38 A SPORTSMAN'S EDEN. 



Hudson's Bay. Everything is so solemn, almost 

 sad. Looking back upon Lake George from the 

 shores of Lake Superior, the contrast between 

 the tawdry gaiety of the one its big hotels, 

 painted pagodas, gay boats, and everlasting steam- 

 whistle and the grandeur of the other's loneli- 

 ness is very striking. From the lakes we emerged 

 through woods growing hourly more sparse and 

 dwarfed, upon the black, damp-looking lands 

 round Winnipeg. At first, they tell me, these 

 lands were thought too wet and heavy to be 

 valuable ; now they find that only such lands as 

 these will hold sufficient moisture through a 

 summer drought. During the boom, an acre 

 near Winnipeg sold at from 50 to 100 dollars, 

 and the result of these prices is seen on all sides. 

 There are pastures, but very little stock ; farmers, 

 but comparatively little farming. That, at any 

 rate, was our impression, though Winnipeg people, 

 after their wonderful growth from a village to a 

 people of 30,000 strong in five years, are not all 

 inclined to admit that this is so. Others, though, 



7 O ' 



will tell you that those who hold land have 

 beggared themselves to buy it in the hope of a 

 rise, and are now paying rates and taxes on it 

 out of their other sources of income rather than 

 let it go at a loss. 



From Winnipeg westwards the landscape is 



