Canada and the British immigrant

by Emily P. Weaver

The most southern point of Canada, a little islet in Lake Erie, is only about the same distance from the equator as is Valladolid in Spain, whilst Toronto is in nearly the same latitude as Florence, and the new town of Prince Rupert, far up on the Pacific seaboard of the Dominion, is not much farther north than Liverpool.

The vast extent of country and the variety in its physical features cause considerable differences of climate; but generally the interior is rather colder than the same latitudes in the west of Europe, and the summer, though hot and dry, is shorter than in Europe. The climate in the region near the Atlantic is colder than the countries on the opposite side of that ocean, owing to a cold current which flows southward along its shores from the Arctic regions; but the Pacific Coast, which has the benefit of the warm Japanese current, has a climate very much resembling that of the British Isles.

Upon the whole, however, it may be said that one of the strongest points of the Canadian climate generally is its amount of sunshine and clear weather. Even in the high latitudes the summer, though short, is warm, and, of course, as one goes further north, the possible number of hours of sunshine in the day during the summer increases, so that growth is extremely rapid. Thus results the ripening of crops of grain and vegetables and certain kinds of fruit much farther north than a mere glance at the map would lead one to expect. There has as yet been little systematic experiment as to what crops can be grown in the higher latitudes; but for generations vegetables have been cultivated in the gardens of the Hudson’s Bay Company’s factors, and also at many a mission station in the northern wilderness; and it is an interesting circumstance that the imaginary line beyond which profitable farming has been supposed impossible has again and again been pushed farther north.

Till within the last half century, indeed, the “North-West Territories” were held by the Hudson’s Bay Company, and as agriculture and fur trading are hardly compatible industries, it was not to the interest of this powerful fur trading corporation to advertise the agricultural possibilities of the country, nor to set right the popular misconception of British North America as a land of nothing but snow and ice. It is quite true that it has snow and ice in plenty; but there is a golden side to the shield as well as a silver one; and Canada might just as fairly claim the title of “Our Lady of the Sun” as that of “Our Lady of the Snows.”

A feature of the Dominion, of which the ordinary small-scale map gives little idea, is the diversity of surface. Every map indeed suggests in the west the bold line of the Rocky Mountains, but even in that case scarcely hints at the fact that between the Pacific Ocean and the prairie regions, the mountain barrier is ranged rank behind rank, peak above peak.

In the ordinary map, moreover, the eastern provinces look as level as the prairies; but they are not so. The Maritime Provinces, Quebec and Ontario, may be described generally as a land of plains and valleys and hills, which, in some regions, rise to an elevation deserving the name of mountains—a word which is used somewhat freely in Canada.

The map usually does make clear to a careful student of it the fact that the Dominion upon the whole is a land of noble rivers and of lakes, some small, some large enough to deserve the name of inland seas, though they have neither the salt of the sea nor its tides; and that Canada does actually possess one great inland sea, a thousand miles long and six hundred miles broad, in Hudson Bay. This thrusts itself deep into the heart of the country, and for a couple of centuries was, as it may soon be again, a recognized gateway to the interior.

Of course, altitude and “the general lie of the land” have a great influence on climate as well as latitude. The prairie country is more correctly a series of plateaux than a great plain; and though one hardly realizes the fact when travelling across it, there is a great difference of level between the region about Winnipeg, and that where it approaches the foot hills of the Rocky Mountains. The altitude of Winnipeg is only seven hundred and fifty-seven feet above the sea-level, whilst that of Calgary is actually two hundred feet higher than the topmost peak of Sea Fell, England’s highest mountain; and perhaps the elevation of much of the country accounts not only for its being colder than some corresponding latitudes of the old world, but also for the buoyant atmosphere in the west, and for the characteristic hopefulness and eagerness and energy of the people.

A great part of northern Canada is still a wilderness, only partially explored; and at brief intervals comes news from east or west or north of some fresh discovery of minerals or water powers; or amazingly fertile soil, in some region where no one had dreamed hitherto of reaping a harvest.

This kind of thing gives a curious interest to life in Canada. No doubt it is akin (on a smaller scale) to the spirit of expectancy and readiness for adventure which reigned in Europe in the years immediately following the discovery of America.