RAILWAY EXTENSION 163 



reason to expect that a large population can be 

 sustained by its natural products. The climate is 

 good and adapted to the needs of successful 

 agriculture. The wheat season is short, but certain 

 in its harvest. 



An agreement has been made with the Dominion 

 Government for the laying down of railways in 

 Cassiar. Three and a half million acres were ceded 

 for this purpose. The completion of the Grand Trunk 

 Railway, now in progress, and the laying down of 

 good roads will hasten development, and the great 

 hopes and possibilities of this hitherto trackless 

 wilderness will be practically fulfilled. The route is 

 via Edmonton, and extends to Prince Rupert on the 

 British Columbia coast. It exploits a new territory, 

 and opens a fresh volume in the sublimity and 

 grandeur of the Rocky Mountains. It traverses the 

 Yellow Head Pass. 



Between Edmonton and the mountains, a distance 

 of 125 miles, the survey shows grassy plains inter- 

 spersed with wooded slopes. The line skirts the south 

 side of the Athabasca River, which broadens from 

 twenty feet at McKay, to nearly three hundred feet 

 at Prairie Creek. Mountains 7000 feet high come into 

 view at that point, and Jasper Park is touched, where 

 the Dominion Government has formed a 5000 square 

 mile reserve for the preservation of the magnificent 

 specimens of flora and fauna life in primitive 

 wildness. 



