Navigation of Hudson's Bay and Strait. 273 



from Montreal, via Cape Race, it is two thousand nine hundred and 

 ninety, and from New York, via Cape Clear, three thousand and 

 forty miles, showing sixty-four miles in favour of Churchill as 

 compared with Montreal, and one hundred and fourteen miles as 

 compared with New York. * 



. " The fact of a seaport existing in the very heart of the continent 

 more than one thousand five hundred miles nearer than Quebec to 

 the centre of the North- West Territory, has scarcely begun to be 

 realized by the public ; yet its importance can hardly be overrated. 

 Churchill Harbour is only four hundred miles from the edge of the 

 greatest wheat-field in the world, or not so far as from Quebec to 

 Toronto. The lands of the North-West capable of supporting an 

 agricultural population exceed 200,000,000 of acres in extent. An 

 available seaport which will, as it were, bring this enormous tract 

 so much nearer the markets of the world, may become the means of 

 developing it in a way which cannot be accomplished by long rail- 

 way lines. Should the route indicated be established, not only this 

 vast region, but part of the United States to the south, would send 

 their heavy freight over it, and a railway to Churchill Harbour from 

 Lake Winnipeg (the centre of a vast system of inland navigation), 

 or connecting in its neighbourhood with other railways from the 

 interior, would secure the business of almost half the continent. 

 Churchill Harbour is some two hundred miles nearer the Pacific, 

 at the mouth of the Fraser River, than to the Atlantic at Halifax, 

 so that a transcontinental railway starting from the former port 

 would not be half as long as from the latter. 



" At the mouth of the Churchill, in latitude 58° 49', potatoes and 

 turnips are the only crops cultivated, but in the interior wheat is 

 grown in the Mackenzie Valley up to latitude 60°. The warm 

 summer weather enjoyed by the vast region east of the Rocky 

 Mountains and north of the United States line is partly due to the 

 warm winds from the south ; still, it can be shown that during the 

 growing and ripening season of wheat, lasting for about one hun- 

 dred days, or from May to September, the sun's heat between the 

 parallels of 50° and 60° is nearly as great as it is in the ten degrees 

 south of 50°, while the days are considerably longer, and the addi- 



18 



