Pioneering in Kootenay. 263 



over the Rockies and the Selkirk Mountains, and, though the 

 Provincial Government was ignorant of the fact when, in 1883, they 

 granted my concession, at that very moment the railway company 

 was already building into the Columbia valley in accordance with 

 surveys, which, of course, did not consider the possibility of a vast 

 volume of water being added to that of the Columbia. In the narrow 

 gorges through which that river flows the railway was intended to 

 run just above high water mark as it then existed. The proposed 

 turning would, of course, have necessitated changes as great as 

 they would have been costly. 



The railway company, when they learnt of the proposed turning 

 of the Kootenay river, at once took steps to stop the work, and as 

 the fate of the then Federal Government was bound up hand and 

 foot with the success of the railway to an extent only those in the 

 swim can realise, their request was fulfilled with a promptness 

 very unusual in the unravelling of departmental red tape. To me 

 the upshot of these remonstrances, addressed by the Dominion to 

 the British Columbia Government, were disastrous. The latter, 

 recognising the great mistake they had made in granting my 

 concession without first consulting the Federal authorities at 

 Ottawa, declared that the concessions would have to be annulled 

 if I did not agree to the insertion of a clause obliging me to 

 obtain the consent of the Dominion Government to my canal 

 works. It would have been far better had I abandoned the whole 

 scheme at this sta^e, but as I had already expended some 

 thousands of pounds, and others were also pecuniarily interested in 

 carrying out the works, I was loth to make this sacrifice. 



In the end I foolishly allowed myself to be persuaded to 

 accept the quid pro quo offered by the Provincial Government 

 for my consenting to the insertion of the above clause. This bait 

 consisted in the gift of 30,000 acres of picked land in the Upper 

 Kootenay valley. This land I was to have the right to select, 

 free of cost, as soon as we had completed the canal works on 

 the lines satisfactory to the Dominion Government. To cut short 

 a long story of lobbying at Ottawa, which disclosed some peculiar 



