The Seat of Empire

by Charles Carleton Coffin

The small steamer now plying on the Red River might, during the season of high water, make its way from Fort Abercrombie down this river, then through Lake Winnipeg, and up the Saskatchawan westward to the base of the Rocky Mountains,—a distance altogether of sixteen hundred miles.

We are in the latitude of the continental water-system. If we travel along the parallel eastward, one hundred miles will bring us to the Mississippi at Crow Wing, another hundred will take us to Lake Superior, where we may embark on a propeller of five hundred tons and make our way down through the lakes and the St. Lawrence to Liverpool, or any other foreign port; or travelling west three hundred miles will bring us to the Missouri, where we may take one of the steamers plying on that stream and go up to Fort Benton under the shadow of the Rocky Mountains.

Two hundred and fifty miles farther by land, through the mining region of Montana, will bring us to the navigable waters of the Columbia, down which we may glide to the Pacific.

Nowhere in the Eastern hemisphere is there such a succession of lakes and navigable rivers, and no other country exhibits such an area of arable land so intersected by fresh-water streams.

It would be an easy matter by canals to connect the Red River, the Saskatchawan, and Lake Winnipeg with the Mississippi. We can take a canoe from this point and paddle up to Otter-Tail Lake, and there, by carrying it a mile or so over a sand-ridge, launch it on Leaf River, an affluent of the Crow-Wing, and so reach the Father of Waters. We may do even better than that. Instead of paddling up stream we may float down with the current a few miles to the outlet of Lake Traverse, row across the lake, and from that into Big Stone Lake, which is the source of the Minnesota River, and by this route reach the Mississippi below Minneapolis. Boats carrying two tons have frequently passed from one river to the other during the season of high water. It would not be difficult to construct a canal by which steamers might pass from the Mississippi to the base of the Rocky Mountains in British Columbia. Railroads are superseding canals, and it is not likely that any such improvement of the water-way will be attempted during the present generation.

But a glance at the river and lake systems enables us to obtain a view of the physical features of the country. We see that the northwestern portion of the continent is an extended plain. The Red River here by our encampment is about nine hundred and sixty feet above the sea. If we were to float down to Lake Winnipeg, we should find that sheet of water three hundred feet lower.

Our camp is pitched to-day about ten miles west of the 96th meridian. If we were to travel south from this point 350 miles, we should reach Omaha, which is 946 feet above the sea, so that if we were sitting on the bank of the Missouri at that point, we should be just about as high above tide-water as we are while lolling here in the tall rank grass. By going from Omaha to San Francisco over the Pacific Railroad, we see the elevations of the country; then by striking westward from this point to the head-waters of the Missouri, and then down the Columbia, we shall see at once the physical features of the two sections. The engineers of the Pacific Railroad, after gaining the top of the bluff behind Omaha, have a long and apparently level sweep before them. Yet there is a gradually ascending grade. Four hundred and eighty-five miles west of Omaha we come to the 104th meridian, at an elevation of 4,861 feet. If we go west from this point to that meridian, we shall strike it at the mouth of the Yellowstone, 1,970 feet above tide-water. Near the 105th meridian is the highest point on the Union Pacific, at Sherman, which is 8,235 feet above the sea. Three hundred miles beyond Sherman, at Green River, is the lowest point between Omaha and the descent into Salt Lake Valley, 6,112 feet above the ocean level. At that point we are about twenty-six miles west of the 110th meridian. Now going northward to the valley of the Missouri once more, we find that Fort Benton is about the same number of miles west of the same meridian, but the fort is only 2,747 feet above the sea.

Just beyond Fort Benton we come to the Rocky Mountains,—the only range to be crossed between Lake Superior and the Columbia. We enter the Deer Lodge Pass near the 112th meridian, where our barometer will show us that we are about five thousand feet above the sea. We find that the miners at work on the western slope have cut a canal through the pass, and have turned the waters of the Missouri into the Columbia. The pass is so level that the traveller can hardly tell when he has reached the dividing line.

Going south now along the meridian, we shall find that between Green River and Salt Lake lies the Wasatch Range, which the Union Pacific crosses at an elevation of 7,463 feet at Aspen Station, 940 miles west of Omaha. From that point the line descends to Salt Lake, which is 4,220 feet above the sea. Westward of this, on the 115th meridian, 1,240 miles from Omaha, we reach the top of Humboldt Mountains, 6,169 feet above tide-water, while the elevation is only 1,500 feet on the same meridian in the valley of the Columbia.

At Humboldt Lake, 1,493 miles west of Omaha, the rails are at the lowest level of the mountain region, 4,047 feet above the sea. This is a little west of the 119th meridian, about the same longitude as Walla Walla on the great plain of the Columbia, which is less than 400 feet above the sea.