J. T. Bealby

“ If you turn away from the sawmill and wander alongside the river, you will see a perfect multitude of logs, thousands of them, held together inside a boom of logs, chained or ironed together, like a huge flock of sheep penned within a sheepfold. These immense masses of timber are floated down the streams in spring, when the snows, melting, flood the rivers with swift, eddying, and often turbulent freshets. Occasionally it happens that the stream grows so swift and violent that it causes the logs to burst the boom or log-linked enclosure within which they are confined. ”

“ One day in the year 1755 consternation and dismay invaded every heart in what is now Nova Scotia, the large peninsula on the east of Canada that fronts the fierce Atlantic gales, and bears the full brunt of their fury without murmur or groan. At that time the inhabitants were nearly all, like those of Quebec and the St. Lawrence shore, descendants of people who came from France, more especially from Brittany and Normandy. Originally the country was called Acadia. It was James I. of England who changed that name to Nova Scotia, which is Latin, and means "New Scotland." ”

“ Frequently the railway is the first pioneer in opening up a district for settlement, being built to reach a wealthy mine or a petroleum-field, and as the railway penetrates mile after mile into the unoccupied valley, little towns spring up alongside it. In this way the hoarse bray of the railway-engine awakens the sleeping echoes of mountain glen or river valley before the sound of the settler's axe is heard or the smoke of the emigrant's camp-fire seen. ”

“ Such is the commanding cry which rings out in a Canadian railway-station when a train is quite ready to start. "All aboard!" shouts the conductor as he walks briskly alongside the train. In climb the waiting passengers, and without further warning the big, ponderous engine begins to move; and as it moves, the big bell which it carries begins to toll, and keeps on tolling until the train is well clear of the station. There is no string of guards and porters crying, "Take your seats, please!" and no ringing of a station bell, as in England. The conductor is the master of the train. ”

“ Although the interior of British Columbia is a sea of mountains, like an ocean suddenly turned into stone when in the grip of a mighty tempest, the hollows between the broken mountain-crests consist of a number of long narrow valleys, many of them filled wholly or in part with lakes. On a still, peaceful day in summer or early autumn nothing in the world can be lovelier than one of these lakes—Kootenay, Slocan, Arrow, Okanagan. ”

“ Nevertheless, all is not always peace and contentment in a Canadian forest. To say nothing of the wild beasts—e.g., bear, lynx, mountain lion—which live in them, the actual trees of the forest are themselves a source of menace and danger to men. During the hot, dry days of summer an unheeded spark from a woodman's pipe, a red-hot cinder from a passing train, a neglected camp-fire—the ashes left unextinguished—are each enough to ignite the highly inflammable undergrowths of the forest ”

“ The first snowfall in Canada is an intoxicant. Boys go snow mad. Montreal has a temporary insanity. The houses are prepared for the visit of King North Wind, and the Canadians are the only people in the world who know how to keep warm outdoors as well as indoors. The streets are gay with life and laughter, and everybody seems determined to make the most of the great carnival. Business goes to the dogs. There is a mighty march of tourists and townspeople crunching over the crisp snow, and a constant jingle of sleigh-bells. ”

“ In Canada they all wear glistening snow-caps, while glaciers of enormous extent rest in their awful cañons, and their hoary sides are laced with the most beautiful green-blue mountain torrents which leap from dizzy heights in cascades of dazzling beauty. ”

“ Every night in the year for the last seventeen years, halfway up the side of a lofty mountain overhanging a beautiful lake in Western Canada, and opposite to one of the most progressive towns of the interior of the Dominion, a solitary light might be seen burning. The stranger naturally wonders what the light can mean in such a spot. The mountain-side consists entirely of bare rock, with a few trees growing out of the crevices. There is not a blade of grass, not a sign of any single thing that could be of the slightest use to any human being. ”

“ The stranger visiting a Canadian town is at once struck by the keenness of the local enthusiasm. That is to say, the people who live in that town are immensely proud of it, and consider it the finest and best place to live in in all the world. They are very fond of pointing out the advantages which it enjoys, and never neglect the smallest opportunity of boasting of its beauty or wealth or public spirit, or whatever it may be that it excels in. ”

“ 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. ”

“ At night, after a supper of fish just pulled out of the lake and cooked on the camp-fire, the sleep in a tent on a bed of spruce boughs is a glorious treat to the city man or maid.
In the cities games of all sorts are played. Everywhere baseball, the national game of the United States, is to be seen, and lacrosse, the national game of Canada, adopted from the Indians, is a great favourite; cricket, tennis, polo, golf, and bowls, all known games, are played with the greatest fervour. In track athletics and in aquatic sports, Canadians have been seen to good advantage in many English contests. ”

“ The boxes into which the cherries are packed are, of course, much smaller than the boxes into which the apples are packed. A cherry box holds only 8 pounds of fruit.
One of the most beautiful of all the beautiful sights on a fruit-ranch is the blossoming of the cherry-trees in May. The waxy white blossoms not only cover—literally and truly cover—the branches from end to end, but they also stick to the trunk and main limbs of the trees, much as the feathers muffle the legs of certain kinds of pullets. ”

“ The men who guide these big timber-booms down the broad, swift rivers of the Canadian forest-lands, and pilot them over the boiling rapids, are marvellously clever in keeping their balance on the unsteady, ever-rolling logs. ”

“ These hardy settlers make their living in part by the battle with the forest, in part by what they shoot or trap, but largely by working in the winter for the large lumber (timber) companies who have bought the pine in the woods from the Government; sometimes, too, they act as guides in the summer and autumn for the tourists or amateur huntsmen. Their life teaches them to be strong, active, and self-reliant, with a fine disdain for the city man, who is so helpless on the trail or in a canoe.
On the prairie the life is quite different. ”

“ The apples of Ontario and Nova Scotia are packed into light wooden barrels; those of British Columbia in oblong boxes holding 40 pounds. No matter what the size or the variety of the apples, all have to be packed in the one sized box. When well packed, with the apples all level and even, and beautifully coloured, as they nearly always are, a box of British Columbia apples is a perfectly lovely sight. And they are as good as they look. But even more appetizing and attractive is a box of Kootenay cherries, Kootenay being the name of the principal cherry-growing district of British Columbia. ”

“ The Canadians—women, and even children, as well as business men—use the telephone pretty well every day of their lives. Does a lady want to know how her neighbour's little girl's cut finger is getting on, she rings her neighbour up on the "'phone." A lady does her shopping at the grocery store, or orders her joint for dinner "over the 'phone." A boy asks his classmate how much history they have to learn for their home-lesson to-night. Indeed, in a Canadian home the telephone is used as much and as frequently as the poker is for stirring the fire on a cold winter's day in any English home. ”

“ So long as there is no wind the cold in Canada is, on the whole, not disagreeable. The air is, as a rule, so dry and still that the cold is exhilarating rather than painful. Even when the thermometer drops as low as 50° or 55° below zero—that is to say, when there is as much as 80° to 90° of frost in all—a man will be able to take his coat off and keep himself warm at an active occupation such as wood-cutting. Very often, in fact, you only know that it is freezing as hard as it actually is by hearing the crisp crunch, crunch of the snow under your own feet, or under the hoofs of your horses. ”

“ Then you will be told all that is known about Coal-Oil Johnnie—namely, that he is slightly affected in his mind, that for seventeen years he has with unwavering perseverance worked away at a gold-bearing vein, worked in solitude, doggedly, perseveringly, drilling, cutting, and blasting a tunnel to wealth and fortune, which he implicitly believes is locked fast in the granite heart of the mountain. ”

“ Summer homes or camps in the forest are built on the islands which dot the many inland lakes, and the long days are spent in canoeing, sailing, bathing, and fishing, while at night bonfires are built on the shores, all gather round, and to the twang of the banjo or guitar old college choruses are sung or stories are told. Moonlight in Muskoka is a fairyland memory to those who have known it, and to these lakes alone resort 20,000 summer visitors from Canada or their neighbours from the South. ”

“ This is the force that guards the territory stretching from the Great Lakes to the Rockies, and from the forty-ninth parallel, the United States boundary, to the Arctic Ocean—half a continent; and so well have they done what seems an impossibility, that a man may walk from one end to the other unarmed and alone, and with greater security than he could in London from Piccadilly to the Bank. The influence of the corps depends on the fact that they are absolutely fair, and that, whatever the cost or difficulty, they never give up till they have landed their man. ”

“ The hollows of the mountains are filled with a soft but rich purple haze, or it may be a scarf of white, fleecy cloud hangs across the shoulders of the mountains, while another veil of delicate lace-work drapes their crests. ”

“ More than one-half the people of Canada live in wooden houses; more than two-thirds use wood as fuel. Thousands of miles of railway rest on wooden ties, or sleepers. The waters of the Canadian lakes are daily churned by the wooden paddles of wooden steamboats ”

“ The most important product of the Dominion of Canada is wheat. Except for a little hay and oats, the big prairie provinces of Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta are especially noted for their production of wheat, which they yield in truly enormous quantities. In point of quality Canadian wheat ranks amongst the best in the world. But the three big prairie provinces are not the only ones that produce wheat; it is also grown in Ontario, as well as, in smaller quantity, in each of the other provinces. ”

“ The face of the water is like a sheet of highly polished steel, of a pure greenish-black colour, and every tree and stone, and every hut, on the mountain-sides around, and even every cloud in the sky above, is reflected on it with marvellous distinctness. ”

“ In Alberta, just east of the Rocky Mountains, where the climate is milder than in the heart of the prairie provinces, a large number of cattle are reared and fed, and there a good deal of hay is cut, and sent over the mountains into British Columbia.
For many years the chief agency in opening up the North-West was the cattle-rancher. The life of the cowboy, though not so romantic as it is sometimes represented to be, has, nevertheless, its interesting side to the man who loves the free life of the open air. ”

“ Famous as is the great cataract, the river has another claim to our interest, for here mankind has laid his heaviest burdens on Nature's shoulder, and day and night the angry river turns the wheels which produce 400,000 horse-power, and light the towns and draw the streetcars for a radius of a hundred miles. ”

“ The violent snowstorms which sometimes come on at such times are known as "blizzards," and they are greatly dreaded. The air grows black, the snow turns into frozen particles of ice, with sharp cutting edges, and the wind drives them with the speed of shotcorns discharged from a gun. It is impossible to hold up your head against them; they would very soon cut your cheeks into ribbons. How terrible a thing a blizzard is in the north-west of Canada will be shown by the following story, which is quite true:
In a certain part of the prairie a blizzard began to blow. ”

“ Other stories about the enormous numbers of salmon in the Fraser River of British Columbia tell how the fish are so crowded together that it is impossible for a man to thrust his hand in between them, and how they form such a solid mass that it almost looks as if you could walk across the big broad river on their backs, and could reach the opposite bank dryshod. ”

“ The capital of Canada is, however, neither Quebec nor Montreal, nor is it Toronto, the second largest city in the Dominion and capital of the province of Ontario, as well as the seat of several affiliated Universities, and an important manufacturing centre. The place where the Parliament of Canada meets, and, consequently, the capital of the country, is Ottawa, on the river of the same name 116 miles by rail west of Montreal. As a city it is famous for its beautiful and imposing public buildings, the most stately of them all being the Houses of Parliament. ”