The Savannah morning news., 1903-08-23

I have been turned loose into a section
of country 5000 miles wide. from east
10 west, running down southwark TO
the boundary of the United States.
Where it runs northward Lieut.. Peary
has not yet discovered. If a man with
equal length of arms-and considerable
length at that-were to stand in Mont
real and yawningly stretch out his
arms, the right hand would reach Lon
don, 5000 miles across the sea. while
the left would just touch Vancouver.
the same number of miles to the west
across the land.
Let us take a bird-eye view OF the
situation. Imagine the street corner
owner of a telescope on Mars, crying
, out to the passersby: Come, take a
bird-eye view of the planet earth" his
presumption would be almost as great
as mine. when l ask you to view this
great Northwestern country of Canada
in the eye of a bird Still the thing is
possible, if you allow me to make a
rough classification. We have moth
ing to do with the first 300 miles west
of Montreal, for it is simply the ordi-
nary rural life-too commonplace to
need mention. Outside the car village
running into village. orchard touching
orchard, just big bit of green, lus-
cious country life: inside the car, the
thing looks like a small-siZe depart
ment store. where country cousins are
returning from the big cities of Mont
real, Toronto and Ottawa, with their
monthly purchases. Soon the contin-
Mous village show disappears, farms no
longer touch farms, forests intervene,
lakes multiply, and hills swell into the
fYar~ Nas.e -. L
large as mountains: we feel that we
are being prepared for the next sort of
country, i.e., what the timetable calls
the Lake Superior district but what we
should call the Canadian Adirondack
region. 1t is in the same style, con-
glomerate mixture of big lake and lit
tie lake, small hills and hills aspiring to
be mountains, forests and rivers, take
care-of-yourself rocks. and little ones
lying near, which need to be taken
care of. A thousand miles of it, there
is, and we shall have much to say Of
Its fishing, hunting, mining, and sum-
mer resorts.
For the third time, the character of
the country changes; it grows less
rough and rocky, the hills sink into the
plain, trees dwarf to bushes, and bushes
to weeds, and we are made ready for
1000 miles of prairie. Things begin to
get dramatic; we are on the confines of
Manitoba, where hundreds of poor men
have come to make. and have made,
their living. Prairies of all sorts and
sizes; fiat prairies and undulating ones,
prairtes, treeless as far as the eye can
reach, and others with trees along the
course of rivers-prairies lush with the
growth of boundless wheat, and others
yellow with the golden barley. All!
amid the colonists of these Manitoba
wheat fields the human element comes
in and makes this part of the journey
intensely interesting. And now finally
the prairie begins to steppe up from its
dead level into terraces, these into foot
hills, and the foothills swell into 500
miles of mountain ranges, and then the
curtain drops. and Vancouver and the
sea is reachedl
What a country for a man, city
bred, and the most conventional of
professions, to be turned loose in!
What a chance to hobnob with his In
dian guide, as he trolls down the blue
waters Of Lake Timagaming after the
Astounding trout What to hinder his
visit to any of these wheat farms, and
kindle his humanity in talk with
these sturdy cgltivators of the plainsi
There is a ranch. in the center of
thousands of cattle and sheep: stop
car, must be off and spend the night
with that rancher." Yonder is a group
of somber Indians, gaily caparisoned
with colored blankets; surely they
are remnants of the famous Blackfeet
tribe''-"good night, friends. 1 am GO
ing to their tepees," and together we
smoke the pipe of peace. And then
when I come into these 80 0miIes Of
Rockies-what cannot a man do, with
aintrhed peaks to climb, lakes to ex-
plore, big game on the towering
nights, and small game everywhere! l
hereby register my determination that