and the price at which this flax sold was so 

 low that it was not possible for it to be produced 

 in Ontario at a price to meet this competition. 

 As the war progressed, the supply of Russian 

 flax became much curtailed, and the demand 

 for linen goods so incessant, that the War Trade 

 Board of Great Britain placed an embargo on 

 the shipment of all linen yarns, shutting off 

 entirely the raw material of the Canadian 

 linen manufacturers. 



With the cutting off of the supplies, and the 

 increased demand, the price of flax began to soar, 

 and old flax men in Western Ontario began to 

 see a possibility of again successfully entering 

 into the growing and preparing of flax, which 

 had been a prosperous business at one time. 



Ontario Flax Proved Excellent 



With the complete collapse of Russia in 1918, 

 it became evident that if the linen business was 

 to be continued in Canada, it would be necessary 

 to establish a spinning plant here, to spin the 

 Canadian grown flax, which, with the improved 

 methods of cultivation, were proven equal to or 

 better than the Russian flax, on which the 

 industry had relied previous to the war. 



In 1918-19 there were eight linen manu- 

 factories in operation in Canada. These were: 

 the Dominion Linens, Ltd., at Guelph and 

 Tillsonburg, Ont., table linens and towels; Flax 

 Spinners, Ltd., Guelph, Ont., linen yarns; Dun- 

 das Linen Mills, Ltd., Iroquois, Ont., huck 

 towels; The Doon Twine, Ltd., Kitchener, Ont., 

 yarns and twine, also located at Doon, Ont.; 

 the Maritime Linen Mills, Ltd., Moncton, N.B., 

 dusters and crashes; and the Federal Flax, Ltd., 

 at Montreal, P.Q. 



The Dominion Linens Ltd., Guelph, who are 

 the largest manufacturers in Canada, decided 

 to install a modern flax spinning plant, which 

 would complete the chain of linen manufacturers 

 and make the business a purely Canadian one. 

 A subsidiary company was organized under the 

 name of Flax Spinners Limited with the object 

 of growing, retting, and spinning Canadian flax. 

 This plant has been equipped with the latest 

 modern dry and wet spinning systems. To secure 

 the highest quality of linen yarns, workers were 

 brought from Belgium, who were experienced 

 in water-retting flax, similar to the finest 

 Flemish and Belgian flax which is used for 

 producing the highest grade linens. 



Dominion Linens Limited have now got the 

 complete plant in operation, and are turning 

 out fine damasks and all kinds of household 

 linens, from flax grown in the vicinity of Guelph, 

 water-retted under the most approved manner, 

 and the goods turned out claimed to be equal in 

 every respect to those made anywhere in the 

 world. In spite of the fact that the linen industry 

 is passing through a period of depression, they 

 report unfilled orders sufficient to keep their plant 



in operation several months, and on account of 

 the quality of output, they expect a record 

 business in the present year. Large orders have 

 recently been placed by leading transportation 

 companies, and retail stores. 



Navigation on the Great Lakes 





By M. McD. Du/, Mgr., Great Lakes 5.5. Service, C.P.R. 



The Great Lakes, those wonderful bodies of fresh 

 water, possess a charm which never fails. To those who 

 know them, the charm increases with lengthened acquain- 

 tance, and the newcomer's first visit is never the last. 

 Unfortunately, however, even on this continent in the 

 territory east and south of their natural boundaries, they 

 are soon forgotten once the school geography is laid aside. 



To the scientist, their physical history is fascinating 

 and they tell us that aeons before the lakes were lakes, 

 their present basins were drained by mighty rivers; those 

 from the upper lakes finding their way by the present 

 south-eastern end of the Georgian Bay, past Lake Simcoe 

 (almost the line of the Trent Valley Canal), crossing the 

 Lake Ontario boundary about twenty miles east of Toronto, 

 then joining with the branch from the Lake Erie basin 

 near Rochester, N.Y., and on down the present St. Law- 

 rence yalley. 



Niagara is painfully young. The original river used 

 the Dundas Valley and the present Burlington Bay. 

 About thirty-two thousand years ago, when the lakes 

 began to approach their present outline, there was no 

 connection to Lake Erie from the Upper Lakes, whose 

 waters found thiir way through Lake Nipissing and the 

 Ottawa Valley over the route of the proposed Georgian 

 Bay Canal; and it was only some twenty-four thousand 

 years later that they broke through to the Erie Basin 

 and Niagara approached her present grandeur. Possibly, 

 in another five or six thousand years, Niagara may have 

 vanished and the surplus water escape by the Chicago 

 drainage canal. 



Early History 



Champlain first visited the Great Lakes in 1615, using 

 the Ottawa River, Lake Nipissing and French River 

 route. The history of the next two centuries is filled with 

 brilliant records of exploration, education and evangeliza- 

 tion by the French, and particularly by the Jesuit Fathers, 

 whose heroism and devotion is appropriately marked by 

 the names they have left: Sault Ste. Marie, Isle Royale, 

 and Duluth, all widely known. The fur trade developed 

 slowly but surely, hampered as it was by never ending 

 warfare between the Indians and French, French and 

 British, British and Americans, until the Treaty of Ghent 

 brought mutual disarmament and American and Briton 

 settled down, in 1815, to a century of peace. 



The first vessel to ply the waters of the upper lakes 

 was the "Griffin," built by La Salle in the Upper Niagara 

 River in 1679. Although she was launched in May, it was 

 not until August that they were able to get her over the 

 swift water and on to Lake Erie. She had a very short 

 career, for her first voyage was never completed. She got 

 as far as Lake Michigan, and after loading a cargo of furs, 

 set sail on the return voyage 18th September, but was 

 never heard of again. Her size is not certain, but is various- 

 ly estimated between 45 and 60 tons burden. 



From this little craft to the present ballast freighters 

 which lift 12,000 tons of ore or half a million bushels of 

 wheat, is a long cry, although the development of lake 

 navigation was a very slow process until the close of the 

 war of 1812, and up to which time the limit size was 

 100 tons. There was, however, great expansion on the 

 conclusion of the war. The tide of commerce gradually 

 flowed westward from Lake Ontario until the first canal 

 at the Soo was opened in 1855, and Lake Superior began 

 to come into its own. 



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