462 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Canadian Northern are now considerably lower than obtain on the 

 Great Northern and Northern Pacific for the same distances. 



It seems at first sight rather hard lines that the Canadian Pacific, 

 after fighting alone through the long lean years of western traffic — 

 when the pessimistic prediction that the Canadian Pacific railway 

 would never earn enough to pay for its axle-grease seemed about to 

 be verified — should now, on the threshold of the fat years of western 

 growth and prosperit)', be faced with the competition not merely of 

 one, but of two great rivals in the west. As a matter of fact, however, 

 the Canadian Pacific has suffered very little loss of traffic from the 

 competition of the Canadian Northern, and is not likely to suffer 

 eventually from the competition of the Grank Trunk Pacific. Western 

 Canada is growing faster than the railways; the two existing roads in 

 the west have already pretty well all the traffic they can conveniently 

 handle, especially during the harvest, and by the time the Grand Trunk 

 Pacific is completed there will probably be more than enough for all 

 three. 



The completion of the Grand Trunk Pacific, and the impetus that 

 will thereby be given to settlement in the northern half of the great 

 Canadian wheat belt, must inevitably lead to a demand for another 

 transcontinental still farther north. It is a curious but indisputable 

 fact that as wheat cultivation is extended north, the limits of the 

 wheat zone are pushed forward,* and the total acreage available for 

 cultivation increases from year to year. There will be ample room for 

 another railway, and perhaps two, north of the route of the Grand 

 Trunk Pacific, and still well within the wheat belt. When grain or 

 other shipments reach Fort William from the west, they have the 

 choice of either a rail or a water route. At present the Canadian Pacific 

 offers the only rail route, but within a few years the Grand Trunk 

 Pacific and the Canadian Northern will both have through lines from 

 Fort William east. 



The water routes east of Fort William are practically identical 

 until Lake Huron is reached. There they branch out to a number 

 of Canadian and American lake ports, where connection is made with 

 the Grand Trunk, the eastern lines of the Canadian Pacific, and other 

 roads leading east or south. Another route traverses Lakes Erie and 

 Ontario, via the Welland and St. Lawrence canals, to Montreal. In 

 time two alternative and shorter water routes will be available from 

 Lake Huron to Montreal; the first, via the Trent Valley canal, now 

 in course of construction, and on which the government has built an 

 enormous hydraulic lift lock, the only one in America; and the other 

 by way of the Georgian Bay canal. This latter project has been 



* It is estimated that the hard wheat belt is receding northward at the 

 rate of fifteen miles every year. 



