The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1904-09-18
WINNIpEG'S FIRST Big FAIR.
4 NOTABLE EVENT FOR THE
CANADIAN NORTHWEST.
People OF Many Types Among the visitors
49, 900 Spectators At . Race Where
There Was Only Prairie Not So Long
AEo-The Future OF tho Northwest.
BY CY wARMAN.

BY oY wARMAN.
WINNIPEG, Manitoba, Sept. 1.-THE Do
minion exposition. held this year at Win
nipeg, was to this new Northwest what a
worlds fair Is to the world.
| 1t was the first exposition OF a national
| character ever held west Of the Lakes.
| For months they had talked Of 1t, for weeks
they had prepared for 1t, and for days
the hosts had been gathering.
Prospective tourists from the sultry
south lands had timed their trip so as to
take in the show. Home hunters, specula-
tors. lard boomers and other adventurous
spirits swarmed up over the border, as
commission merchauts and shell men
precede circus.
Down from the far north came the old
time Hudson Bay man, seeing white men
en- masse for the first time In two decades.
1t may be he touches the shores OF civilza-
ton now for the first time since his arrival
at York Factory, the remotest region
inhabited by the Hudson company.
His London tailor is still making his
clothes to the old measure, notwithstanding
the snow walker is fifty pounds lighter
than he was when he left his London club.
Otherwise you would never know that he
had come out of the far north where men
are content to live on meat and fish for
years at a stretch He gazes with awe
on the horseless trolley and holds his breath
while the red reioicer and the blue assassin
chase children from the Kings highways
into the open fields
Study the faces Of the folk who fll the
diner at breakfast on thirteen car train
coming in from the west-young English
men with sure, comfortable incomes; old
Englishmen with plenty and the gout who
have been to Banff; ancient English maidens
from remote ranches with faultless manners
and last years gowns clear eyed, confident
wives and daughters OF well-to-do American
investors or spectators, who have learned
from fashion papers how to hook up their
hair; brown skinned cowmen from mild
Alberta, and miners from the far-off Koot-
enay country-all coming to the fair.
Up from old Ontario comes the first home
seekers excursion, carrying 1000 souls.
And now, as seventeen horses huddle
beyond the grand stand, we glance about,
Here, where only third Of century
ago the Hudson Bay buildings were punched
on the windswept waste, stands a city Of
rs, 900 souls, and out Of that new city to-day
5000 men, women and children have come
to see them start these seventeen steeds in
the great free-for-all.
The sunburnt cowboy on a wild cayuse
Jockeys with a well bred Englishman on
a thoroughbred horse The half breed on
a half breed bronco hangs back, but keeps
his oayuse always pointed in the proper
direction.
The people are free and frank in their
intercourse with each other, and the merriest
lot imaginable. From Ottawa the Minister
OF the Interior and the Minister Of Agri-
culture have come, from Montreal Sir
Wiiliar1 Van Horne. the Jreetest empire
builder and ircrL Toronto M Mckenzie,
president Of the Canadian Northern Rail-
way.
The exposition was formally opened by
the Hon. Clifford Sifton, who, from a west
ern barrister with nothing but innate am
bition and ability, has grown to be one
Of the foremost men Of affairs in the Do