400 Out North Land. 



Although the population of Manitoba, in 1881, was a little less 

 than 66,000, and, with the then added territory, over 93/JOO, it is now 

 probably over 150,000 ; and ten years hence, if the requirements of 

 the country in respect of railway communication are promptly met, 

 it will exceed a million. There has been, and still exists, a slight 

 depression in Manitoba, owing chiefly to the want of greater railway 

 facilities. When this want has been met, and whenever the outlet 

 via Hudson's Bay is assured, that depression will disappear, and an 

 era of prosperity greater than has at any time hitherto characterized 

 the Province will be inaugurated. 



Manitoba has a glorious future, and Winnipeg, the commercial 

 and political capital of the Province, is destined to become one of 

 the greatest business centres of the world. Already Winnipeg has 

 had a wonderful history. There is no city in either Canada or the 

 United States that has, perhaps, attracted so much attention during 

 the last few years, and it owes this exceptional fact to its having 

 around and beyond it one of the largest and most fertile tracts of 

 country on the habitable globe. It has, through this source, become 

 the metropolis of what, in the not distant future, will doubtless 

 prove one of the most wealthy and prosperous portions of this 

 continent. It is frequently compared with Chicago in this particu- 

 lar, and very naturally so, as the circumstances surrounding the 

 early growth of both cities are not dissimilar, with exceptional 

 advantages in favour of Winnipeg. The site of the city is favourably 

 chosen at the confluence of two great navigable streams — the Red 

 and Assiniboine Rivers — into which many smaller streams flow. 

 Through the medium of the first river, connection is had with Lake 

 Winnipeg and all rivers having an outlet into that large body of 

 fresh water. These rivers and lakes give Winnipeg a system of 

 inland navigation possessed by few other cities in either the 

 Dominion or neighbouring Republic, and with slight improvements 

 must ensure a large mercantile marine and additional commercial 

 prosperity to this growing city. Prior to 1870 the town was 

 nothing more than a chief trading post of the Hudson's Bay 

 Company, whose head-quarters were, for years, at Fort Garry. 

 At that date the population was estimated at three hundred 



