\..rH,-\\'.t ' 197 



tin nnometcr registering thirty degrees below zero. Every 

 lake and slough is frozen over, and not a Kin) \ living crem- 

 is to be seen. A dead silence reign* from morning until 

 night, unless a howling blixxard is raging. But we will only 

 think f tin, country as seen in its summer garb, and as I 

 before a cabinet full of specimen* anl open drawer afu-r drawer 

 And gaze with admiration on tin- birds' e^s and >1. cted 



theiv. ; n. tin- U-autiful firms and coloui-*, I think of 



the North- West as I saw it in sunnm -i. Every clutch of I 

 eggs distinctly brings to mind the spot where it was collected 

 and the surroundings, ami my minl travels hundivd.> ,>{ miles 

 away to the western prairies, carpeted with myriads of sweet- 

 scented flowers and fragrant wild roses. I think of the blurts 

 and tin rivers, lakes and sloughs, fringed with rushes and 

 dotted over with hundreds of wild fowl, and the great over- 

 arching dome of deep blue, and the balmy atmosphere, soft 

 and sweet as from a bank of flowers, exhilarating as 

 breath of the north always is. And now, gentle reader, whether 

 you be a naturalist, sportsman, or angler, if you wish to form 

 a correct impression of the extent and magnitude of the Can- 

 i t h- Wi-st and its wonderful resources, take a trip from 

 Winnipeg to Vancouver, and after having ridden across seas of 

 green for hundreds of miles at a stretch, crossed mighty rivers, 

 cli in he<l di/xy heights, beheld snow-capped mountains, seen 

 great glaciers, pained through frightful gorges, shot grizzly 

 bears under the shadows of the mountains of the setting I 

 hunted a cougar or black bear with dogs, coursed antelope 

 with Lfn-yhounds, had your hair stand on end by seeing a wolf 

 worried to death by high-mettled hounds, hunt* .1 mu-k ox, 

 moose or cariboo with Indians or mounted police, seen lakes 

 blacken over with myriads of water fowl, caught magnificent 

 seven and eight-pound trout and whit-'tMi. landed a mighty 

 kinonge or salmon you could scarcely carry, got lost in a 

 willow swamp, or lost your way on an alkaline or cactus flat 

 in some semi-deserted, treeless expanse, where no sign of life 

 breaks the terrible solitariness from horizon to horizon, you 

 are 1 return home a wiser man as regards the resources, 



extent, character and probable de - West 



