Produced by David T. Jones, Al Haines, Alex White & the
online Distributed Proofreaders Canada team at
http://www.pgdpcanada.net
[Illustration]
[Illustration: PARLIAMENT BUILDINGS, OTTAWA]
CANADA
TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW
BY
ARTHUR E. COPPING
WITH SIX FULL-PAGE COLOUR PLATES BY
HAROLD COPPING
AND THIRTY-FOUR ILLUSTRATIONS IN
BLACK-AND-WHITE
CASSELL AND COMPANY, LTD.
London, New York, Toronto and Melbourne
1911
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
TO THE
HON. FRANK OLIVER
Minister of the Interior, Canada
CONTENTS
1. The Dominion’s Destiny
2. Retrospect
3. Quebec Province
4. Niagara and White Coal
5. The Lumber King
6. Toronto and its Exhibition
7. Manitoba: Clues to Prairie Farming
8. Among the Dukhobors
9. The History of the C.P.R.
10. The New Hudson Bay Route
11. Experiences of Immigrants
12. Winnipeg and the Centenary
13. Key to Canada’s Mineral Wealth: A Warning to British
Capitalists
14. New Saskatchewan
15. Indians and the Missionary
16. Northern Alberta
17. New Trans-Continental Lines
18. The Story of the Salmon Fisheries
19. British Columbia—and Some Reflections
Index
COLOUR PLATES
Parliament Buildings, Ottawa
Quebec from the St. Lawrence: Winter Time
The Permanent Exhibition at Toronto: One of the Buildings
Sunflowers Growing on the Prairie at Verigin: Food for the Dukhobors
A Corner of Montreal Harbour
Big Trees in Vancouver, B.C.
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Dufferin Terrace and Lower Town, Quebec
The only Slum in Canada: Little Champlain Street, Quebec
Old Fort Garry, Winnipeg
New Union Station, Winnipeg
Asbestos Quarry at Thetford, Quebec Province
Farmland Scenery, Ascot, Quebec Province
Gathering Maple Syrup in Eastern Canada
Tobacco Growing, Quebec Province
Typical French-Canadian Family
Niagara: Above the Canadian Falls
Niagara: The Canadian Falls
Pumpkins Grown in Quebec Province
Market Day in Montreal: Scene in the Jacques Cartier Square
The First Step in Farming: “Breaking the Prairie”
The Oat Harvest: 80 Bushels to the Acre
Wheat Growing in the Eastern Townships: Lending a Hand at Stooking
Typical New Town in Saskatchewan, Viewed from the Prairie
Street Scene in a New Town
Encampment of Chief Moskowekum of the Cree Tribe
Threshing by Machinery in the Prairie Provinces
Winnipeg of To-day
Zones of Mineral Wealth
Sun Dance of Blackfeet Indians
Edmonton: Distant View from Strathcona
Edmonton: East End of Jasper Avenue
Bow River, Alberta Province
Building the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway: The Track-Laying Machine at Work
Shawatlans Lake and Falls, Prince Rupert
Water Front, Prince Rupert Terminus, G. T. P. Railway
Government Buildings, Victoria, B.C.
Tourists in Vancouver City, B.C.
A Salmon Cannery on Fraser River
Chinese Quarter, Vancouver, B.C.
Fruit-Picking in British Columbia
Scale Map of Canada
CANADA
TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW
CHAPTER I
THE DOMINION’S DESTINY
For those who mark the current of events, Canada’s great destiny is
written plain. Canada in a few decades must possess more people and more
realised wealth than Great Britain. Whether the centre of Imperial
control will then cross the Atlantic is a point on which prophecies
differ. Memories enshrined in Westminster Abbey will tend to conserve
the ancient seat of government. Yet there is weight in the surmise that
the logic of numbers will ultimately prevail.
Canada’s future is foretold in the past growth and present might of the
United States. The same traditions, the same climate (over areas of
chief significance), the same resources, and—most important of all—the
same method of expansion, will produce, and are producing, the same
result.
The history of the United States is contained in one word—immigration.
That country has absorbed myriad migrants from northern regions of the
eastern hemisphere; and it has absorbed most of them in recent times.
Screw steamships are responsible. The population of the United States
was about 17,000,000 when the first regular Atlantic service was founded
by Samuel Cunard—the father of modern America. Only seventeen
millions—less than the present population of Brazil! Such was the
American nation when Charles Dickens visited it. The growth of
population has gained in momentum with the increase and improvement of
liners. We now have 92,000,000 cousins. Twenty millions—or nearly a
quarter of the huge nation—date no farther back than Queen Victoria’s
Diamond Jubilee. The numerical strength of the Republic has more than
doubled since the Tichborne trial.
Immigration, of course, rests upon advertising—a process which is far
from being as modern as it sounds, the word occurring in the Bible
(Numbers xxiv. 14 and Ruth iv. 4). The United States, ever since their
foundation, have been sedulously advertised throughout Europe, partly by
books and news-sheets, mainly by private correspondence. The prosperous
settler writes to relatives and friends in the Old Country, urging them
to come out; and such letters are the most potent stimulus that
immigration can receive. They constitute advertising in its most
convincing form. They represent an ever-expanding force working silently
and unseen. I talked of this matter with Mr. J. Obed Smith—an
authority—and he had the right word for what takes place. Those who go
in advance “beckon” to those who follow. The United States are still
receiving about a million immigrants every year—the result of
beckoning.
But a change has come over the transatlantic exodus. Previously there
was only one destination—now there are two. Down to a few years ago the
average person, when he spoke or thought of emigrating, had only the
United States in his mind. It was called “going to America.” Nowadays
the word emigration, when you see it in print, is apt to suggest Canada.
Of course there is no abatement in the great automatic movement that is
of cumulative force. The millions who were beckoned to the United States
are themselves beckoning other millions. But the thousands who have gone
to Canada are also beckoning—and with more reason.
Simultaneously the attractions of the Dominion are being proclaimed
through the machinery of publicity. Modern means of stimulating public
interest, no less than modern means of quick, safe and cheap
transportation, give the present day a great advantage, so far as
populating a distant country is concerned, over an era when newspapers
cost fourpence and passenger ships were innocent of steam. When the
United States were at an early stage of development, and urgently
needing people, there was no halfpenny press through which to
communicate with the democracy of Europe, for the democracy of Europe
had not learnt to read.
Canada was discovered by Canada about fifteen years ago, by the United
States a little later, by England—well, England is discovering Canada
now. For we are a slow, if sure, people. One day England will discover
the British Empire. Meanwhile we are ruled by a generation which was
taught at school that Canada is one of our Colonies.
In thinking of Canada the earnest and logical man in the street has been
led inevitably into a gigantic misconception. As a matter of fact,
without a sense of humour it is difficult to make head or tail of the
history of North America. Every schoolboy has been taught that Canada
existed before the United States were created. Yet the United States
have grown to be a mighty and wealthy nation of 92,000,000 people; while
Canada, with a slightly larger area, still has a population of only
8,000,000. Naturally enough, the man in the street concluded there was
something wrong somewhere with Canada.
One can, of course, only elucidate the position by stating facts which
seem, on the face of them, quaint, not to say funny. As the upshot of a
fierce war that took place a century and a quarter ago, part of North
America became an independent country, while another part remained in
allegiance to the English sovereign; and the curious circumstance has to
be noted that, ever since then, Great Britain has been sending out
millions of men, not to the country she retained, but to the country she
lost. To be strictly accurate, those people were not sent—they went.
They succumbed to the spell of the newly arisen United States. As though
to heap coals of fire on the heads of those who had revolted from our
rule and beaten us in battle, we set to work to make them mighty among
the nations of the earth; British contributions to that end heavily
outweighing those of other peoples. Meanwhile—there being apparently no
end to our self-abnegation—we were content to leave our own part of
North America practically unrecruited by emigrants from the British
Isles. Nay—the daughter becoming, as would seem, infected by the
mother’s magnanimity—our own part of North America made generous
contributions to the neighbouring population, it being the strange fact
that during the past fifty years 3,250,000 people have gone from Canada
to the United States—indigence sparing of its poverty to increase the
riches of affluence.
Of those developments, which wear so quixotic an aspect in the
retrospect, the explanation lies, of course, in the truism that unity is
strength. For nearly a century North America consisted of two
sections—the United States and the Ununited Provinces. Union,
consolidation, federation—those are the masterful words in the story of
nations. What sort of position in the world would Essex have attained
had Essex acted independently of Cumberland and the other English
counties? Where would Perthshire have been without the political link
with Cork? Similarly, how would Massachusetts have ever become a big
power single-handed, and who would care a rap for the Stars and Stripes
if they waved only over Pennsylvania? The separate States might have
asked for people and respect, but their individual voices would not have
carried across the Atlantic. It was only because they spoke in unison
that they were audible all over the world.
And here we come to close quarters with the misconception still
lingering in the popular mind. The man in the street has confused two
Canadas—historic Canada, which dated back to the sixteenth century and
comprised only portions of the existing Eastern provinces, and modern
Canada, which extends from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and is less than
forty years old. It is as though the name England had originally applied
merely to portions of Kent and Sussex. The federation of the distinct
countries of British North America began in 1867, and was not completed
until 1873. Thus the reason why Canada did not, until recent years,
begin to grow is because Canada, until recent years, did not exist.
Previously, owing to circumstances that will be traced in a later
chapter, little was known of the bulk of the country. The setting up of
the Federal Government opened the way to knowledge. That knowledge is
still incomplete, being representative rather than general. But
already—as this book will, I hope, help to prove—there is
justification for the belief that the attractions and resources of
Canada are not inferior to those of the United States . . . .
And now, being through with our prologue of broad facts, let us pass to
personal experiences of the voyage to Canada. That week’s imprisonment
in a travelling hotel is, surely, the ideal holiday. Thrice have I
crossed in the saloon and once in the steerage—and a button for the
difference! In the great liners of to-day there are comfortable quarters
and wholesome meals for everybody, whether he pays £18, £10s. 5s., or £5
15s. As a rule I find third-class emigrants more interesting to talk to
than first-class poker-players. On the other hand, grand pianos are
preferable to concertinas, and it is wondrous pleasant, when at sea, to
stroll on Turkish carpets amid alcoves of growing ferns, palms and
flowers; while I personally am alive to the advantages of a spacious
smoking-room panelled in carved oak, a well-stocked library, and a
writing lounge furnished with necessaries and taste (to glance at a few
features of such floating temples of luxury as the _Royal George_). But
air, sea and sky—the common property of all classes—are of chief
account.
Let me dip among the memories of my first crossing, which happened
nearly nine years ago.
For two days our ship was followed by a dozen gulls—strong birds, with
yellow bodies, and having black tips to their long wings. By day they
hovered in our wake, eager for whatsoever the cook might discard through
a porthole; by night—I was invited to believe—they snatched a little
slumber in the rigging. But those sturdy aviators did not accompany us
all the way to Canada.
You cannot see, you can only infer, that the Atlantic Ocean is large. At
no time in any direction does the eye behold more sea than is visible
from Hastings pier. During the long, luxurious day and all through the
night the vessel goes on, on, and still on. The throbbing propeller
makes with splashing water the music that lulls you to sleep at night,
that greets your waking in the morning. For ever the sea is rushing by
in frothy confusion. We career through a path mottled with foam. Between
the whirling splashes and streaks of white the eye pierces a
slatey-green, with the myriad tiny bubbles ascending as a grey cloud.
You look in grateful silence upon the Atlantic skies—purples and
lemon-yellow in the east, gold and flaming crimson in the west. Later
joys are the moonshine and the phosphorous glowing on the busy, musical,
unseen waves.
One afternoon a little bird came to us, perching awhile on the bridge
stairs. I did not see him, but they told me of his grey feathers
fluttering deranged in the breeze, and the balance of testimony
proclaimed him a sparrow. Wondrous welcome little visitor from the land.
For to live nearly a week on the boundless sea is to find yourself with
tender recollections of meadow and dell, of oak trees and the bumble
bee.
Not always did white crests figure in the wide circumference. Once the
surface sobered to a polished blue, and as we loitered in the burning
sunshine the decks felt hot underfoot. Waggish Nature chose that
tropical interlude for an Arctic exhibition. We saw icebergs and whales.
In this enlightened age it may seem superfluous to describe either. I
shall give my impressions of both, and for this reason: each was wholly
otherwise than I had expected to find it. The whale at sea is very
unlike a whale. In our first experience—a creature some two miles
away—again and again we saw the jet of water rise as a column of white
fluffiness out of a little area of surface commotion. It was easy to
infer some animal was causing the upheaval, but for long he abstained
from presenting any part of his anatomy to our view. At last he so far
satisfied our curiosity as to show us a few yards of the top of his
back. The oblong, rounded piece of conspicuous blackness performed a
sort of greasy curve, a large and handsome fin travelled round the upper
edge, and then Mr. Whale, again wholly immersed, playfully re-engaged in
squirting part of the Atlantic Ocean up in the air.
Icebergs in the sunshine are superlatively beautiful. I had expected an
iceberg to look like ice. It suggests, rather, a mountain of loaf sugar
or alabaster. It is white with the tender, dazzling whiteness of a
swan’s breast. Its surface is of milky, silky snow. Moulded in soft
contour, it is rich in fanciful, protruding shapes.
A distant berg, floating towards Newfoundland, was revealed in our
glasses as two prodigious Egyptian pyramids. Another was half a mile
away, aground off Belle Isle. It exhibited, as a conspicuous feature on
the windward side, a great seal snorting the air. When we came to
leeward the entire mass was seen to be a headless lion, the hind legs
adjusted to a squatting attitude, the spinal vertebræ visible up the
mountain slope of the creature’s back.
[Illustration: DUFFERIN TERRACE AND LOWER TOWN, QUEBEC]