In 1857 the attention of the Canadian Government was called to the spot, and they sent out commissioners to explore, who, in 1859, published a report which created quite a sensation all over Canada. In due time the C.P.R., which is the great mainspring of all the North-West, took up Port Arthur, had all their stores and men carted there, and now Port Arthur has a grand future before it, of which it is impossible to predict the whole extent. I have great faith in Port Arthur. It must in time be another Montreal or Toronto. Moose Jaw is going down. It will be long before Calgary will be much of a place. The Silver City is half deserted; and at Winnipeg the boom has burst and bankruptcy prevails; but Port Arthur is bound to go ahead.
I spent there a night on my return, and saw a marvellous change—even since my visit there a fortnight previously. Then people were hard at work putting up wooden shops; now those shops are fitted up with glass fronts, and already filled with merchandise from all quarters of the earth, though in many cases the upper parts of the building are in an incomplete state. Every day ships arrive from the American side; thus, within a couple of days previous to my arrival, 20,000 tons of coal had been landed. There are steamers of all sorts and sizes in the harbour, constantly coming in or going out. On one side a new elevator has been erected, on the other side is a great store of lumber and a saw-mill.
Yesterday Port Arthur was a township, now it is incorporated as a city, and rejoices in a mayor. The place is full of hotels, which charge high prices, give very little for the money, and do a roaring trade. A very handsome English church is being erected; just by, the Presbyterians are building one equally handsome, only a little smaller. The Roman Catholics make quite a grand show with their brick church and convent and schools, while the Methodists have a very plain and ugly imitation of an English church, with its steeple all in wood and painted white, which attests, at any rate, if not their taste, their influence and wealth. I visited the school-room, which was filled with bright and well-fed boys and girls, where the children are taught free, as they are all over Canada—where they have, by-the-bye, a compulsory law, which is never enforced, as it is impossible to do so. And then I made my way to the best-looking building in the town—the emigrants’ shed—where already 3,600 emigrants have this season been lodged gratis by the Dominion Government previous to their passing onwards to the North-West.
People tell me there is no room for mechanics in Canada. In Port Arthur I see them in constant demand. At one shop window I see a notice to the effect that 10 carpenters are required, at another a demand for painters, while a third shop window seeks to secure good tinsmiths. At the chief draper’s shop there is a notice stating four good assistants are required. What a pity the discontented men whom I left at Montreal, because work was not offered them immediately they landed, did not come thus far! As to rockmen and labourers, they are wanted by the hundred. Surely, Port Arthur must be a good place for the working man and the working girl. Even at Calgary they were paying the female helps at the hotel—as sour a set as I ever saw—and who were constantly quarrelling with John Smith, the Chinaman cook—as much as 40 dollars a month. But even out here a man must have brains.
‘I came out here seven years ago,’ said a gentleman to me as we sat on one of the rocks which line Port Arthur, ‘and could find nothing to do. I was brought up in a foundry, and had saved 1,100 dollars. I went all round; no one could give me a job. Then I began buying a few hides; this brought me into contact with a great fur merchant at Chicago—he employed me as his agent at 80 dollars a month. Then I gave that up and turned miller, and the year before last I traded to the extent of a quarter of a million dollars. Last year I was too eager, and lost a lot of money; but this year I hope to get it all back again.’
Why cannot an English emigrant be equally successful? Is it because we do not send out the right sort of men?
‘There is not one man in a hundred that comes out here from London who is of any use,’ said an old Toronto trader—himself an Englishman—to me. ‘I never call myself an Englishman,’ said he. ‘When I go to London I always say I am a Canadian. I am ashamed of the name of Englishman. What would Sir Garnet Wolseley have done when he was here had it not have been for the Canadian Volunteers?’
I am glad to hear, however, that he had nothing but praise for the Scotch settlers Lady Cathcart was sending out. She advances them money, and they pay her back a good rate of interest. Why cannot other people do the same? Another question, also, may be asked: Why cannot certain Canadian land companies, who really offer purchasers a fair bargain, put up a few houses on their separate farms? The settler has to build his house under every disadvantage. I am sure they could build the houses by contract at half the expense; and they could have a mortgage on the farm, which would ensure them in every case against loss, and which might add materially to their profits as well.
If the crops this year turn out well in the North-West, and, according to present prospects, there is every reason to suppose they will, the farmers will pour into the country in a way which they have never done before, and the prosperity of the North-West will be placed on a solid basis. Be that as it may, there are bright days in store for Port Arthur.
On the green forest, rising up above the town and overlooking Thunder Bay, it is intended to build a first-class summer hotel for the comfort of holiday makers and health seekers. There the visitor will enjoy fine cool air in the sultry heat of summer, while bathing in the lake will invigorate his enfeebled frame. The waters abound with fish. Islands and lakes and rivers tempt the yachtsman. If the workmen who squander their hard-earned wages in reckless drunkenness would but learn to be sober, few places on the Canadian lakes would be more enjoyable than Port Arthur.