‘You’d better get on board at once. The bridge has given way, and they may go across at once,’ and so saying, he left me in the dark.
However, I managed to jump out of my bed, collect my luggage, and scramble down the plank, the only and somewhat perilous means of access to my caboose, and stumble along the confusing lines of railway by which Holt City is adorned, and climb up into a car, wondering much all the while why we should start at all, when the bridge had partly given way, or whether I had come all that distance merely to find a watery grave. In the car I found a company as grotesque and rough as any I had yet seen anywhere, discussing the situation with more or less earnestness.
The bridge, I heard, was being repaired; that was a comfort. But still no one knew when we should start. Now and then we moved a few feet forward, or a few feet backward; but, in reality, I believe we remained in the same position all night, and started at the usual hour next morning. But the horror of that night was something inexpressible. Sleep was quite out of the question. You can’t sleep in an American railway-car unless you are a navvy or a contractor—who can sleep anywhere. In England, even in a third-class carriage, the chances are you can lie down at your full length and sleep. In Canada you can’t do that, as the seats are too short. So there I sat, bolt upright, all through that tedious night, watching for the light of day, while my companions sat smoking and talking and expectorating. In a playful moment one of them suggested that they should all take off their boots. Fortunately the proposition did not meet with universal approval, and I was saved that horror.
In the Rockies life is not all beer and ’baccy. One day there was an alarm of fire. It seems the woods are on fire all day long, and week after week. In this way much valuable timber is destroyed, and no one knows who does the mischief, or how it will terminate. Daily we saw the smoke of a forest fire; one day the flames came so close to Holt City that everyone was alarmed. If a spark or two reached the place where the explosives were stored, Holt City and all its inhabitants might have been blown to atoms. Down in the prairies fire does a vast amount of mischief to the settler, who awakes in the night to find his tent or house reduced to ashes, and all his worldly goods destroyed. Such cases are of frequent occurrence, especially at this season of the year, when the settler sets fire to the prairie before ploughing, or to insure a better crop of grass. One dark night, in particular, I remember the prairie fire lent quite a mournful grandeur to the scene. Then there came a day I shall never forget as long as I live. A Canadian summer may have its peculiar charms, but I candidly own, not being a salamander, it is far too hot for me. On that particular day the heat was intense. It affected everyone. Those who dared drank gallons of iced water, others pulled off their coats and collars and lay down on the cushions with which the sleeping-car is plentifully provided, and went off to sleep. It was in vain one tried to pass away the time in smoking—it was too hot for that. Newspapers and cheap novels were all neglected—conversation was out of the question. Everyone seemed on the point of giving up the ghost. Even the blackie, who invariably acts as conductor to the sleeping-car—and who is about the only civil official (with the exception of the steamboat attendants, who are models of good behaviour) one meets in Canadian travel, seemed, thinly clad as he was, quite overcome. The sun took all the colour out of his cheeks, and he became quite pale—almost white.
In the course of our return journey we stopped at Moose Jaw for supper, and then I witnessed a new development of prairie life in the shape of a thunder-storm, which seemed to me unusually vivid and protracted. The lightning was grand as it swept over the wide sea of grass, making everything as bright as noon-day, and then all was dark again. It brought us a rain that had really healing in its wings. While the heat lasted I was a martyr to prickly heat. It seemed to me that I was going to have small-pox or measles. I had little pimples all over me, and as to my wrists, they were really painful, and I could not keep from scratching with a vivacity which a Scotchman might have envied. Was it that vulgar disease to which, it is said, the gallant Scot is peculiarly liable? I could not say. I had shaken hands with so many filthy Indians, and it might be that, as I learn they are much afflicted in that way. Happily the thunder-storm cooled the air, and I felt all the better for it. When I got as far as Port Arthur, and inhaled the cool air of Lake Superior, I suffered no more from unpleasant irritation of the skin. It was with joy I embarked on the C.P.R.’s fine steamer, the Alberta, for Owen Sound. But even travelling on Lake Superior has its disadvantages. The water of the Lake is intensely cold, and when the sun beats fiercely on it there is sure to be a fog. Such happened to be the case on my return, and we ploughed slowly along for a while, seeing hardly anything of the beauty of the scene, while every few minutes we were cheered by the dismal notes of the fog-horn. Fortunately the fog lifted, and then what a display we had of islands, green as emerald, on the tranquil sea! I must add, also, I had good company everywhere, with the exception of the great Sir John M’Neill, who had his meals apart from us at a table all to himself, and an English clergyman from Staffordshire, whom a Canadian gentleman described to me as ‘a regular crank,’ whatever that may mean. The parson is going to write a book, so he tells the people; but he shuns me, which is a pity, as I met a friend at Calgary who told me they had great fun with the parson on their way up from Winnipeg, telling him all sorts of cock-and-bull stories, which he greedily entered in his note-book.
I must give you one more sketch of a Canadian town as an illustration of the enterprise and pluck which are the main characteristics of the Canadian of to-day. If you look at the map, you will see Port Arthur is situated in Thunder Bay, and Thunder Bay, when you pass the rocky barrier by which it is encircled, opens out into Lake Superior.
Thunder Bay is a sheet of water some 13 by 19 miles in area, sheltered from the wild storms which sweep over the northern lakes by the Pie and Welcome Islands and the Thunder Cape on one side, and by the terraced bluffs of ever-green forest on the other; forming thus an unsurpassed harbour for extent and accommodation, and having claim to be what its admirers say it is, the prettiest of all the American Lakes.
It is not an agricultural district that surrounds Port Arthur, though it is a fact that there are vast stretches of rich lands within its borders, including the Kamanistique and other valleys, on which at least 3,000 families could settle and get a good living by agriculture.
The timber resources of the surrounding country, which must find its centre and point of collection in the quiet waters of the bay, comprise thousands of square miles of spruce and other trees; while iron, copper, zinc, and silver are to be found in the neighbouring rocks. Gold also is said to be hidden in the bowels of the earth; though not yet discovered in paying quantities. However this may be, one thing is clear, that from Thunder Bay the whole agricultural exports of the countless fertile acres of the Canadian North-West must find an outlet. Truly did the Marquis of Lorne, when here, describe it as ‘The Silver Gate.’
Port Arthur—as it was termed when Sir Garnet Wolseley arrived here on his way to suppress the Riel revolt in the North-West, out of compliment to the Duke of Connaught—is in reality one of the few places in Canada that have a history. As early as the beginning of the sixteenth century, some of the French settlers had formed an idea that the great Lake Superior was a highway to the vast fur-producing countries of the North-West, although not till 1641 did any white man venture upon its waters. In 1678 a Frenchman built himself a house in the vicinity of Port Arthur, and commenced trading with the surrounding Indians for their furs.