From the Pacific to Hudson's Bay. 311 



soil in the world. There countless herds of cattle may roam and 

 fatten upon the rich grasses that everywhere abound, without the 

 shelter of barn or stable, and without being exposed to the severity 

 of an ordinary winter climate. There all kinds of orchard and 

 garden fruits may be cultivated and grown in plenty, and the best 

 cereals of the northern temperate zone harvested in yields unequalled 

 anywhere. 



Down before us to the eastward, beyond the Smoky River, are 

 spread out the limitless alluvial plains of the Athabaska and its 

 tributaries, an expanse of fertile territory that must soon become 

 thickly populated with a prosperous agricultural community ; while 

 away to the south-east, in the country of the North Saskatchewan, 

 the heart of the wheat belt is reached. 



These areas include a territory that will be comprised in five 

 Provinces of over 200,000 square miles each. They are all very 

 much the same, not strictly a prairie country, nor yet monotonously 

 undulating ; but comprising, for the most part, gently sloping ridges 

 or swells between the various rivers and lake systems. " Much of 

 the country" (near the Rockies), says Prof. Dawson, "is park-like, 

 with groves of poplar, while extensive tracts are quite open. . . 

 The soil is uniformly fertile black loam." 



I am anxious that the reader may form some adequate conception 

 of the extent and fertility of -the great northern plains that lie east 

 of the Rockies and are drained into Hudson's Bay, as well as of the 

 advantages to that region of the proposed Hudson's Bay route. 

 Mr. Sanford Fleming, C.M.G., in a paper read by him in 1878 before 

 the Royal Colonial Institute, London, England, gives the following 

 description of the prairie region. He said : " It has been found con- 

 venient in describing the general characteristics of Canada to divide 

 it into three great regions. Its leading botanical, geological and 

 topographical features suggest this division. One region, except 

 where cleared of its timber by artificial means, is densely wooded, 

 another is wooded and mountainous, the third is a vast lowland 

 plain of a prairie character. The Mountain Region is on the western 

 side ; the Prairie Region is in the middle ; the remainder, which 

 embraces the settled Provinces on the St. Lawrence, originally 



