148 THKOUGH THE MACKENZIE BASIN" 



Perhaps he will be none the worse for this. It bred in the 

 pioneers of our old provinces some of the highest qualities: 

 courage, iron endurance, self-denial, homely and upright life, 

 and, above all, for it includes all, true and ennobling patriot- 

 ism. The survival of such qualities has been manifest in 

 multitudes of their sons, who, remembering the record, have 

 borne themselves manfully wherever they have gone. 



But modern conditions are breeding methods new and 

 strange, and keen observers profess to discern in our swift 

 development the decay of certain things essential to our wel- 

 fare. We seem, they think, to be borrowing from others — 

 for they are not ours by inheritance — their boastful spirit, 

 extravagance, and love of luxury, fatal to any State through 

 the consequent decline of morality. The picture is over- 

 drawn. True womanhood and clean life are still the keynotes 

 of the great majority of Canadian homes. 



Yet very striking is the contrast with the old days of house- 

 hold economies, the days of the ox-chain, the sickle, and the 

 leach-tub. All of these, sortie happily and some unhappily, 

 have been swept away by the besom of Progress. But in any 

 case life was too serious in those days for effeminate luxury, 

 or for aught but proper pride in defending the counti'y, and 

 in work well done. And it is just this stern life which must 

 be lived, sooner or later, not only in the wilds of Athabasca, 

 but in facing everywhere the great problems of race-stability 

 — ^the spectres of retribution — ^which are rapidly rising upon 

 the white man's horizon. 



Eor the rest, and granting the manhood, the future of 

 Athabasca is more assured than that of Manitoba seemed to 

 be to the doubters of thirty years ago. In a word, there is 

 fruitful land there, and a bracing climate fit for industrial 

 man, and therefore its settlement is certain. It will take 

 time. Vast forests must be cleared, and not, perhaps, until 

 railways are built will that day dawn upon Athabasca. Yet 

 it will come ; and it is well to know that, when it does, there 

 is ample room for the immigrant in the regions described. 



