[Cover Illustration]
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
THE NEW WORLD FAIRY BOOK
Canadian Legends and Tales of
Imagination,
Red and White. Sixth Edition.
THE STORY OF CANADA
In the Story of the Empire Series. Third
Edition.
NEW CANADA AND THE NEW
CANADIANS
Second Edition.
PROFESSOR BLACKIE, HIS SAYINGS
AND DOINGS
By his Nephew. Second Edition.
OLD HIGHLAND DAYS
Life of Dr. John Kennedy.
[Illustration: _Manitoba_ _Saskatchewan_
_Alberta_ _British Columbia_
PARLIAMENT BUILDINGS OF THE WEST]
THE
BOOK OF THE WEST
_By_
HOWARD ANGUS KENNEDY
_The Story of Western Canada, its Birth and_
_Early Adventures, its Youthful Combats,_
_its Peaceful Settlement, its Great_
_Transformation, and its_
_Present Ways._
[Illustration]
THE RYERSON PRESS
TORONTO
‾Copyright, Canada, 1925, by‾
THE RYERSON PRESS
_THIS BOOK_
_IS WRITTEN FOR_
ALL LOVERS OF THE WEST WHO
ARE NOT TOO YOUNG TO
THINK OR TOO OLD
TO LEARN
_Study to be quiet and to do your own_
_business, and work with your own hands,_
_that you may act honestly to others and_
_lack nothing yourselves._
_—PAUL THE APOSTLE_
CONTENTS
—————
PAGE
A HILL-TOP ADVENTURE. FOREWORD 1
THE OLD TIMES
I. ADVENTURES WITHOUT A MAN 4
_Giant Lizards, page 5. Birth of the Mountains, 7. Ice
Age, 7. Rhinoceros and Mastodon, 8. A Continent Waiting
for Man, 8._
II. THE INDIAN BY HIMSELF 9
_First Arrivals from Asia, 9. Spreading South and East,
11. Corn Found, 11. Gardening Begins, 12. Wanderings of
Northern Indians, 13. Prairie Left to the Last, 14. Life
and Death, 15. The Mound Builders, 16. The First
Plainsmen, 17. Buffalo Hunting Starts, 18. Blackfoot and
Cree come out of the Woods, 19. Life in a Hunting Tribe,
20._
III. THE WHITE MAN COMES EXPLORING 23
_Indians Hear Strange News, 23. Why the White Man
Crossed the Sea, 25. French Ascend the St. Lawrence, 26.
La Salle, 27. English Discover Hudson Bay, 25. Radisson
and Groseillers reach the West, 31. Hudson’s Bay Company
Started, 33._
IV. THE REIGN OF KING BEAVER 35
_His Achievements, Dead and Alive, 35. “Rupert’s Land,”
37. Trading on the Bay Shore, 39. French Opposition, 40.
Forest Runners, 41. The Vérendryes, 41. First Sight of the
Mountains, 43. The English Strike Inland, 44. Indians on
Horseback, 45. Hearne Reaches the Arctic Sea, 47. Eskimo
Massacred by Indians, 48._
_The Rival North-west Company, 49. Mackenzie Crosses to
the Pacific, 50. Thompson Descends the Columbia, 50.
Fraser of Fraser River, 51. The Companies at War, 52. Lord
Selkirk’s Colony on Red River, 53. Battle of Seven Oaks,
55. The Rivals Join Forces, 56. Company Rule Extended to
the Pacific, 56. The Fur Trader’s Life, 56. Travel by Land
and Sea, 57. Perils of the Straits, 57._
_The West as Paul Kane saw it in 1847, 60. Isolation of
Red River, 61. Slaughter of Men and Buffalo, 61. The Cree
and Blackfoot Feud, 62. Indian Dance and Horse Race, 63._
_Tragedy of Arctic Exploration, 64. Fate of Franklin,
65. North-west Passage Found, 66. Amundsen Gets Through,
66._
V. THE FARTHEST WEST 68
_North-west Passage Hunt not Wasted, 68. Drake on the
Pacific Coast, 69. Captain Cook, 69. British and Spanish
on Vancouver Island, 70. United States Frontier Fixed, 71.
Company’s Forts and Farming, 72. Dogs Bred for Wool, 72.
Indian Sports and Slavery, 73. Flat-Heads, 74._
_First White Colony, 75. The Gold Rush, 75. Company
Rule Ended, 76. British Justice, 79. Coal Found, 81.
Federation with Canada, 81. The Hog of San Juan, 82._
VI. THE WINDOWS OPENED 83
_Exploring for Homes, 83. “Paradise of Fertility,” 84.
The Door Still Shut, 84. Toleration of Savagery, 85.
Alexander Henry, 86. Indians and Christianity, 86. A Peace
Maker, 87. Rupert’s Land Enters Dominion, 88. Trouble on
Red River, 89. Wolseley’s Expedition, 90._
VII. THE MOUNTED POLICE 91
_New Danger on the Frontier, 91. Mounted Police
Organized, 92. Campaign against Whiskey Smugglers, 93.
Indians make Treaty, 93. Redcoats and Redskins, 94. Sioux
from the States, 96._
THE GREAT DIVIDE
VIII. OUR FIRST AND LAST INDIAN WAR 98
_Riel’s Second Revolt, 99. The Indian Peril, 99. Duck
Lake Fight, 99. Battleford Besieged, 100. Frog Lake
Massacre, 101. An Army from the East, 103. The Railway
just in Time, 104. Relief of Battleford, 105. The Fight on
Cutknife Hill, 106. Fish Creek, 111. Victory of Batoche,
112. Surrender of the Chiefs, 112. The Hunt for Big Bear,
114._
THE NEW TIMES
IX. OPENING THE DOOR OF THE WEST 117
_The Railway to the Pacific, 117. A National Necessity,
118. How it was Got, 120. Difficulties of Construction,
121. Finished in Five Years, 122._
X. OUR FATHERS AND MOTHERS COME IN 124
_British Settlers in the East, 124. Their Children
Colonize the West, 126. Immigrants Direct from Europe,
126. Early Isolation, 126. King Steer and King Wheat, 127.
Collecting Buffalo Bones, 127. The Ranching Era, 127._
XI. RIDING THE PLAINS IN 1905 128
_A Ride through Two New Provinces, 128. Calgary, 129.
Livestock in the Park Lands, 129. Untouched Prairie, 129.
“We are Canadians Now,” 130. Wild Life, 131. Antelope and
Railway, 131. Thin Thread of Settlement, 132. Hospitable
Métis, 133._
_Turn the Key and Walk in, 135. A Man from Iowa, 135.
Kings and Presidents, 136. Law and Order, 137.
French-Canadians’ Return, 138. Revisiting a Battlefield,
139. Indians Farming, 139. A Sylvan Home, 140._
XII. LEARNING TO BE CANADIANS 141
_Freighting, 141. The Blacksmith’s Wife, 141. Health in
the Air, 142. Scandinavians, 142. “Who are the Slavs?”
143. Small Beginnings, 143. A Spinning Bachelor, 143. A
Doukhobor Village, 145. The Long Migration, 148. The
Newcomer Learns, and Teaches, 149._
XIII. THE TREE OF FREEDOM 151
_Twin Provinces Born, 151. How to Cultivate the Tree of
Freedom, 153. The Political Art of Living Together, 154.
Loyalty to Union, 155. The Two Empires, 156._
XIV. ON THE WINGS OF THE WEST 158
_“Cultivating our Garden,” 158. Seeing the West from
the Air, 159. Victoria, 159. Federal Observatory, 159.
Ships, 160. What the British Navy Means, 160. Vancouver,
160. Fish, Forest, and Mine, 161. A Pioneer Family, 162.
“Simple Life and High Standard of Living,” 163. Fruit
Valleys, 164. Westerners and the War, 164. Sea of
Mountains, 165. Airplane, Wireless, and Forest Fires,
166._
XV. A FLIGHT ACROSS THE PLAINS 167
_Wealth of Coal and Water Power, 167. Manufactures,
168. The Chinook, 169. Watering Dry Land, 169. Bees, 170.
Natural Gas, 170. Quality in Cattle and Sheep, 171.
Regina, 171. Rare Clay and Common Dirt, 171. Network of
Railways, 172. Better Houses, 172. Telephones, 172. Tree
Planting, 173. Nomads Yet, 174. Climates, 175. “Test and
Select,” 176. Wasteful Cultivation, 176. Automobiles, 177.
The Business End of Farming, 178. Experimental Farms, 179.
Universities, 180. People Wanted, 180. Small Farming, 181.
Butter and Cheese, 183. Winnipeg, 184. Sports, 185. Boys
and Girls, 185. Citizen Soldiers, 186._
XVI. UP TO THE NORTH AND HOME AGAIN 187
_The Caribou Pastures, 187. Reindeer and Food Supply,
188. Police on Arctic Islands, 189. Wireless on the Arctic
Coast, 190. Up the Mackenzie, 190. Peace River, 191. Homes
in the Brush, 191. Buffalo Flourish Again, 192. Fur
Farming and Trapping, 192. A Beaver Colony, 193._
_New Settlers and Canadian Ideals, 194. Harmony and
Variety, 196. A Sure Foundation, 196. Pure Canadian, 199._
THE SPIRIT OF THE WEST 201
INDEX 203
ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
PARLIAMENT BUILDINGS OF THE WESTERN PROVINCES _Frontispiece_
VERY EARLY WESTERNERS 5
_Giant Lizards on the Red Deer. Drawing by
E. S. Christman._
INDIAN LACROSSE PLAYER 13
_Drawing by George Catlin._
EARLY BUFFALO HUNTING 24
_Drawing by George Catlin._
TOWING THROUGH THE ICE 29
_From Gerrit de Veer’s “Vraye Description
de Trois Voyages,” Amsterdam, 1600._
THE VOYAGEURS’ WAY TO THE WEST. A PORTAGE ON THE
OTTAWA 36
_From W. H. Bartlett’s Engraving in
“Canadian Scenery.”_
CHIEF POUNDMAKER 36
_From Pastel by Edmund Morris._
CHIEF PIAPOT 36
_From a Photograph._
BEAVER AT WORK, AND BEAVER HATS 37
_From Horace T. Martin’s “Castorologia.”_
THE BEAVER AND THE UNICORN 37
_From John Ogilby’s “America,” 1671._
IN A SWIFT CURRENT 52
_Drawing by Frederic Remington._
ON THE WINTER HIGHWAY 52
_Drawing by Frederic Remington._
LORD SELKIRK, FATHER OF WESTERN SETTLEMENT 53
_From a Painting by Raeburn._
FORT DOUGLAS; WHERE WINNIPEG NOW STANDS 53
_Built to Protect the Selkirk Settlers.
From a Water-Color believed to be by Peter
Rindifbacher, Dutch Artist._
COAST INDIAN MASKS 73
_From the Marquis of Lorne’s “Canadian
Pictures.”_
ON THE CARIBOO TRAIL, THOMPSON RIVER 77
_From the Marquis of Lorne’s “Canadian
Pictures.”_
FORT CHIPEWYAN, LAKE ATHABASCA 96
_From a Drawing by W. S. Watson, 1899._
BUFFALO HERD AND PRAIRIE FIRE 96
_From a Painting by F. A. Verner._
MOUNTED POLICE CHASING WHISKEY SMUGGLERS 97
THE COVERED WAGON 97
_A Returned Canadian, Home-seeking. From a
Photograph by H. A. Kennedy, 1905._
AN INDIAN ULTIMATUM 102
_Facsimile of Big Bear’s Demand for
Surrender of Fort Pitt._
ON THE BATTLEFIELD. FRIENDS AGAIN 112
_Mounted Police Officer and Cree Indian,
Sir Archibald Macdonell and Piacutch. From a
Photograph by H. A. Kennedy on Cutknife Hill,
1905._
A HORSE RANCH 112
WHERE NO TREES GREW. FORESTRY STATION, INDIAN HEAD 113
QUALITY RAISING QUALITY. SCHOOL FAIR PRIZE WINNERS 113
ANTELOPE ON THE PRAIRIE 132
_From a Drawing by George Catlin._
FROM THE RUSSIAN OVEN 176
AT THE SPINNING WHEEL 176
_Doukhobor Housewives. From Photographs by
H. A. Kennedy._
THE OLD HOUSE AND THE NEW. ON A RUTHENIAN FARM 177
A FAMILY FROM POLAND 177
LAKE LOUISE, ROCKY MOUNTAINS NATIONAL PARK 192
MOUNT ROBSON, JASPER NATIONAL PARK 193
THE E. P. RANCH, HIGH RIVER 193
_The Prince of Wales and his Canadian
Home_
SKETCH MAP OF WESTERN CANADA 206
* * * * *
Hearty thanks are given to the Princess Louise, Duchess of Argyll, and
the publishers of “Canadian Pictures,” for the use of pictures from that
book by the late Duke, Governor-General of Canada; to Mrs. H. T. Martin
for the beaver pictures from her husband’s book; to _Harper’s Magazine_
and Mrs. Remington’s executors for the two travel scenes by Frederic
Remington; to the American Museum of Natural History, New York, for the
giant lizards; to the scientific staff of the Victoria Museum at Ottawa
for checking my pre-historic facts; to many other officers of the
Dominion and the four Western Provinces, and unofficial informants, for
pictorial and other details; above all, to the numberless good folk all
over the West who have made my travelling and living among them an
endless revelation and delight.—H.A.K.
THE BOOK OF THE WEST
THE BOOK OF THE WEST
—————
A Hill-Top Adventure
_B__ULLETS whistled about my ears as I leapt from my horse on Cutknife
Hill. The Indians had us neatly ringed in, as once they used to trap the
buffalo. Puffs of smoke rose from the gully on our left, from the gully
on our right, from the creek-bed in our rear, from the ridge beyond the
gully on each hand. Man after man fell, killed or wounded. The friend
who had shared his supper with me, the night before, lay dead, a bullet
through his head. The next bullet might go through mine. For five long
hours the painted braves kept up the zip-zip-zip, shooting us down like
rabbits. It was my first adventure in the West,—and the last of its
kind the West will ever know._
_That little war of 1885 was the Great Divide of Western History. It
marked an end and a beginning. The rising on the Saskatchewan was the
last volcanic outbreak of the fire primeval, the savage spirit of the
old Wild West. With the suppression of that rising, the fire was
quenched for ever. The old times ended; our own new times began._
_Standing on the Great Divide of the Rocky Mountains we see, looking
back, the long road we have travelled up from the Atlantic, and then,
looking forward, the long road stretching down to the Pacific. So,
looking back from the Great Divide of Western History, we see a moving
picture of romance, of wonderful discovery, of long-drawn struggle
against fearful odds; a picture brightened with heroic deeds, though
darkened now and then by clouds of crime. Then, looking forward, we see
the moving picture of our modern West, the inrushing flood of humanity,
these forty years of peace and safety, of swift transformation from a
hunter’s wilderness to a land of a million homes, of marvellous, though
unsatisfying, progress._
_This picture too is crowded with adventure, of many kinds. People are
constantly having adventures without knowing it. They pass through life
and think it dull because they have a dull habit of not looking at the
thousand points of interest as they pass._
_When the first Indian landed in empty America, far back in the
mysterious past, that was a great adventure. And when the last family of
European newcomers stepped off the train this very morning, after a
journey of 6,000 miles by sea and land, that was just as big an
adventure to them. When a boy has learned to shoot, and hunts down a
coyote, he feels that he has had an adventure; but when he merely hunts
up a stray cow in the brush of the back pasture, on his pony, that too
is an adventure, and tests his power of observation and discovery as
well as horsemanship._
_Yes, and every spring when the farmer tests his grain for germination,
and fans the last weed seed out of it, and treats it with formalin for
smut, and carefully cleans his drill, he is preparing for a yearly
adventure, as truly as the fur-hunter centuries ago when he patched his
canoe and packed his belongings for a journey of months and years
through an unknown land._
_For me, it is an adventure to sit down and write this book, as truly as
when I saddled up and rode out of Battleford on my way to Cutknife Hill.
A hard adventure, too; harder work than rounding up cattle, or clearing
brush, or pitching hay, or stooking heavy wheat, or anything else I have
ever done on the farm. But there is great pleasure in doing hard things,
as every true Westerner knows by experience._
· · · · · ·
_A moving picture of the West is what you ask from me: a moving picture
in words that help you to see in imagination events as if they were
happening under your eyes. You want me to tell the story of our Western
home, and how it came to be ours,—yours and mine. You want me to
conjure up a picture of the West as it was and as it is._
_“The West as it was” may have a more thrilling interest to some of my
distant readers than “the West as it is”; but among Westerners
themselves the glimpses of modern life in the later chapters of this
book will have an interest keen enough, for it is their own life. The
questions touched by me, or by the men and women whose words I give, are
questions that Westerners have daily to face and often to wrestle with._
_The West is so vast, so full of contrast, so rich in variety of scene,
of climate, of industry and of people, that no one book can describe it
all as it is. To do that would need a library, with picture gallery
attached. I can only do my best, with two hundred pages of print and
pictures, to paint in true colors on the smallest scale the country that
I love._
_The West as it is to be,—the West as it will be when we have all done
our best for its prosperity,—ah, that I must leave for you to imagine
and create._
THE OLD TIMES
CHAPTER I
Adventures Without a Man
HOW IS your own imagination, to-day?
I hope it is good and strong, because you will need to use it now.
The most surprising things used to happen, right here in the West, with
no man here to see them. Mother Earth and her elder children had the
most extraordinary adventures before the first man came.
Our eyes, if we will only use them, come to the help of our imagination
here. Down in the Red Deer Valley of Alberta monsters used to live, more
huge and wonderful than dragons in a fairy tale.
No human eyes ever saw them in life. No men lived here, or anywhere on
earth, so long, long ago. But we ourselves can see those very beasts,
their huge old bones and awful teeth; yes, the very pattern of their
skin, printed on the soft mud they sank and died in,—mud now hardened
into rock. Many of these monstrous skeletons have been put together and
set up in museums. Every year more come into sight, as the river
undermines its banks and the rock breaks up and wears away.
You can see these creatures, dead, with your eyes. Now set your
imagination to work, and see them alive.
What a picture! A dense jungle, of waving horsetail reeds and rushes
tall as our poplars, of spreading tree-ferns, of towering trees like
tropical palms. Here and there, an open stretch of gleaming, stagnant
water. Flitting overhead are curious birds with rows of sharp teeth in
their long beaks, and still more curious reptiles of the air with fleshy
wings, like overgrown bats. What are they looking down at? There is a
stir among the greenery. A lizard, fifty feet long, is wallowing in his
muddy bed; his head appears, with dull eyes looking out from a stupid
little brain; then his neck, longer than any giraffe’s. We call him the
Gigantosaurus, or giant lizard. He seizes a tree with his forepaws,
bends it down, and begins to munch the leaves and twigs.
[Illustration]
_Very Early Westerners,_
_Corythosaurus and Gorgosaurus_
Suddenly he stops, looks round in alarm, and dives. Too late. Another
huge lizard comes crashing and splashing through the greenery,—not
quite so big, but fierce and strong, his mighty jaws grinning with
terrible fangs. It is the Tyrannosaurus. He throws himself on the poor
leaf-eater, and bites and tears, and tears and bites, till the helpless
monster lies dead in the swamp. A whole tribe of the conqueror’s family,
and other flesh-eaters of all sizes and many curious shapes, creep up
and share the feast, till nothing is left but the bones—for us to
discover, a few million years later, and collect for our museums.
That was the most ornamental and spectacular age in the whole history of
animal life on this earth. Nothing so fantastic has ever lived, before
or since. One beast had a crest of many pointed plates jutting out of
its high humped back from head to tail. Several had two or three horns,
on forehead and snout. One had a full suit of bony armor plates,
including a movable shield over each eye. Another had a bill like a
duck, and a towering dome of a skull that gives an impression of high
intellect; but his brain, like that of all the rest, was ridiculously
small. There were hundreds of different kinds of these quaint animals
roaming about here at the same time.
Even that is not the earliest scene of Western life we can see when we
open the telescope of imagination and look back through the ages past.
Look back far enough, and we see the hot earth spinning through space, a
soft and fluid ball,—red-hot, only we cannot see the color, for a thick
cloud of vapor covers all. As the earth cools, it shrinks, wrinkling and
crinkling. The parts of its skin that rise make continents and islands,
the parts that sink make seas and lakes. It goes on shrinking, and its
shape changes constantly. A sea-bottom rises, and becomes land; land
sinks, and is covered by sea. Up and down, up and down, for millions of
years.
Little beasts appeared in the sea. High up in the Rocky Mountains we
find them by countless thousands—the trilobites, related to the
crabs,—their shapes preserved and moulded in the solid stone. But that
stone, when they lived and died, was soft mud at the bottom of the sea.
There were no Rocky Mountains then. The oldest mountains in this part of
the world are nearer the coast. They are worn down and rounded now; for
as soon as a mountain is raised it begins to wear away, split by frost,
falling in landslides, and washed down by rain. Even when the giant
lizards browsed and played and fought in the jungle, there were no
Rockies yet.
The giant lizards came, and passed away. The earth still shrank, and
threw up more wrinkles,—the Rocky Mountains at last rising out of the
sea. They are still so new that their ridges and edges and peaks have
not yet lost their sharpness, yet so many thousand years old that their
uppermost rocks, worn away to sand and carried down in rivers to the
plain, have had time to bury the lizards many feet deep. They have
buried, too, the tropical palms and ferns and reeds, and pressed them
into coal, which we dig up and burn.
Millions of years pass,—and when we look through our telescope again
the country has so changed that we cannot recognize it. Instead of being
hotter than now, it is colder. Most of it, in fact, has disappeared,
under an immensely thick sheet of ice. This icy mantle covers nearly all
Canada, and a great part of the United States. Its edge advances,
century after century, farther and farther south, slowly but surely,
wiping out forests, grinding and grooving the rocks underneath, as
glaciers always do. Then it slowly retires,—through more
centuries,—advances again, and again withdraws to the north. A third
time the land is covered before the final retreat of the Arctic ice.
How did this happen? Most likely by the surfaces of the earth and
sea-bottom in these northern parts rising many hundred feet and then
sinking, to rise and sink again and again. In some parts of the world
even now the level of the land is rising, in others falling; and
wherever the land is high enough to-day, with a considerable snowfall,
we know it is always covered with snow and ice, summer and winter.
Let us take a look at our country as it was when the second ice-cap had
melted and the last had not yet formed.
The monsters have gone, for ever vanished from the earth. Gone are the
tree-ferns and towering palms. New birds have come, like those we know,
and sing among trees and shrubs of the kind still growing around us. The
hairy rhinoceros, the mammoth and the mastodon, thunder over the grassy
plain. We see our northern musk ox grazing as far south as Kentucky and
Tennessee.
We look for men and find none at all. Not one man, woman or child, in
all these two vast continents. Fifteen million square miles, empty and
waiting, all ready for man, but waiting for him in vain; perhaps till
even the last and smallest of the ice-caps has disappeared.
Far away in the north-west the land comes to an end; but looking over
the water we see the coast of Asia only sixty miles off, with a
convenient little group of islands half-way over. There is nothing to
prevent man from coming over in a canoe in summer, or on the ice in
winter.
And there he is, coming!