Don't ask me what you can get here, for I won't tell lest the urban epicures whose jaded palates need tickling should start out in a body for this lodge at Tete Jaune.
And the leading man in the kitchen has the most substantial merit and can roast a sirloin of beef or bake a cake of prodigious bigness for the men's supper just as he can cunningly and designedly contrive a pimento bisque, an omelette espanol, or shrimps à la créole for the boss and his company. I'll not tell another word about the fare, but, believe me it is "with such cookery a monkey might eat his own father."
Te' Jaune, as it is familiarly called in the North, is situated on the Fraser River. Because of the snow melting on the mountains, the Fraser is swollen as if the waters surged from underneath. While we wait, swart, husky-looking men are putting off to Fort George in primitive craft built of squared logs. These boats are called scows. They are carried along by the current which is from six to eight miles an hour, and are guided by means of a paddle with a vast yellow blade.
As the men pass on and wave their hands to us, a fret falls on me to go with them along this river-road to its very end, and if you are of my kin you would want it too. We would live sturdily; we would be sopped in sunshine, and God would give us joy.
At Te' Jaune there are many tongues spoken, for the workmen hail from all over the universe. Of late, we have heard much about these foreigners and of "those nations which we, so full-mouthed, call barbarous." Certain Canadians are enwrathed and utterly discomfited because of them. It is their desire to tidy up the country by sending the "alien offscourings" to where they belong. They tell us that our manners will become corrupted and our institutions imperilled by them.
This fear of strangers is not peculiar to our country and age. Strangers have, in all lands, been looked upon as enemies to the commonwealth, and consequently to be avoided or extinguished. According to Flavius Josephus, when Moses came to die he said, "Oh you Israelites and fellow-soldiers.... I would advise you to preserve these laws to leave none of your enemies alive when you have conquered them, but to look upon it as for your advantage to destroy them all, lest if you permit them to live, you taste of their manners and thereby corrupt your own proper institutions. I do farther exhort you to overthrow their altars and their groves and whatsoever temples they have among them, and burn all such, their nation and their very memory with fire; for by this means alone the safety of your own happy constitution can be secured to you."
The Jewish constitution was not worth the price asked; neither is ours. This should be far from the spirit of Canada—"the manless land that is crying out for the landless man." Canada is the child of the nations and our husky provinces have need of these husky peoples. Not only must we open wide our doors and bid them a good welcome, but having entered, it must be our endeavour to weld them into a seemly and coherent whole.
This is a task which is half accomplished e'er it is begun, for the Russian, the Italian, the Scandinavian and all our immigrants are eager to be like the Canadians, to speak our language, to wear our clothes, and to think, talk and walk like us. Their differentiation is a burden to them and they desire to drop it as quickly as possible.
These Coming Canadians from Europe are of a fine advantage to this country where thousands of miles of roads and railways are to be built, in that they perform the more onerous tasks of digging and drainage which the Canadian, British, and American turns from as menial and unworthy. It would be a wide mistake for us to turn back from our sea-ports these unlearned and common peoples who seek entrance—as foolish as the farmer who would fear a large yield of wheat lest he could not thresh it, or a banker who dreaded an inrush of gold lest he could not count it.
It was Michael Gowda, a Ruthenian living at Edmonton, who expressed for his people their feelings of loyalty towards the land of their adoption in a poem entitled "O Free and Fresh-home Canada"—