Concerning the northern half of Alberta, the word “Unknown” would be comparatively inapplicable. In this case chance has, I find, provided us with a good deal of information. Nay, as will be seen, we have clues to agricultural possibilities in regions far to the north of the northern boundary of Alberta.
It is strange how persistently the public imagination goes astray concerning matters of latitude. Nine years ago I found Calgary shrugging its shoulders over a city called Edmonton, situated some two hundred miles to the north. Daring pioneers up there were understood to be making praiseworthy efforts in the direction of grain-growing; “but no, sir,” a farmer of the Calgary district solemnly assured me, “it isn’t reasonable to suppose crops’ll growth that far north.” It will, I think, be superfluous to mention that last year, on visiting Edmonton—healthy, handsome, and sunny Edmonton (which is between 53° and 54° latitude)—I found the district producing immense quantities of the best quality hard wheat that averaged over twenty, and sometimes reached forty, bushels to the acre. “You see,” as a local expert pointed out to me, “the Edmonton district is just right for growing things. Everything is in our favour. We’ve got much longer days than people have in the south. Why, at midsummer the sun is shining for eighteen hours a day, and that lets the crops go ahead fine. Then, too, we’re particularly lucky in having such wonderful, rich soil. Added to that, we can always count on enough rain—and not too much.”
EDMONTON: DISTANT VIEW FROM STRATHCONA
EDMONTON: EAST END OF JASPER AVENUE
Those complacent words applied to the district immediately north of Edmonton—in other words, to what is practically the limit of settled Alberta. I will now invite the reader to ascend a sort of ladder of latitude.
Our first short stride takes us to an old post on the Lesser Slave Lake, which is nearly two hundred miles to the north-west of Edmonton, the line of latitude (which is the special matter that concerns us at the moment) being something less than one hundred and fifty miles to the north. I find travellers and missionaries unanimous in testifying that wheat, oats, barley, potatoes and various kinds of vegetables are grown to perfection at Lesser Slave Lake.
We now mount to Dunvegan (lat. 55.9°), about fifty miles further north (and one hundred miles to the west), concerning which place we learn from the Rev. D. M. Gordon that, on going there in 1880, he found a great variety of vegetables growing, including cucumbers; while he was informed that wheat was raised at the post as far back as 1828.
Another northward step of about fifty miles brings us (far away in eastern Alberta) to Fort McMurray (lat. 56.7°), on the Athabasca River; and concerning Fort McMurray it is recorded that “Professor Macoun, on the 8th of September, 1875, saw tomatoes, cucumbers, wheat and barley under cultivation, together with all vegetables found in kitchen gardens of Ontario. He spent ten days there, and obtained specimens of wheat and barley which have astonished everyone to whom they were exhibited. Many of the ears contained one hundred grains, and the weight of both wheat and barley was nearly ten pounds above the ordinary weight per bushel. These grains had been raised on soil comparatively poor—very poor for the district—and lying only a few feet above the level of Lake Athabasca.”