If the tonnage of vessels owned in Canada shows a decrease from the

figures of forty years ago, it is hardly necessary to say that this is

by no means the case with the tonnage of vessels required for the

transportation of freight and Canadian passengers. In fact, little over

one-tenth of Canada’s exports is carried in Canadian vessels. The

shipping employed is divided (so far as statistics are concerned) into

three branches, according to whether it is employed in the overseas

carrying trade between Canada and other countries; the inland lakes and

rivers transport service; and the coasting trade, which, oddly enough,

includes the activities of vessels voyaging from a Canadian port on the

Atlantic, round Cape Horn to another Canadian port on the Pacific. The

opening of the Panama Canal will enable these “coasters” to shorten

their journey from Montreal to Vancouver (for example) by 7,221 miles.

Perhaps no nation is more favoured than Canada in the possession of

inland waterways—though to take advantage of them to the present extent

(and great expansion is possible) has required the construction of

numerous canals and locks, to overcome differences of level; and, in

some instances, to connect natural systems of navigable water. There is

one great inland waterway in Canada, from the mouth of the St. Lawrence

to the head of Lake Superior, by which large steamers can make a voyage

equal to that from the mouth of the St. Lawrence to Liverpool. In this

distance of two thousand two hundred miles there are only seventy-three

miles of canals, with forty-eight locks overcoming five hundred and

fifty-one feet of height.

Already, it is stated, the tonnage passing through the Sault Ste. Marie

canals to avoid the rapids between Lake Superior and Huron is in amount

three times that which passes through the Suez canal. By this route

immense quantities of grain are brought to the ocean ports; and it is

anticipated that within a short time when the deeper Welland canal is

completed, ocean-going steamers will be able to carry their cargoes,

without transhipment, all the way from the Lake Superior ports to those

of Great Britain.

What this will mean to the Canadian West is evident, when one considers

the cheapness of water-carriage compared with railway transport. The

advantage of the former is indeed so great that, when time is not a

primary consideration, freight from Liverpool for Vancouver or Victoria

is carried all the way round by Cape Horn in preference to sending it by

the more direct route to St. John or Montreal, and thence by rail across

the continent to its destination. The first attempt to improve

artificially the inland navigation was made in 1779, when canals were

begun to overcome the rapids immediately above the Lachine rapids. But

there are miles upon miles of navigable lakes and rivers in the Dominion

which have needed no improvement.

Nevertheless, though the importance of the inland waterways can hardly

be over-estimated, it is perhaps not too much to say that the Dominion

of Canada has been made by her railways, for it was these which made

possible a real union between the widely separated provinces of her

earlier years; and the American description of “the Canadian Pacific

Railway” as the “Dominion on wheels” expressed a most interesting fact.

The building of railways began in 1836—with a sixteen-mile line (on

which horses instead of locomotives were first used) between Laprairie,

near Montreal, and St. John’s on the Richelieu. Three years later

another short line of six miles was made in Nova Scotia, upon which a

steam-engine was used to draw coal from the Albion mines to New Glasgow.

It was not till the fifties that railway building in Canada was begun in

earnest; but before that decade had half gone by, there were five

hundred and sixty-three miles of railway, and by 1867 this length was

multiplied by four. Since Confederation Canada’s miles of railway have

been multiplied almost by twelve, exclusive of sidings. Piling up

figures, however, is a tiresome way to tell what is really a very

interesting chapter in the history of Canada.

The railways linking Canada together have, indeed, cost the people and

the Dominion and the provincial governments millions of money; and in

early days, many municipalities, for the sake of having railways,

seriously embarrassed themselves with debt. But the need seemed great.

Lord Durham advised the building of the “Intercolonial Railway”—the

line owned and operated by the Dominion government—to knit together the

Maritime Provinces with the Canadas; but the difficulties and delays

over this railway were endless, and it was not completed till 1876. For

many years it was operated at a loss, but it has developed the country

through which it passes and has greatly increased the trade between the

several eastern provinces.

Before the era of railways, dwellers in New Brunswick who wished to go

to Quebec used not infrequently to go on foot through the intervening

wilderness in the winter time. So the first Lieutenant-Governor of New

Brunswick once tramped through the snowy woods to visit his brother the

Governor-General, Lord Dorchester; and so in 1813, when the war with the

United States was raging, some companies of New Brunswick troops marched

on snowshoes to the aid of their hard-pressed brethren in Canada. Much

later, if a traveller wished to go from Nova Scotia to Toronto, it was

the easiest way to take ship to Boston, and go thence through the

“States” by rail to “Canada”—as the Nova Scotians continued to call the

provinces touching on the St. Lawrence for long after the name was

extended to the whole Dominion. This journey to “Canada” was quite an

adventure to an untravelled person who had been born and brought up

almost within sound of the sea. But the long-delayed construction of the

“Intercolonial” gradually changed that condition of affairs.

The Grand Trunk is the pioneer of the several great company-owned

railway systems, having absorbed many of the smaller railways begun in

the fifties. For years it was not a profitable undertaking to its

shareholders; but now its lines make a regular network in the older

portions of Canada; and the Grand Trunk Pacific is being rapidly pushed

to completion north of its older competitor in the West, the Canadian

Pacific Railway. It is expected that when this “National

Transcontinental Line” is finished it will shorten the trip round the

globe by a week.

It is helping, moreover, to give Canada breadth from south to north.

Already settlers are going into the so-called “Great Clay Belt” of good

agricultural land in Northern Ontario. Already a string of little towns

has sprung up along the Grand Trunk Pacific in the western provinces.

Already its new seaport—“Prince Rupert”—five hundred and fifty miles

north-west of Vancouver, and five hundred miles nearer to the east than

any other Pacific Coast port, is an accomplished fact, where a

population of four or five thousand is impatiently awaiting the uniting

of the two portions of the railway which are being built westward and

eastward, to meet in the mountains. Prince Rupert is close to some of

the best fishing grounds in the world; and when the Grand Trunk Pacific

line is completed it will put the fisheries of the North Pacific Coast

in touch with a host of new markets.

It is difficult for people who have lived always in small well-settled

countries to imagine what the opening of a great new railway means to

the Dominion.

Over seventy years ago the people who see visions and dream dreams were

prophesying a new trade route between east and west, by which the teas

and silks of China and Japan would be brought by steam power along

rivers, canals and railways across what is now the Dominion of Canada.

In 1846 Sir Richard Bonnycastle, lieutenant-colonel of the Royal

Engineers, predicted “We shall yet place an iron belt from the Atlantic

to the Pacific—a railway from Halifax to Nootka Sound—and thus reach

China in a pleasant voyage.” Three years later another officer of the

Royal Engineers, Major Carmichael Smith, published a pamphlet urging the

construction of an “Inter-oceanic railway from Halifax to the mouth of

the Fraser river,” with a map upon which he traced a line almost

identical with the routes ultimately adopted for the Intercolonial and

Canadian Pacific Railways. But it was not until 1870, when British

Columbia agreed to come into Confederation on condition that the

inter-oceanic railway should be built, that any definite step was taken

towards the construction of Canada’s first “transcontinental line.”

In the following year surveys for the line were begun under Mr.

(afterwards Sir) Sandford Fleming. But the end was not yet in sight. The

construction of the line was an immense task to be undertaken by a

country so young and so sparsely settled as Canada, and fourteen

strenuous years of political strife and struggle against all kinds of

difficulty were to pass before the last spike of the railway was driven

by Lord Strathcona (then Sir Donald Smith) at Craigellachie in the Eagle

pass.

To the company, which finally built the line, the government gave

$25,000,000 (£5,130,000) in cash, an even greater value in portions of

the road already constructed, and twenty-five million acres of land,

scattered through the prairie provinces, and the Canadian Pacific

Railway is now a very wealthy corporation, which carries on numerous

enterprises outside the actual business of railway transportation. For

instance, there is a fleet of seventy-three Canadian Pacific Railway

steamships, most of which are large vessels sailing the Atlantic, the

Pacific, and the Great Lakes. These ships carry annually over half a

million passengers and give employment to over twelve thousand men. The

company also owns a number of luxurious hotels, including the

happily-named “Château Frontenac,” which the new arrival from Europe,

coming up the St. Lawrence, can scarcely fail to notice, crowning the

rock of Quebec, near to the spot where old Count Frontenac, from his

little “Château St. Louis,” lorded it over the rough bushrangers and

determined churchmen of New France.

The company still owns some ten or eleven million acres of land in the

four western provinces; and during recent years has inaugurated a policy

of irrigating some naturally rather arid lands in Alberta and preparing

there what are known as “ready-made farms,” for suitable immigrants.

This experiment has inspired the governments of some of the provinces to

make similar preparation for immigrant farmers. The preparation of the

farms for their future owners is, of course, a business enterprize; none

the less it has smoothed the way for many newcomers.

Looking at the map of the country served by the Canadian Pacific, we see

no longer a line but a network of lines (even in the West) where fifty

years ago it was generally supposed that nothing would grow. It is

Canada’s vast wheat fields, which have made possible her huge railway

systems, and while new lands are year by year being brought under

cultivation, the railways will continue to add to their mileage. On the

other hand, every year the new lines of railway open fresh lands to

settlers.

Another Canadian railway that has a remarkable record is the Canadian

Northern, which claims to have grown at the rate of a mile a day for the

last sixteen years. This railway also has obtained most liberal

government assistance and is a transcontinental system in the making. In

fact, contracts are let for the completion of the whole distance between

the city of Quebec and Port Mann in British Columbia; but it has gone on

the plan of building short lines in different districts, to be

afterwards combined and connected to form the whole system. Already it

has run many branch lines from Winnipeg—westward and northward and

southward—into the great grain-growing districts, and in 1912 it hauled

no less than sixty million bushels of wheat.

There are as well a number of smaller railways, and also a number of

lines (1,308 miles in length in 1912) in which electricity is the motive

power. Many of these are, of course, the street railways of cities and

towns.

There is much of human interest connected with a great railway,

dissipater of romance, destroyer of the picturesque, as it is generally

asserted to be. Consider it from the large point of view of its

inception, its planning, its organization; the political fight to gain

for it a legalized existence and the support of public funds and grants

of land. It may be that Canada has time and again been recklessly

generous in the price she has given for her transportation schemes, and

that she has paid too highly for the services of the forceful men able

to overcome the difficulties of such enterprises—but railways and yet

more railways is still her cry; and the Napoleon of finance who can

organize the company to build them is counted worthy of a reward so rich

that he and his associates may be tempted to grasp at more than their

share of the good things that their line opens to the world, and to use

their power not always for the public good. Canada needs the great

organizers of industry and more of them; but she needs, too, statesmen

ever watchful of the public interests, who shall know how to economize

as well as how to spend, and shall be strong enough to keep control

over, and use for the good of all the people, the different human forces

which are engaged, blindly or wisely, selfishly or nobly, in making out

of several comparatively weak provinces a big nation, which patriots

hope and trust may be also a great nation.

From the other point of view, the subject of railways—as it touches the

life and well-being of individuals in Canada—is also intensely

interesting. Not long ago I talked with a man who had done well in the

West, but had gone into a district ahead of the railway, expecting it to

be made in a year. With this hope he had settled forty miles from his

next neighbour, seventy-five miles from a post office, and fifty miles

from the point where he had to market his grain; but instead of one year

he had to wait ten for the promised line. No wonder that the dweller in

the country places loves to see the train pass by. It means in illness,

possibility of getting skilled help of doctor and nurse, in health,

opportunity of intercourse with friends and neighbours; for the young

and old, a fuller social life; for the farmer, access to markets and

oftentimes prosperity instead of failure. In one word, it means

opportunity in a thousand ways.

Of course, the railways employ a great army of men upon their

construction on the one hand, and their operation on the other. In 1912

the C.P.R. alone had 85,000 employees on its pay rolls. The numbers

finding employment in connection with the transportation systems in this

“country of magnificent distances” as it has been called, would be

vastly increased if those engaged in the subsidiary trades were taken

into account, such as the making of iron rails, the construction of cars

and engines, the cutting of railway ties and so forth.

A great change has taken place in Canada recently in the occupations of

the people. Sixty years ago there were only twenty-eight or thirty

different kinds of manufactures carried on in the country, and of the

manufacturing establishments the chief were—shipyards, saw, grist,

carding, and woollen mills; distilleries, tanneries, breweries and

foundries, several of which are very closely connected with agriculture.

The great woollen mills and the tanneries, for instance, are all closely

dependent on farm products, as the saw mills are on the natural crop of

wood, and all these with distilleries, in addition, were very early

established on a small scale in the several districts to supply local

demands.

By 1891 there were three hundred different kinds of manufactures,

instead of thirty, and the number of workers employed had multiplied

five-fold. Since then the capital invested, the value of their output,

and the importance of Canada’s manufacturing, has continued to increase,

the development during the last decade being the greatest on record.

Manufactures of wood and manufactures connected with food are still

specially important.

Manufactures have been artificially encouraged by the so-called

“National Policy,” or tariff, arranged to protect home industries. One

result of this has been the stimulation of the growth of the towns and

cities. In Ontario the last census showed a considerable increase in the

population as a whole, a greater increase in the urban population and a

falling off of over 50,000 in the rural population. No doubt this is due

in part to the exodus to the West, but the towns of Ontario can well

support more than their old quota of population, and there are excellent

markets near at hand for all the fruit, vegetables, and other farm

products that can be raised. The same story comes from New Brunswick and

that peaceful little agricultural community, Prince Edward Island.

The fact that Canada is becoming a manufacturing as well as an

agricultural country is, however, in a large degree a natural

development. There is no question that its opportunities are not

confined to agriculture. It is, indeed, singularly favoured by nature

with water powers, from which electricity for light and power can be

developed readily and cheaply, and can be conveniently transmitted for

hundreds of miles for use by great cities or by single farms.

As England’s great coal fields determined that she should become a great

manufacturing nation, Canada’s immense number of cataracts and rapids

promise that she, too, shall be great in the same line. Everyone has

heard of the “harnessing of Niagara”; but not everyone realizes how much

electricity is used in Canada. Many a little town, only a few months

old, has stepped at once from the stage of lighting with lamps to that

of brilliant electrical illumination. But if facilities for obtaining

power are the first necessity for manufacturing, Canada has

opportunities also in the variety of her natural products, from field,

forest and mine. A third reason, strongest of all, perhaps, is that her

people are ambitious, and rightly or wrongly feel that it is necessary

to the realization of their nationhood that a proportion of their

population should be engaged in manufacturing.

There is at least this strong excuse for such a position, that always

there will be people to whom agricultural pursuits will not be

congenial, and, if there were no opportunities apart from cultivation of

the soil in Canada, many of her young people would continue to go

elsewhere. At the present day, there are over a million Canadians in the

United States, who have been attracted thither by the opportunities

offered by its cities and industries. Some of these are now

returning—drawn home to a great extent by the opening of new industries

in their native land.

Unquestionably the prosperity of Canada rests mainly upon agriculture;

and legislation that has any tendency to foster the growth of the towns

at the expense of the country must in the long run prove injurious.

Canada is, however, only following the example of older lands, when she

rejoices in her big towns, and in the consequent massing of wealth in

restricted areas, for the absence of these (at least as society is now

constituted) limits the sphere of human activity; and, if Canada desires

anything strongly, it is, perhaps, to be an all-round nation, possessing

not only these material advantages of which we all hear so much, not

only the chances for the honest worker, but also opportunities at least

for the cultivation of science and art, literature and music. Now the

cultivation of these is not easy in little frontier towns and hamlets

and solitary farms deep in the country. But the manufacturing industries

build up the towns, and the towns make possible a kind of co-operation

in the things of the mind, that has been almost unheard of in the

country.

Hasty visitors sometimes sweepingly and condescendingly accuse Canada of

being “crude” and utilitarian, and of being in earnest chiefly about the

pursuit of the “Almighty Dollar,” and assert as a matter of course that

the finer side of life is neglected, but often these critics would

discover, if they stayed in the land a little longer, that much patient

cultivation of the higher interests of humanity is going on beneath the

surface, as it were. Moreover, if much and rich flowering has not

occurred, the field—of human beings—is at present extremely small. The

newcomer often expects at once much too much and too little, and makes

his comparisons, forgetful of the fact that outstandingly great poets or

painters, altruists and heroes are rare everywhere, and that they cannot

be expected to be numerous in half a century of time, amongst a

population of three or four or even seven millions. At Confederation,

less than fifty years ago, Canada had only three and a quarter millions

of people, and, for several decades after that, the growth was very

slow.

Often, I would venture to say, that the “crudeness” complained of is as

much in the surroundings as in the people themselves; and the critic

from the Old World should not forget that, so far as the environment of

the colonists is concerned, they often have nothing about them in the

way of the refinements of life which they do not owe to themselves;

whereas the beautiful city or house or church with which he contrasts

their deficiencies of comfort or beauty was probably largely a heritage

from past ages.

But the reverse idea applies to the people themselves. Though they are

dwellers in a new country, many overseas Britons are extraordinarily

conscious of their own and their national past. They are more keenly

conscious of what it stands for than many of the stay-at-home folk, who

have some dim feeling that “colonists” (though their own sons and

daughters) are people without a history and without a link to the great

days and great deeds of their ancestors. His past is the cherished

possession of many a Scot and many an Englishman, who has done brave

work in building up the new country, and it seems rather like giving him

“the cold shoulder” when a new arrival, flitting rapidly through the

country, or even intending to cast in his lot with it, talks always of

everything British as “ours,” and of everything “colonial,” as

“_yours_.” As Kipling suggests, the overseas Briton looks back to “the

abbey” and much else that in the old land “makes us we,” with no less

love and veneration than the Englishman at home.

[Illustration: 1. CONSTRUCTION TRAIN ON THE GRAND TRUNK PACIFIC RAILWAY.

2. CANADIAN PACIFIC RAILWAY IRRIGATION DAM AT BASSANO.]

[Illustration: THE OLD SMELTER MINE, NELSON.]

VI

THE OLD PROVINCE OF NOVA SCOTIA

I NOW propose to give some account of the nine provinces in

succession, with regard to their extent, physical features, climate,

natural resources, and the conditions and pursuits of the people. I

shall also endeavour to give information as to the prospects in each

province for immigrants from the British Isles. Of course, in the space

at my disposal, I can touch but slightly on any of these points. I will

begin with Nova Scotia, the province that lies nearest to England,

though curiously enough it is little-known by English people compared to

many of the more westerly regions. Except in winter, when the Canadian

mail steamers cannot go to Quebec, and so land their mails and their

cabin passengers at Halifax, Nova Scotia seems somewhat off the line of

tourist and immigrant travel, which passes up the Gulf of St. Lawrence

to the north of the little group of Canada’s three “Maritime Provinces.”

It is possible for anyone to live long in another part of Canada without

getting much idea of the history, resources or characteristics of the

“Provinces down by the Sea,” but it adds immensely to one’s interest and

pride in the Dominion when one realizes that Quebec and Ontario—wealthy

and important as they unquestionably are—are now only a part of Canada,

and that for a comprehensive understanding of the country as a whole,

there is needed at least some knowledge of the prairie provinces, and

British Columbia to the west, and of the little old less restless Lower

Provinces to the east.

The story of Nova Scotia is full of interest from the days early in the

seventeenth century, when the first little company of French colonizers

tried so gallantly to found Port Royal, down to the present time. The

long struggle of the French and English for the possession of the land,

the frightful deeds of their Indian allies, the coming of the Loyalists

and other pioneers, the gallant fight for British liberty and

“responsible government,” all furnish incidents not less worthy of the

poet’s song than that pitiful deportation of the Acadians, which

inspired Longfellow’s pathetic but rather misleading poem of

“Evangeline.”

I can spare little space for history, but before I go on to tell what I

can of Nova Scotia—and for seven years quaint old Halifax was my

home—I should like to say that whatever else this smallest, save one,

of the Dominion’s nine provinces fails to produce, she has been

singularly successful in the producing of men. Upon the roll of her

“notables” are the names of Haliburton—“the father of American

humour”—Inglis, who defended Lucknow; Cunard, founder of the line of

great Transatlantic steamships; Sir Provo Wallis, Admiral of the Fleet;

Dawson, of geologic and educational fame; whilst other well-known names

of men still at work might be added to the list.

The very name—Nova Scotia—forces comparison with old Scotland, but the

former is not quite three-quarters the size of the latter, nor has it

much more than one-tenth of the population. It is also far south of its

namesake; in fact, there is almost eight degrees between the latitudes

of the north of Nova Scotia and the south of Scotland, but the Arctic

currents in the West Atlantic have their influence on the climate,

making the Nova Scotian winter cold, and the spring late, though the

extremes of heat and cold are not so severe as farther inland. During a

recent year at Halifax, for instance, only once did the mercury fall to

“zero,” and only once in the hottest month, July, did it travel up to 98

degrees Fahrenheit.

On the Atlantic coasts there is a good deal of rain, fog and “Scotch

mist,” but summer and autumn are often delightful seasons of bright,

clear, not too hot, weather. In the inland and western parts of the

province the climate is drier and not quite so variable.

Like her namesake, Nova Scotia turns towards the ocean a deeply

indented, forbidding coast; but the interior lacks “Old Scotia’s” grand

mountains, though it has a backbone of sterile hills running through the

province, beside the Cobequid Mountains, in Cumberland County, and many

a high rugged cliff in Cape Breton Island. This new Scotland has also

its stretches of wild moorland and its lakes, set amongst dark spruce

firs. But between “the barrens” of the Atlantic Coast, there is here and

there a fertile valley; and on the Bay of Fundy side, but sheltered from

its cold mists and winds by the long ridge of the North Mountain,

stretches the far-famed Annapolis valley, where in spring the whole

landscape seems one vast white orchard, save for the pretty little

houses, half hidden amongst the bloom.

That side, too, is the region of the salt marshes, formed by the action

of those phenomenally high tides of the Bay of Fundy, which were amongst

the few remarkable features of Canada thought worthy of mention in the

“Geographies” put into the hands of British children a generation ago.

In course of ages these mighty tides have left vast level deposits of

marine mud—the salt marshes—liable to invasion of the waves at spring

tides, but easily turned by a little labour into pastures and hay

meadows and grain fields of almost inexhaustible fertility. All that is

necessary is to build dykes or embankments of tree trunks and clay to

keep back the highest tides; and this work was begun long ago by some of

the early French immigrants, who had been accustomed to reclaiming land

from the sea in their own country. If, at any time, the fields should

show signs of exhaustion, the fertilizing waters may again be let in for

a short season; indeed, farmers living near undyked marshes are

accustomed to haul loads of the precious sea-mud to their upland fields.

Of something the same character as the dyked lands are the “intervales”

along the rivers, which are said to be “invariably rich and productive.”

The abundance of pasturage and hay makes good dairying, and Nova Scotia

is emphatically a country of mixed farming. Almost all crops suited to a

temperate climate can be grown in some part of the province. But, during

a recent year, of all agricultural products, hay brought most money into

the farmers’ pockets; then came live stock products, potatoes, apples,

oats, “garden truck,” and so in a descending scale.

[Illustration: FISH CURING AT GUYSBORO, NOVA SCOTIA. NOTE THE SPLIT

COD-FISH DRYING IN THE FOREGROUND.]

Not only the farming can be described as “mixed” in Nova Scotia. The

occupations of her people (in number somewhat under half a million) are

also mixed; and though agriculture takes first place, fishing,

lumbering, mining and manufacturing are of importance, all the great

industries setting “new records” last year.

In fishing, Nova Scotia was long the leading province of the Dominion,

but in 1912, British Columbia, with her immense catch of salmon, stepped

before her. In the Atlantic province, though the lobster fishery is

valuable and is to the dwellers on the sterile southern coast the chief

source of ready money, the cod fishery is worth most of all, a fact

quaintly recognized by the habit of the shore people of referring to a

cod as “a fish,” and to all others of the finny tribe by their specific

names of haddock, halibut and so forth.

The fishing hamlets consist of little whitewashed cottages dotted at

random about the weather-beaten rocks, beside the fine natural harbours

or little coves where the boats run in for shelter, alongside ramshackle

stages where the cod are dried in the open air, and by fish-houses,

often emitting the peculiarly horrible odour of over-kept “bait.”

Despite all drawbacks, there is a fascination in the jumble of boats and

nets and lobster traps, whilst the fisherfolk themselves,

fresh-complexioned, clear-eyed, sturdy-limbed, simple, kindly and

straightforward, are a good stock one would fancy to set against the

threatening degeneration of the race by the unwholesome crowding into

towns. Some 30,000 men find employment, on sea and shore, in connection

with the fisheries. The fishermen are generally rather poor, but the

more enterprizing members of the fraternity often pass from the sailing

of a fishing boat to that of a coasting vessel.

In the coast villages tiny stores, with stock small in quantity, great

in variety, are plentiful, and some of the fishermen attempt to add to

their incomes by farming, often in a rather haphazard, amateurish

fashion. Along the shore east of Halifax horses are scarce, and in the

little hay-fields even a one-horse mowing machine is an unusual sight,

and it is quite common to see two men, or it may be a man and a girl,

carrying the cured hay to the barn on two stout poles. In those parts

the fisherfolk take little pains even to improve their own fare by

growing vegetables, but the soil is discouraging. In fact, one resident

of a coast village near Halifax complained, “There ain’t no soil.

There’s nothing but grits!”

Some of the fishermen prosecute their craft only “inshore,” using small

boats, remaining out but a few hours and fishing with hand lines as well

as with trawls from the dories. These men are very dependent on the

weather; but gasoline motor boats are coming into use, enabling them to

go out when it would be impossible with sailing boats. The “bank

fisheries,” chiefly of cod, are carried on by schooners of about 100

tons, manned by twelve to twenty men, who go out, two by two, in dories,

using trawls upon which are thousands of hooks. In the rivers, smelts,

salmon, trout and eels are taken; and there are natural oyster beds, now

yielding a few hundred barrels of oysters annually, which it is said,

with improved management, may yield thousands. In fact, better methods

may do much to make all the fisheries of Nova Scotia much more

productive.

Of the forests of the province, something under one and a half million

acres remain ungranted, and four or five times as much is owned by

farmers and held or leased by lumber and pulp companies. As everywhere

in the Dominion there has been untold loss from fires and wasteful

methods, but the idea of “conservation” promises better things in

future. Pine, of which there used to be large quantities, has become

scarce; but spruce (of more recently discovered value) and birch, a good

furniture wood, are extremely plentiful. The saw mills are generally

situated on the rivers, near tide water; thus their product can be

loaded directly into vessels, which carry it far and wide.

In several counties, a quantity of timber is used in the building of

schooners and fishing boats, but the palmy days of shipbuilding in the

province have passed. It may be, however, that there will be a revival,

and that Nova Scotia will soon be sending forth iron (instead of wooden)

ships to plough all seas, for she is richly endowed with mineral wealth.

In fact, like Massachusetts, she seems to have every gift of

nature—coal, iron, magnificent harbours, and not a little water power,

all awaiting development—to make a great manufacturing region. Through

her northern counties and Cape Breton Island stretches a rich and

enormous coal field, and iron ores (scarcely touched as yet) are found

in every county save one.

Nova Scotia ranks third of the provinces in manufactures, following the

larger and much more populous provinces of Ontario and Quebec, but the

value of her manufactured products (which include foods, textiles,

chemicals, paper, vehicles, vessels and a variety of manufactures of

iron and steel) has more than doubled in a single decade. Nova Scotia is

said to have the “largest individual self-contained steel-making plant

in the world,” but the growth of the iron and steel industry is due not

only to natural advantages and to the genius of different “captains of

industry,” but to the bounties and protective duties granted in its

interests by successive governments of the Dominion.

Amongst the valuable minerals of the province are limestone, granite,

gypsum and gold. The mining of the last-named metal has been carried on

by rather primitive methods for nearly half a century. The yield for the

record year was worth about $600,000 (£120,000), and at present three

hundred men are employed at twenty-five different mines. There is one of

these small mines in Guysborough County, on the edge of a vast stretch

of “barrens”; but, despite its sounding name, “Goldenville” is a sorry

little hamlet, of dingy, unpainted buildings, that seem to mock at the

“prospector’s dazzling dreams.” But one does not usually go to an

industrial place, large or small, in search of the picturesque. One may

chance upon it there, however, as when at night the outpouring of molten

slag from Sydney’s black giants of blast furnaces suddenly lights up the

wide beautiful harbour with a ruddy glow.

Halifax, the capital, containing nearly a tenth of the population of the

province, is undeniably picturesque, with its old Citadel and churches,

its wharves and its vessels, its odd outdoor market, its “redcoats” (now

Canadians) and its coloured folk. Though on the eve of a great

development of its port, which will doubtless revolutionize its business

life, till very recently it has been a quiet old-fashioned place, its

dinginess relieved by lovely water-views from many a point of vantage,

and its dignity secured by such fine old stone buildings as the abode of

the British admiral, Government House and the Province Building, where

still, as in one other case, an Upper as well as a Lower House

deliberates on the affairs of the province.

The Assembly of Nova Scotia, by the way, is the oldest representative

body in the Dominion, having been convened for the first time in 1758.

There was a long fight for the boon of responsible government, won in

1848; and the name of Joseph Howe, the Reform leader, son of a Loyalist,

is renowned throughout the Dominion. During the last half-dozen years

several imposing new buildings, including the Anglican cathedral and the

Memorial Tower (commemorating the calling together of the first

Assembly) have been erected in Halifax. The city is the terminus of the

Intercolonial and two provincial railways, and has a variety of

manufactures.

I cannot give space, as I should like, to descriptions of any of the

smaller towns; but, though someone described Nova Scotia as “the

province that was passed by,” it is as truly a land of opportunity as

any of the regions further west. The opportunity does not come in the

shape of “free grants” of land, but a farmer who knows his business and

has two or three hundred pounds of capital can soon own a good farm.

There are farms of from fifty to three hundred acres of which the price

is from $1,000 (£200) up. Some of these have been thrown on the market

by the death or infirmity of their owners, some through the desire of a

younger owner to go to the west or to take up work in a town. Amongst

them are “run-down” farms, which can be obtained for little more than

the cost of the buildings upon them, and a thoroughly capable farmer may

sometimes find it pay to buy such a farm cheap and bring it back to good

condition.

Within the broad realm of agriculture, to say nothing further of the

other possible avenues to success in woods and mines and city and sea,

there is variety of opportunity. Let a man decide to go into dairying,

market-gardening, the raising of sheep, hogs or poultry, the culture of

apples, or the growing of small fruits, and there is some part of Nova

Scotia in which each one of these pursuits may be followed with special

hope of success; moreover, the provincial government (which is frankly

desirous of good immigrants of the right stamp) has made arrangements to

help the new arrivals to find what they want. (For names of officials

who will give information, see Appendix, Note A, page 295.)

With regard to the very profitable business of apple-growing, it is

stated that not one-tenth of the land in the Annapolis valley and

elsewhere suitable for orchards, has yet been planted.

As to the question of markets—the home market alone is an excellent one

for practically all food supplies, for the constant influx of immigrants

and the armies of non-producers engaged in mining and other industries

create a demand in many lines of foodstuffs not easy for the farmer to

overtake. Nova Scotia imports much that she might just as well grow. But

aside from the home market, she has easy access to those of the other

provinces, and to those of the United States and of Great Britain, for

every one of her counties touches on the sea, which is the best possible

highroad for freight. As to her internal means of communication, roads

are improving and new railways are being added to the old.

With few exceptions, Nova Scotian farmers own the land they till, and to

assist still more to do so, including newcomers, the provincial

government makes arrangements with loan companies to lend as much as 80

per cent. of the appraised value of farm property on mortgage. The

government is also authorized to buy “real estate in farming districts,

subdivide this into suitable-sized farms or lots, erect buildings and

fences thereon, prepare the land for crops and sell this improved real

estate to newcomers on satisfactory terms.” This opportunity to obtain

ready-made farms will no doubt prove attractive to many newcomers.

In the fruit districts of Nova Scotia, owing to the smaller holdings,

people are settled comparatively near together, and this is a great

advantage so far as church and social life and the education of the

children is concerned.

The elementary and high schools, supported by government grants and

local rates, are free. In isolated communities it is sometimes difficult

to obtain teachers; but a hopeful movement is the introduction of

“consolidated schools,” each of which, having several teachers, replaces

the little “one-teacher schools” of a considerable district. There are

now over twenty of these, to which the children are taken in vans.

Nova Scotia has several universities, supported by different religious

bodies, in addition to the non-sectarian Dalhousie University at

Halifax. The oldest of these institutions is King’s College, at Windsor,

which dates from 1790. A comparatively new institution is the

Agricultural College at Truro. Here instruction is given free of cost to

farmers, farmers’ sons and new settlers intending to farm. Besides the

full two years’ course, there are short practical courses of two weeks,

including one for women on dairying and poultry keeping. In connection

with the college is a fine Model Farm, where excellent stock is kept.

The government also maintains experts to give instruction in various

branches of agriculture, and endeavours in a variety of other ways to

improve the methods and conditions of farming in Nova Scotia.

There is a demand always for good farm workers and capable domestic

servants. Even inexperienced young people have little difficulty in

getting work, if they are strong and willing to learn, but they must not

expect high wages till they are competent. For competent farm men the

wages offered are usually from $20 (£4) to $30 (£6) the month, with

board and lodging for a single man, and with a rent-free house and

certain allowances of milk and vegetables for a married man. In the

latter case, the wife, if willing to assist the farmer’s wife, can often

make a considerable addition to the family income. For day labour in the

country a man might expect from $1 (4_s._) to $1.50 (6_s._), with board.

In the towns wages are higher, even for unskilled labour, but in Halifax

at least rents are very high, and a man who is looking forward to

getting a little land of his own would usually be wiser to settle from

the first in a country district where living is cheap, and where the

experience gained would be of definite value in farming operations.

Moreover, if he is able to keep a few fowls, and a pig, and have a

garden of his own, it very much lessens the cost of living. There are

many prosperous farmers in Nova Scotia who landed a few years ago with

scarcely a shilling in their pockets, but these have been hard workers.

The population of Nova Scotia is chiefly of British descent, though not

a few of the early settlers came by way of New England in Loyalist and

pre-Loyalist days. Scottish names are common in many parts of the

province, especially in Cape Breton Island. The ancient Acadians are

represented by something like fifty thousand French people, and the Nova

Scotians of German descent are not much fewer.

Of religious bodies, the Roman Catholics are the strongest, but the

Presbyterians make a good second, then come in order the Baptists, the

Anglicans and the Methodists. In the country places there are a few

union churches, but there is a good deal of “over-lapping,” which

aggravates the difficulty of ministering adequately to communities so

scattered, as they are, for instance, on the south coast.

[Illustration: 1. SIXTY ACRE ORCHARD, NOVA SCOTIA.

2. FARM HOUSE, NOVA SCOTIA.]

VII

NEW BRUNSWICK, THE LAND OF THE ST. JOHN

THE Province of New Brunswick is in shape almost a square, and in

extent has an area of about 28,000 square miles. In other words, it is

smaller than Scotland, but has a much larger proportion of land that can

be cultivated than that rugged little country which has sent forth such

masterly farmers to till larger and richer fields than those of their

own stern land. It is bounded on the east and south by the Gulf of St.

Lawrence and the Bay of Fundy, which are separated by the narrow neck of

land from which Nova Scotia thrusts itself like a great breakwater into

the Atlantic surges. Northward it reaches to Chaleur bay and the

Province of Quebec. Westward it is bounded by Maine, which (thanks to

the efforts of a British diplomatist to settle at all costs a

long-standing dispute) comes in like a wedge between New Brunswick and

Quebec. In latitude New Brunswick lies almost entirely between the 45th

and 48th parallels, which also, it may be noted, run across the central

portion of France.

Upon the coast there is, as might be expected, a good deal of rain and

mist and white sea fog; but the climate of the interior is more dry and

clear; and there is no lack of sunshine. Compared with England, the

winters are cold, and the farmer has a shorter period each year in which

he can work upon his land; but in one of the government publications is

given an interesting quotation bearing upon this point from a Report on

New Brunswick, written in 1850, by a great English agricultural expert,

Professor J. F. W. Johnston:—

“On the whole,” he says, “I think we must allow that though the

period for out-door labour is shorter in New Brunswick—as it is

in the Canadas, Maine, and the Northern States—than in England

and in some parts of Scotland, yet that the action of winter

upon the soil is such as to materially lessen the labour

necessary to bring it into a proper state of tilth.”

Moreover, while in Great Britain the work of the farmer is often

interfered with by rain, and his expenses “considerably increased by the

precarious nature of the climate in which he lives,”

“In New Brunswick the climate is more steady and equable. Rains

do not so constantly fall, and when they do descend, the soils

in most parts of the province are so porous as readily to allow

them to pass through. Thus the outdoor operations of the farmer

are less impeded by rain, and the disposable time he possesses,

compared with that of the British farmer, is not to be measured

by the number of days at the disposal of each.”

The climate of New Brunswick, the professor concludes,

“does not prevent the soil from producing crops which, other

things being equal, are not inferior in quantity or quality to

those of average soils in England; while, as for its health, it

is an exceedingly healthy climate. Every medical man I have met

in the province, I believe without exception, and almost every

other man I have conversed with, assures me of this, and the

healthy looks and the numerous families of the natives of all

classes confirm these assurances.”

To this day the people of New Brunswick certainly have a healthy

appearance, and rosy cheeks and clear complexions are common, especially

on the coasts.

[Illustration: ST. JOHN, NEW BRUNSWICK.]

The winter of the interior is often described by the inhabitants, even

in moments when they cannot be suspected of any thought of advertising

the province, as a “good steady one.” The fact is that most Canadians,

either native-born or those who have lived long in the country dislike

damp weather above any other kind. If the cold is only dry and clear,

they do evidently from their behaviour feel it bracing, as they say; and

it is the same with the summer heat, the days to be dreaded (if any?)

are the days in which the atmosphere is humid as well as hot. The spring

is late, and often almost before one realizes that winter is past one

finds that summer is upon one.

New Brunswick is an amply-wooded land of pleasantly-diversified hill and

valley, though its highest eminence, Sagamook or Bald Mountain, is only

2,604 feet above the sea. It is well watered by the Restigouche, the

Miramichi and the St. John rivers, with their tributaries, and many

smaller streams. The last-mentioned river is nearly five hundred miles

in length from its sources in the wilds of Maine to its mouth. It is

navigable for almost its whole length through the province, though in

one place its course is broken by the “Grand Falls.” Large-sized

steamers go up as far as Fredericton, eighty-five miles from St. John;

but there a change is made to smaller boats. The river flows for many

miles through a fertile and beautiful valley; but as it approaches the

city of St. John its banks become higher and bolder, and the stream

widens out to a fine broad basin.

The gateway to the sea lies through a narrow gorge of less than five

hundred feet, and here the current of the river makes fierce and

constant struggle with the force of the famous tides of the Bay of

Fundy. At St. John the normal rise is twenty-seven feet, and the result

is the curious, but not quite happily-named phenomenon—the “Reversing

Falls.” At low tide the river tumbles and races in fierce haste down a

sharp rugged slope to reach the bay; but the pressure of the incoming

sea piles up the water of the harbour in the narrow channel to greater

and greater heights, till, at the flood, the current of the St. John

seems turned backward, and the tide water, as it comes plunging through

the rock gateway, is at a distinctly higher level than the more peaceful

surface of the river within. Happily at half-tide—four times in the

twenty-four hours—there comes a brief truce in the everlasting

struggle, and vessels can pass with safety to bear their freight of

humankind and of all manner of merchandise up the grand natural highway

of nature’s making deep into the heart of the country.

I do not propose here to dwell at any length on the history of New

Brunswick; but I should like to say that, in common with every other

province of the Dominion, it has a history—short in years, perhaps, but

not devoid of human interest. If one were attempting to tell it,

moreover, it would be impossible to do so without frequent references to

the St. John. This river received its name three centuries ago because a

little company of gallant French explorers, amongst whom was Samuel

Champlain, afterwards founder of Quebec, discovered it upon St. John the

Baptist’s day.

In those old days, the broad bosom of the river was often flecked with

the canoes of Indians, bound on some hunting or fishing or fighting

expedition; and in 1635 a picturesque French trader—such a one of

gentle birth, gift of leadership, and bold, adventurous spirit, as Sir

Walter Scott might have loved to portray—built a huge wooden castle,

bastioned and palisaded, on the banks of the St. John. There was enacted

a fierce, confused drama, in which Indians and priests and rival

gentlemen-traders took part; nor did it want a heroine, and to this day

the noble courage and tragic end of Lady La Tour—wife of the lord of

the castle—fascinate the imagination of every student of the annals of

old Acadia.

In La Tour’s lifetime an expedition sent out by Oliver Cromwell captured

the fort on the St. John, and for some fifteen years the English held

the river, restoring it to France by the Treaty of Breda. After that,

great grants were made to French seigniors, but they contented

themselves with trading with the Indians instead of improving the land,

and the French settlements in what is now New Brunswick were of little

account till after the expulsion of the Acadians from Nova Scotia in

1755.

To-day the descendants of French colonists of different periods number

something over eighty thousand. About 1762 some families from New

England settled at Maugerville, Sheffield, and Gagetown, and hither in

the Revolutionary time came emissaries from the American “patriots,”

only just failing in the attempt to bring the St. John country under the

“Stars and Stripes.” But they did fail, and along the banks of the river

there settled a few years later a host of the defeated, but not subdued,

Americans, who held that true liberty was still possible within the

circle of the British Empire.

These set to work with energy to tame the wilderness, and build the new

British state of New Brunswick; and still all along the river and in

many another district of the province are to be found their descendants,

bearing the old names written a century and a quarter ago on the

muster-rolls of the Loyalists. Hardships they had to endure in plenty,

but they were happy at least in the fact that their country of refuge

was a land richly blessed of nature. In fact, it has been calculated

that New Brunswick could well support seventeen times her present

population, which is about equal to that of the city of Bristol.

The three chief industries of the province are farming, fishing and

lumbering. Masts were the first article of export, and for years the

people almost lived by the timber trade. Even not very long ago this

industry brought $10,000,000 (nearly £2,000,000) into the province

yearly, of which one-third was paid out in wages; and upon its

prosperity depends the well-being of many not directly engaged in it.

Since the introduction of iron vessels, the dependent industry of

shipbuilding has declined, but new uses are continually being discovered

for wood, increasing the value of all sources of supply. These have been

recklessly reduced by greed, blunders and largely preventible accidents,

but New Brunswick still possesses noble forests, and, perhaps, since the

new day of deliberate “conservation” has dawned, may continue to possess

them indefinitely.

The provincial government owns over 10,000 square miles of forest; but

the greater part of this has been rented upon certain conditions for the

cutting of timber, and the rents and dues thus collected bring in a

considerable revenue to the public coffers. In 1906 it amounted to

$250,000 (£50,000). Originally almost the whole of the province was

covered with magnificent trees. For long, white pine was the only wood

valued for export, and now little pine remains; but since the

manufacture of paper from pulpwood began, a new value has been put upon

the once despised spruce which, it has been said, grows in New Brunswick

“like a weed,” on lands where farmers would be predestined to failure.

Nowadays, however, immigrants are not permitted to settle on such lands,

for it is realized that their doing so will be of benefit neither to

themselves nor to the province.

Spruce is exported as “deals” and boards, and is used for railway

sleepers, fence posts, and building materials, as well as for pulpwood;

but fir, tamarac, maple, elm, birch, ash, butternut, poplar and hemlock

also abound, and serve many useful purposes.

One great advantage of New Brunswick as a lumbering region is that its

rivers everywhere form excellent waterways, down which the logs can be

“driven” to market. The St. John and its tributaries drain nearly

one-half of the province, and the Miramichi has a “watershed embracing

about five thousand square miles.” Most of the forest exports go to

Great Britain.

The lumbermen work in gangs of fifty or more, living in log camps built

in the forests. The work is heavy, the life is rough, and accidents are

somewhat frequent. For instance, when the logs going down stream get

caught at some point and form a “jam,” it is often a risky business to

“break” it; but work in the woods is healthy, and the lumbermen are well

fed. In fact, the cook in a lumber camp is a most important functionary.

Fishing is another old industry in New Brunswick, which has a sea-coast

of about six hundred miles. Considerably over twenty thousand persons,

including lobster canners, are employed. In 1909-10 the herring fishery

proved most valuable of all. Next in order came the catches of lobsters,

sardines (said to be equal to the Norwegian sardines), smelts (of which

enormous numbers are caught in the Gulf of St. Lawrence), cod and

salmon, which are exported fresh and frozen, smoked, salted or pickled.

A variety of other fish are taken in smaller quantities.

Owing to ice the Gulf fisheries cease during the winter, but those of

the Bay of Fundy are carried on all the year round. The old-time oyster

fishery has suffered here, as in the neighbouring provinces; but steps

are being taken to preserve and increase the productiveness of the

fisheries, as of the forests, and to educate the fishermen. With the

latter object, the Dominion government a few years ago brought to Canada

“a Scottish expert,” in the curing of herrings, “with a steam trawler

and crew complete,” and with a view to the former they established

several hatcheries of young salmon and lobsters, from which 122,000,000

of the last-named were distributed in a single season.

In addition to these commercial fisheries, New Brunswick finds a source

of profit, as well as pleasure, in her trout streams and salmon rivers,

which attract hundreds of anglers and holiday-makers to the province, as

the vast woods of the interior, stretching through a district eighty

miles wide by a hundred long, bring in sportsmen in search of red deer,

moose, caribou and wild fowl. This region, too, is the haunt of many

valuable fur-bearing animals. The game laws aim at preserving the supply

of game, and outsiders have to pay twenty-five times as much as

residents for a hunter’s licence, though in both cases the number of

animals that may be killed is strictly limited. The province annually

reaps a considerable harvest from licence fees, whilst the settlers in

the wild districts to which the hunters go find the profits of the

tourist trade a very welcome addition to incomes which are usually

somewhat meagre.

There is not much mining, and of manufactures many depend on wood as

their raw material. There are consequently many saw mills, pulp and

paper mills, furniture and carriage factories. But this province, by the

sea, is in a position to obtain readily and cheaply raw materials from

other lands, such as cotton from the Southern States and sugar from the

West Indies, so she has several cotton mills and “candy factories.”

Other manufactures that may be mentioned are those of boots and shoes,

nails and other ironware, brass goods, soap and woollen cloths. Finally,

in 1911, there were in operation twenty-four cheese factories and

sixteen creameries, which bring us back all the way round the circle to

agriculture, the most important industry of all.

Throughout New Brunswick there is much excellent land, suited for

different purposes. Like Nova Scotia, the province has its salt marshes

and dyked lands on the Bay of Fundy, and its “intervales” along the

rivers, both famous for their enormous crops of hay. It has, too,

districts as well adapted, it is said, for the culture of apples, as the

Annapolis valley itself. In fact it, also, is a mixed farming region,

where grains of all kinds will grow; where one man pins his faith to

dairying; another urges the profits to be made from sheep or poultry or

pigs; and a third points triumphantly to his enormous and excellent

crops of potatoes. The fact is that practically every branch of

agriculture could be made far more productive with better methods and

more labourers, even on the farms now being worked—to say nothing of

the land that might be cultivated, and is not, at present, for want of

population.

The consequence is that while New Brunswick has a ready welcome for good

workers—especially those ready to labour with their hands, and having

enough in their pockets to tide over the time of seeking for the right

niches—the people she wants above all are people to till her fertile

soil.

One vast advantage the modern settler on the land has over the old-time

pioneer. He will find it easy to get good prices for his produce, either

in the local markets or in the more distant but still (owing to railways

and steamship lines) easily accessible ones of other provinces or

countries.

In common with the other Maritime Provinces, New Brunswick appears to

have been somewhat overlooked as a field for immigration from the

British Isles, perhaps because, in spite of its possessing seaports of

its own, the general line of travel has been by Montreal or New York, or

possibly because these provinces have been slow to advertise themselves.

“Why did we never hear anything about New Brunswick when we were making

inquiries about coming to Canada?” asked a lady, whose settlement with

her family in Ontario thirty years ago was due to the excellent report

of that province made by a number of Scottish farmers. “If we had only

known what a good country it is,” she added, “I daresay we might have

stopped there, because it is so much nearer England.”

Nearness to the British Isles is one incontrovertible advantage for

settlers leaving behind them friends in the old land; and I must say

that the part of New Brunswick that I know best—that is the sunny

valley of the St. John—has a pleasantly homelike look to eyes

accustomed to England’s green hills and well-tilled fields. The sweeping

lines of the low hills, the freshness of the mighty river, the great

green woods massed here and there, the shady elms and willows of the

little capital, the comfortable-looking farmhouses dotted along the

slopes, all have a friendly familiar look of quiet content.

But I would not imply that this province is devoid of life and energy.

The commercial capital, St. John (and there are many smaller towns like

it), is much alive and “up-to-date,” with its good railway connections

and its numerous steamships plying both to American and British ports,

and it will be still more busy when its great dry docks and shipbuilding

plant are finished. St. John is the Atlantic terminus of the Canadian

Pacific Railway, which takes a short cut to Montreal across a corner of

the State of Maine, and of one of the two great branches into which the

Intercolonial Railway divides. The new National Transcontinental Railway

has its Atlantic terminus at Moncton; and altogether it is said that New

Brunswick has more miles of railway in proportion to its population than

any other country in the world. The province has about thirteen thousand

miles of roads, but these generally stand in need of improvement. Of

course the numerous rivers necessitate a large number of bridges; and

there are nearly four thousand, ranging in type from the quaint old

covered bridge, looking like a barn with its ends knocked out, to the

great modern erection of steel. The capital, Fredericton, has a bridge

about half a mile long, but a few miles higher upstream the St. John is

crossed by a primitive-looking ferry.

In some districts population is much scattered. In others the people are

“comfortably close together”; but everywhere there is ample room for

more people. In fact, there is still land to be had, on certain

conditions, for the asking, or “improved farms” may be bought at low

prices. Many of these are very good farms; but a few years since the

local markets were comparatively poor, work was scarce, and the young

people went west or south or to the cities—it is the same story as in

Nova Scotia—in search of better opportunities.

With regard to the “free grants,” ten thousand acres have been laid out,

in Restigouche county, in hundred-acre lots, and to obtain a title to

one of these, the applicant must pay a fee of $5 (about £1) for

surveying, reside on the land for three years, clear four acres, build a

small house, and do $30 (£6) worth of labour on the roads, or pay an

additional $20 (£4) in cash. Besides these free grants, the government

has opened to settlement the Blue Bell Tract in Victoria county, between

the C.P.R. and the St. John river, on the one side, and the new

Transcontinental Railway on the other. This district, watered by the

Tobique river, is “a rolling upland, covered with a fine growth of

trees, free from underbrush.” Here hundred-acre lots, on a colonization

road, are offered for sale at $1 the acre, one-fourth of the money to be

paid on taking possession, and the remainder in four equal instalments.

For settlers with a little more capital, the government of New Brunswick

has another proposition. A year or two ago a “Farm Settlement Board” of

three commissioners was established by Act of Parliament, for the

purpose of buying and improving suitable lands, erecting houses and farm

buildings upon them, and selling them again to _bonâ fide_ settlers upon

easy terms, at cost price. The payment for these may be spread over ten

years, and in special cases the Board is empowered to give two years’

further grace; but the title “remains in the Board” till all payments

have been made. (For addresses of persons from whom information may be

obtained, see Appendix, Note A, page 296.)

In the ordinary way, farms may be bought in New Brunswick from $10 (£2)

to $25 (£5) the acre, according to their size, the character of the

soil, the condition of the buildings, their nearness to church, school

and markets, and the proportion of land under cultivation. Most farmers

in the province own the lands they occupy.

Not every man who might do well on an improved farm is suited to the

“roughing it” involved in clearing a free grant; but if a newcomer, with

little or no capital, is content to work for a time on wages, he can

often put by enough to enable him to start to buy a farm for himself.

Wages for a good man run from $10 (£2) or $15 (£3) monthly in the winter

months to $20 (£4) in the summer, with board and lodging for a single

man and a free house for a married one. Sometimes the farmers hire men

only for the busy season, but work may often be obtained by a strong man

in the lumber camps, even though he may not have had experience of the

work. Of course it means hard, long, patient work to obtain success by

such means; but the opportunities in New Brunswick are sufficiently

great to ensure that thrift and industry usually have their reward.

The right of every child to a good sound education is recognized in New

Brunswick, though in some of the country districts the salaries offered

are so small that it is difficult to obtain fully qualified teachers. In

this province also, the consolidated school has been tried with success.

There is provision for a grammar school in every county, and at

Fredericton (which is also the seat of the Provincial University) there

is a Normal Training and a Model School for teachers.

The newcomer to New Brunswick may obtain much useful information as to

the classes of fruit and stock likely to do well in his particular

district, and advice on kindred subjects, if he chooses to write to the

Department of Agriculture at Ottawa. Or, if he wishes to obtain

instructions from specialists in bee-keeping, poultry-raising or

apple-growing, he may write to the provinicial government at

Fredericton. In 1904, by the way, the latter began, through experts, the

planting and direction of “illustration orchards” in different

districts. These are managed on an interesting plan of co-operation, the

government supplying the young trees and the expert knowledge, and the

farmer supplying the labour and the land and reaping the fruit, on

condition that for ten years “he will cultivate and care for the orchard

in accordance with the directions of the Department of Agriculture.” The

newcomer may also gain much help from his neighbours, especially if he

joins the Agricultural Association of his district and shows willingness

to make himself one with them generally.

These and other associations formed for serious purposes, as well as the

churches, have a great social value in sparsely settled districts; but

though the farmers and their families are generally industrious they do

not believe in all work and no play, and in the winter especially they

find some time for visiting and recreation.

At present by far the greater proportion of the people are natives of

the province, chiefly of British stock. Of the remainder, some thousands

were born in the British Isles, and several thousands more have come in

from the United States. More than a quarter of the people are French;

there are also a number of Germans, Dutch, Scandinavians and other

foreigners.

In religion more than a third of the people are Roman Catholics; but

this body is surpassed in number of church buildings both by the

Baptists and the Methodists. Of Protestant denominations, the Baptists

are strongest, then follow the Anglicans, Presbyterians and the

Methodists. Of course there is no “established church” here, nor in any

part of Canada; and the chaplain of the legislative assembly (New

Brunswick has only a single chamber), who opens the proceedings with

prayer, is chosen in rotation from the Baptists, Anglicans,

Presbyterians and Methodists.

[Illustration: 1. HAYING IN NEW BRUNSWICK.

2. A FARM NEAR EVANDALE.

3. LUMBERING ON THE ST. JOHN RIVER.]

VIII

PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND

THIS, by far the smallest of the Canadian provinces, seems to exercise

a peculiar charm on all who visit or dwell within it. “Abegweit”—“Rest

on the Wave”—was the poetic name bestowed upon it by its Indian

inhabitants; and rugged Jacques Cartier, the Breton explorer, described

the country in glowing terms as “the most beautiful it is possible to

see . . . full of beautiful trees and meadows . . . of pease, white and

red gooseberries, strawberries, blackberries and wild grain like rye,”

and having “the best temperature it is possible to see.”

In shape Prince Edward Island bears some resemblance to a crescent with

the two horns turned northwards, and the outer curve lying from nine to

fifteen miles away from the corresponding curve of the mainland shores

of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. Its greatest length is about one

hundred and forty miles, and its greatest breadth thirty-four miles, but

its shores are so deeply indented with bays and inlets that the distance

between water and water is in places only two miles.

Its soil is peculiarly fertile; and compared with the other

provinces—all of which have large stretches of wild land, either

uncultivated or uncultivable—it may well claim the title of the “Garden

of the Gulf,” for 86 per cent. of its surface is occupied by farms, and

very little of the remaining 14 per cent. is actually worthless for

agriculture.

It has no mountains or wild, rugged hills, no great forests, and of

course no great rivers; but the land is pleasantly undulating,

vegetation is usually richly green, contrasting with soil of a warm

reddish hue, with glints of shining water, or with lines of snowy

breakers, roaring on the sands. In general the character of the scenery

is mild and gentle and smiling; with a glad wealth of colour when the

orchards are breaking into bloom, or when the first touch of frost is

kindling a magic glow amongst the maples and sumach trees. But the

wildly-beating surf on the reefs of the north shore forbids that even

here nature’s majesty and strength and terror should be forgotten.

The climate is milder than that of the mainland near by, neither so

sharply cold in winter nor so fiercely hot in summer, though all writers

have praise for the “Island’s” clear blue skies and plenitude of

sunlight.

Prince Edward Island is reached by steamers from Point du Chêne in New

Brunswick to Summerside; and from Pictou in Nova Scotia to

Charlottetown; or from Pictou to Georgetown, when the strait is full of

ice. Strongly-built ice-breaking steamers, however, usually manage to

keep open communication with the capital of the little province; and in

winter there is an “ice-boat service,” by which the adventurous can

cross from Cape Tormentine to Cape Traverse. The ice-boat is contrived

to travel either in water or on the ice by means of “twin keels,” which

in case of necessity serve as “runners.”

The people, however, have for long demanded improved means of

communication with the mainland, and at last a “car-ferry” steamer

(powerful enough to force its way through the worst ice) is to be

constructed to connect the railway on the island with the Intercolonial

line on the mainland. Both are owned by the Dominion government. “The

island railway is of a narrow gauge, but it is to be changed this year

to the standard gauge (4 ft. 8½ ins.) of the Canadian and American

lines.” When this is done, Prince Edward Island will be very happily

situated in the matter of transportation service, for into her three

counties, all with easy water-communication, is packed a well-branched

railway line of two hundred and sixty miles.

Prince Edward Island was first called the Island of St. John, but

historians are not agreed as to who bestowed this name upon “the right

little, tight little island.” Some people think it was John Cabot; some

Samuel Champlain; but, at any rate, it bore the name from the time its

history began until 1799, when it was re-christened in honour of Queen

Victoria’s father. In 1663 it was granted by the “Company of New France”

to a French naval officer, Doublet, and a few fishing stations were

established. As late as 1728 it had only three hundred inhabitants; but

after the deportation of the Acadians from Nova Scotia in 1755, a good

many of these hapless people took refuge in the peaceful island. It was

annexed by the British the year before the capture of Quebec, and was

amongst the territories formally ceded to England by the Treaty of Paris

in 1763.

In 1767 the soil of nearly the whole island was disposed of in one day

to officers and other gentlemen, who agreed to settle the country, and,

by paying small “quit-rents” for their lands, to provide for the cost of

government. Small reservations were made for the support of churches and

schools; but the plan, it may be said, was an utter failure, saddling

the island for many years with a class of absentee landlords, who did

practically nothing for the country. For more than a century the

cultivators of the soil remained in the position of tenants.

In 1873, when the province agreed to enter into Confederation, the

Dominion government granted $800,000 (£160,000) to aid in buying out the

land-owners; but many would not sell, till an Act was passed in 1875

obliging them to sell at a fair price to the Provincial government,

which in turn sold to the tenants.

Many years earlier, in 1851, the Islanders had secured responsible

government. At that time the Parliament consisted of a Governor and

Legislative Council, appointed by the Crown, and an elective Assembly.

Later, the Council also was elected by owners of leasehold and freehold

property worth $325 (£65) and over. Finally, in 1893, the unusual

arrangement was made of amalgamating the two branches of the

Legislature; and now fifteen councilmen, chosen by the property-owners,

and fifteen assembly men, elected by the men of the Province, on a

property qualification so low that scarcely any man is excluded, sit and

vote together.

The legislature of Prince Edward Island, which first met in 1773, is

housed in a fine old, grey stone building in Charlottetown, fronting on

Queen Square, about which are other public buildings, including the Law

Courts, the General Post Office, the Custom House, and the market

building, which every Tuesday and Friday, when the country people come

in to dispose of their produce, presents a very animated scene.

But to return to the government. The expenditure on the salaries of the

Lieutenant-Governor, the cabinet ministers and the members of the

assembly; the administration of justice; the support of schools and

public works and some other charges amount to $420,000 (about £84,000).

Three-fourths of this is met by the subsidy from the Federal government,

and the remaining quarter is raised by provincial taxes, which are very

low. The province is represented in the Dominion parliament by four

senators, and four members of the House of Commons.

The population, despite the prosperity of the island, diminished by over

nine thousand between 1901 and the next census year, 1911. It has been

suggested that this was due in part to the “lure of the West,” and

perhaps in part to the fact that many of the people are descended from

that race of wanderers and excellent pioneers, the Scotch. During the

great migration of the American loyalists northward, the Island of St.

John obtained a considerable addition to its population. These were of

various races; but in 1803 Lord Selkirk brought out eight hundred

Highland crofters, and after a short time of hardship these colonists

settled down happily. Many of their descendants still dwell in the

island.

There are a few manufacturing establishments at the

capital—Charlottetown—and at others of its small centres of

population, but chiefly of a description depending directly on the

industries of fishing and farming.

The island is naturally a favourable place for fishermen. Its fisheries

of cod, mackerel, herring, lobsters and oysters are important, the

latter fishery being the most valuable of its kind in Canada. The

“Malpeque oyster,” from the bay so named, is widely famous, and the

provincial government is taking steps “to extend and develop this

industry by the replanting and cultivation of an area estimated at one

hundred thousand acres.”

The tourist trade is such an important branch of the island’s industries

that, in this connection, it is matter for congratulation that the

summer visitors can find trout in the numerous streams and can enjoy

sea-fishing from boats. As for game, moose and bears need not be looked

for in the “Garden” province; but wild fowl are plentiful in the season.

After all, however, the soil is the chief source of wealth, and the

island possesses “a fertilizer of singular value and potency” in the

mussel or oyster mud found in vast quantities in all its bays and river

mouths, and consisting of “the organic remains of countless generations

of oysters, mussels, clams and other bivalves.” This is a veritable

“mine of wealth to the island,” enriching the poorest soils, so that

they grow excellent crops of clover, turnips and potatoes.

In times past the settlers of Prince Edward Island made the

mistake—common in farming virgin soils—of continuing year after year

to raise the same crop, without taking any measures to secure the

continued fertility of the soil. Happily, through private enterprise and

government encouragement, more scientific methods are coming into

fashion, and the farmers are going extensively into dairying. In

consequence, many farms have gone up 50 per cent. in value and

productiveness during the past two decades; and, in the last census,

little Prince Edward Island could point with pardonable pride to a much

greater product from her dairy factories than could be shown by either

of the far larger provinces of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick.

In proportion to size this province has the largest population of any,

but there is room still for many a good farmer. It is not a land of free

grants, but there are farms for sale at reasonable prices which could be

farmed to great advantage by men with a little capital, trained in good

English methods. Of course the prices depend on situation and worth of

buildings, as well as on the quality of the land, but farms of different

sizes ranging from ten to two hundred and fifty acres may be bought at

from about £2 the acre (in the case of good-sized farms) to £16 the

acre.

[Illustration: A FOX FARM IN PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND.]

In Prince Edward Island such a large proportion of the people are

farmers that their importance to the community is recognized more

readily than where the mercantile classes predominate and have the ear

of the government. Great efforts are now being made to give an education

in the public schools suited to the needs of the rural population. At

the Teachers’ College and Normal School in Charlottetown courses of

lectures are given in agriculture. At several places school gardens have

been introduced with good results, and in others one “consolidated

school,” with different teachers for different classes, has taken the

place of six ordinary schools, the children being taken to and from the

centre in vans. Steps have also been taken to arrange for better

salaries for teachers.

The farmers and their families work hard, but usually find some time for

reading, music, or other recreations, and social gatherings, especially

in the “slack” winter season, and as a rule they live well. They are

rarely addicted to indulgence in any liquor stronger than tea. In fact,

the sale of intoxicants, unless prescribed by a doctor, is prohibited in

Prince Edward Island, and, though the law may be sometimes evaded, the

consumption of strong drink is much less than it was a generation ago.

There are many churches in Prince Edward Island. Considerably over

one-third of the people belong to the church of Rome, and of the

Protestant denominations the Presbyterians are much the strongest. The

people support their own churches, largely by congregational

subscriptions, supplemented in poor districts by grants from the

“Mission Funds” of the particular religious body. Of course the churches

are a very important factor in the social as well as the religious life

of the people. In this connection, societies and organizations, such as

the “Sons of Temperance” and the “Foresters,” are also of importance.

There is a demand in Prince Edward Island for farm workers, and though

the wages are not quite so high as in some parts of Canada, it has the

advantage for British immigrants of being nearer to England, and of

conditions more closely resembling those of the “Old Country.” Wages for

an experienced man, with board and lodging, range from $12 (£2 8s.) a

month in the winter to $16 (£3 4s.) a month through the busy season, of

about eight months; a married man can often obtain a cottage rent free.

In any notice of Prince Edward Island one industry must by no means be

forgotten. This is the breeding of black foxes, of which the fur is

immensely valuable. It began in 1896, when a man living in Tignish

bought three black foxes caught near Bedeque for $300 (£60); but the

price of a good pair has now gone up to $20,000 (£4,000). Black foxes

have been imported from Labrador, and now “fox ranches” in the island

can be counted by hundreds. In 1911 the value of this curious branch of

stock-raising was estimated at $2,000,000. In the early part of 1913 the

capital invested, by some six thousand shareholders, reached $6,000,000.

In that year, on the opening of the Provincial Legislature, the industry

was mentioned in the “speech from the throne,” and during the session

forty new companies were incorporated.

IX

QUEBEC AND ITS EASTERN TOWNSHIPS

ALIKE in its scenery and its history, Quebec, which was the first

“Canada,” is one of the most picturesque provinces of the Dominion.

In the year 1534, the Breton mariner, Jacques Cartier, sailed up the St.

Lawrence till he could see land on both sides. Next year he came again

with three well-appointed vessels (none over one hundred and twenty tons

burden) to colonize and to trade. It was he who called a small bay, in

which his vessels lay upon the Saint’s day, St. Lawrence, a name

afterwards extended to the “Great River of Canada,” and to the gulf into

which it flows. It was he, too, who, penetrating later in the year far

up the river, bestowed the title of “Mont Royale”—now anglicized to

Montreal—upon the “Mountain” beneath which, over a century later, the

devout and gallant Maisonneuve began the settlement destined to grow

into Canada’s greatest city. Cartier himself spent one winter at the

point where the St. Charles enters the St. Lawrence, near the Indian

village of Stadacona.

But a greater man than he was to have the honour of founding Quebec.

Cartier’s men suffered horribly from the cold and from scurvy, against

which ills they did not know how properly to protect themselves, and in

the spring the remnant of the company sailed for home, carrying off with

them the chief, Donnacona, and nine other Indians. Two or three other

attempts to establish French settlements on the St. Lawrence were made

by Cartier, Roberval and La Roche, but it was not till 1608 that

Champlain at last “well and truly laid” the foundations of Quebec.

Of his company also two-thirds died, during the first winter, of scurvy,

but this time the French were there to stay, and for a century and

a-half Quebec was both the head and heart of Canada.

The proud little city, clinging to and climbing upon the rock, was the

seat of the French rulers, the centre of the colony which—despite

government restrictions, despite its own early limitations as a mere

trading post and mission station, despite the terrible hostility of the

Iroquois and the frequent attacks of the English, despite the

“wanderlust” of its own more energetic sons, which led to a dissipation

of the strength of New France as a whole—struck its roots so deep into

the soil, that through all vicissitudes it has preserved to this day its

own peculiar type of civilization.

To old Quebec, Canadians, whether of French or British descent, turn

with much the same feeling that thrills an English heart at the thought

of Westminster Abbey. There is something strangely satisfying in the

beauty of rock and river, of distant blue hills and shining water, of

ancient gabled roofs, grey walls, and antique, harmless-looking cannon;

something stirring in memories of the heroes of two races, which mingle

at Quebec; and inspiring for the future in the peaceful outcome of the

grim struggles of the past.

But if one would really learn to know the French-Canadians of to-day, he

must not be content to observe only the brisk city men in their offices

and stores, nor the dainty little maidens who on Sundays promenade in

gay attire on Dufferin Terrace, before that great modern hotel, the

“Château Frontenac.” He must visit the markets, where the country people

drive their trade in eggs and butter, poultry and small pink pigs,

knitted goods and queer homegrown tobacco. He must go into the country

beyond and around Quebec, and penetrate, if possible, into the quaint

little wooden or stone houses, where all kinds of old-world employments

are carried on by the busy mothers of families, which not infrequently

number ten or a dozen children.

The French-Canadians generally are credited with being a thrifty,

industrious folk, but it looks to an outsider as if the women do the

heavier share of the work, for, not content with those tasks of sweeping

and cleaning, cooking and milking, spinning and sewing, nursing the

babies and all the house mothers’ other miscellaneous duties, the women,

in their flat, black mushroom hats, are constantly seen with the men,

hoeing root-crops or working in the hay-fields.

[Illustration: VIEW OF QUEBEC, SHOWING CITADEL.]

The “habitants,” as the country folk call themselves, are a conservative

people, following customs much the same as those of their ancestors who

first settled in Canada. But the conditions under which they live are

greatly changed. During the last years of the French régime, Canada was

neglected by her mother-land, and amongst the officials sent out to

govern the country were not a few bent on enriching themselves at any

cost. The last Intendant of New France—an official charged with the

administration of justice, and the management of the finances of the

colony—was a clever scoundrel named Bigot, and his devices for

diverting the public funds to his own pockets, and squeezing all manner

of corrupt profits from the people, were endless and shameless. In those

days there was no such thing as municipal government in Canada, and the

affairs of the settlement were managed chiefly by the Intendant; and

appeals to the king—three thousand miles away—were difficult and often

ineffective.

The system of land tenure in New France has been described as “a mild

form of feudalism.” The king gave large grants of land under certain

conditions to a number of seigneurs, usually of good family, who in turn

made grants to tenants or “censitaires,” who were expected to clear and

farm the lands, paying to the seigneur a small rent, sometimes in money,

oftener in kind. The seigneur might also demand a certain portion of the

fish caught by his tenants, and require them to use, and pay for the use

of, his mill and his oven. But if they fulfilled the stipulated

conditions, they could not be dispossessed.

No steps were taken till the nineteenth century to relieve the habitants

of the burdens of seigneurial tenure. In fact, the rents had become

heavier; but, in 1854, an Act of Parliament was passed abolishing the

feudal rights and duties, and granting compensation to the seigneurs.

Not all the tenants took advantage of this measure, and in some

instances the annual rent is still paid.

But the English conquest was the beginning of a new era of freedom for

the French-Canadians. As one of the race, the well-known writer, Mr.

Benjamin Sulte, says, it “abolished the paper money of the old régime,

and substituted cash payments; enabled the habitants, who formed

nine-tenths of the population at the time, to purchase where they

pleased and what they pleased, instead of being obliged to go to the

company’s or government store; gave greater freedom for trade and

abolished unjust monopolies; and paved the way for those legislative

measures which, at a subsequent date, conferred local self-government

and schools upon the French subjects of Great Britain.”

At first, indeed, there was some confusion in the province as to whether

the French or English system of law was in force, but by the Quebec Act,

enacted in 1774, the French laws regarding property and civil rights

were definitely restored to Canada, and the free exercise of their

religion was secured to the adherents of the Roman Catholic church. A

few years later, in 1792, it was determined that in the parliament of

Lower Canada both the French and English languages might be used. This

arrangement was naturally continued when the provinces of Upper and

Lower Canada were united, and is still in force in the Dominion

Parliament.

The Provincial Legislature of Quebec has two chambers: a Council of

twenty-four members, appointed for life; and an elective Assembly of

seventy-four members.

Taxes are light. The revenue of the province is derived chiefly from the

subsidy paid by the Dominion; from the sales and leases of the crown

lands; and from fees for licences of various kinds. Between March, 1905,

and June, 1910, the provincial debt was reduced by over $9,000,000.

Quebec, with the recent addition of Ungava (of which the value cannot

yet be estimated), now stretches on the north to Hudson Strait, and is

the largest province of the Dominion, containing nearly 707,000 square

miles, or five times the area of the United Kingdom. Even the older part

of the province is still largely undeveloped, and will remain so till

there are vast additions to the population.

The climate is healthy, though admittedly cold in winter. “During the

four coldest months of the year,” I quote from an official publication,

“the average temperature is 15 degrees Fahrenheit in December, 10 in

January, 10 to 15 in February, and 20 to 25 in March. There are some

days when the mercury drops as low as 20 to 30 degrees below zero, but

the atmosphere is so dry that but little discomfort is experienced, even

by those who indulge in winter sports in the coldest weather.”

There is no question that the dryness of the atmosphere makes an immense

difference in the extent to which one feels the cold, and though I

cannot speak from experience of a Quebec winter, I know that many people

do prefer the crisp cold of the Dominion’s oldest province to a damper

and milder climate.

Quebec has the advantage of having plenty of snow, which makes winter

travelling easy and delightful. It also “protects the grass and

autumn-sown grain from damage by frost, and, as in England, tulips and

crocuses which have remained in the ground all winter, push their green

shoots through the disappearing snow-banks in the early spring.”

Of course, however, one must dress suitably to the weather. Warm caps,

coats, gloves and overshoes are necessary, especially for driving, in

Lower Canada; the “habitants” wear blanket coats, girt round the waist

with a coloured sash, and woollen caps which can be pulled down over the

ears and neck—a costume which is at once so sensible and so

picturesque, that a modification of it has been adopted nearly all over

Canada for the little folk and by their elder brothers and sisters for

snow-shoeing and ski-ing.

But Quebec is not only a land of ice-palaces and deep snow. It has its

hot months as well as its cold ones, and often the latter follow the

former so quickly that “the rapidity of vegetation is marvellous. Peas

and beans ripen six weeks after being sown. The thermometer sometimes

registers 70 degrees and over in the month of May; and in the early part

of July, 1911, it stood at over 80 in the shade at Quebec for several

days together.” When the writer first set foot in Montreal, it was the

second week in September, and coming in from the sea, in a season when

the icebergs had been adrift in large numbers, it would have seemed that

summer still reigned, had it not been for such a wealth of fruit—pears,

apples, peaches, grapes—everywhere in evidence, as only autumn can

produce.

In population, Quebec comes second to Ontario. The census of 1911 showed

a total of nearly two million three thousand persons, of whom the males

outnumbered the females by almost twenty thousand; and the gain during

the preceding decade was greater than in any other eastern province.

Four-fifths of the people in Quebec are French-speaking, and of these 70

per cent. live in villages and rural districts.

Quebec is a beautiful province of mountain and valley, forest, lake and

river. It was along the rivers and the coasts of the gulf that its

settlement first began. In fact, it was the St. Lawrence that made New

France; yet even to-day there is only a fringe of settlement on its

northern shore, backed by the Laurentide mountains, and beyond those is

the vast scarcely explored wilderness. But the villages continue up the

east bank of the Ottawa; and, south of the St. Lawrence, as far east as

Rimouski, there is a fairly well-peopled section of country.

The pioneer settlers, like the redmen, at first used the graceful bark

canoes as their chief means of conveyance. These could be carried with

ease over the “portages” necessitated by the numerous rapids, but when

the settlers began to build larger boats, they were soon obliged to

improve the navigation of the inland waterways by constructing canals, a

work that has been going on for over a century, and is likely long to

continue.