What would be thought of the settler who built his house and commenced to clear and till his land on the front of his lot without ever taking the trouble to examine the rest of his possessions? The chances are that he would afterwards find that much of his labour had been misdirected. In many parts of the country land has been surveyed and opened up for settlement that was unfit for Agriculture, and which should have been left for the growth of timber for which it was well suited. Frequently this land looked attractive to the inexperienced, and in many cases the settler spent years of hard labour only to find at last that beneath the few inches of humus there was nothing but barren sand.
Our governments are wisely spending much public money in bringing agricultural immigrants into the country, and their next step should be to direct them to fields where their labour will receive its just reward.
On the great plains of our north-west this was perhaps not so necessary, but in the country under consideration, which is mostly wooded like our eastern Provinces, such supervision should not be neglected.
Extending from Lesser Slave Lake through to the valley of the Peace River, and throughout the whole course of that stream, as well as down the Slave River and the Mackenzie even to the delta of the latter, the soil appears to be a rich alluvial deposit, broken in some cases by rocky land and in others by sandy ridges. East of this we may expect to find more exposed rock, and probably less land which would be attractive to the agriculturist. I am well aware, however, that north of the North Saskatchewan, to east of the district I have named, and in perhaps some instances extending well up to the barren lands, may be many valleys that will yet be inhabited, but it remains for the Government to ascertain where these lie in order to direct the incoming settler aright. The life of the tiller of the soil is arduous enough in any case, and in a country such as ours there is no reason why his labour need be in vain.
Beyond the watershed of the North Saskatchewan there are millions upon millions of acres in the aggregate fully as suitable for settlement as many parts of Northern Europe which now afford homes for a prosperous people. Of course this being a wooded country and the climate more severe, it does not offer the same attractions as the rich prairies farther south, but after these have been settled the emigrant from Scandinavia and Russia will find here a new home similar to the one he has left.
SECTION III
MINERALS
Reference has already been made to the tar sands along the Athabaska River which evidence the presence of bitumen in great abundance, to coal along the same river and also on the banks of the Mackenzie near Fort Norman; to salt at different points on the Slave and Mackenzie Rivers, and to copper on the Coppermine River near the Arctic Sea. But these are probably only a few out of many varieties that exist in that vast unknown region.
The gold of the Yukon and of Alaska in America and the various mineral products of Siberia in Northern Europe and Asia prove that neither the precious or baser metals are confined to the lower latitudes, and it is more than probable that sub-Arctic Canada may yet be heard from as the depository of what are now hidden treasures.
I have perhaps already wearied the reader with reiterating the need of more exploration work in Northern Canada. The work of the geological survey is worthy of all praise, but the annual appropriations for this department are entirely inadequate to compass so vast a field.
The output of gold in the neighbourhood of Dawson City on the Yukon with the more recent discoveries of silver at Cobalt, and of gold at the Porcupine will lure the adventurous explorer into far northern fields, where much of his time will be spent in not only acquiring a knowledge of the geology of the country but also in tracing the courses of unknown rivers and locating great mountain ranges, which information will be for the benefit of Canada as a whole, and which she herself should supply in advance.