THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



83 



CANADIAN IRRIGATION. 



BY J. M. P. 



Co-incident with the marvelous strides in irriga- 

 tion development in the United States our Canadian 

 friends have been developing irrigation projects in 

 Western Canada of no small proportions. In the prov- 

 ince of Alberta, one of the new provinces of Western 

 Canada, there has been more or less irrigation for the 

 last eight or ten years. 



The results have been uniformly satisfactory. 

 While Alberta is not an arid or even a semi-arid coun- 

 try, yet the average rainfall is comparatively small. 

 It has long been a settled conviction in the minds of 

 the officials of the Canadian Pacific Railway that wher- 

 ever irrigation could be introduced in Western Canada, 

 and especially in Alberta, it would not only be a wise 

 thing to do, but most profitable. Our Canadian friends 



American continent. The area eventually to be placed 

 "under ditch" is a million and a half acres. This 

 tract has been divided into three sections, and a part 

 of the first or western section of these canals has been 

 completed during the summer and fall of this year, 

 1905. The main canal in this system is sixteen miles 

 long, fifty-four feet wide at the bottom, eighty-five feet 

 wide at the water line, and carries ten feet of water. 

 Something like 100 miles of secondary canals has 

 already been constructed, and about 100,000 acres of 

 this tract are to be brought under water in the spring 

 of 1906. 



The water for this irrigation is taken from the 

 Bow River at the city of Calgary. The Bow is sc noble 

 stream flowing out of the Rocky Mountains, eighty 

 miles west of Calgary. By the government gauges it 

 is learned that at low water mark there is sufficient 

 water in this river to irrigate twice the acreage the 

 Canadian Pacific Railway proposes to place "under 



Lateral of Canadian Pacific Colonization Company's Canal Near Calgary, Alberta, Canada. 



believe, as we Americans are coming to believe, that 

 irrigation is profitable wherever possible. 



Our Canadian friends, however, are conservative 

 and have moved in the matter of irrigation, as in 

 other matters, with the greatest caution. Several years 

 ago the Canadian Pacific Railway set about a thorough 

 investigation of a large tract of their lands lying east 

 of Calgary with a view to putting it "under ditch." 

 Among other experts who were invited to look over 

 the proposition was that greatest of all American ex- 

 perts, Dr. Elwood Mead. The unanimous verdict of 

 these irrigation experts was that here was a tract of 

 land that was most admirably and peculiarly adapted, 

 both as to soil and climate, to the purpose of irriga- 

 tion. The same experts have pronounced the Canadian 

 water right law as unequaled in America. 



After taking these preliminary precautions the 

 Canadian Pacific Railway Company set about to build 

 a system of main and secondary canals which would 

 bring "under ditch" a tract of land, which, consid- 

 ered from the point of acreage to be irrigated, is doubt- 

 less the largest single irrigation undertaking on the 



ditch." The Canadian irrigation law, not a Provincial 

 but a Dominion law, or, as we would call it in the 

 States, a Federal law, fixes the "duty of water." Any 

 company undertaking to irrigate a district must supply 

 water according to the rule laid down by the irrigation 

 law of Canada. It is claimed with pride by our Can- 

 adian friends that there has never been any litigation 

 over water rights in Canada. As the law is framed 

 and administered it is difficult to see how it is possible 

 that there ever should be any litigation along these 

 lines. 



While the railroad companies in the United States 

 have done much to promote irrigation in order to settle 

 the country adjacent to their various roads, yet it is not 

 within the knowledge of the writer that any of these 

 roads has ever undertaken with its own funds, and as 

 a part of its corporate activities, to construct and main- 

 tain an irrigation system. The Canadian Pacific Rail- 

 way is unique in this matter as it has not only con- 

 structed this irrigation system at an expense of mil- 

 lions of dollars, but it guarantees the water to the 

 settler according to the "duty of water" as prescribed 



