of $6,671,828 over those of the preceeding twelve 

 months. The net amount of risk by all fire 

 companies in Canada last year was $5,987,358,- 

 051, compared with $5,969,872,278, an increase 

 of $17,485,773. Of this $1,046,125,611 is held 

 by Canadian companies; $3,039,109,169 by Bri- 

 tish companies; and $1,902,123,271 by foreign 

 companies. 



The total premium income on all fire and 

 life insurance by all companies in 1921 was 

 $146,066,223. Of this amount British companies 

 accounted for $26,331,247, of which $23,413,000 

 was for fire and $2,917,418 life insurance. Foreign 

 companies' share amounted to $49,595,481, 

 about $49,000,000 of which went to American 

 concerns. The balance, or $70,139,495 went to 

 Canadian companies. In addition to this busi- 

 ness Canadian companies wrote a great deal 

 abroad, the net premium income on the latter 

 having been $14,800,000. 



All things considered, 1921 was a fair year for 

 insurance companies in Canada and the business 

 transacted denotes a keener interest in Canadian 

 insurance; the attention evinced by American 

 companies in Canada as a field for investment, 

 presages the investing of further capital in this 

 country. 



Vancouver Island 



Vancouver Island is widely known as one of the fairest 

 spots in Canada, a region where the wild maiestic grandeur 

 of the Canada west of the Rockies, blends in harmony 

 with a calmer beauty that, in its charming simplicity, is 

 reminiscent of rural England. As such it is extremely 

 popular with the tourist, the sportsman, the fisherman, 

 and the general holiday-maker who yearly set out in 

 numbers over the fine roads which lead out of Victoria, 

 the gateway to the interior. During last June, July and 

 August, about twenty-five thousand tourists passed 

 through the city of Victoria and on a very conservative 

 estimation they left on the island the sum of $500,000. 

 The hundreds of miles of splendid roads available for 

 motorists attract numbers of people holidaying in this 

 manner and from April 1st to the end of 1921 a total of 627 

 automobiles from the United States toured the island. 



The beauty of the isjand is so striking, its appeal to the 

 holiday-maker so alluring, its atmosphere so suggestive of 

 leisurely, unruffled existence that the tourist, whizzing 

 through in his car over its comfortable roads, receives only 

 a dim ens'hadowed impression of its tremendous economic 

 importance. He probably does not realize that the 

 picturesque little homesteads he flashes past are for the 

 main part self-supporting and accounting each year for a 

 substantial agricultural output. He does not take into 

 consideration the prosperous farms and the resources of 

 commercial timber existing back of the motor roads. 

 Where a turn in the trail gives him a glance of the ocean 

 he perhaps has no definite knowledge of the great wealth 

 of the fisheries of the waters surrounding the island. 



Area and Population 



Vancouver Island is 285 miles in length and averages 

 in width 60 miles, its area being more than twice that of the 

 country of Wales or the state of Massachussetts, and 

 nearly twice the area of the states of New Hampshire or 

 Vermont. Nature endowed it with a great and varied 

 wealth the basis of which is the island's rich and fertile 

 agricultural land which makes possible the production of 



a wide latitude of crops and fruit growing and mixed 

 farming such profitable pursuits. 



The population of the island was returned at the 1921 

 census as 116,730, an increase of nearly 300 per cent over 

 that of 1911. 



The enormous agricultural acreage of Vancouver 

 Island has yet largely to be settled and rendered pro- 

 ductive. Though there are many fine and prosperous 

 farms only 34,000 acres was under cultivation last year, 

 being given over to the varied crops of mixed farms and to 

 fruit growing and berry culture. The island's yield of 

 grains, peas and beans was 409,583 bushels; of hay, clover 

 and alfalfa 26,700 tons, and of potatoes and vegetables 

 27,024 tons. Strawberries accounted for a revenue to 

 the island of $173,344; loganberries $26,587; cherries 

 23,102; plums and prunes $10,950; gooseberries, currants, 

 raspberries, etc. $29,379. In 1921 there were 506 apiaries 

 on the island with 1,733 hives which produced 17,510 

 pounds of honey, a production considerably below the 

 average year. 



Minerals and Fisheries 



The minerals comprise an extensive variety among 

 them being coal, copper, iron, gold, silver, quicksilver, 

 marble, limestone, and other building materials. Coal is 

 the most valuable of these minerals in point of present clay 

 production. It has been mined for seventy years and has 

 come to represent about eight ninths of the Island's total 

 mineral production. There were 6,500 men employed in 

 coal mining in 1921 effecting a production of 1,656, 428 

 tons valued at $8,282,140. The total value of mineral 

 production in 1920 was $9,773,036 made up of coal $8,491,- 

 270; metalliferous metals $15,488; non-metalliferous 

 metals $1,243,439; and other minerals $22,839. 



The most prolific fishing grounds of the British Colum- 

 bia coastal waters are in those surrounding the island and 

 these account annually for the greater part of the prov- 

 ince's fisheries' revenue. Twenty-one species of fish-food 

 is secured off the island the most important species of 

 which are salmon, halibut, cod, herring, flounder and sole. 

 The fishing grounds in 1921 accounted for a revenue to the 

 Dominion of more than $22,000,000, or more than that of 

 any of the provinces engaged in this industry. The 

 whaling industry accounted for a catch of 430 whales, the 

 oil of which was extracted and the various parts utilized in 

 the whaling plants existing there. 



Lumbering Activities 



~t 



Commercial timber on Vancouver Island consists of 

 Douglas fir, red cedar, hemlock, balsam, spruce, and yellow 

 cedar and comprises 11 6,9 12, 900,000 board feet of standing 

 timber. Timber scaled in 1921 totalled 273,752,000 which 

 does not, however, by any means represent the extent of 

 the annual cut as much of the log output is sent to the 

 mainland to be scaled. There are fifty-eight sawmills in 

 operation which have a daily capacity of approximately 

 2,152,000 B.M. feet. Vancouver Island has two pulp 

 mills, one at Port Alice and the other at Beaver Cove. 

 The shingle mills, employ 2,500 men, have a daily capacity 

 of 500,000 bundles. 



With exquisite beauty and extensive variety of scenery, 

 the most equable of climates, fine harbors, expanding 

 railway facilities and valuable and varied natural resources, 

 Vancouver Island has been given most of those gifts man 

 can desire and the region forms a fine blending of the 

 beautiful and romantic with the economical. Tourists are 

 coming in ever increasing numbers each year to holiday in 

 its natural playground. Sportsmen are attracted by the 

 elk, deer, ducks, geese, snipe, wild pigeon, pheasants, quail, 

 grouse, grilse, salmon, trout, and bass which abound there. 



But Vancouver Island awaits a greater and more 

 wonderful furtue when, in the course of time, more ade- 

 quate exploitation will have been made of her rich agri- 

 cultural lands and her other valuable natural resources. 



86 



