546 Our North Land. 



" The Red Deer Valley is especially remarkable as traversing a 

 country where, according to the testimony of Indian chiefs travel- 

 ling with us, snow never lies for more than three months, and the 

 heavy growth of poplar in the bottoms, the quantity of the ' bull ' 

 or high cranberry bushes, and the rich branches that hung from the 

 choke cherries showed us that we had come into that part of the 

 Dominion which among the plainsmen is designed as ' God's country.' 

 From this onward to the Bow River, and thence to the frontier line, 

 the trail led through what will be one of the most valued of our 

 Provinces, subject as the country is to those warm winds called the 

 ' chinooks.' The settler will hardly ever use anything but wheeled 

 vehicles during the winter, and throughout a great portion of the 

 land early sowing — or fall sowing — will be all that will be neces- 

 sary to ensure him against early frosts. 



" At Calgary, a place interesting at the present time as likely to 

 be upon that Pacific Railway line which will connect you with the 

 Pacific and give you access to ' that vast shore beyond the furthest 

 sea,' the shore of Asia, a good many small herds of cattle have been 

 introduced within the last few years. During this year a magnifi- 

 cent herd of between six and seven thousand has been brought in ? 

 and the men who attended them, and who came from Montana, 

 Oregon and Texas, all averred that their opinion of their new ranche 

 was higher than that of any with which they had been acquainted 

 in the south. Excellent crops have been raised by men who have 

 sown not only in the river bottoms, but also upon that so-called 

 ' bench ' lands or plateau above. This testimony was also given by 

 others on the way to Fort Macleod and beyond it, thus closing most 

 satisfactorily the song of praise we had heard from practical men 

 throughout our whole journey of one thousand two hundred miles. 



"Let me advert for one moment to some of the causes which 

 have enabled settlers to enjoy in such peace the fruits of their 

 industry. Chief amongst these must be reckoned the policy of kind- 

 ness and justice which was inaugurated by the Hudson's Bay Com- 

 pany in their treatment of the Indians. Theirs is one of the cases 

 in which a traders' association has upheld the maxim that ' honesty 

 is the best policy ' even when you are dealing with savages. The 



