Manitoba

“ It was a friendly, fearless face, yet there was sensitiveness about it, evident from the way the colour mounted into the cheeks at the closeness of his scrutiny.
"Where do you come from?" he asked suddenly.
"Manitoba," was the prompt reply, "the western part."
"Oh—the plains?"
"Yes, but I'm astonished at your knowing."
"Do I look so ignorant?"
"Everyone over here is ignorant about American geography. I never expect them to know anything. When I mentioned Manitoba to one man, he said at once, 'Oh, yes, Central America!'"
Roger laughed. ”

“ Not even the constant exhibition of huge roots, tall heads of wheat, and gigantic potatoes and monster onions at the fairs in the eastern Provinces can do more to make Manitoba a temptation to settlers, than the proof you afford that their children shall be thoroughly educated by men belonging to the churches of which they are members, and in sympathy with their desires and hopes. ”

“ The region, by reason of extra expense for fuel, clothing, and housing, must always be more expensive to live in than, say, Ontario.
The province of Manitoba is an interesting political and social study. It is very unlike Ontario or British Columbia. Its development has been, in freedom and self-help, very like one of our Western Territories, and it is like them in its free, independent spirit. It has a spirit to resist any imposed authority. We read of the conflicts between the Hudson’s Bay and the Northwestern Fur companies and the Selkirk settlers, who began to come in in 1812. ”

“ From this point to the southern boundary of Manitoba is about 2,450 miles in a straight line; to the south extremity of Ontario, 2,650 miles.
We are scarcely tempted to spend the winter up here, though the Police would be very good company. Turning back towards the mainland, we fly in silence to the west, a vast expanse of sea on one hand, a barren shore line on the other. The whole world may be dead, for all we see of life, except the life of the birds. ”

“ The evening brings good cheer along;
Canadian homes are bright and gay,
And purified by love and song.
Manitoba bursts on our view,
The prairies stretching far away,
Where thousands make their happy homes,
Blessing the auspicious day
They sought and found this “great lone land.”
And still they come from every shore,
Seeking out free Canadian homes,—
And there is room for millions more.
Here towns are rising everywhere,
A vigorous growth on every hand ”

“ It may be a better thing to live in Manitoba than in North Dakota, or to live in North Dakota than in Manitoba; but worse than almost any conceivable place of residence would be a status which might change in the future, so that one could not tell say five years ahead in what country he was going to live. A frontier is not merely a line drawn on a map or demarcated on the ground; a frontier means a nexus of customs, of laws, of traditions and of innumerable other things that directly affect the daily life and conduct of every inhabitant. ”

“ It was eight o'clock when we got to the wharf, and the steamer Manitoba only waited for our arrival to cast loose her moorings and enter the dark blue waters of Lake Huron. "Haste" will not express the excitement of the scene. Men, rushing hither and thither in search of friends, traps, and luggage, were goaded to fury by the calmness of the officials and their determination not to be hurried. ”

“ No one will ever know how such a man, who had spent years at the business, came to be caught.
Manitoba is not all prairie, nor timberless, as so many 36people imagine. In the west and the south are immense stretches of country, dead level, and with hardly a tree; but north, on the Manitoba North-Western Railroad towards Strathclair, the country is rolling, and there are patches of timber, mostly small. Still farther north the country gets quite hilly, and there are large stretches of fine timber. ”

“ The ex-president returned to Winnipeg, and became satisfied with a fairly good position in the local Government service, but he always insisted that, if he had been given a chance, the Republic of Manitoba would have been one of the greatest and most prosperous countries in the universe—at any rate it would have been larger than the Principality of Monaco, more fertile than Greenland, not so torrid as Florida nor as mountainous as Mexico, and would have had as big a navy as Switzerland. ”

“ The Yankee emigration agents have a powerful assistant in the Pembina mud, in persuading Canadian emigrants to remain in Dakota or Minnesota. But if these emigrants were less impatient, or less easily persuaded, they would find quite as good, if not better land, in Manitoba than on the American side of the line, besides being under our own Queen and laws. ”

“ To-day, tens of thousands of Manitoba settlers have their comfortable houses on the open plains.
SOUND THE GOSPEL CLARION.
Wherever the settler goes, there must the herald of the Gospel follow him. Many of the early settlers of Manitoba came from the congested agricultural districts of Bruce, Huron and Lanark counties, in Ontario. As these were strongly Presbyterian localities, a very large proportion of the incoming settlers belonged to the church whose foundation John Black had been for twenty years so industriously and firmly laying. ”

“ It seemed as though man could no longer cope with the mere vastness of the earth--an earth without rivers or trees, too visibly naked and measureless.
"At last I am afraid of it!" said Elizabeth, shivering in her fur coat, with a little motion of her hand toward the plain. "And what must it be in winter!"
Anderson laughed.
"The winter is much milder here than in Manitoba! Radiant sunshine day after day--and the warm chinook-wind. And it is precisely here that the railway lands are selling at a higher price for the moment than anywhere else, and that settlers are rushing in. Look there!" ”

“ Lawrence valley, it shone intermittently through a driving reek of thunder-clouds, flickering violet lightning, and hail unprecedented. In Manitoba was a thaw and devastating floods. And upon all the mountains of the earth the snow [51] and ice began to melt that night, and all the rivers coming out of high country flowed thick and turbid, and soon—in their upper reaches—with swirling trees and the bodies of beasts and men. They rose steadily, steadily in the ghostly brilliance, and came trickling over their banks at last, behind the flying population of their valleys. ”

“ A twenty-mile drive in a box-sleigh, clad in furs, buried beneath heavy fur robes, and reclining on a deep bedding of sweet-smelling hay, in lieu of seats, made the journey as comfortable to such people as would the more luxurious brougham to the wealthy citizen of civilization. There was little thought of display amongst the farmers of Manitoba. ”

“ The history of Manitoba missions has been a marvellous record of faithful, uncomplaining, self-denying service. Men have been placed in charge of six or seven townships with settlers scattered sparsely through them. They have carried on for years, in winter's cold and summer's heat, service at six and seven points, three and even four on a Sabbath, and all this on small and poorly paid stipends. ”

“ All the pathetic scenes of early settlers' life became familiar in connection with the Red River becoming a part of Canada. As soon as the Rebellion had been quelled, and Manitoba became open for settlement, a movement took place from all parts of Canada to occupy the fertile prairies of the West. Farmers, whose families were finding the small farm of one hundred acres or less on which they had grown up too strait for them, sold off their possessions and journeyed to Manitoba to take homesteads and pre-emptions on its virgin prairies. ”

“ The country is open, rolling upland—in its physical conformation it seemed to me almost the counterpart of southern central Manitoba as it was 30-odd years ago before the industry of man dotted it with thriving farmsteads. ”

“ I had occasion to ask for the services of two men for a friend of mine who had taken a farm in Manitoba. One was got immediately, and an Ontario gentleman, to whom I applied, came to me and said: "You will be surprised to hear who the second man is whom I have obtained for your friend; he is a man having a large farm and a very comfortable homestead, and, while he does not wish to leave the Province permanently, he desires to go to the North-West to see the country, and has volunteered to go as a hired man for a year to Manitoba." ”

“ Of those magically expanded views, those sudden yawnings of sympathetic depths, that nowadays every one may count on winning, if not by a week in Brittany, at any rate by a month in Manitoba, we find scarcely a trace. ”

“ Manitoba is the smallest and (because it contains Winnipeg) the greatest of the prairie provinces. “It looks like a postage stamp on the map,” I happened to remark to its Prime Minister. “Well, sir,” replied the Hon. R. P. Roblin, with twinkling eyes, “there are half a million people on your postage stamp, and that is but a fraction of the population it is able and destined to maintain. You might report to the English and Scotch farmers that we have over twenty million acres of good agricultural land waiting for them here.” ”

“ Why should you talk about Manitoba, when you were so set against it?"
"The climate appears to be so uncertain here," she said, rather wearily, as they were ascending the steps of Lochgarra House; "and—and the people have of late been more friendly towards me; and I would like to do what I could for them. There is nothing to keep me in this country. I would go away willingly with them—to Canada, or anywhere. But perhaps not you, Käthchen. I could not expect you. All your interests are in this country—or in England, at least. ”

“ A tall, delicate, sad-looking man, the defeated candidate for ——, was returning to Ontario, where he was soon after elected for another constituency. A sleepy-looking young Frenchman and his more lively friend, an energetic speculator, who had gone to Manitoba prospecting for land, was returning disgusted, having seen, "dem' it, nothing but mud." A poor old lady was kept in subjection by a tall daughter, with a face so closely veiled, that our curiosity was aroused. ”

“ Yet there are parts of Manitoba which contain undoubtedly as fine corn-growing country as any in the world.
This is especially true of the new tract of country opened up by the Canadian Pacific in the south-west. As a rule, the further from the railway the land is, the better it is. At the same time, it is to be remembered that a farmer who has no railway access is at a great disadvantage, and that in the winter it is no joke sending a man with a team of oxen and a waggon-load of produce twenty or thirty miles across the prairie, where a snowstorm, or ‘a blorrard’ at any time, may occur. ”

“ The absence of anything like a market has hitherto kept this country from being reported of, but if a railway becomes an actual fact, Manitoba will add very much to her available resources, when extension comes, and settlers will find that in soil, in wood, in grasses, and in waters, this unknown land will afford comfortable homes for thousands. It will be seen by the map that about one hundred miles down the Nelson all the branches of that noble river unite in one. ”

“ The region covered an area of 65,000 square miles, or forty million acres, much of it rich soil. It is this region, now the Province of Manitoba, which under the prompting and enterprise of land companies, vigorously pressed, is fast becoming populous with settlers, and giving promise of vast prosperity. A just and reasonable energy, not necessarily involving any jealousy, is engaged in this enterprise to offer inducements to colonists under Great Britain to stay on their own territory instead of making preference of that of the United States. ”

“ The Red River Valley is now a populous settlement; crossing which, Winnipeg is entered, and the capital reached of the "world's great wheatfields of the future."
The province of Manitoba "is the most eastern division of the great prairie country," and its valleys are everywhere famous for the quality of its wheat. It is the older settled division of what was formerly known as Rupert's Land; its climate is extremely healthy, and is, in fact, looked upon as a health-resort in other parts of Canada. ”

“ But of more importance to prospective immigrants than the possibilities of the new-old waterway to Manitoba is the climate of the province itself. Now one must admit frankly that Manitoba has a cold winter, but it is not usually a very long one. Often the fine weather lasts late into the autumn, and seeding generally begins in April. Moreover, owing to the dryness of the atmosphere and the amount of sunshine, people do not suffer from the cold as the readings of the thermometer might lead the inexperienced to expect. ”

“ Prior to the admission of those territories the Parliament of Canada enacted An Act for the temporary Government of Rupert's Land and the North-Western Territory when united with Canada, and the Manitoba Act, 1870, which provided for the formation of the Province of Manitoba. ”

“ The great prairie is as flat as a table, and is the exact counterpart of Portage Plains, in Manitoba, or a number of them, with the addition of belts and beautiful islands of timber, the soil being a loamy clay, unmistakably fertile. Nothing could excel the beauty of this region, not even the fairest portions of Manitoba or Saskatchewan. ”

“ And Manitoba! Why, I have seen it stated that there is a most serious scarcity of water in a great many of the districts; and that often they have summer frosts that do incalculable mischief to the grain. So you see it isn't a certainty!"
"No, it is not," said Käthchen; "but I will tell you what is, Mamie. It is a certainty, an absolute certainty, that Donald Ross of Heimra will not go to Manitoba, or to any other corner of Canada, so long as Mary Stanley is living in Lochgarra." ”