406 Our North Land. 



North-West should take courage by remembering that the darkest 

 hour is just before the dawn ; and nothing is more certain than that 

 the dawn of great prosperity in the North- West will break over the 

 country with the first assurances of the establishment of the Hudson's 

 Bay Railway. Nearly all of these statements in evidence of the 

 great fertility and wonderful extent of the Canadian North- West 

 have been given to the world before, but I reproduce them now ; for 

 by re-establishing the greatness of the prairie country, I but predi- 

 cate the importance of the Hudson's Bay route. For this reason 

 the remainder of this chapter is devoted to the testimony of travellers 

 and eminent men who have visited the country. 



When Lord Dufferin visited the North- West in 1877, travelling 

 over large stretches and camping out for several weeks together, 

 after observation of its resources, and conversations with settlers, he 

 declared in a speech of great eloquence at Winnipeg, that when the 

 Dominion of Canada came to these vast regions, she was no longer 

 " a mere settler along the banks of a single river, but the owner of 

 half a continent, and — in the magnitude of her possessions, in the 

 wealth of her resources, in the sinews of her material might — the peer 

 of any power on earth." 



His Excellency the Marquis of Lome, the late Governor-General 

 of Canada, made an extensive tour in the North-West, in 1881, 

 crossing the plains in waggons until he came in sight of the Rocky 

 Mountains, and spending his nights under canvas. He also made a 

 speech at Winnipeg, in which he described with great eloquence the 

 impressions he had received of the territory over which he had 

 travelled. The following are extracts : — " Beautiful as are the 

 numberless lakes and illimitable forests of Keewatin — the land of 

 the north wind to the east of you — yet it was pleasant to ' get 

 behind the north wind ' and to reach your open plains. The contrast 

 is great between the utterly silent and shadowy solitudes of the pine 

 and fir forests, and the sunlit and breezy ocean of meadowland, 

 voiceful with the music of birds, which stretches onward from the 

 neighbourhood of your city. In Keewatin the lumber industry and 

 mining enterprise can alone be looked for, and here it is impossible to 

 imagine any kind of work which shall not produce results equal to 



