280 Our North Land. 



this basin in from six to twenty fathoms, as desired. Here in this 

 harbour a thousand sail may rest safely at anchor. It is indeed a 

 wonderful port in the completeness of its natural features, but is 

 destined to become still more wonderful on account of its future 

 commercial importance. 



On all sides are great hills of rock awaiting the hands of indus- 

 trial enterprise to be transformed into piers and docks and wharves 

 for the accommodation of trade. In no other place in the world 

 could needed improvements be more cheaply or more conveniently 

 made. At least ten miles of the shores of this beautiful basin may 

 be converted into wharves, and everywhere the approaches to them 

 from the interior would be most happily accessible. There are no 

 mountains, or gorges, or obstacles of any sort to prevent the approach 

 of the iron horse from the west or from the south to the very water's 

 edge. As I have said, Nature has done everything possible to make 

 Churchill Harbour one of the finest, as it is destined to become one. 

 of the greatest, commercially, in the world. 



From our position on these ancient walls we may look out, aided 

 by the imagination, over the vast territory drained into Hudson's 

 Bay. To the shores of this mighty inter-ocean come, flowing down 

 over more than a thousand rapids, the waters of the Red River from 

 the great fertile prairies of Minnesota and Dakotah ; the waters of 

 the Assiniboine from the Qu'Appelle valley and the hills of Fort 

 Ellice ; the waters of the Souris from the rich wheat-fields of 

 southern Manitoba ; the waters of the Bow and Belly rivers from 

 their mountain sources in the far-off west, through the herds of cattle 

 and horses in those districts ; the waters of the Red Deer and South 

 Saskatchewan rivers from the immense agricultural districts and 

 coal-beds through which they run ; the waters of the North Sas- 

 katchewan and its vast tributary system of rivers which wind their 

 courses from the recesses of the Rockies and form the watershed of 

 the Athabaska ; and the waters from unnumbered lakes, rivers and 

 streams, some of them fifteen hundred miles to the south and west, 

 on the borders of which are golden harvest fields and happy homes, 

 and thousands of cattle and horses, and other evidences of progress 

 in the development of our great north-west that has been so recently 



