Canada; its Defences, Condition, and Resources / Being a third and concluding volume of "My Diary, North and South"

by Sir William Howard Russell

“The allusion just made to the exploring expedition conducted under the authority of Canada, justifies a tribute to the zeal and intelligence with which the enterprise of an emigration and transportation route, from Fort William on the north shore of Lake Superior, to Fort Garry, is prosecuted. With the civil organisation of Central British America, a waggon road between those points, to be followed by a railroad, will receive all requisite encouragement, certainly from the Canadian Treasury, perhaps by the efficient co-operation of the Home Government. The North-west Transit Company, acting under a Canadian charter, but understood to have enlisted London capitalists, is expected to resume operations during the summer of 1860. These movements of our provincial neighbours cannot fail to influence the policy of Minnesota in favour of more satisfactory communications than we now possess between Lake Superior and the channels of the Upper Mississippi and the Red River of the north.

“I desire, in conclusion, to express my obligations to the late Executive of Minnesota, for the confidence implied by the commission, to which the foregoing is a response. Believing firmly that the prosperity and development of this State is intimately associated with the destiny of North-west British America, I am gratified to record the rapid concurrence of events which indicate that the frontier, hitherto resting upon the sources of the St. Lawrence and the Mississippi, is soon to be pushed far beyond the international frontier by the march of Anglo-Saxon civilisation.”

It is indeed “a country worth fighting for;” and whether the contest be carried on by the slow processes of immigration or by the ruder agencies of neglect, the conqueror and the conquered will have reason to regard the result with very decided sentiments of joy or sorrow at no distant time. In the language of the report of the New York Chamber of Commerce—“There is in the heart of North America a distinct sub-division, of which Lake Winnipeg may be regarded as the centre. This sub-division, like the valley of the Mississippi, is distinguished for the fertility of its soil, and for the extent and gentle slope of its great plains, watered by rivers of great length, and admirably adapted for steam navigation. It has a climate not exceeding in severity that of many portions of Canada and the eastern States. It will, in all respects, compare favourably with some of the most densely peopled portions of the continent of Europe. In other words, it is admirably fitted to become the seat of a numerous, hardy, and prosperous community. It has an area equal to eight or ten first-class American States. Its great river, the Saskatchewan, carries a navigable water-line to the very base of the Rocky Mountains. It is not at all improbable that the valley of this river may yet offer the best route for a railroad to the Pacific. The navigable waters of this great sub-division interlock with those of the Mississippi. The Red River of the north, in connection with Lake Winnipeg, into which it falls, forms a navigable water-line, extending directly north and south nearly eight hundred miles. The Red River is one of the best adapted to the use of steam in the world, and waters one of the finest regions on the continent. Between the highest point at which it is navigable, and St. Paul, on the Mississippi, a railroad is in process of construction and when this road is completed, another grand division of the continent, comprising half a million square miles, will be open to settlement.”

It would be unjust to the Hudson’s Bay Company to refuse them the praise due to the efforts of their servants in exploring the vast region over which they ruled, and to the constancy with which they have resisted aggression; but as the privileges of that body have now become part of the stock-in-trade of a great mercantile association, there can be no reason for doubting that a change of policy, in consonance with the tone of the governing sentiment of the age, will take place, and that the interests of free trade, and the more extensive interests connected with Imperial and Colonial progress and with colonisation itself, will be found not incompatible. When the ichthyophilists of London betake themselves, in the leafy month of June, to Gravesend, in search of the placid turtle or the strenuous shrimp, they may be startled by the booming of guns from the bosom of the river, and by certain loud cheers from two strict-rigged craft anchored in the stream. A gaily-decked river-steamer, from the flag-staff of which flutters a hieroglyph in blue and white, with the motto, “Pro pelle cutem,” is lying alongside the larger of the two. On board the steamer are many sorts and conditions of men—the friends of directors, outlying members of both Houses, old salts and older commercial personages, and men wearing the bright, crisp, clean look of prosperous clerkdom. These circulate from the deck of the steamer to the broader expanse of the vessel alongside, where a stout weather-beaten crew are drawn up, listening to the recital of articles. Dipping down the companion it is probable that the visitor will find in the captain’s cabin an assemblage of gentlemen, eating biscuit and drinking sherry to the health of the skipper, whilst others are peering into compartments and berths ’twixt bulkheads filled with odd merchandise, from gas-pipe-barrelled guns to needles, anchors, blankets, crinoline, and artificial flowers. They are people whom we might meet in any place in London from west to east, wearing the indescribable air of men “out for the day.” On deck are some old-fashioned brass-bound boxes, inscribed “Hudson’s Bay Company,” guarded by very ancient and fish-like attendants, in a red and blue livery. The steamer leaves the bluff double-cased sides of the vessel for a visit to her consort, for the two ships now-a-days form the sum total of the fleet sailing annually to the Hudson’s Bay settlements, where once there was a flotilla of smaller craft, dressed in all their bravery of flags, and making old Gravesend re-echo to their salvos as they went forth on that which was then a dubious and adventurous voyage. Then, after much leave-taking, and drinking of anchor cups, the steamer starts, amid the cheers of the outward-bound crew, for the Nore, to enjoy a little fresh air before she comes back to the Falcon at Gravesend, where the annual dinner is held, and where many good speeches are made and friendly sentiments expressed in support of the Hudson’s Bay Company. The sagacious face of old Edward Ellice, seamed with the fine graver of thought, and plastic still as in youth, for many a long year fixed men’s eyes with kindly regard; and the mitis sapientia of his counsels, his unrivalled tact, albeit the exquisite touch lay inside a shagreen glove, and his great ability in the conduct of affairs, gave the Company that which Rupert’s charters, Charles’s parchments, or prescriptive rights, never could have secured so long.

It was under Sir E. L. Bulwer’s administration of foreign affairs that the most strenuous attempt was made by the Government to adjust the conflicting claims of Canada and Great Britain with those of the Hudson’s Bay Company, by the decision of the Judicial Committee of Privy Council; but the Company, though always willing to enter into an arrangement with the Government for the adjustment of contending interests, uniformly and not unwisely refused to accept any arbitration or judgment involving the question of the validity of their charters. The refusal of Parliament to renew the exclusive right of trading, in 1859, and the assumption of the control of Vancouver’s Island by the Crown on the expiration of the lease in the same year, were heavy blows at the vested interests of the Company, which deprived its cessio bonorum to the English Credit Mobilier, in 1863, of great political importance, though enormous commercial results may still be obtained from the extension of trading and from settling and gold-exploring operations. When the speedy colonisation and rapid rise of British Columbia caused some attention to be directed towards the means of getting there, and of cultivating an acquaintance promising such great advantages, and it was found that from east to west two routes were practicable, it was not surprising if jealousy and alarm were aroused because the Americans, by further representations, unhappily baseless, respecting the energy of the initiative taken by Canada and England, had first started to clear the way to the west, and to open communications with the Red River settlement, en route. Fort Garry, in the Selkirk settlement, was first visited by a steamer from the American post of Fort Abercrombie, in 1859. Minnesota was a State which had the advantage of a continental existence on the soil of the Great Republic. “Organised as a territory in 1849, a single decade had brought the population, the resources, and the public recognition of an American State. A railroad system, connecting the lines of the Lake States and Provinces at La Crosse with the international frontier on the Red River at Pembina, was not only projected, but had secured in aid of its construction a grant by the Congress of the United States of three thousand eight hundred and forty acres a mile, and a loan of State credit to the amount of twenty thousand dollars a mile, not exceeding an aggregate of five million dollars. Different sections of this important extension of the Canadian and American railways were under contract and in process of construction. In addition, the land surveys of the Federal Government had reached the navigable channel of the Red River; and the line of frontier settlement, attended by a weekly mail, had advanced to the same point. Thus the Government of the United States, no less than the people and authorities of Minnesota, were represented in the north-west movement.”

No matter how prosperous a colony of Great Britain may he, a colony it must be so long as it is not independent. The first result of the prosperity of an American colony is its independence as a State, and its incorporation as a member of the common sovereignty. The distinction arises from geographical considerations, but it is not the less potent—I shall not yet say, more to be regretted. The retention of Canada would be of little value to us if there were to the west of it a great and populous community, absorbing its capital, labour, and enterprise for the benefit of aliens, and if to the south there were a series of States animated by an intense political dislike to the mother country. But there is, as they say in Ireland, “the makings” of four free and independent States, on the American model of Ohio, in that district between the valleys of the North and South Saskatchewan. In 1858 an American writer again described the region which the British Government, the Colonial Office, and the Imperialism of bureaux, inclined to cast away without even a mess of pottage. That writer says:—

“Here is the great fact of the north-western areas of this continent. An area not inferior in size to the whole United States east of the Mississippi, which is perfectly adapted to the fullest occupation by cultivated nations, yet is almost wholly unoccupied, lies west of the 98th meridian, and above the 43rd parallel, that is, north of the latitude of Milwaukee, and west of the longitude of Red River, Fort Kearney, and Corpus Christi; or, to state the fact in another way, east of the Rocky Mountains, and west of the 98th meridian, and between the 43rd and 60th parallels, there is a productive, cultivable area of 500,000 square miles. West of the Rocky Mountains and between the same parallels, there is an area of 300,000 square miles.

“It is a great mistake to suppose that the temperature of the Atlantic coast is carried straight across the continent to the Pacific. The isothermals deflect greatly to the north, and the temperatures of the Northern Pacific are paralleled in the high temperatures in high latitudes of Western and Central Europe. The latitudes which inclose the plateaus of the Missouri and Saskatchewan, in Europe inclose the rich central plains of the Continent. The great grain growing districts of Russia lie between the 45th and 60th parallel, that is, north of the latitude of St. Paul, Minnesota, or Eastport, Maine. Indeed, the temperature in some instances is higher for the same latitudes here than in Central Europe. The isothermal of 70 deg. for the summer, which on our plateau ranges from along latitude 50 deg. to 52 deg., in Europe skirts through Vienna and Odessa in about parallel 46 deg. The isothermal of 55 deg. for the year runs along the coast of British Columbia, and does not go far from New York, London, and Sebastopol. Furthermore, dry areas are not found above 47 deg., and there are no barren tracts of consequence north of the Bad Lands and the Coteau of the Missouri; the land grows grain finely, and is well wooded. All the grains of the temperate districts are here produced abundantly, and Indian corn may be grown as high as the Saskatchewan.

“The buffalo winters as safely on the upper Athabasca as in the latitude of St. Paul, and the spring opens at nearly the same time along the immense line of plains from St. Paul to Mackenzie’s River. To these facts, for which there is the authority of Blodgett’s Treatise on the Climatology of the United States, may be added this, that to the region bordering the Northern Pacific, the finest maritime positions belong throughout its entire extent, and no part of the west of Europe exceeds it in the advantages of equable climate, fertile soil, and commercial accessibility of coast. We have the same excellent authority for the statement that in every condition forming the basis of national wealth, the continental mass lying westward and northward from Lake Superior is far more valuable than the interior in lower latitudes, of which Salt Lake and Upper New Mexico are the prominent known districts. In short, its commercial and industrial capacity is gigantic. Its occupation was coeval with the Spanish occupation of New Mexico and California.”