The Minnesota River, rising on the western boundary of the State,
flows nearly five hundred miles in a deeply carved valley through the
"Big Woods" to the Mississippi. Its source is in the Big Stone Lake,
which, with Lake Traverse to the northward, forms part of the Dakota
boundary. The Red River of the North, rising in Lake Traverse and
gathering together the streams on the western slope of the Itascan
plateau, flows northward between Minnesota and North Dakota, and into
Manitoba, two hundred and fifty miles to Lake Winnipeg. This river has
cut its channel in a nearly level plain, and it is curious that in
times of freshet its waters connect, through Lakes Traverse and the
Big Stone, with the Minnesota, so that steamboats of light draught can
then occasionally pass from the Mississippi waters north to Lake
Winnipeg. It was this rich and level plain of the valley of the Red
River that in the glacial epoch formed the bed of a vast lake which
scientists have named Lake Agassiz. Its area, as indicated by
well-marked shore-lines and deltas, was a hundred miles wide and over
four hundred miles long, stretching far into Manitoba, and the waters
were two to four hundred feet deep. It was held up on the north by the
retreating ice-sheet of the great glacier, the outlet being southward,
where a channel fifty feet deep, fifty miles long and over a mile
wide can now be distinctly traced leading its outflow into the
Minnesota River, whose valley its floods then greatly enlarged on the
way to the Mississippi. The plain of this lake bed is almost level,
descending towards the northward about a foot to the mile, and here
the ancient lake deposited the thick, rich, black soils which have
made the greatest wheat-growing region of North America.
The first settlement of Dakota was on the Big Sioux River at Sioux
Falls, where flour-mills and other manufacturing establishments have
gathered around a fine water-power, and there are nearly fifty
thousand people in the two towns of Sioux Falls in South Dakota and
Sioux City in Iowa. The whole region to the northward and far over the
Canadian boundary is a land of wheat-fields, with grain elevators
dotting the flat prairie at the railway stations, for all the roads
have lines to tap the lucrative trade of this prolific region. The
Northern Pacific Railway crosses Red River at Fargo, which, with the
town of Moorhead, both being wheat and flour centres, has a population
of fifteen thousand. To the westward are the vast "Bonanza" wheat
farms of Dakota, of which the best known is the Dalrymple farm,
covering forty-five thousand acres. Steam-ploughs make continuous
furrows for many miles in the cultivation, and in the spring the
seeding is done. The whole country is covered with a vast expanse of
waving, yellow grain in the summer, and the harvest comes in August.
To the westward flows James River through a similar district, and the
country beyond rises into the higher plateau stretching to the
Missouri. This fertile wheat-growing region extends far northward over
the Canadian border forming the Province of Manitoba, the name coming
from Lake Manitoba, which in the Cree Indian dialect means the "home
of Manitou, the Great Spirit." Its enormous wheat product makes the
business of the flouring-mills of Minneapolis, Duluth and many other
cities, and furnishes a vast stream of grain to go through the Soo
Canal down the lakes and St. Lawrence, much being exported to Europe.
The Canadian Pacific Railway, which provides the traffic outlet for
Manitoba, comes from the northern shore of Lake Superior at Port
Arthur northwestward up the valley of the Kaministiquia River, and its
tributary the Wabigoon, the Indian "Stream of the Lilies." This was
the ancient portage, and by this trail and Winnipeg River, the canoe
route of the Hudson Bay Company voyageurs, Lord Wolseley led the
British army in 1870 to Fort Garry (Winnipeg) that suppressed Louis
Riel's French-Indian half-breed rebellion, which had possession of the
post. The railway route is through an extensive forest, and leads near
the northern shore of the Lake of the Woods, crossing its outlet
stream at Rat Portage, so named from the numerous colonies of
muskrats, a town of sawmills standing at the rocky rim of the lake,
where its waters break through and down rapids of twenty feet fall to
seek Winnipeg River, the Ounipigon or "muddy water" of the Crees.
Here, and at Keewatin beyond, are grand water-powers, the latter
having mammoth mills that grind the Manitoba wheat and send the flour
to England. Then, emerging from the forests, the railway crosses the
rich black soils of the Red River Valley, and beyond that river enters
Winnipeg, the "Prairie City" and commercial metropolis of the Canadian
Northwest. For nearly eight hundred miles this alluvial region spreads
west and northwest of Winnipeg, with varying degrees of fertility, to
the Rocky Mountains. Here, at the junction of the Assiniboine River,
coming from the remote northwest, with Red River, has grown a Canadian
Chicago of fifty thousand people, developed almost as if by magic,
from the little settlement of two hundred and forty souls, whom
Wolseley found in 1870, around what was then regarded as the distant
Hudson Bay Company frontier post of Fort Garry. Its original name when
first established was Fort Gibraltar. The two rivers wander crookedly
over the flat land, and between them the city covers an extensive
surface. A half-dozen railways radiate in various directions, and
there are spacious car-yards and stations. Winnipeg has an energetic
population, largely Scotch and Americans, but with picturesque touches
given by the copper-colored Indians and French half-breeds, who wander
about in their native costumes, though most of these have gone away
from Red River Valley to the far Northwest. The city has good streets,
many fine buildings and attractive stores. The Manitoba Government
Buildings adjoin the Assiniboine River, and the military barracks of
Fort Osborne are alongside. Near the junction of the rivers is the
little stone gateway left standing, which is almost all that remains
of the original trading-post buildings of Fort Garry, representing the
venerable Hudson Bay Company, chartered by King Charles II. in 1670,
that controlled the whole vast empire of the Canadian Northwest. This
Company was a grant by the king originally to Prince Rupert and a few
associates of a monopoly of the fur trade over a vast territory in
North America, extending from Lake Superior to Hudson Bay and the
Pacific Ocean. In this way that portion of British America came to be
popularly known in England as "Prince Rupert's Land." The great
Company existed for nearly two hundred years, had one hundred and
fifty-two trading-posts, and employed three thousand traders, agents
and voyageurs, and many thousands of Indians. In the bartering with
the red men, the unit of account was the beaver skin, which was the
equivalent of two martens or twenty muskrats, while the pelt of a
silver fox was five times as valuable as a beaver. In 1869, when the
Dominion of Canada was formed, England bought the sovereignty of the
Company for $1,500,000 and transferred its territory to Canada. The
Company still retains its posts and stores, however, and conducts
throughout the Northwest a mercantile business. Far to the westward of
Winnipeg spread the fertile prairies of Manitoba and Assiniboia
Provinces, until they gradually blend into the rounded and
grass-covered foothills making the grazing ranges of Alberta that
finally rise into the snow-capped peaks of the Rockies.