Vancouver would be a very busy and promising city merely as the railway terminus and the shipping-point for Japan and China and the east generally. But it has other resources of growth. There is a very good country back of it, and south of it all the way into Washington Territory. New Westminster, twelve miles south, is a place of importance for fish and lumber. The immensely fertile alluvial bottoms of the Fraser, which now overflows its banks, will some day be diked, and become exceedingly valuable. Its relations to Washington Territory are already close. The very thriving city of Seattle, having a disagreement with the North Pacific and its rival, Tacoma, sends and receives most of its freight and passengers via Vancouver, and is already pushing forward a railway to that point. It is also building to Spokane Falls, expecting some time to be met by an extension of the St. Paul, Minneapolis, and Manitoba from the Great Falls of the Missouri. I found that many of the emigrants in the loaded trains that we travelled with or that passed us were bound to Washington Territory. It is an acknowledged fact that there is a constant “leakage” of emigrants, who had apparently promised to tarry in Canada, into United States territories. Some of them, disappointed of the easy wealth expected, no doubt return; but the name of “republic” seems to have an attraction for Old World people when they are once set adrift.
We took steamer one afternoon for a five hours sail to Victoria. A part of the way is among beautiful wooded islands. Once out in the open, we had a view of our “native land,” and prominent in it the dim, cloud-like, gigantic peak of Mount Baker. Before we passed the islands we were entertained by a rare show of right-whales. A school of them a couple of weeks before had come down through Behring Strait, and pursued a shoal of fish into this landlocked bay. There must have been as many as fifty of the monsters in sight, spouting up slender fountains, lifting their huge bulk out of water, and diving, with their bifurcated tails waving in the air. They played about like porpoises, apparently only for our entertainment.
Victoria, so long isolated, is the most English part of Canada. The town itself does not want solidity and wealth, but it is stationary, and, the Canadians elsewhere think, slow. It was the dry and dusty time of the year. The environs are broken with inlets, hilly and picturesque; there are many pretty cottages and country places in the suburbs; and one visits with interest the Eskimalt naval station, and the elevated Park, which has a coble coast view. The very mild climate is favorable for grapes and apples. The summer is delightful; the winter damp, and constantly rainy. And this may be said of all this coast. Of the thirteen thousand population six thousand are Chinese, and they form in the city a dense, insoluble, unassimilating mass. Victoria has one railway, that to the prosperous Nanaimo coal-mines. The island has abundance of coal, some copper, and timber. But Vancouver has taken away from Victoria all its importance as a port. The Government and Parliament buildings are detached, but pleasant and commodious edifices. There is a decorous British air about everything. Throughout British Columbia the judges and the lawyers wear the gown and band and the horse-hair wig. In an evening trial for murder which I attended in a dingy upper chamber of the Kamloops court-house, lighted only by kerosene lamps, the wigs and gowns of judge and attorneys lent, I confess, a dignity to the administration of justice which the kerosene lamps could not have given. In one of the Government buildings is a capital museum of natural history and geology. The educational department is vigorous and effective, and I find in the bulky report evidence of most intelligent management of the schools.
It is only by traversing the long distance to this coast, and seeing the activity here, that one can appreciate the importance to Canada and to the British Empire of the Canadian Pacific Railway as a bond of unity, a developer of resources, and a world’s highway. The out-going steamers were crowded with passengers and laden with freight. We met on the way two solid trains, of twenty cars each, full of tea. When the new swift steamers are put on, which are already heavily subsidized by both the English and the Canadian governments, the traffic in passengers and goods must increase. What effect the possession of such a certain line of communication with her Oriental domains will have upon the English willingness to surrender Canada either to complete independence or to a union with the United States, any political prophet can estimate.
It must be added that the Canadian Pacific Company are doing everything to make this highway popular as well as profitable. Construction and management show English regard for comfort and safety and order. It is one of the most agreeable lines to travel over I am acquainted with. Most of it is well built, and defects are being energetically removed. The “Colonist” cars are clean and convenient. The first class carriages are luxurious. The dining-room cars are uniformly well kept, the company hotels are exceptionally excellent; and from the railway servants one meets with civility and attention.
III.
I had been told that the Canadians are second-hand Englishmen. No estimate could convey a more erroneous impression. A portion of the people have strong English traditions and loyalties to institutions, but in manner and in expectations the Canadians are scarcely more English than the people of the United States; they have their own colonial development, and one can mark already with tolerable distinctness a Canadian type which is neither English nor American. This is noticeable especially in the women. The Canadian girl resembles the American in escape from a purely conventional restraint and in self-reliance, and she has, like the English, a well-modulated voice and distinct articulation. In the cities, also, she has taste in dress and a certain style which we think belongs to the New World. In features and action a certain modification has gone on, due partly to climate and partly to greater social independence. It is unnecessary to make comparisons, and I only note that there is a Canadian type of woman.
But there is great variety in Canada, and in fact a remarkable racial diversity. The man of Nova Scotia is not at all the man of British Columbia or Manitoba. The Scotch in old Canada have made a distinct impression in features and speech. And it may be said generally in eastern Canada that the Scotch element is a leading and conspicuous one in the vigor and push of enterprise and the accumulation of fortune. The Canadian men, as one sees them in official life, at the clubs, in business, are markedly a vigorous, stalwart race, well made, of good stature, and not seldom handsome. This physical prosperity needs to be remembered when we consider the rigorous climate and the long winters; these seem to have at least one advantage—that of breeding virile men. The Canadians generally are fond of out-door sports and athletic games, of fishing and hunting, and they give more time to such recreations than we do. They are a little less driven by the business goad. Abundant animal spirits tend to make men good-natured and little quarrelsome. The Canadians would make good soldiers. There was a time when the drinking habit pervaded very much in Canada, and there are still places where they do not put water enough in their grog, but temperance reform has taken as strong a hold there as it has in the United States.