CHAPTER IX. 



THE INTERCOLONIAL RAILROAD. THE BAY OF CHALEUR. 



THE Intercolonial Railway, connecting Canada proper 

 with Halifax and St. John, the winter ports of the Domi- 

 nion, has just been completed. Its length is 490 miles. 

 It is not a colonization road, but as a great part of the 

 country it traverses is as yet a terra incognita to the tra- 

 velling public, a brief description of some of the places of 

 interest to the tourist and the sportsman may not be out 

 of place in these pages. 



When the different provinces which now form the Do- 

 minion were confederated, it became a part of the policy 

 of the federal government to construct a great system of 

 railways to bind together the new Dominion. It is said 

 that railroad making has been pushed on too rapidly, and, 

 as is undoubtedly the case in the neighbouring Republic, 

 that the railway system has outgrown the growth of the 

 country. Be that as it may, the responsibility of making 

 the Intercolonial cannot be thrust upon Canada. If it 

 proves a failure in a commercial point of view, that is not 

 the fault of the Canadians. It was built for imperial pur- 

 poses, and its line chosen by imperial engineers. The 

 mother-country, who determined not only where it was to 

 be built but how it was to be built, guaranteed a loan of 

 two and a half millions to Canada for the purpose. A 

 great deal more was made of this guarantee by the English 



