Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1886-11-25
A DaY in WinniDer.
DUF IIITI ITEW.
Cores Dondence of The Northwest Magazine
WINNIPEG, Oct. 6, 1886.

| Correspondence of The Northwest Magazine.
WINNIPEG, Oct. 6, 1886.
A singular way of running trains de-
| lays me in Winnipeg for a day OH my
way to British Columbia. No through
train starts on Sunday from either ter
minus of the Canadian Pacific Railway.
| The result is that the intermediate towns
on the six-day run are each deprived of
| facilities for travel on some one day of
the week. This is a serious hindrance to
| business, but the piety of the people of
Montreal stands in the way of changing
the system. So long as no train leaves
their station on Sunday they are not
| troubled by the fact that the trains leav-
ing on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday,
Friday and Saturday are running some
! where all of the so-called Sabbath hours
on their way to their distant destination.
[ do not regard it as a personal misfor-
! tune, however, to be forced to stop in
| Winnipeg by this absurd system, for it
is an interesting place with a good deal
to show an inqUisitive stranger from the
other side of the international boundary.
My first thoughts this morning, as [
walked about the wide, well-built streets,
! looking at the gay shop-windows, the
substantial brick blocks, the brisk citi-
zens on their way to business and the OK
teams of the farmers bringing in hay,
was this: How ridiculous it is for people
IN our eastern states to fancy that Dakota
| is too cold country for comfortable liv
ing and successful agriculture, when here
in Manitoba, two Or three hundred miles
further north, there is a prosperous farm
ing community large enough to support
this busy, handsome little city of 10000
inhabitants.
Multiply Fargo and Moorhead by two
and you have Winnipeg and its suburb of
st. Boniface. The situation is similar
the level back prairies stretching out to
the horizon and the winding river; the
general appearance is not unlike, bust
ness blocks being mostly of yellow brick
and dwellings of wood. But the Red
River, after receiving the Assinnaboine is
here much wider than where it Separates
the chief Dakota towns from its Mime
sofa neighbors. There are many more
substantial blocks of stores. The public
buildings are much more conspicuous,
and the principal business street is a
mile and a half long before it shows any
signs at either end of getting into the
suburbs. You can go three miles on a
street railroad. The main street is of
unusual and unnecessary width, and is
well paved with cedar blocks. There are
waterworks, electric lights, gas, tele-
| phones and sewers, daily papers, big dry
goods stores and costly city hall, look
ing, with its many turrets, like the Krem-
| lin, at Moscow-in brief a completely
equipped city. Yet Winnipeg is nearly
| 500 miles north of st. Paul and over 200
/ north of Fargo.
| None of our new western towns grew
| as rapidly as did this far northern Capt.
| tai in its boom period. There never was
at any time or at any place such a wild,
crazy outburst of speculative frenzy as
occurred here in 1881 and 1882. Ground
was plated and solid expenses enough
for two chicagos. In 1888 the bubble
burst, and by 1884 half the population of
| the place had drifted off. They could
not take the handsome buildings and
paved streets away with them, however.
| The city was constructed and had to re-
main and it slowly recovered from the
general collapse of business, so that now
! its structures are not adequate to its
needs, and new stores are going up. I'm
migration has set in afresh to the Cana
dian Northwest, under the stimulus of
the completion of the new railroad to the
Pacific coast. The government Commits
sioner of Emigration, whose Office near
the railway station is covered with signs
in four languages, tells me that an aver
age of about 400 rev settlers arrived
monthly during the season just closed.
Winnipeg, as the distributing point and
| trade center for all the Canadian country
westward to the Rocky Mountains, profits
by the steady influx of population. bound
to the new regions beyond.
| An American does not see much here
to remind him that he is in a foreign