Commercial Importance of Hudson's Bay. 493 



annually arrives at Fort York, for the service of the Hudson's Bay 

 Company; who can tell how many may eventually do so?' In 

 1869, and subsequently, I frequently discussed the matter with the 

 late Hon. John Young, Mr. Keefer, Professor Armstrong, and others; 

 and in 1876 Mr. Selwin brought the subject unofficially before 

 members of the Canadian Government, and recommended that 

 surveys be make of Hudson's Bay and Strait. The Right Hon. Sir 

 John A. Macdonald, Minister of the Interior, and his deputy, Colonel 

 J. S. Dennis, have all along taken a deep interest in this question, 

 and in 1878 the latter gentleman published a work, accompanied by 

 a valuable map, in relation to it. The Report of the Minister of the 

 Interior for 1878 contains an appendix by myself on the practica- 

 bility of building a railway from Lake Winnipeg to Hudson's Bay. 

 In the session of 1878-79, and again the following year, the Hon. 

 Thomas Ryan, a gentleman of great enterprise, has brought the 

 matter under the notice of the Dominion Senate. 



"In 1880 the Parliament of Canada granted charters to two 

 companies for constructing railways, and otherwise opening a route 

 for commerce, from the North -West Territories to Europe via 

 Hudson's Bay; and during the past summer one of them, the Nelson 

 Valley Company, caused a survey to be made of part of the distance 

 between Lake Winnipeg and the harbour of Churchill. Their chief 

 engineer has reported the route to be an easy and inexpensive one 

 for a railway. This company has also the power of connecting with 

 the Canadian Pacific Railway, but the main line will form a connect- 

 ing link between the great system of inland navigation, which 

 centres in Lake Winnipeg, and the sea. When constructed, the 

 Nelson Valley Railway may carry to the seaboard not only the 

 surplus grain and cattle of our own North-West, but also those of 

 Minnesota and Dakota. Sir J. H. Lefroy, President of the Geo- 

 graphical Section of the British Association, in the able address 

 which he delivered at the Swansea meeting (1880), said: — "Hudson's 

 Bay itself cannot fail, at no distant day, to challenge more attention. 

 Dr. Bell reports that the land is rising at the rate of five to ten feet 

 in a century, that is, possibly, an inch a year. Not, however, on 

 this account will the hydrographer notice it ; but because the 



