Canada To-day and To-morrow

by Arthur E. Copping

Mr. McInnes pointed out that on the Nelson River wheat has been grown successfully at Norway House and at Cross Lake. The Hudson Bay people do not raise wheat at their posts nowadays, but formerly they grew it and ground it in hand-mills. He saw potatoes that had been produced fifty miles north of the Pas, and they were great showy specimens such as one sees at exhibitions. On July 11th, when Mr. McInnes arrived at Nelson, potatoes planted by the Indians had tops eleven inches high and almost ready to flower. When he returned to the Pas, on September 6th, he found the Indian corn there was very well headed out, with large, fine ears quite ready for table use. He stayed at the Pas until September 29th, by which time the locality had not been visited by frost. “With eighteen hours of daylight, and no frost in the summer,” Mr. McInnes said, “vegetation is rapid; and in a country where you can grow Indian corn, you can grow practically anything.”

As the reader will probably have gathered, within the large territory to be traversed by the line there are four old posts at which missionaries and Hudson Bay people would be likely to have had instructive agricultural experience. I refer to Norway House, which, as already mentioned, lies to the north of Lake Winnipeg; Cross Lake post, which is north of Norway House; Cumberland House, which is north-west of the Pas; and Nelson House, which is east of the new line, at a point rather less than midway between the Pas and Port Nelson. Sir John Richardson bore witness in 1820 that wheat was successfully raised at Cumberland House. Speaking of Nelson House, the Rev. J. Semmens has said: “In my experience wheat is not a sure crop there. All depends upon the season. Oats and barley will do well any time.” The evidence of the Rev. Dr. John McDougall is also available. He said: “The district in which are situated Norway House, Cross Lake, Oxford House, Island Lake, Nelson House and Split Lake covers a wide area, and at each of these places garden vegetables and grain for personal requirements have been successfully grown for a number of years. Summer frosts are practically unknown, and the germination of vegetation, owing to the long hours of sunshine, is exceedingly rapid.”

That must conclude my summary of evidence tending to show that farming will flourish in the new region to be opened up. On other vital points I shall put some of the foregoing authorities again into the witness-box.

There is general agreement that the country possesses considerable timber wealth. Speaking of the region between Norway House and Hudson Bay, Mr. Low said the forests, as in so many parts of Canada, have been largely destroyed by fire, but around some of the large lakes, on their islands, and in other places a fine growth of timber is found, with white and black spruce pine, aspen poplar, and white birch running to eighteen inches in diameter. This is what Mr. Dowling said: “There is a strip all along the front of the bay which has no trees. Back in the interior there is timber. Along the river valleys the trees are always well grown.” Mr. O’Sullivan explained that the spruce and poplars in the valleys are sometimes twenty inches in diameter, and that the cottonwood grows to about fourteen inches in diameter. Speaking of the country generally, Mr. McInnes said there is a great deal of timber that would be fit for wood-pulp.

As to the country’s wealth of fish and game, the testimony is less qualified. Mr. Low mentioned that the inland waters of Keewatin would yield a tolerable abundance of whitefish, lake trout and other species, and he said that in Hudson Bay the Indians net a number of whitefish and ordinary river trout which have developed sea-going habits. From the same source we learn that along the east and north-west shores of Hudson Bay the excellent and beautifully coloured Arctic salmon is found. Mr. Low mentioned that black, silver and grey foxes are taken in the northern part of Keewatin, and they, with the beaver, the otter and the marten represent the principal furs of the country.

From Mr. Dowling we hear that the rivers of Keewatin abound with perch, dory and jackfish, while some of the larger streams contain sturgeon. He saw five bears, and testified that it is a great country for foxes, “which seem to be able to live on the sea-birds and mice.” Mr. O’Sullivan, after mentioning that sturgeon occur all through the Little Churchill River, and that some of them weigh forty pounds, added: “At Churchill you get the porpoise, which is quite an item when you have to keep dogs for the winter.”

Mr. McInnes found two companies turning to commercial account the fish of the lakes occurring within a convenient distance from the Saskatchewan. “Going out,” he said, “our party was short of pork and stopped to get supplies. In one night’s fishing the Indians caught so many sturgeon that we had enough to carry us for 150 miles, to the Hudson Bay post. One of the sturgeon was three feet long.” Ducks, he said, were fairly plentiful, and so were wild geese, “which live on all sorts of little shell-fish, water-beetles and crabs, besides the seeds of many water plants other than wild rice. I shot mallards in that country,” he went on to say, “and their crops were full of little bivalve shells about the size of my nail.” This was Mr. Tyrrell’s impressive testimony: “Some of the small, shallower lakes contain whitefish in enormous numbers. While paddling along in a canoe I have seen the fins of thousands sticking up out of the water. . . . There are all the fish the lakes will hold—they are as full as the water can supply food for them.” Mr. Tyrrell came across great herds of cariboo in the far north.

And now, through the eyes of those who have been there, we will glance at the mineral possibilities of the new country. Mr. Low pointed out that between Chesterfield and Fullerton there are several fairly good deposits of iron pyrites, and that some of these contain small deposits of gold, which, he mentioned, was also found by Dr. Wright somewhere in Whitcher Inlet. On the same authority we learn that “the general character of the southern part of Keewatin as regards mineral resources is good.” Mr. Dowling, however, inclined to the opinion that the country is not rich in minerals. But incidentally he observed: “There is iron ore, and the possibility of gold and silver ore, and also copper ores in the Grass River district. There is no asbestos. With reference to mica, it can be found all over the country, but in small pieces.” Mr. McInnes explained that, north of the Saskatchewan, he crossed forty miles of limestone that would be excellent for building purposes. On the Upper Winisk River he discovered a large area of so-called norite rock. That is the rock in which the nickel of Sudbury occurs. He examined samples under the microscope, and said the Keewatin formation is not to be distinguished from the Ontario formation. Mr. McInnes also found—this time at Cross Lake—an “area of Keewatin rocks, cut by intrusive granite, of the same character as the photogene of Western Ontario, which is almost always gold-bearing.” Mr. Tyrrell recognises great possibilities in the rocks of Keewatin, and he looks for “a large development at some time” in the copper industry between Chesterfield Inlet and the Copper Mine River. He said that “the Eskimos pick up native copper and make their implements from it.”

That, one would think, is a very valuable clue. Mr. Tyrrell showed me a large specimen of native copper that he had obtained from an Eskimo hunter. This eminent geologist saw gold and copper in rocks near Chesterfield Inlet, and he has “every confidence” that those rocks will produce workable ores.

And now I will finally recall the foregoing witnesses, in order that they may say what opinions they formed with reference to the climate of Keewatin. Mr. Low considered “the summer as equal to that of Saskatchewan.” “At Churchill,” said Mr. Dowling, “we had winds from the south-west practically all through the summer, and that made it very warm; but there were two days when the wind came from the north, and people wanted their overcoats at once.” From Mr. McInnes came the statement that “the country averages from four to five degrees in the summer months higher temperature than is found at the same latitude farther west.”