CHAPTER XIX
THE TWIN LAKE PORTS
I am at the nozzle of the mighty grain funnel down which Canada’s wheat crop is pouring into the boats of Lake Superior. The prairie provinces of the Dominion produce in one year almost a half billion bushels of wheat, and after the harvest a steady stream of golden grain rolls into the huge elevators of Port Arthur and Fort William, its sister city, three miles away.
These cities are on the north shore of Lake Superior, two or three hundred miles from Duluth, and within four hundred miles of Winnipeg. Port Arthur is situated on Thunder Bay, opposite the rocky promontory of Thunder Cape, and Fort William is a short distance farther inland at the mouth of the Kaministiquia River. Both towns have harbours deep enough for the largest lake steamers, and during eight months of the year a great caravan of boats is moving back and forth between here and the East. By the Canadian Pacific and the Canadian National railways, Port Arthur and Fort William have connection with every part of the wheat belt, and almost the entire amount of wheat exported, or about seventy per cent. of the total production, is brought here for storage and transportation.
The two cities are so full of the spirit of the breezy West that one feels it in the air. The region is in step with twentieth-century progress. The people look at the future through the right end of the telescope, and most of them have microscopes in front of the lenses. Everyone is building air castles—not in Spain, but upon Lake Superior—and although he acknowledges that he has not yet got far beyond the foundations, he can in his mind’s eye see cities far surpassing those of the present.
Speaking of the enthusiasm of the Port Arthurites—the night I arrived I walked up the street and entered a stationery store. While making a purchase I happened to remark that the town was beautifully located.
“It is,” said the clerk, “and if you will come with me I will show you one of the finest views in the world just behind this store.”
Supposing it to be a walk of a minute or so, I consented. The clerk grabbed his hat and out we went. He tramped me two miles up the hills back of Port Arthur, leading me on and on through one district after another, until I wondered whether I was in the hands of a gold brick agent or some other confidence man. At last, when we were out among the real estate signs, he struck an attitude and exclaimed:
“Behold Port Arthur.”
It was moonlight and I could see the ghost-like buildings scattered over the hills, while down on the shore of the lake was the skyline of the business section with the mighty elevators on the edge of the water beyond. It was a fine moonlight view of Thunder Bay, but being tired out after my trip from the “Soo,” I was not enthusiastic.
