Prairie Provinces

“ The relation of the Provinces of the Lake and Prairie Plains to the rest of the United States is an important element in the significance of the Middle West. On the north lies the similar region of Canada: the Great Lakes are in the center of the whole eastern and more thickly settled half of North America, and they bind the Canadian and Middle Western people together. On the south, the provinces meet the apex of that of the Gulf Plains, and the Mississippi unites them. To the west, they merge gradually into the Great Plains ”

“ Lawrence than a resident in the Valley of the Mississippi, even if a tithe of its fabled future should ever come to pass. There is no reason why the Canadas should be regarded with less favour than the Western States, although the winters are long enough: in the prairie there is a want of wholesome water in summer, and a scarcity of fuel for cold weather, which tend to restore the balance in favour of the provinces. ”

“ The transfer of the rich prairie lands of the great North-West from the care of Hudson Bay factors and trappers, the organisation of it into the Province of Manitoba, and the territories already in preparation for new provinces, under the government of their own legislatures, has necessarily brought to an end the condition of things so favourable to friendly relations between the White and Red races. ”

“ The Home Government resolved upon the unfortunate step of dividing the province into Upper and Lower Canada, with a governor-in-chief in Lower, and a lieutenant-governor in Upper Canada, so that the Royalists might not be quite swamped by the French element. The governors selected were often men without particular aptitude for administration, certainly destitute of the ability needed in dealing with the very peculiar state of society, trade, and interests prevailing in the provinces. ”

“ It seemed to me that the prairie would be a lonely place to live in, especially if it rained. But the people who have lived there for years tell me they get very homesick if they go away for a time. Valleys and hills seem to them petty, fretful, unlovable. The magic of the plains has them in thrall.
Certainly there is a little more democracy in the west of Canada than the east; the communities seem a little less incapable of looking after themselves. Out in the west they are erecting not despicable public buildings, founding universities, running a few public services. ”

“ It will now readily be inferred that the Great Prairies from Red River to the western sources of the Missouri, are, as has before been intimated, chiefly uninhabitable—not so much for want of wood (though the plains are altogether naked) , as of soil and of water; for though some of the plains appear of sufficiently fertile soil, they are mostly of a sterile character, and all too dry to be cultivated. {192} These great steppes seem only fitted for the haunts of the mustang, the buffalo, the antelope, and their migratory lord, the prairie Indian. ”

“ They share faithfully in the national development, and honourably serve the welfare of the whole Dominion—sometimes with a too careful and unsympathetic reserve—but within their own beloved province they retain as zealously and more jealously than the most devoted Highland men their language and their customs, and faithfully conserve the civil laws which mark them off as clearly from the English provinces as Jersey and Guernsey are distinguished from the United Kingdom. ”

“ That since the division of the Provinces the population of Upper Canada has increased much more rapidly than that of the Sister Province, a circumstance not less to be ascribed to the prevalence and influence of British Laws than to its superior climate and soil.
That your Petitioners, sensible that the prosperity of Upper Canada is daily increasing, view with alarm any chance of prospect of a change by which that prosperity may be checked or diminished, and they cannot but consider the proposed Union of the Provinces as a measure which must have such a tendency. ”

“ The most magnificent soil in the world—four feet of vegetable mould—a climate certainly the best in North America—the greater part of it admirably watered. In a word, there is land enough and capabilities enough for some millions of people and for one of the finest provinces in the world.' Half a century from the time of writing the governor's vision was realized and Ontario was the 'banner province' of the Dominion. ”

“ All these tribes leave the frame-work of their lodges standing when they move from camp to camp, and this, of course, indicates the particular tribe that erected them. The Delawares and Shawnees plant two upright forked poles, place a stick across them, and stretch a canvas covering over it, in the same manner as with the "tente d'abri." The Sioux, Arapahos, Cheyennes, Utes, Snakes, Blackfeet, and Kioways make use of the Comanche lodge, covered with dressed buffalo hides. All the Prairie Indians I have met with are the most inveterate beggars. ”

“ The North-West Frontier Province is, with the exception of Behar, Chota Nagpur and Orissa, the youngest of the provinces into which British India is divided, while in respect of population and extent of territory administered according to British law, it is also the smallest. ”

“ The only people who, through their employments, knew the interior well were the Indians and half-breed hunters. It was the statements of these, therefore, and of the few prosperous farmers and stockmen scattered here and there, which afforded us our only reliable knowledge.
The most extensive prairies adjacent to the Upper Peace River are those to the north already described. The nearest on the south side are the prairies of Spirit River, a small stream which divides several townships of first-class black, loamy soil, well wooded in parts, but with considerable prairie. ”

“ The population of all the provinces may be fairly estimated as numbering 3,500,000. Many of the inhabitants are of French extraction, and a few German settlements exist; but two-thirds of the people of the provinces owe their origin either to the United States or to the British Islands, whose language we speak, and who ‘people the world with men industrious and free.’
“The climate and soil of these Provinces and Possessions, seemingly less indulgent than those of tropical regions, are precisely those by which the skill, energy, and virtues of the human race are best developed. ”

“ I am of the same opinion respecting the Canadas. I consider that, even as two provinces, they are too vast in territory already. Whether it be a woman looking after her servants and household affairs, or a captain commanding a ship, or a governor ruling over a province, large or small as may be the scale of operation, one of the most important points in good legislation, is the eye. A governor of a vast province cannot possibly be aware of the wants of the various portions of the province. He is obliged to take the reports of others, and consequently very often legislates unadvisedly. ”

“ There are about 135,000 Indians inhabiting the Great Prairie Wilderness, [63] of whose social and civil condition, manners and customs, &c. I will give a brief account. {114} It would seem natural to commence with those tribes which reside in what is called "The Indian Territory;" a tract of country bounded south by the Red River, east by the States of Arkansas and Missouri—on the north-east and north by the Missouri and Punch Rivers, [64] and west by the western limit of habitable country on this side of the Rocky Mountains. ”

“ Though the language of the prairie be not in words, some message is surely uttered; for the people of the plains wear the far-away look of communion with the unseen and the unheard. The fine sensibility of the white woman, perhaps, shows the impress of the vast solitudes most readily, and the gravely repressed nature of the Indian least; but all plain-dwellers have learned to catch the voice of the prairie. ”

“ In the most distant provinces, with no other safeguard than the respect with which he has inspired the Indians, he exercises the most unlimited authority, and administers the whole of the civil and ecclesiastical government, not only of a parish, but often of a whole province. ”

“ Each provincial government except those of the three middle provinces administers the crownlands within its boundaries in its own way, yet on similar lines, while the Dominion government controls only the lands located outside of the provinces together with those of the middle provinces and the so-called railway belt in British Columbia. ”

“ In Southern Michigan, they become more frequent; in the State of Indiana, still more so; and when we arrive in Illinois, we find ourselves in the Prairie State proper, three-quarters of its territory being open meadow, or prairie. Southern Wisconsin is partly of this character, and, on crossing the Mississippi, most of the surface of both Iowa and Minnesota is also prairie.
Illinois, with little exception, is one vast prairie,—dotted, it is true, with groves, and intersected with belts of timber, but still one great open plain. ”

“ The black prairie region succeeds the coast plain on the west. Its western border is sharply defined from the Red river to the Rio Grande, beginning at Denison, passing through or near the cities of Sherman, Dallas, Waco, Austin, and San Antonio, and then deflected westward to Eagle Pass. It is a gently undulating prairie, covered with a rich black soil, and varies in altitude from 300 to 700 feet. (3) The central region extends from the black prairie region on the east to the eastern escarpment of the great plains on the north-west and the trans-Pecos mountains on the south-west. ”

“ It is unquestionably the prairie conflagrations that keep down the woody growth upon most of the western uplands. The occasional skirts and fringes which have escaped their rage, have been protected by the streams they border. Yet may not the time come when these vast plains will be covered with timber? It would seem that the prairie region, long after the discovery of America, extended to the very banks of the Mississippi. ”

“ At the beginning of this century the Province was almost a vast wilderness, with open spaces here and there, cleared by the settler’s axe. Even as late as 1812, at the time of the American war, we had only just begun to emerge, as it were, from the dark towering forests that were intersected by only the Indian{81} footpaths. It is almost astounding when one stops to consider that even within the memory of those now living our Province has been made. Our cities have been built, our canals dug, our forests subdued and Ontario made a garden, all well nigh within the compass of a man’s lifetime. ”

“ The Prairie States.—The originally treeless prairies of the upper Mississippi basin began in Indiana and extended westward and north-westward until they merged with the drier region described beyond as the Great Plains. An eastward extension of the same region, originally tree-covered, extended to central Ohio. Thus the prairies may be described as lying in a general way between the Ohio and Missouri rivers on the south and the Great Lakes on the north. ”

“ That notwithstanding various obstacles and difficulty which the powers and operation of the Constitution, established by the said statute, are gradually removing, the population of the Province has been progressive, in a ratio fully equal to that of the United States of America, without a proportionate increase from emigration; the public revenue has proved nearly sufficient to cover all necessary Colonial expenditure, and Trade and Agriculture, notwithstanding the extraordinary pressure of the present times, have, in the aggregate, greatly improved. ”

“ The next day brought us to a lovely little spot, a small prairie of perhaps 200 acres, surrounded by low wooded hills, and on one side a lake winding with many an inlet amongst the hills and into the plain, while here and there a tiny promontory, richly clothed with pines and aspens, stretched out into the water. The beauty of the place had struck the rude voyageurs, its only visitors, except the Indians, and they had named it La Belle Prairie. ”

“ I always thought that, when we should acquire Canada and Louisiana it would be proper to govern them as provinces, and allow them no voice in our councils. In wording the third section of the fourth article, I went as far as circumstances would permit to establish the exclusion. ”

“ The Government of each of the absorbing Provinces shall, by order notified in the official Gazette, provide for the administration of the enclaves included in the Province, either by constituting them or any part of them into one or more new districts, or by making them or any part of them part of one or more existing districts, or partly by one and partly by the other of the said methods, and may make such further provision as appears to it to be necessary or expedient for removing the difficulties arising in connection with the absorption of the enclaves in the Province. ”

“ Although the boundary between the upper austral and the transition provinces is indefinite, it is easily to be seen, from the geographical distribution of cities, agricultural population, manufactories, colleges, and other institutions of learning, etc., that the climate of the province under review is on the whole the one in which the greatest intellectual advance has been made and the one which holds out the greatest promise for the future. ”