England and Canada / A Summer Tour Between Old and New Westminster, with Historical Notes

by Sandford Fleming

We reach Maple Creek, 596 miles from Winnipeg. The country continues to be of the character I have described. I had some conversation with a Dumfries man who had passed twenty years in the County of Bruce, in Ontario. He had a comrade with him and both were fully satisfied with their new home. There is evidently nothing whatever in their experience to lead to a regret that they have left Ontario. Last November there was not a single house at Maple Creek; this evening I counted more than two dozen. The surface water is reported not to be the best. It is slightly alkaline; but good, pure water has been obtained from wells at no great depth. The snow does not appear until the end of December. Last year ploughing took place on the 11th March.[D] Some two inches of snow fell after this date, but it soon disappeared. This year potatoes have been obtained from the virgin soil. I was informed by these parties that all the land is fair to Medicine Hat, the country being of the character of that which we have passed through. They are decidedly of opinion that fall ploughing and early sowing will never fail to produce good crops; they consider the country is excellent for stock raising, as the winter is short and but little snow falls. The water required can be obtained from wells pumped by wind-mills, and the climate is in all respects healthy. It is men of this stamp who are of the right build to force their way in a new country. They make light of difficulties and are fertile in expedients. They know that their success depends upon their skill and labour; they have no yearning for continual holidays, nor do they affect an exaggerated love of sport to take precedence of all duty. If they have some hardship for the moment they put aside every thought regarding it, for they feel that their reward is assured and that they are laying up a safe provision for those who are to follow them. Hence their cheerfulness is unfailing. Their romance lies in the future: numerous herds and flocks, with rich harvests of grain, and men busy gathering them in. The small wooden house they have put up is one day to give place to a more imposing building of stone or brick, with verandahs and blinds and plenty of room for occasional friends. The piano may come, too, bye and bye, from Moose Jaw or some nearer place. Crowds of settlers will succeed, with weddings and births. There will also be the churchyard, where, in future generations, some Canadian Gray may write his “Elegy” over the graves of the village Hampdens and Cromwells, whose force of character has led their memory to be handed down as the pioneers of the district they reclaimed from the wilderness.

It was dark when we left Maple Creek. Observation in the dim light was not possible. Our eyes were fatigued by reading, so recourse was had to that universal panacea when time hangs heavy, the whist table. Our rubber caused no regret on the part of the loser, for the winner had nothing to receive.

I was called early the following morning, for I was desirous of seeing the station at Medicine Hat and of observing the course of the South Saskatchewan. We had crossed the river when I rose. I learned that the stream is spanned by a temporary structure of timber trestles on piles, some thirty feet above the water level, to be replaced by an iron bridge before next spring.

There has been a hard frost during the night, and the air is cool. I am writing on the 22nd August. We start as the sun rises and we soon experience the heat of his rays. We have, as usual, an excellent breakfast, and our cook proportionately rises in our esteem. Several people joined the train at Medicine Hat. We discuss the character of the country with them, for I desire to obtain as many independent opinions as possible. I learn that the land between Maple Creek and Medicine Hat, passed over during the night, is of the character of the country to the east and west of it, which I have described.

As we proceed we can see, undoubtedly, by the herbage, that the climate is dry, but the excavation shows the friable soil necessary to the growth and nourishment of cereals. There are probably seasons of drought when ordinary root crops will not be generally successful.

We continue through a genuine prairie without tree or shrub. Our point of vision is really and truly the centre of one vast, grassy plain, the circumference of which lies defined in the horizon. As we look from the rear, the two lines of rails gradually come closer till they are lost, seemingly, in one line; the row of telegraph poles recedes with the distance to a point. I should estimate the horizon to be removed from us from six to eight miles. The sky, without a cloud, forms a blue vault above us; nothing around is visible but the prairie on all sides gently swelling and undulating, with the railway forming a defined diameter across the circle. Looking along the track in the distance there is a small cloud of vapour discernible, indicating that an engine is following us. The train itself is not visible. There is certainly no little monotony in a railway journey over the prairie. The landscape is unvaried: a solitude, in which the only sign of life is the motion of the train. To obtain some change in this oneness of view, I obtain permission to take a seat in the cab of the locomotive. I discover that the engine driver is from Truro in Nova Scotia, Mr. Charles Wright. I learn from him that he began his railway life under me on the Intercolonial Railway. I need not say that the look-out from the locomotive was no new sensation to me, but I was impressed with different feelings to those which affected me when looking rearward from the train. I do not think I ever was more conscious of the power of the locomotive, or in so marked a way had I ever been so capable of grasping its wonderful capacity to change the whole condition of our lives. I felt as if I was borne along on the shoulders of some gigantic winged monster, moving onward with lightning speed, skimming the surface of the ground, and setting time and distance equally at defiance.

We are now on a broad plateau between Bow River and the Red Deer River. The outline of the eroded valley of the former is visible away on the southern horizon; the latter is too far distant to be traceable. We expect soon to be able to see the Rocky Mountains. The soil improves as we advance, and the prairie has long, gentle ascents, with occasional heavy gradients. At the “Blackfoot Crossing” there is a large Indian reserve, and at the station opposite we see many red men and women still clinging to the life of their past, wrapped in the white or red blanket, with fringed leather leggings. Some of the younger men have their faces painted a brilliant scarlet, and, mounted on Indian ponies, do their utmost to keep up with the train, the women and children partaking in the excitement of the effort. They all looked so cheerful and contented that they made no appeal to our sympathies on any ground of suffering or discontent.

We gradually ascend to the summit of the rolling plain, and now for the first time the peaks of the Rocky Mountains appear in view. They are possibly one hundred miles distant; nevertheless they stand out clear and defined in the horizon, their snow-clad tops glistening in the afternoon sun. They give a marked relief to the landscape after the monotony of the prairie. They look like a huge rampart stretched from north to south to impede all progress beyond them. Their features slowly change as the sun sinks to the western ocean, but as long as daylight lasts we never tire looking upon them, and in watching the varying colours of the atmosphere reflected by their lofty summits.

Our train has become heavy by constant additions. There are now twenty loaded cars, and it is as much as the engine can do to take them up the heavy grades. We experience, therefore, some delay in the last ten miles to Calgary. It is after dark when we cross Bow River and enter the outer valley. At last we arrive at Calgary, having reached the 114th meridian, 840 miles west of Winnipeg.

When I crossed the continent eleven years ago, before Winnipeg as a city had even a name, I left Fort Garry on the 2nd August, and did not arrive in sight of the mountains until the 7th September. In that journey we did not spare ourselves or our horses, for we made over the prairies an average of over forty miles a day. On the present occasion we left Winnipeg on Monday morning, to come within sight of the mountains on Wednesday afternoon. The first journey occupied thirty-six days, and the last about fifty-six hours!