been excessive, has been taken care of in a 

 practical way, and a few weeks will see the 

 absorption of a large proportion of those seeking 

 work. 



On the Pacific Coast, discussions are now 

 taking place with a view to a price-cut in logs 

 while the retail lumber trade has under review 

 the necessity of reducing cost of lumber. 

 Campaigns are already anticipated looking to a 

 continuance of active housing plans, and pros- 

 pective building promises a better year than that 

 of 1920. In Manitoba, the extension by the 

 Manitoba Power Commission of power lines to 

 40 rural districts is asked. At Kenora, a large 

 pulp mill is to be erected with one or two other 

 pulp mills at Port Arthur and Fort William, 

 one at Harrison, B.C., and another on Mas- 

 sett Island, B.C. Provincial governments are 

 figuring on construction of public buildings, 

 more especially for University extensions and 

 utilities, and large sums of money are to be 

 expended on main and rural roads throughout 

 the West. 



At this early date of the new year, so far as 

 one can see, the promise is for many activities 

 along all lines of development, and it is not 

 difficult to forecast a period that will bring with 

 it a maintenance of the prosperity of the Cana- 

 dian West. 



The Manitoba Dog Derby 



Greater interest than ever is evinced this 

 year in that unique event of the Northland, 

 the Manitoba Dog Derby, which draws together 

 the hardy, old-time mushers of the North with 

 their famous dogs who have proved their 

 prowess on many a long trail, and their ferocity 

 in many a hard-fought battle. The annual race, 

 of which the one to take place in March is the 

 fourth, has come to be the great occasion of 

 meeting for the "men of the high North," and 

 each year sees a wider summoning to the event, 

 bringing down veterans of the Yukon and Alaska 

 to pit the qualities of their battle-scarred 

 canines against the animals of the prospectors 

 and trappers of Manitoba. 



_ The starting point for this unusual Derby is 

 Flin Flon, a town which has had a spectacular 

 rise to fame as a mushroom mining sector, and 

 the course lies over more than two hundred miles 

 of deep snow to Le Pas, the gateway to all the 

 Manitoba northland. There are nearly a score 

 of entries covering the entire northern expanse, 

 and the entrants will compete, materially for a 

 purse of $2,500, but in reality for the reputation 

 of a string of dogs the superiority of dogs of a 

 section over those of any other strip of the 

 Northland. The competitors are all well-known 

 mushers of the North, men of powerful endur- 

 ance inured to the long snowshoe trail, and with 

 the blindest of faith in the teams they own. 

 For the man of the North swears by his dog-team, 



brags of their stamina and speed, and is known 

 and respected oftentimes rather by the string 

 of animals at the head of his sleigh, than by his 

 name or personal attributes. 



The Qualities of the Husky 



Though much devolves upon the teamster in 

 the race, who will mush the 200 hundred miles 

 behind the sleigh, the determining factor in 

 achievement is the quality and power of the 

 dog-team. The husky of Northern Canada is 

 a hardy, sagacious animal of wonderful endur- 

 ance, inured through generations to the climate 

 of the North and the ardours of the trail. He 

 is a tremendous worker, all-enduring, and not 

 infrequently made up partly of a blood relative, 

 the timber wolf. He weighs anything from 125 

 to 160 pounds, and is covered with short, 

 stubby hair, and an undercoat of thick fur. On 

 the trail his food consists of frozen fish and meat. 

 It is generally conceded that the husky can 

 endure more hardship and go without food 

 longer than any other dog of the North, and 

 although the Derby was won last year by an 

 Alaskan trailer, with native dogs, Manitobans 

 are confident of carrying off the coveted honors 

 this year with the course lengthened to two 

 hundred miles. 



The value of husky dogs in the Canadian 

 northern expanse is very high and prices reach 

 surprising proportions in the fall when each man 

 sets out to secure a string for his winter's work. 

 Due to the heavy expense incurred in equipping 

 and maintaining a team, the purse for the race 

 has been raised this year to attract the most 

 exacting of trailers. Last Spring, pups were 

 selling for $200 for a string of five, whilst 

 animals fully grown and trained brought from 

 $75 to $100 each. 



The husky dog has been a valuable servant 

 to the men of the Canadian North, and his part 

 in Northern development is no small one. His 

 services are still of inestimable worth in the 

 transport over snow-clad areas where no other 

 means of travel exist, where the pioneers of 

 civilization and progress are blazing trails, and 

 securing the first fruits of a wealth which only 

 time and the introduction of railroads will fully 

 reveal for exploitation. The mounted police, 

 trappers, miners, prospectors, all men of the 

 snow-shoe trail, gallantly pay their tributes to 

 the part the husky dog plays in their daily work. 



The Beaver at Work 



When in Alberta, the energetic little beaver 

 which, from the appearance of its couchant 

 figure upon the Canadian national arms has 

 come to be so distinctly emblematic of the 

 Dominion, seemed to be faced with extinction 

 due to extensive settlement and trapping, a 

 permanent close season was governmentally 



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