The question can be answered in the words of a great doctor—more men die on the field of battle from lack of women nurses than ever die from the bullet of the enemy. The time seems to have come for woman's place on the firing line. That womanhood which gives of life to create life now claims the right to go out on the field of danger to conserve and protect life; and in the embodiment of military training in public education that, too, may be part of Canada's new national defense.
When an admiral's fleet is sunk within ten days' sail of Victoria and Vancouver, Laurier's naval policy to build war vessels, and Borden's to contribute to their purchase for service in the British Navy take on different aspect to Canada; and the Dominion enters a new era in her development, as one of the dominant powers in the North Atlantic and the North Pacific. That is—she must prepare to enter; or sit back the helpless Korea of America. A country with a billion dollars of commerce a year to defend cuts economy down to the danger line when she spends not one per cent. of the value of her foreign commerce to protect it. Like the United States, Canada has been inclined to sit back detached from world entanglements and perplexities. That day has passed for Canada. She must take her place and defend her place or lose her identity as a nation. The awakening has gone over Canada in a wave. One awaits to see what will come of it.
Much, of course, depends upon the outcome of the great war. If Britain and her allies triumph—and particularly if peace brings partial disarmament—the urgency of preparation on Canada's part will be lessened. But should Germany win or the duel be a draw, then may Canada well gird up her loins and look to her safety.
CHAPTER XVII
THE DOMAIN OF THE NORTH
I
Canada does not like any reference to her fur trade as a national occupation. Of course, it is no longer a national occupation. It occupies, perhaps, two thousand whites and it may be twenty or thirty thousand Indians. More Indians in Canada earn their living farming the reserves than catching fur, but the Indians north of Athabasca and Churchill and in Labrador must always earn their living fur hunting. Of them there is no census, but they hardly exceed thirty thousand all told. The treaty Indians on reserves now number a hundred thousand. Yet, though only two thousand whites are fur-trading in Canada, no interpretation of Canadian life is complete without reference to that far domain of the North, where the hunter roams in loneliness, and the night lights whip unearthly through still frosty air, and no sound breaks leagueless silence but the rifle shot, crackle of frost or the call of the wolf pack. It will be recalled that Canada's first settlers came in two main currents from two idealistic motives. The French came to convert the Indians, not to found empire, and the English Loyalists came from the promptings of their convictions. Both streams of settlers came from idealistic motives, but both had to live, and they did it at first by fur hunting. Jean Ba'tiste, the Frenchman, who might have been a courtier when he came, promptly doffed court trappings and donned moccasins and exchanged a soldier's saber for a camp frying-pan and kept pointing his canoe up the St. Lawrence till he had threaded every river and lake from Tadousac to Hudson Bay and the Rockies. It was the pursuit of the little beaver that paid the piper for all the discovering and exploring of Canada. When John Bull came—also in pursuit of ideals—he, too, in a more prosperous way promptly exchanged the pursuit of ideals for the pursuit of the little beaver. It was the little beaver that led the way for Radisson, for La Salle, for La Verandryé, for MacKenzie, for Fraser, for Peter Skene Ogden, from the St. Lawrence to the Columbia, from the Athabasca to the Sacramento.
While all this is of the past, the heritage of a fur-hunting ancestry has entered into the very blood and brawn and brain of Canada in a kind of iron dauntlessness that makes for manhood. Some of her greatest leaders—like Strathcona and MacKenzie—have been known as "Men of the North"; and whether they have fur-traded or not, nearly all those "Men of the North" who have made their mark have had the iron dauntlessness of the hunter in their blood. It is a sort of tonic from the out-of-doors, like the ozone you breathe, which fills body and soul with zest. Canada is sensitive to any reference to her fur trade for fear the world regard her as a perpetual fur domain. Her northern zones are a perpetual fur domain—we may as well acknowledge that—they can never be anything else; and Canada should serve notice on the softer races of the world that she does not want them. They can stand up neither to her climate nor to her measure of a man, but far from cause of regret, this is a thing for gratulation. Canada can never be an overcrowded land, where soft races crowd for room, like slugs under a board. She will always have her spacious domain of the North—a perpetual fur preserve, a perpetual hunting ground, where dauntless spirits will venture to match themselves against the powers of death; and from that North will ever emerge the type of man who masters life.
II
The last chapter of the fur trade has not been written—as many assert. The oldest industry of mankind, the most heroic and protective against the elements—against Fenris and Loki and all those Spirits of Evil with which northern myth has personified Cold—fur hunting, fur-trading, will last long as man lasts. We are entering, not on the extermination of fur, but on a new cycle of smaller furs. In the days when mink went begging at eighty cents, mink was not fashionable. Mink is fashionable to-day; hence the absurd and fabulous prices. Long ago, when ermine as miniver—the garb of nobility—was fashionable and exclusive, it commanded fabulous prices. Radicalism abolished the exclusive garb of royalty, and ermine fell to four cents a pelt, advanced to twenty-five cents and has sold at one dollar. To-day, mink is the fashion, and the little mink is pursued; but to-morrow fashion will veer with the caprices of the wind. Some other fur will come into favor, and the little mink will have a chance to multiply as the ermine has multiplied.