DANGERS OF THE ROCKIES.—PRAIRIE FIRES.—THE RETURN.—PORT ARTHUR.—MIGRANTS.
There is a great deal of snow in the Rockies. In June that snow begins
to melt. The result is, a violent body of water rushes down, which makes
the railway people very uncomfortable.
On Sunday I met the engine-driver of the train by which I was to travel
east next morning. At Holt City it seems no one knows from what
particular spot the train will start.
‘You won’t start without me?’ I said.
‘No; I will look to see whether you are on board.’
‘But,’ said I, ‘you must leave at five, whether I am on board or not.’
‘Oh! as to that,’ he said, ‘no one can make me start before I am ready.
But,’ said he, ‘perhaps we may not get away at all. I don’t like the
look of the bridge, and there is a deal of water about.’
I smiled incredulously. Had not I seen, only an hour before, with my own
eyes, a special train arrive from the west filled with labourers and
freight? If that could cross in safety, surely our lighter train could
do the same.
Thus reasoning, I lay down with a light heart in my caboose, having
invoked, not the saints, but every decent Christian I could find, to take
care that I might be aroused at four p.m., in order that I might have a
good wash before I started on my little run of 1,500 miles, as far as
Port Arthur.
Just as I was falling into the arms of Morpheus, to speak poetically—a
habit to which I was much given in my earlier days—a fellow-traveller
came rushing into the caboose, saying timidly:
‘You’d better get on board at once. The bridge has given way, and they
may go across at once,’ and so saying, he left me in the dark.
However, I managed to jump out of my bed, collect my luggage, and
scramble down the plank, the only and somewhat perilous means of access
to my caboose, and stumble along the confusing lines of railway by which
Holt City is adorned, and climb up into a car, wondering much all the
while why we should start at all, when the bridge had partly given way,
or whether I had come all that distance merely to find a watery grave.
In the car I found a company as grotesque and rough as any I had yet seen
anywhere, discussing the situation with more or less earnestness.
The bridge, I heard, was being repaired; that was a comfort. But still
no one knew when we should start. Now and then we moved a few feet
forward, or a few feet backward; but, in reality, I believe we remained
in the same position all night, and started at the usual hour next
morning. But the horror of that night was something inexpressible.
Sleep was quite out of the question. You can’t sleep in an American
railway-car unless you are a navvy or a contractor—who can sleep
anywhere. In England, even in a third-class carriage, the chances are
you can lie down at your full length and sleep. In Canada you can’t do
that, as the seats are too short. So there I sat, bolt upright, all
through that tedious night, watching for the light of day, while my
companions sat smoking and talking and expectorating. In a playful
moment one of them suggested that they should all take off their boots.
Fortunately the proposition did not meet with universal approval, and I
was saved that horror.
In the Rockies life is not all beer and ’baccy. One day there was an
alarm of fire. It seems the woods are on fire all day long, and week
after week. In this way much valuable timber is destroyed, and no one
knows who does the mischief, or how it will terminate. Daily we saw the
smoke of a forest fire; one day the flames came so close to Holt City
that everyone was alarmed. If a spark or two reached the place where the
explosives were stored, Holt City and all its inhabitants might have been
blown to atoms. Down in the prairies fire does a vast amount of mischief
to the settler, who awakes in the night to find his tent or house reduced
to ashes, and all his worldly goods destroyed. Such cases are of
frequent occurrence, especially at this season of the year, when the
settler sets fire to the prairie before ploughing, or to insure a better
crop of grass. One dark night, in particular, I remember the prairie
fire lent quite a mournful grandeur to the scene. Then there came a day
I shall never forget as long as I live. A Canadian summer may have its
peculiar charms, but I candidly own, not being a salamander, it is far
too hot for me. On that particular day the heat was intense. It
affected everyone. Those who dared drank gallons of iced water, others
pulled off their coats and collars and lay down on the cushions with
which the sleeping-car is plentifully provided, and went off to sleep.
It was in vain one tried to pass away the time in smoking—it was too hot
for that. Newspapers and cheap novels were all neglected—conversation
was out of the question. Everyone seemed on the point of giving up the
ghost. Even the blackie, who invariably acts as conductor to the
sleeping-car—and who is about the only civil official (with the exception
of the steamboat attendants, who are models of good behaviour) one meets
in Canadian travel, seemed, thinly clad as he was, quite overcome. The
sun took all the colour out of his cheeks, and he became quite
pale—almost white.
In the course of our return journey we stopped at Moose Jaw for supper,
and then I witnessed a new development of prairie life in the shape of a
thunder-storm, which seemed to me unusually vivid and protracted. The
lightning was grand as it swept over the wide sea of grass, making
everything as bright as noon-day, and then all was dark again. It
brought us a rain that had really healing in its wings. While the heat
lasted I was a martyr to prickly heat. It seemed to me that I was going
to have small-pox or measles. I had little pimples all over me, and as
to my wrists, they were really painful, and I could not keep from
scratching with a vivacity which a Scotchman might have envied. Was it
that vulgar disease to which, it is said, the gallant Scot is peculiarly
liable? I could not say. I had shaken hands with so many filthy
Indians, and it might be that, as I learn they are much afflicted in that
way. Happily the thunder-storm cooled the air, and I felt all the better
for it. When I got as far as Port Arthur, and inhaled the cool air of
Lake Superior, I suffered no more from unpleasant irritation of the skin.
It was with joy I embarked on the C.P.R.’s fine steamer, the _Alberta_,
for Owen Sound. But even travelling on Lake Superior has its
disadvantages. The water of the Lake is intensely cold, and when the sun
beats fiercely on it there is sure to be a fog. Such happened to be the
case on my return, and we ploughed slowly along for a while, seeing
hardly anything of the beauty of the scene, while every few minutes we
were cheered by the dismal notes of the fog-horn. Fortunately the fog
lifted, and then what a display we had of islands, green as emerald, on
the tranquil sea! I must add, also, I had good company everywhere, with
the exception of the great Sir John M’Neill, who had his meals apart from
us at a table all to himself, and an English clergyman from
Staffordshire, whom a Canadian gentleman described to me as ‘a regular
crank,’ whatever that may mean. The parson is going to write a book, so
he tells the people; but he shuns me, which is a pity, as I met a friend
at Calgary who told me they had great fun with the parson on their way up
from Winnipeg, telling him all sorts of cock-and-bull stories, which he
greedily entered in his note-book.
I must give you one more sketch of a Canadian town as an illustration of
the enterprise and pluck which are the main characteristics of the
Canadian of to-day. If you look at the map, you will see Port Arthur is
situated in Thunder Bay, and Thunder Bay, when you pass the rocky barrier
by which it is encircled, opens out into Lake Superior.
Thunder Bay is a sheet of water some 13 by 19 miles in area, sheltered
from the wild storms which sweep over the northern lakes by the Pie and
Welcome Islands and the Thunder Cape on one side, and by the terraced
bluffs of ever-green forest on the other; forming thus an unsurpassed
harbour for extent and accommodation, and having claim to be what its
admirers say it is, the prettiest of all the American Lakes.
It is not an agricultural district that surrounds Port Arthur, though it
is a fact that there are vast stretches of rich lands within its borders,
including the Kamanistique and other valleys, on which at least 3,000
families could settle and get a good living by agriculture.
The timber resources of the surrounding country, which must find its
centre and point of collection in the quiet waters of the bay, comprise
thousands of square miles of spruce and other trees; while iron, copper,
zinc, and silver are to be found in the neighbouring rocks. Gold also is
said to be hidden in the bowels of the earth; though not yet discovered
in paying quantities. However this may be, one thing is clear, that from
Thunder Bay the whole agricultural exports of the countless fertile acres
of the Canadian North-West must find an outlet. Truly did the Marquis of
Lorne, when here, describe it as ‘The Silver Gate.’
Port Arthur—as it was termed when Sir Garnet Wolseley arrived here on his
way to suppress the Riel revolt in the North-West, out of compliment to
the Duke of Connaught—is in reality one of the few places in Canada that
have a history. As early as the beginning of the sixteenth century, some
of the French settlers had formed an idea that the great Lake Superior
was a highway to the vast fur-producing countries of the North-West,
although not till 1641 did any white man venture upon its waters. In
1678 a Frenchman built himself a house in the vicinity of Port Arthur,
and commenced trading with the surrounding Indians for their furs.
In 1857 the attention of the Canadian Government was called to the spot,
and they sent out commissioners to explore, who, in 1859, published a
report which created quite a sensation all over Canada. In due time the
C.P.R., which is the great mainspring of all the North-West, took up Port
Arthur, had all their stores and men carted there, and now Port Arthur
has a grand future before it, of which it is impossible to predict the
whole extent. I have great faith in Port Arthur. It must in time be
another Montreal or Toronto. Moose Jaw is going down. It will be long
before Calgary will be much of a place. The Silver City is half
deserted; and at Winnipeg the boom has burst and bankruptcy prevails; but
Port Arthur is bound to go ahead.
I spent there a night on my return, and saw a marvellous change—even
since my visit there a fortnight previously. Then people were hard at
work putting up wooden shops; now those shops are fitted up with glass
fronts, and already filled with merchandise from all quarters of the
earth, though in many cases the upper parts of the building are in an
incomplete state. Every day ships arrive from the American side; thus,
within a couple of days previous to my arrival, 20,000 tons of coal had
been landed. There are steamers of all sorts and sizes in the harbour,
constantly coming in or going out. On one side a new elevator has been
erected, on the other side is a great store of lumber and a saw-mill.
Yesterday Port Arthur was a township, now it is incorporated as a city,
and rejoices in a mayor. The place is full of hotels, which charge high
prices, give very little for the money, and do a roaring trade. A very
handsome English church is being erected; just by, the Presbyterians are
building one equally handsome, only a little smaller. The Roman
Catholics make quite a grand show with their brick church and convent and
schools, while the Methodists have a very plain and ugly imitation of an
English church, with its steeple all in wood and painted white, which
attests, at any rate, if not their taste, their influence and wealth. I
visited the school-room, which was filled with bright and well-fed boys
and girls, where the children are taught free, as they are all over
Canada—where they have, by-the-bye, a compulsory law, which is never
enforced, as it is impossible to do so. And then I made my way to the
best-looking building in the town—the emigrants’ shed—where already 3,600
emigrants have this season been lodged gratis by the Dominion Government
previous to their passing onwards to the North-West.
People tell me there is no room for mechanics in Canada. In Port Arthur
I see them in constant demand. At one shop window I see a notice to the
effect that 10 carpenters are required, at another a demand for painters,
while a third shop window seeks to secure good tinsmiths. At the chief
draper’s shop there is a notice stating four good assistants are
required. What a pity the discontented men whom I left at Montreal,
because work was not offered them immediately they landed, did not come
thus far! As to rockmen and labourers, they are wanted by the hundred.
Surely, Port Arthur must be a good place for the working man and the
working girl. Even at Calgary they were paying the female helps at the
hotel—as sour a set as I ever saw—and who were constantly quarrelling
with John Smith, the Chinaman cook—as much as 40 dollars a month. But
even out here a man must have brains.
‘I came out here seven years ago,’ said a gentleman to me as we sat on
one of the rocks which line Port Arthur, ‘and could find nothing to do.
I was brought up in a foundry, and had saved 1,100 dollars. I went all
round; no one could give me a job. Then I began buying a few hides; this
brought me into contact with a great fur merchant at Chicago—he employed
me as his agent at 80 dollars a month. Then I gave that up and turned
miller, and the year before last I traded to the extent of a quarter of a
million dollars. Last year I was too eager, and lost a lot of money; but
this year I hope to get it all back again.’
Why cannot an English emigrant be equally successful? Is it because we
do not send out the right sort of men?
‘There is not one man in a hundred that comes out here from London who is
of any use,’ said an old Toronto trader—himself an Englishman—to me. ‘I
never call myself an Englishman,’ said he. ‘When I go to London I always
say I am a Canadian. I am ashamed of the name of Englishman. What would
Sir Garnet Wolseley have done when he was here had it not have been for
the Canadian Volunteers?’
I am glad to hear, however, that he had nothing but praise for the Scotch
settlers Lady Cathcart was sending out. She advances them money, and
they pay her back a good rate of interest. Why cannot other people do
the same? Another question, also, may be asked: Why cannot certain
Canadian land companies, who really offer purchasers a fair bargain, put
up a few houses on their separate farms? The settler has to build his
house under every disadvantage. I am sure they could build the houses by
contract at half the expense; and they could have a mortgage on the farm,
which would ensure them in every case against loss, and which might add
materially to their profits as well.
If the crops this year turn out well in the North-West, and, according to
present prospects, there is every reason to suppose they will, the
farmers will pour into the country in a way which they have never done
before, and the prosperity of the North-West will be placed on a solid
basis. Be that as it may, there are bright days in store for Port
Arthur.
On the green forest, rising up above the town and overlooking Thunder
Bay, it is intended to build a first-class summer hotel for the comfort
of holiday makers and health seekers. There the visitor will enjoy fine
cool air in the sultry heat of summer, while bathing in the lake will
invigorate his enfeebled frame. The waters abound with fish. Islands
and lakes and rivers tempt the yachtsman. If the workmen who squander
their hard-earned wages in reckless drunkenness would but learn to be
sober, few places on the Canadian lakes would be more enjoyable than Port
Arthur.
[Picture: Thunder Bay, Lake Superior]
I cannot leave Canada without speaking of its Grand Trunk Railway, which
meets the emigrant at Port Levi when he lands at Quebec, and which he
will undoubtedly often patronise if he tarries long in the land. It has
built the Victoria Bridge at Montreal, one of the wonders of Canada—a
tubular structure of magnificent proportions, which spans the St.
Lawrence, and gives uninterrupted communication to the western traffic
with that of the United States. Including the abutments, the bridge is
9,084 feet in length. The tubes rest on twenty-four piers, the main
tubes being sixty feet above the level of the river. It may well be
called the Grand Trunk Railway, as it operates under one management over
six thousand miles of first-class railway road. Having close connection
at Port Huron, Detroit and Chicago with the principal Western American
lines, it offers great advantages to emigrants to all parts of the
compass. At Montreal I had the pleasure of a long chat with Mr. Joseph
Hickson, the general manager, who takes a deep interest in the subject of
emigration, and Mr. W. Wainwright, the assistant-manager, to whom I am
indebted and grateful for many acts of kindness, especially welcome to
the stranger in a strange land. It is the Grand Trunk that takes the
traveller over Niagara Falls—on the International Suspension Bridge
connecting the Canadian Railways with those of the States. This
structure, which is 250 feet above the water, commands a fine view up to
the Falls. It is to be feared that as long as Canada and the United
States have separate tariffs there will be not a little smuggling along
this bridge. When I was there I heard of a Canadian judge, who with his
family had been stopping at one or other of the hotels on the Canadian
side. One fine morning some of the ladies of the party walked off to the
American side, and returned laden with bargains which had paid no duty.
In their innocence they boasted of the little transaction to the judge.
‘How can I,’ said he indignantly, ‘punish people for smuggling, if I find
my own family do it?’ and the ladies had to pay the duty, so the story
goes, after all.