WHEAT IN WESTERN CANADA 51 



and that from these two latter cities it was then dispatched 

 to the Atlantic Ocean via the St. Lawrence Eiver or hy 

 routes leading to the ports of St. John, Halifax, Portland, 

 Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore. 



IV. The Hudson Bay Railway 



In 1811, the Selkirk settlers entered Canada via the 

 Hudson Bay, and the Bay remained for many decades the 

 almost exclusive means of communication between the Red 

 River Settlement and the British Islands. Through the 

 Bay, as we have seen, came with the settlers the first seed- 

 wheat sown in western Canada ; and through the Bay sailed 

 each year, for nearly two centuries, the rich argosies of the 

 Hudson's Bay Company, outward bound with great car- 

 goes of fur and inward bound with food-stuffs and manu- 

 factured goods. Shortly before 18Y0, the Hudson's Bay 

 Company, taking advantage of the improved means of 

 transportation in the Great Plains region of the United 

 States, changed its trading route from the old one of the 

 Hudson Bay to a new one passing south through Winnipeg. 

 Thus it came about that for many years the icy waters 

 of the Hudson Bay were almost deserted by commerce. 

 However, at the present moment, there is being built the 

 Hudson Bay Railway which, in all-Manitoban territory, 

 will give direct communication with the sea. This new 

 line is to pass from The Pas to Port Nelson, a distance of 

 410 miles, of which 320 have already been completed. In 

 the near future it is doubtless destined to carry to the sea- 

 board a large amount of grain raised in northern Sas- 

 katchewan and Alberta. For the Province of Manitoba, 

 the prospect, for at least four months in the year, of a 

 shorter sea route to the British market than that from 



