10 CANADIAN WILDS. 



scurried ashore while the ship slipped her cable 

 and put to sea till fair weather. 



In parting with their charter to the Cana- 

 dian Government the company reserved certain 

 acreages about each and every one of their forts 

 and posts besides two sections in each township 

 from the Lake of the Woods to the Rocky Moun- 

 tains and from the international boundary line 

 to the northern edge of the Fertile Belt. These 

 reserves of land sold to the incoming settlers as 

 the country is filling up is a great source of 

 revenue to the share holders and are becoming 

 more and more valuable each succeeding year. 



Where most of the old prairie posts stood in 

 the old days, the company now have "Sale 

 Shops" for the whites and at these places they 

 are successfully meeting competition, by the 

 superiority and cheapness of the goods they 

 supply. 



In old Canada the fur trade had always been 

 the principal commerce of the country and after 

 the French regime several Scotch merchants of 

 Montreal prosecuted it with more vigor than 

 heretofore. This they did under the name of 

 "The Northwest Company." Their agents and 

 "Couriers des Bois" were ever pushing west- 

 ward and had posts strung from Ottawa to the 

 Rocky Mountains and all the pelts from that 



