Evening star., 1901-10-05
AWAKENING OF CANADA.
Possibilities in the Way of the De.
velopment of the Dominion.
tbo Tr;hr

From the New York Tribune.
A potent sign of the times Is the awaken
ing of our Canadian cousins to their possi-
bilities in the way of national development.
1t has long been habit to look upon the
Canadians as slow and easygoing but one
who ventures across the line these days
sees that, whatever they may have done
in the past, none of them aressleeping now.
Let him go where he will and he will find
men and corporations proposing and dis
cussing new schemes for opening territory
heretofore deemed worthless.
Rails are being laid on a road designed to
push forward to James bay. A company is
proposing to connect Lake Winnipeg with
Hudson's bay by canal and river, thus
making a short water route by which the
wheat and cattle of the northwest may be
carried to Europe. Men are pushing north
ward and westward by thousands. Round
trip tickets representing three thousand
miles of travel, good for three months and
sold at s1S, have been issued by one rail-
road which sought to convince the Cana
dian public of the fertility of the northwest.
Government explorers just returned tell
of rich mineral lands and valuable forests
in. what has been supposed to be a part of
the Barren Grounds. The same men say
forty miles of canal will connect the Mac
kenzie river with Chesterfield inlet, and
promoters are already planning to under-
take the enterprise with view to making
a water route to those vast undeveloped
lands of the far northwest.
1t may be a natural inclination to smile
and say 1t is all nonsense to talk Of devel-
oping a wilderness that lies so far north.
But let us look at Canada in the light of
other and older countries OF the same lati-
tude Most of us have difficulty in accept
ing the proposition to open the shores of
James bay with railroad as anything but
a joke. But, looking at the globe We see
that it's southern shore is on the same par
allel with London, Berlin and Warsaw.
prt
grees 30 minutes, has seemed entirely out
of the question. But Christiania and st.
Petersburg are On the siXtieth parallel.
Archangel is further north than the north
ernmost limit of Hudson's bay, and Russia
has a railroad running well into the sixties.
Some one argues that Hudsons bay is not
naVigable in winter True. But the Baltic
is closed during six winter months, and still
Russia finds it a good outlet to the ocean.
All of Denmark lies north of the southern
limits of James bay. Russia raises wheat
in the latitude of Davis strait Swedish
peasants reap barley several degrees north
of Lake Ithabasca. !, All this tends to show
that much more than Canada proposes to
accomplish in her unopened north has al
Europe, and, though the American climate
is somewhat more severe than that of Eu
ropean points on the same parallels, the
difference is not SO great but that the old
worlds accomplishments. may be emu
lated in the new. -
A few years ago men who went to Mani
toba and British Columbia to buy land
were objects of pity. But they have made
fortunes Now we may well afford to sus-
pend Judgment upon the man who proposes
to go further north, for in the light of facts
and tendencies it is not rash to predict that
Hudson'S bay will yet pc seen from car
window, that farms and mines and facto-
ries will one day touch elbows with the
Barren Grounds below the arctic, and that
Davis strait will see an endless line of
steamers carrying the products of a new
Canada over a short line to Europe.