Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1904-10-22
AN OPENER OF EMPIRE
What Col. Davidson Has Done
for Northwest Canada.
IN THE bad LANDS"
BUT HE KNEW THAT THEY WERE
NOT BAD.
Peopled Wilderness and Made the
Desert to Blossom Like
the Rose.
IN THE bad LANDS"
Special Correspondence of The Evening Star

whose audacity and daring staggered the
sturdy men of the north. and whose almost
instantaneous success has fairly amazed
the shrewdest land men in America.
Between forty and fifty years ago a boy
was born on farm near London. Ontario.
Nineteen years later he crossed over and
went west. He inherited a love for land.
Sprung from the soil, he was ever in touch
with this good old mother earth He had
boyish ambition to own a farm; this grew
to a desire to own the biggest farm in Min
nesota. Eventually he possessed that, and
still has it-1200O acres it holds.
Very carly in life he became interested in
the land business. more especially in colo
rization schemes. and took an active part
lit the settlement of his adopted state. He
was successful. He was totally different
from the tempestuous land boomer that
FERROUS conservative business men came in
time to take his signals. He never doomed.
/ hate comparisons, and yet this man re-
minds me of David Harum or Moffet of
Denver. When he wants to buy big mine
he says to those who are lucky enough to
share In his enterprises: '1ll go in with
you" He built a railway once in the wake
o. a financial panic, because he was will
irg to find 81 per cent of the funds. He
never booms. he buys and develops.
Likewise, that smooth. yet forceful Yam
Eo-Canadian. Sir William Van Horne, who
toed the ether way when crossing the line,
las but to put up finger and the financial
men of New York and London will help
him to build a railway anywhere on earth,
because they know there would be no stock
Job, leaving in its wake gaunt famine, black
Death and yellow literature. He never
looms, he builds and operates. To my
story:
A Matter of Land.
The land allotted by the dominion gov
eminent as a bonus to the builders Of
o. o1-1 o-ly, fa1a
railway had been regarded as bad land.
The real estate agents who were handling
the grant for the company sold a block of
1t to an English syndicate, who. hearing
adverse reports from friends on the ground
refused to stand for it, In the meantime
the railway line which runs from Regina
to Prince Albert was leased by the Cana
dian Pacific Railway Company. The Qu'-
Appellee, Long Lake and Saskatchewan
Railway Company asked the government
to take back the presents and allow the
company to select lands fairly fit for set
Element" The government refused to COM
ply. and were sued by the company, and
the latter actually won the first suit.
The complainant declared its lands unfit
for colonization purposes. and the court,
in deciding in favor of the plaintiff, said,
In effect, the same. OF course, the govern
ment appealed. The little line now known
the Prince Albert branch of the c. P.
r.. pathetic piece of railway, continued
to mark time with one or two trains a
week; just enough to keep up appearances
and hold its charter
The company went to the expense of
printing schedule on tie time table,
named the stations and nailed bits of
boards bearing these names upon the tele
graph po!SS, so that the traveller could tell
when lac was passing a town. And out of the
city of Regina, capital of the Northwest
territories. the rusty rails reached north
ward 2i9 miles, resting on the banks of the
great river of the north at Prince Albert.
At Craik, scventy-three miles out, there
was house. and here was heard the one
human voice that disturbed the stiffness of
that vast unoccupied and by the courts
decree uninhabtable wilderness. This sec
ton was looked upon by the people of the
northwest as the Never. Never Country
of Canada.
This was the exact situation when Col
A. ID. Davidson. the empire opener wan
dered Into the Canadian northwest in
search of worlds to conquer.
He was attracted to the Prince Albert
railway lands because they had been so
we'll advertised-and so universally damned
Looked Good to Him.
At first glance they looked good to him.
and he had come to have faith in his own
judgment. He talked with friends and
Others. got no encouragement, and went
back TO the bad lands" He drove and
walked over the district, p-ospected
stalked, looked at it and felt of it, and in
the end concluded that the land was not
only fit for colonization but was really ex-
eellent land. Straightway he bought the
entire grant $4,000 acres.
To be sure, this was only a beginning He
Fnew That he must spend thousands, If not
hundreds of thousands of dollars to get
people to look at the land; to induce few
farmers to settle and prove that the fields
were really productive. To make this paw
he must have more land-a solid block-so
he went TO the government, told them. con-
WINGED them that the country was all right
anu promised N they wOull sell IN m
his associates the even numbered sections
in certain number of townships he would
bind his company to people this already
damned desert, and would put up $50 COO as
guarantee. BY this agreement the Sas-
katchewan Valley Land Company was
bound to place so many settlers in the dis
trlct without any cost 20 the government.
This gave the colonel block of 500 900
acres. at S1.52. and $4,000 acres at S1OO
but. as above set forth he undertook to
people the district, Il really serious under
taking at that time-so serious that II was
set down in cold type. and is still preserved,
That here was a case of a Yankee with
more money than brains. gentleman.
speaking in public. declared the whole
scheme an infamous bargain that would
retard the settlement of the northwest
These adventures and land boomers
would settle homeScekers I'm this never
never country who would starve out, stag
ger back over the border and damn the
dominion as desert waste.
Wholesale Advertising.
Meanwhile the colonel, having bound him
SELF and his associates to do certain things
was pounding away trying 10 hit upon d
scheme to do as much advertising in three
months could be done in the ordinary
way in three years. This he did quite acci-
dentally. At the Chicago Club he asked a
friend-a bqnker-to go up and see his new
possessions. and the banker accepted the
invitation. Before he left the club four
others, bankers. grain dealers. brokers and
others agreed 10 join him. and he arranged
for a Pullman car. Later. as the idea de-
veloped, he sent out invitations to others;
they accepted. and he engaged a Pullman
train. To be sure. he was well known to the
bankers and business men of America be-
ing himself president of twelve banks In
Minnesota and Dakota. That was two
years ago last June.
Finally when all arrangements were COM
pleted and the splendid train left Chicago
the quiet colonel had his guests two hun
dred bankers, business men and journalists
from eight different states. He carried
them TO Prince Albert. some fifteen hundred
miles entertained them for ten days or a
fortnight, and returned them to Chicago
each filled with amazement at the magui-
tude. magnihcence and wonderful future
possibilities of the Canadian northwest.
That excursion was one OF the first guns in
what came later to be called the american