244 
Canadian Agriculture. 
Manitoba. 
The Province of Manitoba is merely the frontier of the great 
North- West. Formerly known as the Red River Settlement, it was 
in 1870, at the close of, and as a consequence of, the Red River 
Rebellion, the suppression of which was effected by Colonel 
(now General Lord) Wolseley, raised to the dignity of a separate 
Province and admitted into the federation of the Dominion. Its 
boundaries are determined by the parallels of 49° and 53° N. 
lat., and the meridians of 90° and 101° W. long. It is in the 
very centre of North America, and, in the words of the Earl of 
Dufferin, " may be regarded as the keystone of that mighty arch 
of sister Provinces which spans the Continent from the Atlantic 
to the Pacific." Its area, 123,000 square miles,* is slightly in 
excess of that of the British Isles, 121,115 square miles ; but the 
population of the Province is only about 125,000, of which 
Winnipeg, the capital, claims 30,000. This city is most 
advantageously placed at the confluence of the Red and 
Assiniboine Rivers, occupying the site of the old Fort Garry, 
one of the head-quarters of the Hudson's Bay Company, and 
though the fort is now unfortunately destroyed, its name will 
linger in history as that of the place where the insurrection of 
the French-Indian half-breeds culminated, under the leadership 
of Louis Riel, in the Red River Rebellion of 1869-70. The 
great obstacle to the growth of Winnipeg, and with it the 
development of Manitoba, arose from its inaccessibility. The 
country between Lake Superior and the prairie metropolis has 
already been described, and it occupied Colonel Wolseley and 
his troops three months (May to August, 1870) to traverse this 
region, whereas the journey across the same district, from Port 
Arthur to Winnipeg, is now accomplished by the Canadian 
Pacific Railway in less than twenty-four hours. The first 
railway communication with Winnipeg was effected in the 
spring of 1879 through American territory, via Chicago, and 
the St. Paul, Minneapolis, and Manitoba Railway, and this at 
once gave an enormous impetus to business enterprise. But it 
was not till the winter of 1883 that the railway between Port 
Arthur and Winnipeg was completed, and then, for the first 
time in history, it was possible to gain railway access to 
Winnipeg without leaving Canadian territory. 
" The chief rivers emptying into Lake Winnipeg are the Winnipeg, the Red, 
and the Saskatchewan. The Assinihoine River, navigable from 250 to "350 
* By a recent decision, however, of the Judicial Committee of the Privy 
Council, an extensive aren of land, lying to tlie north and north-west of Lake 
Superior, the possession of which was disputed by the Provinces of Manitoba 
ana Ontario ha.s been awarded to the latter. 
