Next to the St. Lawrence the chief rivers are the Saskatchewan and the Winnipeg, flowing into Lake Winnipeg, and the Nelson, flowing from it into Hudson Bay; the Assiniboine and the Red River, which join their waters to flow into Lake Winnipeg; the Albany and the Churchill, emptying into Hudson Bay; the Athabasca and the Peace Rivers, flowing into Lake Athabasca, and the Slave River, from it into Great Slave Lake; the Mackenzie, fed from both the Great Slave and the Great Bear lakes, and emptying into the Arctic Ocean; the Fraser and Thompson, in British Columbia, emptying into the Pacific; and in the eastern provinces, the Ottawa, chief tributary of the St. Lawrence, itself fed by the Gatineau and Matawan; the Saguenay, emptying Lake St. John into the St. Lawrence; and the St. John, which flows into the Bay of Fundy, in New Brunswick, which it partly separates from the State of Maine.
The principal islands of the Dominion are: on the east, Cape Breton, Prince Edward and Magdalen Islands, and Anticosti, in the Gulf of St. Lawrence; and on the west coast, Vancouver Island and Queen Charlotte Island. Lying along the north in the great Arctic Archipelago are immense islands, all of which, excepting Greenland, belong to Canada.
Climate.—The cold winter and the heat in summer are frequently extreme, but the climate is a healthy one. The winter may be said to continue from the middle of November to the end of March, or about four and a half months. British Columbia probably possesses the finest climate in North America.
In some inland parts of Canada the maximum temperature may be from ninety to ninety-six degrees, and the minimum from twenty to twenty-six degrees below zero. But although there are these extremes, the air is always dry, bracing, and exhilarating.
Products and Industries.—The chief industries of Canada are those of agriculture, stock-raising, dairy-farming, “lumbering” or timber trade and forestry, shipbuilding, fisheries, and mining. An extensive trade is maintained with the United States and England, the exports being timber, fish, and furs, with [667] dairy produce and live stock; wheat and wheat flour, barley, and other agricultural products, cod and other fish, coal, and minerals.
The minerals are chiefly coal, silver, nickel, gold, copper, iron, asbestos, lead, salt, mineral oils and gypsum. Gold is or has been worked in Nova Scotia, Quebec, and Ontario, and largely in Yukon (Klondike) and British Columbia, where there are yet immense fields to open up. Silver mines are worked in Ontario; those at Cobalt (producing also cobalt, nickel and arsenic) have been the richest yet discovered in Canada. Iron ore is found all over the Dominion. Copper has been mined to a considerable extent both in Quebec and Ontario, and the deposits of the ore are of great extent. There are very large coal deposits in Nova Scotia. The coast of British Columbia is rich in coal of a good quality. Coal is known to exist over a vast region, stretching from one hundred and fifty to two hundred miles east of the Rocky Mountains, and north from the frontier for about one thousand miles.
The forest products of Canada constitute one of her most important sources of wealth. They find their way to all parts of the world—to the United States, to the United Kingdom, and to the Australian commonwealth.
Great progress has recently been made in the development of manufactures. The “national policy” comprises a high protective system, but since 1901 gives a preference to Britain.
Quebec has tanning industries and manufactures boot and shoes, the manufactures of woolen and cotton goods are increasing, and there are sugar refineries in Halifax and Montreal. Such wooden articles as doors, window sashes, etc., are manufactured in large numbers.
People.—The province of Ontario is thickly settled on the south, along the river and the lake shores, by a population which is mainly of British descent, with a considerable infusion of Germans. The province of Quebec is peopled in great part by descendants of the original French settlers; they are called habitans; many of them speak an archaic French dialect and keep up peculiar manners and customs, and they are Roman Catholic in religion.