A LAND OF WATERWAYS 15 



shipbuilding industry with which she did so much 

 in the days of mast and sail and wooden hulls ? 

 No exhaustive Canadian * water history ' can 

 possibly be attempted here. That would re- 

 quire a series of its own. But at least a first 

 attempt will now be made to give some general 

 idea of what such a history would contain in 

 fuller detail : of the kayaks and canoes the 

 Eskimos and Indians used before the white 

 man came, and use to-day, in the ever-receding 

 wilds ; of the various small craft moved by 

 oar and sail that slowly displaced the craft 

 moved only by the paddle ; of the sailing 

 vessels proper, and how they plied along 

 Canadian waterways, and out beyond, on all the 

 Seven Seas ; of the steamers, which, in their 

 earlier pioneering days, shed so much forgotten 

 lustre on Canadian enterprise ; of those ' Cod- 

 lands of North America ' and other teeming 

 fisheries which the far-seeing Lord Bacon 

 rightly thought ' richer treasures than the 

 mines of Mexico and of Peru ' ; of the 

 Dominion's trade and government relations 

 with the whole class of men who ' have their 

 business in great waters ' ; and, finally, of that 

 guardian Navy, without whose freely given care 

 the ' water history ' of Canada could never 

 have been made at all. 



