Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1888-02-18

universal mlSapprehenSlon would be by
summary OF the rivers which flow
through them, for we know that, as poor
man cannot afford TO live in big house,
so small country cannot support big
river. Now, to an Englishman or French
man, the Severn or the Thames the Seine
or the Rhone would appear considerable
streams, but in the Ottawa, a mere af-
fluent of the st. Lawrence, an afi1uent
moreover, which reaches the parent stream
eco miles from its mouth, we have river
nearly $50 miles long, and three or four
times as big as any of Them
But even after having assembled the ST.
Lawrence itself to Lake Ontario, and pur-
sued it across Lake Huron, St. Clair, and
Lake Superior to Thunder Bay, a distance
of 800 miles,
WHERE ARE WE?
In the estimation of the person who has
made the journey, at the end of all
things; but to US, who know better
scarcely at the commencement of the great
fiuvial systems of the Dominion; for, from
that spot, that is to say, from Thunder
bay, We are able at once to ship our
astonished traveller on to the Kaministi-
quia, a river of some hundred miles long.
Thence, almost in a straight line we
launch him on to Lake Shebandowan and
Rainy lake and rivera magnificent
stream three hundred yards broad and
couple of hundred miles long, down whose
tranquil bosom he floats into the Lake of
the Woods, where he finds himself on a
sheet of water which, though diminutive
as compared with the inland seas he has
left behind him, will probably be found
sufficiently extensive to render him fear
fully sea-sick during his passage across it.
For the last eighty miles of his voyage,
however, he will be consoled by sailing
through a succession of land-locked chan
nels, the beauty Of whose scenery, while it
| resembles, certainly excels the far-famed
Thousands Islands of the ST. Lawrence.
From this
LACUSTRINE PARADISE OF SYLVAN
BEAUTY
| We are able at once to transfer our friend
to the Winnipeg, a river whose existence
in the very heart and center of the CONT
nent is in itself one of Natures most de-
| lightful miracles, so beautiful and varied
are its rocky banks, its tufted islands, so
broad, SO deep, so fervid is the volume of
its waters, the extent of their iake-like
expansions, and the tremendous power of
their rapids. At last let us suppose we
have landed our traveller at the town of
Winnipeg, the halfway house of the con-
tinent, the capital of the Prairie Province.
| Having had so much of water, having now
reached the home of the buffalo, like the
extenuated Falstatl, he naturally "babbles
of green fields" and careers in imagination
over the primeval grasses of the prairie
Not at all. We ask him which he will
ascend first-the Red river or the Assini-
boine, two streams, the one five hundred
miles long, the other four hundred and
eighty, which mingle their waters within
THE CITY LIMITS OF WINNIPEG.
After having given him preliminary
canter up these respective rivers we take
him off to Lake Winnipeg, an inland sea
| 800 miles long and upwards of sixty broad,
| during the navigation of which for many
weary hour he will find himself out of
sight of land, and probably a good deal
more indisposed than ever he was on the
| Lake of the Woods, or even the Atlantic
At the northwest angle of Lake Winnipeg
he hits upon the mouth of the Saskatche-
wan, the gateway to the Northwest, and
the starting point to another 800 miles of
navigable water, flowing nearly due east
and west between its alluvial banks. Hav-
| ing now reached the foot of the Rocky
| Mountains our "ancient mariner" for by
this time he will be quite entitled to this
appellation, knowing that water cannot
run up HILL feels certain his aquatic ex-
periences are concluded. He was never
more mistaken. We Immediately launch
him upon
THE ARTHABAsKA AND MACKENZIE RIv-
ERS,
And start him on a longer trip than any
he has yet undertaken-the navigation of
the Mackenzie river alone exceeding two
thousand five hundred miles, If he sur
wives this last experience we wind up his
peregrinations by a concluding voyage of
one thousand miles down the Frazer river,
or, if he prefers it, the Thompson river to
Victoria, in Vancouver, whence, having
previously provided himself with a first
class return ticket for that purpose, he
will probably prefer getting home via the
Canada Pacific.
THE CLIMATIC INFLUENCES,
Even in the extreme Northwest, are not I'M
favorable, and which is illustrated by the
facility with which wheat is grown in
northern ATTITUDES, Lord Dufferin claimed
that most of the streams he so eloquently
described in the Northwest flowed their
entire length through alluvial plains of
the richest description, where year after
year wheat can be raised without manure,
and without any sensible diminution of its
yield, and where the soil everywhere pre-
sents the appearance of highly cult
waited suburban kitchen garden. The
wheat plant is supposed to be one of the
most delicate of plants, but for the growth
of wheat the climatic conditions most
favorable to it seems in the north; witness
the change within memory of man from
the Genesee valley in New York to Ohio,
then to Minnesota and Dakota, and now
why not to the wheat areas of Northwest
ern Canada, where there is said to be 1885,
900 square miles of
wHEAT-BEAR1NG TERRITORY.
Indeed, it is claimed, with considerable
show of truth that the wheat bearing
areas of Canada far exceed the wheat
bearing areas of the United States-a fact
of vast significance when one contemplates
the appearances that attaches to this food
of the world. One or two facts of great
|
wheat in these northern regions should
impress itself upon you and upon the
world. One of these is that, owing to the
nearness of this wheat-bearing area to the
North Pole, the sun, during the summer
months, affords two hours longer of forcing
power than elsewhere on the continent
where wheat can be grown.
TWO HOURS A DAY OF ADDITIONAL SUM-
LIGHT
During wheat-growing season is of enor-
nous importance, and gives to these re-
| gions an advantage which the frost and
cold of the balance of the year in no way
lessen. But even the frost ard cold,
strange to say, afford IN advantage in the
production of the delicate wheat plant.
This advantage is found in the fact that
owing to the depth in the ground which
the frost penetrates, the earth is never en-
tirely free from its influence, and deep
down in the rich alluvial soil there re-
mains well-spring OF moisture, which,
under the long and strong suns rays, con-
stantly exudes, and keeps moist the tender
roots of the plant. Hence droughts and
absence of rain have no terror to the
wheat-producer of the great Northwest.