

DOMINION OF CANADA. 



265 





ca'led Niagara ; and thence along by the eastern and 

 southeastern bank of Lake Erie, following the said 

 bank until the same shall be intersected by the north- 

 ern boundary granted by the charter of the Province 

 of Pennsylvania, in case the same shall be so intersect- 

 ed ; and Irom thence along the said northern and west- 

 ern boundaries of the said province, until the said 

 western boundary strike the Ohio ; but in case the 

 said bank of the said lake shall not be found to be so 

 intersected, then following the said bank until it shall 

 arrive at that point of the said bank which shall be 

 nearest to the northwestern angle of the said Province 

 of Pennsylvania, and thence, by a right line, to the 

 said northwestern angle of .the said province; and 

 thence along the western boundary of the said prov- 

 ince, until it strike the river Ohio ; and along the 

 bank of the said river westward, to the banks of the 

 Mississippi, and northward to the southern boundary 

 of the territory granted to the Merchant Adventurers 

 of England trading to Hudson's Bay. 



The contention that "northward" means 

 due north, while " westward " follows the 

 course of the Ohio, is purely technical, and 

 was originated in order to secure to the Gov- 

 ernment of Canada the control of 100,000 

 square miles of territory that she formerly 

 claimed belonged not to any one except the 

 Province of Ontario. It may be noted that 

 in the older provinces Ontario, Quebec, etc. 

 the control of the Crown or public lands 

 belongs to the provincial governments, while 

 in Manitoba and the districts erected out of 

 the acquired Hudson Bay Company's territo- 

 ries, it belongs to the Federal Government. 

 The Government of Canada asserted the 

 northern boundary to be the height of land 

 north of Lake Superior. The Province of 

 Ontario maintained that, at the very least, 

 she was entitled to the territory as far west 

 as the meridian from the source of the Mis- 

 sissippi, or, what is nearly the same, the 

 meridian of the northwestern angle of Lake 

 of the Woods. The first of these is based on 

 the u Quebec Act " already quoted, and de- 

 pends on the construction placed on the word 

 "northward." In the same sentence the word 

 "westward" means "following the course of 

 the Ohio," and, especially as the maps of that 

 day indicated the Mississippi as flowing nearly 

 due south, the word "northward" means 

 "following the course of the Mississippi." 

 Further confirmation is given to this construc- 

 tion from the fact that in 1774 Sir Guy Carle- 

 ton, then " Captain-General and Governor-in- 

 Chief of the Province of Quebec," afterward 

 Lord Dorchester, in his commission as Gov- 

 ernor of the Province of Quebec, after reciting 

 the clause quoted from the Quebec Act, to 

 the words " until it strikes the river Ohio, 

 and along the bank of the said river, west- 

 ward, to the banks of the Mississippi," recites, 

 " and northward along the eastern bank of the 

 said river," etc. In support of the northwest- 

 ern angle of Lake of the Woods, as the western 

 boundary, reference is made to the "Definitive 

 Treaty of Peace and Friendship," signed at Par- 

 is in September, 1783, by which Great Britain 

 acknowledged the independence of the United 

 States of America. Article II of that treaty is : 



And that all disputes which might arise in future 

 on the subject of the boundaries of the said United 

 States may be prevented, it is hereby agreed and de- 

 clared that the following are and shall be their bounda- 

 ries, viz. : From the northwest angle of Nova Scotia, 

 viz., that angle which is formed bv a line drawn due 

 north from the source of the St. Croix river to the high- 

 lands, along the highlands . . . (the same as quoted 

 in the Quebec Act, except that the line runs through 

 the middle of the St. Lawrence) . . . into Lake Erie ; 

 through the middle of said lake, until it arrives at the 

 water communication between that lake and Lake Hu- 

 ron ; thence along the middle of said water communi- 

 cation into Lake Huron ; thence through the middle 

 of said lake to the water communication between that 

 lake and Lake Superior ; thence through Lake Supe- 

 rior, northward of the isles Koyal and Philippeaux, 

 to the Long Lake ; thence through the middle of said 

 Long Lake, and the water communication between it 

 and the Lake of the Woods ; thence through the said 

 lake to the most northwestern point thereofj and from 

 thence on a due west course to the river Mississippi ; 

 thence by a line to be drawn along the middle of the 

 said Mississippi river until it shall intersect the north- 

 ernmost part of the 31st degree of north latitude. 

 South, by a line to be drawn due east from the deter- 

 mination of the line last mentioned, in the latitude 

 of 31 north of the equator, to the middle of the river 

 Apalachicola or Catahouche : thence along the mid- 

 dle thereof to its junction with the Flint river ; thence 

 straight to the head of St. Mary's river, and thence 

 down along the middle of St. Mary's river to the At- 

 lantic Ocean, etc. 



From this it will be noted that Nova Scotia 

 then included the present New Brunswick ; the 

 two forming the old Acadia. It will also be 

 noted that the Mississippi was supposed to rise 

 as far north as a line due west from the north- 

 west angle of Lake of the Woods. However, 

 in the Treaty of 1794, between Great Britain 

 and the United States of America, a clause was 

 inserted enacting that a joint survey of the riv- 

 er should be made from " one degree of latitude 

 below the Falls of St. Anthony to the principal 

 source or sources of the said river," etc. Thus, 

 in both these last-cited treaties, the Mississippi 

 is supposed to be the western boundary of Can- 

 ada. However, as the line is specifically and ac- 

 curately laid down to the "northwestern angle 

 of Lake of the Woods," that point was consid- 

 ered to be the western limit. As the lake is 

 very irregular in shape, the commissioners, 

 named in 1814, decided that "the northwest- 

 ern point of the Lake of the Woods is that on 

 which, if a line be drawn in the plane of a 

 great circle, at an angle of 45 with the me- 

 ridian, such a line would cut no other water of 

 the lake," The point so found is in latitude 

 49 23' 55" north, and in longitude 95 14' 38" 

 west from Greenwich. This is the meridian 

 fixed by both the arbitrators, and by the Judi- 

 cial Committee of the Privy Council of Great 

 Britain and Ireland, as the western boundary 

 of Ontario. 



The contention that the western boundary 

 of Ontario should be White Earth river, a tribu- 

 tary, in Montana, of the Missouri, is founded on 

 the clause already quoted from the Treaty of 

 Paris of 1783, "thence through the said lake 

 [Lake of the Woods] to the most northwestern 

 point thereof, and from thence on a due west 



