has organized a college on the model of an English University, and which confers degrees.
Studying the working of the Church in Canada, one recognizes some arguments in favour of Disestablishment. In Canada there is no State endowment, and the clergy are supported by voluntary contributions. This money comes partly from pew rents, and is greatly assisted by the envelope system. By this method the parishioner covenants to give a certain sum a year for the maintenance of his church, by fixed weekly Sunday instalments. He is furnished with fifty-two envelopes, on which his name is printed, and these contributions are entered in a book. There appears to be no difficulty in raising funds by these means, particularly if the clergyman is popular. If he is unpopular, or his doctrines unacceptable or extreme, he suffers by the falling off of his income. This system, moreover, has the advantage of giving every man an interest in his church. A clergyman observed that several members of his congregation appeared at church for the first time on the establishment of this envelope system. "Oh, yes," they said, in response to his remark, "we have got some stock in this concern now."
It works particularly smoothly where the bishop, adapting himself to the needs of a new country, admits the principle that those who pay must choose. They require, however, a Clergy Discipline Act as much as we do.
Mr. Robinson took us in the afternoon for a drive across the prairie to Sir Donald Smith's model farm at Silver Heights, where there are three splendid specimens of the now extinct buffalo, some of the few left of those vast herds that used to roam the prairie. The farm takes its name from the adjoining wood of silver poplar trees.
C. visited the venerable French Archbishop Taché. He told him that he came out forty-six years ago, and that it took him then sixty-two days to travel from Montreal, what he can now perform in sixty-two hours. He showed the inkstand from which his uncle, the Premier of Quebec, Sir Etienne Taché, signed the Confederation Act of Canada.
Thursday, August 27th.—Before leaving Winnipeg Major Heward gave us an early inspection at the barracks of the Mounted Infantry. They are smart and well-mounted on brancho horses, reared in the west. We also inspected the chief of the three fire stations. They have a chemical steamer. In this the water is mixed with carbolic acid gas. Fire being supported by oxygen, the carbolic gas, when thrown on it, extinguishes the supply of oxygen, and with it the fire. The fire bell, in sounding, throws open the stable door and the horses trot out by themselves and place their necks under the suspended collar, which descends and is fastened by a patent bolt.
The west-bound trains all stop at Winnipeg for five hours to allow time for the colonists to visit the Railway and Dominion Land Offices, and to obtain information respecting selections of lands. The land in the North-West Provinces has now been surveyed and allotted thus for twenty-four miles each side of the line. In a township of thirty-six sections of 640 acres, or one square mile to each section, the Dominion retains roughly one half, whilst the C.P.R. retains the other. There are two sections reserved for school purposes, that the value of the land may make the schools free and self-supporting, two sections for the Hudson Bay Company, and the Canada North-West Land Company have bought others. The diagram on page 53 will show the division of sections.
The station was crowded with large parties of emigrants, as many settlers leave their families here, whilst choosing their sections further west. There are bundles of bedding, tin cooking utensils, with bird cages and babies in promiscuous heaps.
As we pass out of the station we see the enormous plant and rolling stock of the C.P.R., which has here its half-way depot between Montreal and Vancouver. They have twenty miles of sidings, which are now full of plant waiting to be pressed forward, to bring down the harvest to the coast.
TOWNSHIP DIAGRAM.
The above diagram shows the manner in which the country is surveyed. It represents a township—that is, a tract of land six miles square, containing 36 sections of one mile square each. These sections are subdivided into quarter sections of 160 acres each.
We are out on the prairie at once, on that great billowy sea of brown and yellow grass; monotonous it is, and yet pleasing in its quiet, rich, monotones of colour. The virgin soil is of rich black loam. The belt of unsettled land round Winnipeg is caused by the land being held by speculators, but after that we pass many pleasant farms, clustering more thickly around Portage le Prairie, a rising town. We pass a freight train entirely composed of refrigerator cars, containing that bright pink salmon from British Columbia, which is a luxury in the east and a drug in the west. The engine bears a trophy of a sheaf of corn, to show that the harvest in the west has already begun.
Out of the whole year we could not have chosen a more favourable moment for visiting the North-West, as the harvest is in full swing. We are at this moment passing through a sea of golden grain, acre after acre extending in an unbroken line to the horizon. Indeed we are told that these wheat fields form a continuous belt some forty miles deep on either side of the railway.
It would be difficult for anyone living even in the east of Canada, to realize the enormous interest shown in the crops and weather out here. For months and weeks beforehand it forms a general topic of conversation, but, as August closes in, it becomes the one and all absorbing concern. The newspapers are scanned for the daily weather reports. Warnings are telegraphed broadcast through the land. As Professor Goldwin Smith says, in his book "Canada and the Canadian Question," "Just before the harvest the weather is no commonplace topic, and a deep anxiety broods over the land."
The interests at stake are enormous, involving as they do the question to many of prosperity or ruin. One cold night, or one touch of frost may destroy the labour of a year. This year the promise is exceptional, and the prospect was bright until a week ago. Then there were ominous whispers of frost. These early and late frosts are the scourge of the farmer, and the lateness of the harvest, owing to an exceptionally cold summer, increases the anxiety. Day by day, hour by hour, the temperature is discussed with earnestness, increasing with intensity as evening approaches. The other night there were people in Winnipeg going up and down Main Street all night and striking matches to look at the thermometer placed there. The interest to all was so vital that they could not rest. There are warnings published in bulletins to farmers, to light smudge fires to keep the frost from the wheat. These fires of stubble, lighted to the north or north-west of the fields, by raising the temperature two or three degrees, keep off the frost, and the dread of smutted wheat. We see these smudge fires smouldering as we pass along.
The virgin soil will yield as much as forty to fifty bushels of wheat an acre, and from fifty to sixty of oats. Manures are unknown and unwanted by these western farmers. The land has only to be "scratched with a plough," and the field will often yield a rich harvest of 500 acres of wheat. The hum of the harvest is heard in all the land, and we see for miles the golden grain waiting to be gathered, and the "reapers and binders" hard at work. This machine is an ingenious American invention, which cuts and binds at the same time. There is a string inside which is given a twist, a knife comes down and cuts the strings and throws out the sheaf. It is pretty to watch the rhythmical precision with which sheaf after sheaf, thus cut and tied, is thrown out on the track of the machine. The sheaves are then piled into generous stacks and left for a fortnight to dry. Labour is at a premium throughout Canada, and machinery, chiefly of American manufacture, is more largely used than in England. Sometimes two chums will farm 200 acres alone. Nearly all this grain we see is the far-famed Manitoba No. 1 hard. It is the finest wheat in the world.
We are now approaching Brandon, which is a great wheat centre. This town has the largest grain market in Manitoba, as is shown by five elevators. "It is the distributing centre for an extensive and well settled country." We should have stayed here, but were deterred by accounts of the hotel accommodation. Then came the pleasure of an orange sunset, gilding the grain into more golden glory. We passed the celebrated Bell Farm at night where the furrows are usually four miles long, and the work is done by military organization, "ploughing by brigades, and reaping by divisions."
At five o'clock we are left cold and shivering in the just broken dawn on the prairie side at Regina. We look wistfully after the disappearing train, with the warm berths inside the car. Deceived by the high-sounding designation of Capital of the North-West Provinces, we had broken our journey at Regina. There is a frontage to the line of some wooden houses and stores, which extends but a little way back, for the population of Regina is only as yet 2000. The prairie extends to the sky line on every side. It is a dreary prospect, and we are mutually depressed.
There being nothing else to do, I retire to bed for some hours—the Sheffield-born landlady giving us a true Sheffield welcome.
At one o'clock matters seem brighter, for Colonel Herchmer, commanding the Mounted Police of the North-West Territory, has kindly sent a team for us to drive two miles out across the prairie to the barracks. From the distance, the dark red buildings look quite a town, surmounted by the tower of the riding school. This force is organized on military lines, and consists of 1000 men, who maintain order over the Indian Reservations, and an area of 800 miles. Their uniform of scarlet patrol-jacket and black forage cap, with long riding-boots is extremely smart. You meet them in all parts of the North-West Provinces.
After lunching with Mrs. Herchmer, we inspected the officers' and men's mess rooms, the canteen, store room, kitchens and forge, the reading-room, bowling alley and theatre, and the guard room, where we were shown the cell in which Louis Riel was kept after his capture. The force is under strict military discipline. They have a football and cricket team, and a musical ride equal to that of the Life Guards.
The horses are all "bronchos," or prairie horses, bred chiefly from Indian ponies. They cost 100 dols. to 120 dols. each, and are short and wiry. They need to be strong, for the men must be five feet eight inches in height, and measure thirty-five inches round the chest, while the Californian saddles they use are very heavy. These saddles are after the model of the Spanish South American ones, with a high pommel in front and a triangular wooden stirrup. The horses are guaranteed to go forty miles a day. There are many gentlemen in the ranks of the force, some of whom have failed in ranching and other walks of life. The wild roving life on the out-stations may be pleasant, but there is no promotion from the ranks.
A drive of two miles further out on to the prairie brought us to one of the Dominion Schools, kept for the children of the Indian Reservations. Mr. Hayter Reed, the Government Inspector, who showed us over the school, told us that they do not force the parents to give up the children, but persuade them. It is uphill work at first, civilizing and teaching English to the little brown, bright-eyed children, with lank black hair, whom we saw in the schoolrooms. The bath and the wearing of boots is a severe trial to these gipsy children at first.
The Government acknowledges in the building of these schools its responsibility towards the natives. They made treaties with the Indians, giving them rations, and setting apart certain lands or Reservations for them, such as the Black Foot and the Sarcee. The Americans did the same with their Indians, but did not keep their treaties as we have done. However, like all other "indigenes," they are dying out with the advance of the white man's civilization. We drove home past Government House, and in the evening M. Royat, the Lieut.-Governor, presided over an enthusiastic meeting of the United Empire Trade League.
Since very early morning, and all through this interminably long hot day, we have been crossing the great desert prairie. Hour after hour has dragged wearily on, and still we look out from the car on to the symmetrical lines of the rolling plains.
For over 400 miles, from Regina to Medicine Hat, this vast steppe extends. There is no green thing on it—not a tree, or bush, or shrub—but it is covered with coarse grass, burnt to a sere yellow. The prairie is trackless as a desert; lonely as the ocean; vast and colourless as a summer sky. And yet the prairie pleases, its loneliness fascinates, its very monotony charms, the deep stillness soothes, the tints are so pale and quiet. There is the faded yellow of the grass, and the faint blue of the sky meeting on the horizon in that never-ending undulating line, unbroken and uninterrupted. The atmosphere is so clear that the blades of grass stand out alone, and a distant sage bush is intensely blue. Occasionally the haze makes the mirage of an ocean on the sky line. The only variety to this unvarying scene are the great saline lakes we frequently pass. A blue haze hangs over them, caused by the active evaporation, and now and again we see a shining patch of pure white crystal, which is the crust of salt left from an exhausted lake. At other times these dry basins are carpeted with a rich red and purple weed, that forms an oasis in the wilderness of burnt-out hues.
We see many buffalo trails, for though these animals have been extinct for some years, their prancings beat the trail so hard, that they are still in existence. As many as 160,000 were killed yearly, and with them disappeared the chief sustenance of the Indians. The prairie is strewn with their bleached skulls and carcasses. By the side of the stations there are stacks of their gigantic bones, artistically built up with the skulls facing outwards. Gophers start up and skurry away at the noise of the train. They correspond to the prairie dog of America, but are smaller and about the size of a rabbit.
We are impressed with the comparative fertility of the Canadian prairie, when contrasted with the similar belt of saline desert in America, for barren as this looks, parts of it are good for cattle ranching. We do, later in the day, occasionally pass a few settlers' dwellings, and presently the first of the Canadian Agricultural Company's farms. There are ten of these farms, consisting of 10,000 acres each, and situated at intervals of thirty miles between this and Calgary. We see on them frequent "fire breaks," or a ploughed acre left bare to prevent a fire from spreading in the crops. There are men, too, stationed along the line firing the grass, so that a spark dropped from the engine should not, by blazing this grass, spread to the ripening corn.
We inquire what is the use of the mounds by the tracks, and are told these are snow brakes. In this flat country the smallest rise is sufficient to make a drift, against which the snow piles to a great height.
We pass Moosejaw. The name is an abridgment of the Indian one, which literally means, "The-creek-where-the-white-man-mended-the-cart with-a-moose-jaw-bone." At Maple Creek there are large stock yards, where the cattle are brought down from far distant ranches, and even from over the American border at Montana, and put on the train to Montreal and exported to England.
The car had been up to 95°, but the intense heat was beginning to subside. With the refreshing coolness and the sun declining, we are also gladdened by the sight of a gradually rising slope on the dead level of the plain. It is the beginning of the Cypress range. Then we see a bush, some trees, some prairie flowers, and soon we are dropping down into the comparatively fruitful valley of the South Saskatchawan, and, crossing its broad river, we reach Medicine Hat.
It is delightful after the stifling atmosphere of the cars to get out and stroll in the station garden, which is full of old-fashioned English flowers, stocks, geraniums, verbenas, floxes, and mignonette. There are a picturesque party of Indians with their squaws and papooses on the platform. We have seen some at all the stations selling polished buffalo horns, mocassins and bead work; but try and "kodak" them as we often did—and the instant they saw the small black box, the men turned away and the women put their shawls over their heads.
On leaving Medicine Hat, we ascended the valley above the river and passed on to a more fertile prairie. There was just here a great meeting-place for the buffaloes, and the ground is full of their "wallows" or hollows made by the weight of their unwieldly bodies. Alas, that the law against their slaughter came four years after they had all been wantonly killed!
We reach Calgary at the atrocious hour of two a.m., and turn out of a warm berth into a cold bed at the hotel.
Sunday, August 30th.—We attended morning service at the pretty little wooden church, the Bishop of Saskatchawan officiating.