Pictures of Canadian Life: A Record of Actual Experiences

by J. Ewing Ritchie

There is a good deal of hardship to be encountered by any who would penetrate to the dim and mysterious region we denominate the North-West. For instance, I left Moose Jaw at half-past two yesterday morning by a train timed to arrive there at a quarter-past one; at which unreasonable hour I had to leave my bed, just as I was getting into a sound sleep, and to catch the train, which was so crowded that I could scarcely get a seat, and the atmosphere of which was not redolent of the odours of Araby the Blest. There I had to sit till the time I mention, as the engine managed to get off the line. Deeply do I pity the poor emigrants tempted into this part of the world by the delusive utterances of sham emigration agents at home and local journals—which, when they are not abusing one another, seem to delight in giving representations of the country by no means literally to be depended on; the only thing to do is to go to the fountain head—the Government office. People who make up their minds to come into these parts must learn to put up with a good deal. Here is a sad case, a very exceptional one, I admit, but I am bound to tell the whole truth. I quote from a Winnipeg paper: ‘David Kirkpatrick, his wife, and nine children, the eldest a girl of twelve, arrived from Scotland on Wednesday. A part of the voyage was made on board the Algoma. The cold was intense, and many of the passengers suffered severely. Among these was Mrs. Kirkpatrick. The exposure, in her case, brought on a kind of low fever, and the poor woman died yesterday morning. The husband’s case is deplorable. With nine children on his hands, what is he to do? He has a longing desire to get back to his friends in Scotland, but has not the means. Will the public come to his rescue? He and his helpless children are to be found in the immigrant sheds.’ I fear such cases are far from uncommon. Imagine a poor woman leaving her native land, crossing the restless Atlantic, perhaps feeble with poor living, and worried with the care of nine helpless children, perhaps scarce recovered from sea-sickness, put on board an emigrant train, snatching hasty meals, or such accommodation as is provided at the expense of Dominion Government (I do not blame them or the railway authorities, they do all they can), travelling at uncertain hours, and arriving at her destination utterly overcome by fatigue. What wonder is it that a poor woman now and then sacrifices her life in the attempt to build up a new home in this Promised Land? No wonder that now and then death comes to such just as they reach Jordan and think that they are to reap the fruit of all their weary toil.

As I left Brandon on my way hither I saw by the side of one of the stations quite a little village of tents. ‘What is that?’ said I to one of the mounted police. ‘The emigrants,’ was his reply. ‘They do say,’ said he slowly, ‘that there is some sickness amongst them.’ Whether the rumour was founded on fact I had no time to inquire, but certainly, when one thinks of the hardships of the emigrants’ lot, and the peculiar unfitness of many of them to stand hardships, I should not be surprised to learn that such was the case. The further I come out, the less demand I find for emigrants. It is only ploughmen who are wanted here. The man who will succeed is the farmer with a small capital. He has a splendid chance. When the country is settled the mechanic may have his turn.

But remember, after all has been said and done, this is the Great Lone Land. Emigration here is but a drop in the ocean as regards results. I am now some 850 miles to the north-west of Winnipeg. The country is an unbroken level, and, with the exception of Brandon and Moose Jaw, you see hardly a farmhouse, hardly any ploughed land, no sheep grazing on the downs, no herds fattening in the prairie; not a single tree to hide one from the snows of winter or the suns of summer. By day you melt in the sun, by night you shiver with the cold. When we came to a swamp now and then we saw a few wild ducks. Once in the course of the weary ride we saw two or three deer. All the rest was a parched plain, with here and there some lovely flowers, and with buffalo bones bleaching wherever you turn your eye. In some parts the soil was strongly impregnated with alkali, so much so, indeed, that it made the ground white, and left a crust of what looked like ice on the lakes and ponds. Can that huge region ever grow wheat and fatten flocks? The experience of the experimental farms proves that it will. All I know is that ages must elapse before Moose Jaw shall be a Manchester, or Brandon, in spite of its many advantages, the headquarters of the agricultural interest, with a corn market equalling that of Norwich or Ipswich. Yet there are parts of Manitoba which contain undoubtedly as fine corn-growing country as any in the world.

This is especially true of the new tract of country opened up by the Canadian Pacific in the south-west. As a rule, the further from the railway the land is, the better it is. At the same time, it is to be remembered that a farmer who has no railway access is at a great disadvantage, and that in the winter it is no joke sending a man with a team of oxen and a waggon-load of produce twenty or thirty miles across the prairie, where a snowstorm, or ‘a blorrard’ at any time, may occur.

This is the great drawback of Manitoba: it has no trees. In Ontario the farmer has his crops protected by a belt of trees from the inclemency of the weather. But, then, in Manitoba the farmer has this advantage, that he has not to devote the greater part of his time and money to the cutting down of his trees. He has only to plough the soil, and there is an abundant harvest. If Manitoba lacks trees, it is expected to yield a plentiful supply of coal. As I came along last night we saw a station supplied with gas. It appears that in boring for water they discovered gas, which they now utilize to light the station and to work a steam engine. This was not, however, in Manitoba, but in Alberta, just after we had left Medicine Hat, that pretty oasis in the desert, with the usual supply of hotels, billiard-rooms, and stores, and where I came into contact with the Cree Indians, a race even uglier than the Sioux Indian, whom I found at Moose Jaw. They have higher cheekbones, and don’t plait their hair, and some of the old men reminded me not a little in outline of the late Lord Beaconsfield, whom the Canadians consider Sir John Macdonald strongly resembles.

It is curious to note how the buffalo has vanished from the region which was formerly his happy hunting-ground. He has now forsaken the country; you see only his bones and his track. Some people say that the railway has done it, and others that the destruction is the work of the Americans, who say, ‘Kill the buffalo and you get rid of the Indians.’ These latter are to be met with everywhere, clad in flannel garments radiant with all the hues of the rainbow. Chiefly they affect blankets—red, blue, or green. At Calgary I came across more of them—this time of the Blackfoot tribe. There is very little difference in any of them. In one thing they all resemble each other, that is, they don’t seem to care much about work. As English does not happen to be one of their accomplishments, my intercourse with them has been of a somewhat limited character.

For the sake of intending emigrants let me dispel a couple of popular errors. One that the heat is most enjoyable; another, that it is a cheap country to come to. Neither assertion is exactly the truth. As I write the heat is insufferable, and yet this is early spring. I saw snow yesterday in a hollow of the hills not yet melted, and last night, sleeping in a stuffy Pullman car full of people, I was awoke with the cold. The other fallacy which I would expose is that this is a cheap country. On the contrary, it is nothing of the kind. Paxton Hood, if I remember aright, once gave a lecture on America under the title of the ‘Land of the Big Dollar.’ If I were to lecture on Canada I should call it the ‘Land of the Little Dollar.’ A dollar here is of no account. This morning I went into a shop and had a bottle of ginger-beer, and the cost was one shilling; and this, too, after I had been administering a little ‘soft sawder’ to the fair American damsel who waited on me (she was from Michigan, and was remarkably wide awake), in the mistaken hope that she would be a little reasonable in her charge. Everyone smokes cigars all day long, and yet Canadian cigars are as costly as they are atrocious. Fortunately one can’t spend money in drink, as that is prohibited, and the chemists at Calgary have recently got into a scrape for supplying customers with essence of lemon, by means of which they manage to fuddle themselves. The price of fruit is prohibitory; cucumbers, such as you in London would give three halfpence for, are here at Calgary as much as a shilling. Eggs are four shillings a dozen; meat and bacon and ham are as dear as in England, and not a quarter so good. I am appalled as I see how the money goes; I fear to be stranded at the foot of the Rockies. If I get back to the west I shall have to work my passage back to England as fireman or stoker, or in some such ignoble capacity. If I was younger I would turn gardener. I believe anyone who would come out here with sufficient capital to plant a nursery ground or to stock a good fruit garden would make a lot of money, as the farmers, of course, do not think of such things, and the supply is quite unequal to the demand. In Calgary they did not have three inches of frost all last winter. It is true they have even now a sharp nip of frost; but I hear of peas flourishing at a farmer’s close by, and the region abounds with wild strawberries and raspberries and cherries. If they grow wild, surely they will equally prosper under more careful culture.

A Special Committee of the Dominion House of Commons which was appointed last session to obtain evidence upon the agricultural industries of the country, examined several witnesses as to the suitability of Canada, and especially of the Canadian North-West, for the growth of forest and fruit trees. The testimony given showed that there are many varieties of fruit which thrive in Great Britain, Germany, Russia, and other European countries, which would, if transplanted, be equally suited to the climate of the North-West, it being stated that excellent fruit is grown in great quantities in Europe at points where the temperature ranges considerably lower than it does in Canada. It is urged that the example of the Russian and German Governments should be followed in the establishment of plantations of fruit trees and experimental farms in different parts of the Dominion, to test the kind of trees and fruits best suited to the different localities.

Since my return the following paper has been put into my hands:—‘The following is a reliable estimate of this season’s wheat crop in Manitoba and the North-West Territories:—Estimated wheat acreage in Manitoba, 350,000; yield at 23 bushels per acre, 8,000,000; estimated wheat acreage in North-West Territories, 65,000; yield at 23 bushels per acre, or 1,500,000 bushels—a total of 415,000 acres and 9,500,000 bushels. Deducting 2,760,000 bushels for home consumption and seed, a surplus remains of 6,740,000 bushels. Everything now points to a larger yield per acre than that of 1883.