That afternoon we passed Port Arthur, a town of 3,500 population, on Thunder Bay, and the port for the fine Canadian Pacific steamers, which present an alternative summer route between the East and West by way of the lakes, Owen Sound and Toronto. Five miles farther on we came to old Fort William, now a growing village and grain port. Here, on the fertile flats of the Kaministiquia, more than two hundred years ago, was planted an Indian trading-post, which a century later became the headquarters of the great Northwest Fur Company, and then an important post of the Hudson’s Bay Company, to which, after years of warfare, the Northwest corporation finally capitulated. Some of the storied old buildings, to which a whole magazine article might easily be devoted, still stand, but they are overshadowed by the railway shops and warehouses, the huge elevators and coal-bins, which here, as at Port Arthur, testify to an enormous shipping traffic.
For four hundred miles west of Fort William, where we bid good-bye to Lake Superior, the road passes through a wild, rough region of rocks and forest, reticulated with lakes and rivers. It is the most unattractive piece of country on the whole line, but it abounds in minerals, and supplies the treeless region beyond with lumber. Near its eastern border, at Rabbit Mountain, exceedingly rich silver mines are worked. The Lake of the Woods, in the centre of this tract, is a very beautiful spot, and one whose water-power supplies many large mills.
Morning found us among open groves and thickets—the fringed-out western edge of that almost continental forest which sweeps behind us to the Atlantic, and northward until it half envelops Hudson’s Bay. Finally even this disappeared in an expanse of verdant turf—the prairie of Manitoba,—its perfectly level horizon broken only by the tall buildings and steeples of the city of Winnipeg.
Winnipeg stands at the point where Red River receives its largest western tributary, the Assiniboine. It has been the site of an Indian trading post, and the centre of the “Red River settlements” for almost a century; but until ten years ago it was nothing more. Then it sprung at one bound, amid an ecstasy of speculation, into a city. It had a hard time after this injudicious exuberance began to subside; but it survived, and now Winnipeg is as well founded, and growing as healthfully, as is Denver or Omaha. The town has ridiculously wide streets, which it cost a fortune to pave with cedar blocks, and which make the really tall and fine business buildings look dwarfed. There are several expensive churches, hundreds of elegant residences, and some stately public buildings. The width of the streets; the great number of vacant lots, due to the large expectations of the “boom” period, which spread the town beyond all reason; and the use of cream-colored brick and light paint in the buildings, give to Winnipeg a singularly pale and scattered appearance, likely to diminish in the eyes of a casual visitor the city’s real wealth and importance.
THE VIEW FROM THE HOT SPRINGS, BANFF, LOOKING DOWN THE BOW.
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LARGER IMAGE
“While you would find here in Winnipeg,” says our cicerone, as we sat smoking in a snug corner, “if you studied the matter a little, the key to much that you will see beyond, you must look beyond for the key to much you will see in Winnipeg. Situated just where the forests end and the vast prairies begin, with thousands of miles of river navigation to the north, south and west, and with railways radiating in every direction into the wheat lands of all Manitoba, like spokes in a wheel, Winnipeg has become, what it must always be, the commercial focus of the Canadian Northwest. Looking at these long lines of warehouses filled with goods, and these twenty miles or more of railway side-tracks all crowded with cars, you begin to realize the vastness of the country we are about to enter. From here the wants of the people in the west are supplied, and this way come the products of their fields, while from the far north are brought furs in great variety and number.”
NEARING THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS.