Alberta

“ And, here where I write at Edmonton under the aurora, these men of the Southern Provinces have assembled with our lads of the North and West who are leather-fleshed and hard-sinewed, but withal, comely. This is Edmonton on the Saskatchewan, which the bow-bearers call by another name, meaning the great river of the plains. This is the stranger-thronged city of the North; the city that has merited a cheer. It is here our glorious Lady of Alberta has placed her throne whereunto all her sons come up that they may pay her tribute of honour. ”

“ Administration, &c.—-The local government of Alberta is carried on by a provincial organization resembling that of the other Canadian provinces. The capital of the province is Edmonton, and here reside the lieutenant-governor and cabinet. The legislature consists of one house—-the Legislative Assembly——of twenty-five members. Responsible government after the British model is followed, and the revenue is chiefly derived from grants from the Dominion government. Alberta has a system of municipal government similar to that of the other provinces. ”

“ From the earliest times explorers have expressed the greatest hope in the future of Alberta. It was the home of the most powerful and civilized Indian tribes of the whole North-West. Its luxuriant pastures supported vast herds of antelope, deer and buffalo, while its mountains, lakes and canyons comprised the richest territory exploited by the fur companies. ”

“ Even if one had missed school and college, even if one had been side-tracked all of her life on an Alberta ranch, even if a girl’s solitary associates and friends, over all the days of her life, had been merely the rough types peculiar to the cattle country, he had said that a world might be discovered right within the pages of a book. ”

“ 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. ”

“ McDermott who persisted in calling upon her on his monthly rounds, saw her again till the spring, when she put in a larger crop than the year before.
However, time allays even if it does not satisfy the hungriest curiosity, and in a country like Alberta, even in the present day, we do not scrutinize too closely the history or the past of the stranger in our midst. Alberta is, in a way, a land of sanctuary, and upon its rough bosom the derelicts of the world, the fugitive, the [Pg 35] hunted, the sick and the dying have sought asylum and cure. ”

“ Alberta, a province of Canada, established on 1st Sept., 1905, and comprising the former territory of Alberta and the part of the former territory of Athabasca lying west of the meridian 110°, and having the new province of Saskatchewan on the east, British Columbia on the west, the United States on the south, and Mackenzie territory on the north; area, 255,285 sq. miles. A large part of the area on the west is occupied by the Rocky Mountains, which are shared in common with Alberta and British Columbia, and consist mostly of a series of more or less parallel ridges. ”

“ Alberta, the most westerly of the three Prairie Provinces, is twice the size of Great Britain and Ireland, much larger than either France or Germany, and has a greater area than the states of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania combined. The area of arable land alone in Alberta is estimated at 100 million acres, of which less than 3 million acres is under cultivation. This provincial empire, with its great wealth in agricultural lands, mines, forests, and fisheries, has less than 500,000 people. ”

“ The Englishman in Alberta is an overman in the midst of a miscellaneous foreign under-population. The Englishman’s word is law. He is stronger, rougher in his language and his ways—not educated. But this sort of fibre is best suited for the outposts of Empire.
“We Americans are just a bunch of playful kittens,” said Vachel.
There was nothing very playful about the Alberta pioneers. ”

“ As a ranching center Alberta is unsurpassed in the whole world. For a considerable time southern Alberta was little else than an immense ranch. The west continued to grow, the railways extended farther and farther in all directions. Wheat-growing was tried with astonishing success and all was changed. A grain of wheat planted in the autumn and ripening in the summer brought about the change. Winter wheat has made Alberta famous. This fact is one of the guarantees of the growth and prosperity of Calgary, the population of which is now about 44,000. ”

“ Men so keenly alive to the educational needs of the city and Province may be trusted not to let the grass grow under their feet in matters of industrial development.
Beyond Saskatchewan is the Province of Alberta. Alberta, Canadian fashion, firmly believes that it is “It.” Not only is the Province destined to become one of the richest cornfields and most luscious ranching grounds of Canada, but it is enormously rich in mineral resources, which will be the basis of great manufacturing industries in the future. ”

“ By means of low rates and the special facilities offered by the line to cattle ranchers the great beef industry which founded the prosperity of Alberta was nurtured and developed until it grew to be a feature of Canada in the minds of uninitiated Old Country people, and to the regular impression of snow and Indians which prevailed in the average Englishman’s mind in the ’80s, was added the romantic idea of cowboys. ”

“ Already northern Alberta had sent two thousand men. The rumour in Edmonton ran that there were only a few places left to be filled in the north Alberta quota. For these few places hundreds of men were fighting in the streets.
Alighting from their train, Duff and his men stood amazed, aghast, gazing upon the scene before them. Duff climbed a wagon wheel and surveyed the crowd packing the street in front of the bulletin boards. ”

“ Davis carefully omits all mention of northern Alberta, and has no room for the following remarks about it which appear on the same page of the handbook: "Northern Alberta is essentially an agricultural district; ... the principal advantages of the district will insure settlement by immigrants who desire to engage in grain farming.... The rainfall in northern Alberta during the summer months is sufficient to insure good crops." ”

“ Knight, the founder of the colony at Raymond, Cardston and Magrath in Southern Alberta, told me in Calgary one day how he had selected Canada for his sect. As a boy he had one dream—to be a help to his people—but he had little money to be of much use to them. One night he had a vision of a silver mine in a certain locality. He located the mine and worked it with excellent results and with the proceeds he established the Mormon settlements in Alberta to which he had been providentially directed. ”

“ Alberta is north of our Montana, and is all prairie-land; but from Father Lacombe's parsonage one sees the snow-capped Rockies, s [56] ixty miles away, lying above the horizon like a line of clouds tinged with the delicate hues of mother-of-pearl in the sunshine. Calgary was a mere post in the wilderness for years after the priest went there. The buffaloes roamed the prairie in fabulous numbers, the Indians used the bow and arrow in the chase, and the maps we studied at the time showed the whole region enclosed in a loop, and marked "Blackfoot Indians." ”

“ One of the anomalies of the ranching population of Alberta is its tremendous variety of types. Here you will find a man who can neither read nor write, and his neighbor, often his chum, will be the son of an English lord, one of those odd derelicts that drift over from the Old Country and take so kindly to the ranch life that more often than not they return unwillingly to their homes. ”

“ In witness whereof the Honourable Ernest Lapointe, Minister of Justice, and the Honourable Charles Stewart, Minister of the Interior, have hereunto set their hands on behalf of the Dominion of Canada, and the Honourable John Edward Brownlee, Premier of Alberta, and the Honourable George Hoadley, Minister of Agriculture and Health thereof, have hereunto set their hands on behalf of the Province of Alberta. ”

“ In natural beauty British Columbia is the most richly endowed of the provinces, for she possesses glorious forests and a picturesque sea-coast, in addition to the magnificent peaks and mountain lakes of gem-like colour and translucence, which she shares with her fair neighbour, Alberta. ”

“ It was strange, as I have said, at that time suddenly to learn of the existence of this ranch. I seemed to see it as in a dream—it lay far off under a spotlight of Alberta sunlight and it called to me with a clarion call.
I came out here. I am hard and strong. I don't intend to die. I've something to live for. Not a man. I hate men, as I have said above. I have deep-rooted, never-dying aversion for the whole mean race of men. That which I have to live for is this quarter section [Pg 84] of Alberta land. ”

“ Alberta is a vast plateau from 2,000 to 3,000 feet above sea-level, hung by its western edge on the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. It slopes gently toward the east and north. Absolutely level plains form no great proportion of the surface. While open, treeless country characterizes the southern part of the Province, the greater part is undulating, diversified by forest, stream, hill and open country, not unlike Ontario or New York State. Beautiful lakes, fringed with forest and abounding in whitefish are scattered over its central and northern area. ”

“ Naturally the Arts and Crafts had made quite a feature of the Alberta author and poet who would attend the Convention. Several of the enthusiastic members, anxious to advertise effectively, had interviewed the newspaper reporters on the subject, with the result that long articles were published in the Woman's Section of the city dailies, dealing principally with the loneliness of the life on an Alberta ranch. Kate Dawson was credited with an heroic spirit that would have made her blush had she seen the flattering allusions. ”

“ The Alberta farmers were clamoring for the handling of farm supplies as well as grain; so that the young trading company in Alberta had its hands more than full to organize a full stride in usefulness from the start. The organization of the United Farmers of Alberta was growing very rapidly and the co-operative spirit was tremendously strong throughout the province. There was a demand for the handling of livestock shipments and soon it was necessary to establish a special Livestock Department. ”

“ In the latter year the Province of Alberta having been created he was elected to the Legislature and became the first Premier of that Province on Sept. 2nd, 1905, administering also the portfolios of Provincial Treasurer and Minister of Education. He represented Alberta at the Inter-provincial Conference of Premiers held at Ottawa in 1906, and was delegate to the Imperial Conference on Education in London, England, 1907. He was responsible for the foundation of the University of Alberta and has been a member of its Senate since its establishment ”

“ About three-fifths of the self-supporting population of Alberta find employment in agriculture, leaving two-fifths to work in the factories, the mines, the shops, the transportation service, and in the several learned professions, and in all these lines of human energy there are opportunities awaiting the man who knows how to take advantage of them. ”

“ Of the numerous lakes of the province, Athabasca, which Alberta shares with Saskatchewan, has a surface of 2,850 square miles, but Lesser Slave Lake, the largest entirely within the province, is only four hundred and eighty square miles in extent. The rivers of Alberta are more important than the lakes. The four principal are the North and the South Saskatchewan; the Athabasca and the Peace river, which all rise in the Rocky Mountains, flow in an easterly or north-easterly direction, and have numerous tributaries, amongst which are some which might themselves take rank as important rivers. ”

“ For the most part, however, the farming population of Alberta is made up of that solid, plodding type that have trekked out from eastern Canada or the midwestern states, tempted by the cheapness of the land and the richness of the soil. ”

“ Multiplying is our favourite occupation in Alberta even as it is in some other provinces I know of. Up here, every one who has a tongue talks about his "turn-over"; his "c'mission"; his "stake." Those who haven't tongues are the listeners. And it is a good thing to have a stake in this North-West Canada—very good. I have never yet met a person who regretted having one, but there are many regret they have not. I could tell you more about the real-estate situation only Jane Austen says if a woman knows anything she should strive superlatively to conceal it. ”

“ Such wide measures as a system of government-owned internal elevators were bringing the farmers of all three Western provinces into closer conference and in 1908 the feeling in favor of amalgamation of all Alberta farmers into one organization began to crystallize.
Finally in September a conference was held between representatives of the Alberta Farmers' Association and the Canadian Society of Equity. The constitution drafted at this conference was submitted to the annual conventions of both bodies at Edmonton on January 13th, 1909. ”