[Illustration: Cover art]
[Frontispiece: READY FOR A SLEIGH RIDE. PAGE 16.]
[Illustration: Title page]
PEEPS AT MANY LANDS
CANADA
BY
J. T. BEALBY, B.A.
WITH TWELVE FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS
IN COLOUR
BY
T. MOWER MARTIN, R.C.A., C. M. MANLY,
HY. SANDHAM, ALLAN STEWART,
W. COTMAN EADE, & MORTIMER MENPES
LONDON
ADAM AND CHARLES BLACK
1909
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I. THE GREAT DOMINION
II. THE FAR WEST
III. HOME-LIFE IN CANADA
IV. WINTER SPORTS
V. FIFTY BELOW ZERO
VI. LAW AND ORDER IN CANADA
VII. THE SHIP OF THE PRAIRIE
VIII. GOLDEN WHEAT AND THE BIG RED APPLE
IX. CANADIAN TIMBER
X. WEALTH IN ROCK AND SAND
XI. SPOILS OF SEA AND WOOD
XII. WATERWAYS
XIII. FIGHTING THE IROQUOIS INDIANS
XIV. THE HABITANT OF THE ST. LAWRENCE SHORE
XV. THE HOME OF EVANGELINE
XVI. REDSKIN, ESKIMO, AND CHINK
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Ready for a Sleigh Ride . . . _Mortimer Menpes . . . Frontispiece_
By kind permission of E. J. Barratt, Esq.
Parliament Buildings, Toronto . . . _C. M. Manly_
Mountain Scenery . . . _T. Mower Martin_
Tobogganing . . . _T. Mower Martin_
A Settler's Farm-Yard . . . _T. Mower Martin_
The Rocky Mountains . . . _T. Mower Martin_
The Ship of the Prairie . . . _Allan Stewart_
Ottawa . . . _T. Mower Martin_
Winnipeg . . . _W. Cotman Eade_
Big Forest Trees . . . _T. Mower Martin_
The Iroquois attacking Dollard's Stockade . . . _Henry Sandham_
Montreal . . . _T. Mower Martin_
_Sketch-Map of Canada_
[Illustration: SKETCH-MAP OF CANADA]
The quotation from "The Song of the
Banjo," on p. 43, is made by kind
permission of Mr. Rudyard Kipling and his
publishers, Messrs. Methuen and Co.
[Illustration: PARLIAMENT BUILDINGS, TORONTO. _C. M. Manly._]
CANADA
CHAPTER I
THE GREAT DOMINION
If you look at a map of North America, you will see that the whole
northern half of it is one vast extent, coloured perhaps in red, and
stretching north from the boundary of the United States to the Arctic
Ocean; you will see that it is deeply indented by the great Hudson Bay
on the north, and the Gulf of St. Lawrence on the east; that it has an
outline projecting into many bold headlands, and a coast washed by
three oceans, fringed with countless islands, great and small.
This is Canada, a land that comprises fully one-third of the 12,000,000
square miles of the British Empire, thirty times as large as England,
Ireland, and Scotland combined--not much less in area, in fact, than
the whole of Europe. You may realize its breadth by thinking that if
you were to get on a train at Halifax on the east, on Monday morning,
and travel by the Imperial limited--a very fast train--day and night
without stopping, you would not reach Vancouver on the west coast till
Saturday morning. In the course of this long journey you would pass
through eight large provinces--Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Quebec,
Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, and British Columbia--and you
would still miss the island province, Prince Edward, and the great
northern territories. Here is a heritage of the Anglo-Saxon race, a
new nation indeed, part of the greatest Empire in the world, being
fashioned and built up with marvellous rapidity.
We will try to give our readers a few pictures of this new land. A
country whose southern parts are in the same latitude as Marseilles,
and whose northern islands hide in the everlasting silence of Arctic
ice, naturally presents a great variety of physical features, climate,
productions, and occupations, and this bewildering variety is increased
by difference in age. Down in the east the Tercentenary last year
marked the passing of 300 years since Champlain first landed; in the
north and west it is rare to find a native born.
There are only about 6,000,000 people in this broad domain, and the
settled parts and the large cities are mostly along the south, while
the northern areas are in many parts covered by great forests, in which
still roam the moose and the elk, the grizzly bear and the grey wolf,
while the plash of the hunter's paddle following his line of beaver or
otter-traps, or the tap of the prospector's hammer searching for silver
or gold, have long been the only echo of the white man. Nomadic tribes
of Indians still build their tepees beside the still waters of far
inland lakes, and follow the pathless highway of river and stream.
There are no forests in the southern districts of Manitoba,
Saskatchewan, and Alberta. Here is one vast open plain, grassy meadow
or ploughed land as far as eye can see, the prairie.
The southern part of Ontario, Quebec, and the province of Nova Scotia,
are, in appearance, much like England, studded as they are with large
towns, prosperous and old-settled farms, and numerous thriving orchards
and vineyards. If the rolling, wide prairies, reaching as far as the
eye can pierce in every direction, is the chief feature of the
provinces of Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta, the majestic river,
St. Lawrence, is the chief feature of the province of Quebec, and four
big lakes, or rather inland seas, are the principal feature of Ontario.
It is between two of these large lakes, Ontario and Erie, on the one
side, and a third larger lake, Huron, on the other, that the
above-mentioned garden-like part of the province of Ontario is
situated. The fourth lake, Superior, the biggest of all--nearly as big
as all Scotland, in fact--lies farther to the west, and stretches for
400 miles along the south of Ontario. There is yet a fifth big lake,
closely connected with these four--namely, Michigan--but it belongs to
the United States rather than to Canada.
"Domed with the azure of heaven,
Floored with a pavement of pearl,
Clothed all about with a brightness
Soft as the eyes of a girl;
"Girt with a magical girdle,
Rimmed with a vapour of rest--
These are the inland waters,
These are the lakes of the West."