Regina’s manufacturing quarter is already a hive of most profitable industry. As at Hamilton, the workers are a very cosmopolitan company. There are something like 10,000 people from the Balkan States and other countries of Eastern Europe, while there is a large and prosperous German colony. The English and American elements of the Regina population are somewhat concerned over the growth of the non-Saxon element. They are taking steps to Canadianise these people by means of schools, missions, and other educational and moralising forces. There is no reason why, within half a century, the present population of 50,000 to 60,000 of Regina should not swell to half a million. I must not forget the Methodist College, opened in 1912 at a cost of something like £120,000, to give the best possible higher school education to the lads and girls of prosperous families of the Province. The Presbyterians are following suit with a proposed college on even a greater scale. A Regina correspondent tells me that within a month £100,000 was promised towards the Presbyterian college. Men so keenly alive to the educational needs of the city and Province may be trusted not to let the grass grow under their feet in matters of industrial development.
Beyond Saskatchewan is the Province of Alberta. Alberta, Canadian fashion, firmly believes that it is “It.” Not only is the Province destined to become one of the richest cornfields and most luscious ranching grounds of Canada, but it is enormously rich in mineral resources, which will be the basis of great manufacturing industries in the future. Already coal-fields covering an area of at least 11,000 square miles have been located. Alike in North and South Alberta, towns are growing with mushroom rapidity, and new towns are being planted every week with the rapid pushing of the “steel” of the railway companies. An American journalist, Mr. W. J. Shunks, of Chicago, has described in picturesque American fashion how towns are “built while you wait,” so to speak, in these amazing Western Provinces:—
“Half-way between Lake Superior and the Manitoba prairies, in the heart of the virgin forest, the Grand Trunk Pacific town-builders put their pencils on the map and gave orders. Presto! The new town of Graham, with its divisional railway shops, its roundhouses, its stores and banks, springs into being. At the edge of the prairie section they decree another larger railway city, with immense repair shops, car works and foundries. Transcona is born! As the rails are flung Pacificward, across the prairies, there spring into being a string of communities, with important divisional centres of the Melville, Watrous, Wainwright and Edson type, at regular intervals.
“I don’t know whether these Grand Trunk town-builders deliberately planned a de luxe edition or not. Certainly, they got one out when they put Mirror, Alberta, on the map. Mirror is about half-way between Calgary and Edmonton. It is almost in the geographical centre of the Province of Alberta—in the heart of one of the richest agricultural sections. It is to be an important divisional centre, on the Grand Trunk Pacific’s line connecting Calgary and Southern Alberta with the main trans-continental line from Winnipeg to Edmonton.
“The town site of Mirror is natural—that is, the railway company did not have to look for one in that particular location. They found it, ready made, on the west bank of Buffalo Lake, the largest body of fresh water in the province, and a natural summer resort. The town site is on a ridge with gentle slopes—eastward to the lake, and westward to the railway right of way.
“Mirror—though it borrows its name from an English publication, The London Mirror—will be a typically cosmopolitan town of the Canadian west. Around it are farming districts of marvellous prosperity. There are rich and vast coal mines in the immediate vicinity. Scientists say that this district is in the heart of the gas and oil belts of Alberta. In natural resources, beauty of location, and future prospects, Mirror is a blue ribboner among the new municipalities.
“When the town site of Mirror was first placed on the market—July 11 and 12, 1911—there were 577 lots sold at auction in 660 minutes. The aggregate purchase price of these lots was $250,000. That was the beginning. Many more lots have been sold since. Before Mirror was a month old it had two banks, five stores, three lumber yards, one hotel, three restaurants, two pool rooms, a sash and door factory and a newspaper. When it reaches the mature age of one year it will be a wonder.
“The really important feature in all this town building is that conditions require it. The country is being thickly settled with prosperous farmers. Merchants, manufacturers, bankers, artisans, doctors, lawyers, ministers—all the factors in urban population—follow the trails the farmers blaze. It is their door of opportunity.”
In Southern Alberta is the city of Medicine Hat, whose name is a constant joke to the Englishman who knows it only as a name. I must confess to sharing in the ribald joking until I made the acquaintance of Medicine Hat. Having seen it, how can I describe it? I had chaffed a London journalist—standing in the front rank of newspaper globe trotters—until he scowled savagely at the mention of it. I shall joke about it no longer. Medicine Hat has got to be taken very seriously indeed.
Locally its name is familiarly shortened to “The Hat.” It gets its name from its extraordinary location. There is a large circular depression of the prairie, surrounded by sharply-rising sandy walls. The depression, with the prairie stretching out above from the rim of the walls, bears a rough resemblance to an inverted low-crowned hat, with an endless Quaker brim. Through the depression runs the broad silver belt of the South Saskatchewan River. The depression suggests a worn-down volcano crater, and the speciality of Medicine Hat confirms the suggestion. Underneath is pent up an inexhaustible storage of natural gas. The Indians knew of the gas, and associated it with magic and devilry, hence the name of “Medicine Hat.” Rudyard Kipling’s imagination was impressed by Medicine Hat, and he styled it “City born fortunate, built upon hell.” No wonder the hollow crown is being filled with huge flour mills and factories, while the brim is being eagerly snapped up for residential purposes. The gas is pure and ready for use to supply alike power, light and heat. There are “gas wells,” from which the gas rushes at a tremendous pressure, but it is tamed and made to do its work, at a cost to the consumer of only 7½d. per thousand cubic feet. That means to the householder fuel as well as light. Manufacturers are encouraged to settle in “The Hat” by the offer of “free power” for five years. As it costs nothing to generate the power, and the supply is unlimited, it pays the authorities to make the concession. Last winter four huge flour mills were to be put up by different companies, and about thirty factories are already at work, while inquiries are crowding in from other firms. “The Hat” expects to have a population of half-a-million by the time its young men are middle-aged. The South Saskatchewan gives it the purest drinking water, and in the summer the prairie will be making gold for the farmers, much of which will gravitate into “The Hat.” I might add that the street lamps burn all day because it is cheaper to let them burn than to employ labour in putting them out and relighting them.