"It will be the finest thing in the world for him and the satisfaction of Canada. Moreover, it will be the solution of most of the problems which now confront him, as, for instance, how to make our transcontinental railways paying propositions; how to enable our industries to find new tasks when the war orders stop; how to adjust our mercantile system to the changed conditions; how to till our farm lands and start again the late lamented boom....
"The West is empty. Its natural resources are inexhaustible. We could take care of the entire British white population there. And think what it would mean for the West, and so for all Canada, if we got five million new people out there after the war? Winnipeg, Brandon, Regina; Prince Albert, Calgary, Edmonton; Medicine Hat, Portage la Prairie, Dauphin, Saskatoon, Lethbridge, Swift Current, and many other centres would become great cities. The salubrious British Columbia coast would seethe with new activity and new populations; our railways would become great earners; industries would spring up all over the West. The industries of the East would find a new market within their own tariff fence. Banking would boom, wholesale trade would flourish, young clerks in the East would become prosperous proprietors in the West."
In the eager and many-sided activities that are springing up and fairly treading upon each other's heels in Canada, Technical Schools hold a distinctive place. The late Lord Strathcona was a zealous and influential advocate of trade and technical schools as one of the most effective means of bettering the condition and elevating the life of the working-man. The great West is not behind in the establishment of these.
Threshing Wheat, Manitoba
Now as to the conditions that await the settlers in western Canada. The land is fertile; the climate, the water supply, and the transit and traffic facilities are of the best. But favourable conditions do not of themselves work miracles, and pioneer life has its difficulties. Prosperity is not magically invoked by any entreaty of the gods, nor does it fall down out of the blue sky upon its votaries. But with health, integrity, and a reasonable amount of capital, the achievement of prosperous and happy living is possible within a comparatively short time. It is related that after the annual harvest there are people who go on pleasure trips to New York and San Francisco, and "think nothing of expending thousands of dollars before their return." There are farms where the owner has his motor car; his house, commodious and handsome, is steam-heated and electric-lighted, as he generates electricity from his own plant. There is a music room with a grand piano, and perchance a violin for the music-gifted young son or daughter as well; there is a library with a good and always growing collection of books, for it is realised that reading is not a mere passive entertainment but a creative activity as well. A good book sets the entire mental mechanism in motion. It is as a motor force, a power, applied to the mind. To give one's self to intervals of reading is not merely to be borne through the realms of thought in a golden chariot, but is, rather, the conquering of a region of new capabilities and powers, applicable to the entire range of the problems of life. "The key to every man is his thought," says Emerson. Books are food for the mental and spiritual life, and from all good reading there results a certain transubstantiation into energy that refines and exalts the quality of life. The broad piazzas, the shaded lawns, of these prosperous farmhouses are a revelation to the traveller and their own commentary on Canadian conditions.
Not longer ago than 1900 agriculturalists contended that wheat could not be grown north of the fiftieth degree of latitude. The best quality of the grain is now raised in the regions north of the fifty-fifth degree. All the vast expanse of the Peace River country, for some 700 miles or more north of the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway, offers rich and attractive soil that well repays cultivation. As has been noted in preceding pages, regions that were formerly supposed to be adapted only to the most primitive conditions of life—to hunting, fishing, canoeing, or dog-sledging—are now found to be entirely amenable to ordinary life and pursuits, with a climate even less rigorous than is sometimes experienced in the winters of northern Dakota or Minnesota. The Japanese chinook wind that blows in tempers the air, and many of these northern lakes are now free from ice, for the most part, during the winter. This change of the climate has largely been brought about by the opening up of forests and dense undergrowth, which so intercepted the sun's rays that ice would be found at midsummer in the dense shades.
The valley of the Athabasca, stretching away from the portals of Jasper and of Jasper Park, is an Alpine wonderland; it is enshrined in legendary history; it is unrivalled in splendour of scenery and richness of colour; and traversed as it is by the most modern of our transcontinental lines, it becomes as easily accessible to tourists as are the romantic mountain haunts of Colorado. No more beautiful summer resort could be dreamed than that afforded by this valley. It is destined to become one of the famous mountain haunts of the world. Fine carriage roads are being constructed in Athabasca Valley that will add to the famous drives of the world, and rank with that never-to-be-forgotten drive from Sorrento to Amalfi, or that of the Corniche road on the Riviera. The Athabasca Valley and Jasper Park and Mount Robson Park will be developed into places of great international resort, as are the Yellowstone Park, the Grand Canyon in Arizona, and the Yosemite in the United States.