In winter a small body of the police make a regular patrol from Dawson to Fort McPherson and back; but in 1911 the patrol did not return, when expected, and its four members, having “failed to make the pass over the mountains,” were found dead in the snow, but one day’s march from safety.
Amongst the resources of this wild north land, besides its mineral wealth, of which no doubt a very small proportion is yet discovered, is its excellent fish—white fish, Arctic trout, the “inconnu” (peculiar to the Mackenzie river, and so named by Mackenzie’s party), and salmon of numerous varieties. It is also likely to remain for generations to come the hunting ground of the fur trader, for wild animals, large and small, abound; and if the land proves of value for little else, its fur-bearing animals—especially if some measures should be taken to preserve and protect them—will be an increasing source of wealth to the Dominion.
As for the inhabitants of the land, there are several tribes of Indians and Eskimos speaking different tongues, whilst the white race—apart from the miners and business men of the Yukon—is represented chiefly by traders and missionaries. For several generations the Roman Catholic and Anglican missionaries have been doing brave work in the frozen north, and a large proportion of the Indians have embraced Christianity in one form or the other.
But we must pass on, for this portion of Canada cannot be said to offer large opportunity as a field for British immigration, though it has been a field where Britons, as explorers or heralds of the Cross, have again and again proved their kinship to the Norse heroes of older days.
XVI
THE MAN WHOM CANADA NEEDS
HITHERTO, in our progress through the Dominion and its provinces, I have been trying to show what Canada has to offer to the newcomer; and if I were asked to sum it up in one word—it would be that word which has been already used so frequently in the pages of this book—“opportunity!” But I wish to devote the remainder of this volume to the immigrant himself (or herself), first discussing the type Canada needs and desires; and secondly, making a few suggestions which, I hope (with vivid recollections of what it means even under favourable conditions to be a new arrival in a strange land), may be of real help to the immigrant.
To the self-respecting man or woman there is probably nothing more attractive about the Dominion as a field for immigration than the fact that this great promising young nation does need immigrants. What can be more depressing to anyone than the sense of being a superfluous member of the human family—a person whom no one really wants—a worker regarded chiefly in the light of an occupier of a position keenly desired by someone else?
But Canada absolutely needs more human beings, and, above all, she needs workers. Let no one mistake, however. She does not need, and if by the most careful sifting of the newcomers she can prevent it, she will not have drones in her hive—unless, indeed, they come well-provided with the honey prepared by the workers. In other words, of course, the man who has more or less capital finds it easy enough to gain admittance to the Dominion, and may even continue to live in idleness therein. This is a fact accomplished to the scorn of his neighbours, by many a “remittance-man” in east or west, who has had the ill-luck to be provided with just money enough to enable him to evade the Scriptural dictum: “If any man will not work, neither shall he eat;” but, of course, the overwhelmingly large number of Canada’s immigrants are not burdened with any superfluity of worldly gear.
The much-talked-of “opportunity,” moreover, is not (is it necessary to state the fact?) opportunity to pick up gold in the streets, or to win a fortune without labour. In isolated cases, men have gained wealth with surprising rapidity by some piece of luck, or special business astuteness, but opportunity for the ordinary man means a probability—amounting almost to a certainty—that good, honest, intelligent work in any one of a wide range of different lines will receive its due reward. It means also that for the man with a little more than the average energy and ability and insight there are in this new land, with its frequent changes of conditions, its constant opening out of new regions and of hitherto unused natural resources, many more chances of “making good” than under the more stereotyped conditions of older countries.