CHAPTER I. 

 The Attraction of the North. 



the north-westerly trend of civilization — a question of 

 transportation — the canadian pacific railway and the 

 north-west — proposed new transcontinental line. 



The world's march of Commerce, and Science, and Skill, 

 In errands of blessing, their work to fulfil, 

 • Move in the same course — north-westerly still. 



,#HE directive magnetic force that controls the mariner's 

 needle is not a more attractive problem than is the not 

 less unerring north-westerly trend of human progress. 

 ^ Westward and northward have the marching orders been, 

 until the people of the present generation must look southward and 

 eastward for the homes of their ancestors. The greatest deeds have 

 always been accomplished in high latitudes, because the highest 

 latitudes produce the greatest men. And yet, strange as it may 

 seem, the north is always underrated. 



Go to the Eastern Hemisphere for examples of this. Half a 

 century before the birth of Christ, Csesar concluded a mighty series 

 of north-west conquests, by subjugating the hardy inhabitants of 

 the then far north, the British Isles ; but the act was regarded by 

 the Romans more in the light of erecting the Imperial standard on 

 the utmost confines of the north, than as a conquest of valuable 

 territory. A few short centuries and the island camping-ground of 

 the Roman conqueror became the mistress of the world. Upon 

 those far northern shores a mighty commerce began to develop, and 

 vast industrial enterprises grew up, until, in every part of the earth, 

 England was hailed as the greatest nation under the sun. But 



