Canadian Af/riculture. 
267 
The extension of railway communication on the prairie will 
not only greatly facilitate the means of transport, but will have 
the effect of devehiping new centres of industry. A case in 
point is afforded by Minnedosa, which lies to the north-west of 
Winnipeg, on the Little Saskatchewan River. It is now reached 
by the Manitoba and North- Western Railway, and I am in- 
formed by the Hon. Wm. Xelson Hood, who is well acquainted 
with the locality, that the land around Minnedosa is of the 
most fertile character, and that when its splendid water-power 
becomes fully utilised, this rising young city is not unlikely to 
grow up a second. JNIinneapolis. 
The Xorth-West. 
When the traveller leaves Winnipeg for the west by the 
Canadian Pacific Railway he notices that the line strikes out 
across the open prairie, and for a distance of five-and-twenty 
miles beyond the race-course there are no indications of cultiva- 
tion ; this is due to the land being held by speculators who are 
waiting for the " rise " which shall enable them to " clear out." 
" The country has only one pest worse than mosquitos, the specu- 
lators, called in vivid Western parlance ' boomsters,' who fortu- 
nately have, for the moment, burst themselves in a vain attempt 
to drink up the whole North- West I " * The traveller journeys 
on through the flourishing young towns of Portage la Prairie and 
Brandon ; and after a run of some two hundred miles he, on the 
second prairie plateau, leaves the province of Manitoba, and enters 
the great North-West. Recent as has been the settlement of 
the majority of the inhabitants of Manitoba, that of most of the 
dwellers in the North-West is still more so. Indeed, it was not 
till the beginning of 1882 that the track of the Canadian Pacific 
Railwav emerged from ^Manitoba into the vast territorv bevond, 
and it was in the same year that this portion of the North-West 
was, for purposes of government, separated into four provisional 
districts, namely — 
Assiniboia 95,000 square miles 
Alberta 100,000 „ 
Saskatchewan . . . . 114,000 ,, „ 
Athabasca 122,000 „ „ 
Of these, Athabasca is greater, and each of the others less than 
the entire area of the British Isles. Regina is the capital and 
the seat of government of the North-West territories, and also 
the head -quarters of the North- Western [Mounted Police, who 
are the guardians of the peace on the prairie ; it is in Assini- 
* ' Handbook for the Dominion of Canada,' p. 332. 
