Western Canada and its Great Resources
The Testimony of Settlers, farmer Delegates and high Authorities

/ / / 4 WESTERN CANADA. from a gently-undulating to a high-rolling prairie and belts of hills, several hundred feet in height, clad in forests of the evergreen spi uce and pine, as well as oak, elm, birch and poplar, while bluffs of timber dot the undulating surface of the plains. Rivers and creeks abound, varying in size from the Great Saskatchewan River to the tiny brooklet rippling down a hillside and then slowly feeling its way through valleys to its junction with some greater stream. Lakes are plentiful, and vary in size from Lake Winnipeg (second in size only to Lake Superior) to the lakelet of a few acres in extent. Such, condensed into a few short sentences, are the topographical features of the prairie region of Western Canada. The Future Possibilities of this great prairie region are far beyond the grasp of even, the greatest mind. The work accomplished in the few years, counting from the advent of railways, has been truly great. The increase in number of bushels of grain raised from 720,000 to 55,000,000, or over; the increase in number of head of cattle from some 50,000 to over 600,000 • the construction of nearly 4,000 miles of railway; the building up of towns and cities of from 2,000 to 30,000 inhabitants,—all this is the record of a decade, and yet this record can scarcely be taken as fixing a standard which cannot be greatly surpassed in. the future. The attention of the people thus far has been devoted mainly to agriculture and stock-raising, these being of course the staple industries. The develop- ment of other resources has not yet been undertaken, to any great extent, with the exception of lumbering and coal mining. But it is to be borne in mind that, while the prairie country is by nature intended as a producer mainly of breadstuff^ it has other resources as well. Timber is plentiful, and at the present time some 80,000,000 feet of it are yearly converted into lumber. Excellent building stone is found in many places and limestone quarries can be had in almost every district, yielding lime of first-class quality. Gold, silver and iron, nickel and copper are in the highlands bordering the Ked River valley on the east; iron of excellent quality and in immense quantity is also found on islands in Lake Winnipeg. Mica, amber and other valuable minerals are found in the Lake Winnipeg district further north. Extensive salt-springs yielding first-class salt are found between Lake Winnipeg and Lake Manitoba. Coal oil springs are in. the Lake Dauphin, district, and out near the Rocky Mountains, west of Fort Macleod, and north of Edmonton, again, the coal oil fields are by experts stated to be inexhaustible. Coal underlies a large territory in. south-western Manitoba, the beds extending west- ward far beyond the boundary of the province, and the coal fields at Dunmore, Medicine Hat and Edmonton are illimitable, while the anthracite coal fields in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains on the Canadian. Pacific main line, and on the Red Deer River further north, are extensive enough to supply the continent for hundreds of years to come with coal of excellent quality. This enumeration of the resources of the country proves its capability of standing alone, independent as to its supplies of nearly the whole outside world, once these resources are developed as they soon will be. Not only are the materials here in abundance for all the principal food requirements of man and beast, but those also for producing most of the implements and manufactured wares, and in. quantities too great to measure aright as yet. The soil for the most part is the most fertile in the world, equalled only by the famous Nile Delta in Egypt. The subsoil principally is a rich, sticky clay, which gradually, after being worked up to the surface, changes into hardly less fertile soil than the black mould itself. On the ridges and the higher plateaus the subsoil is mixed with land and gravel and some places shell, while the black mould is in most places as deep on the ridges as it is on the lower levels. The Climate is cold temperate. The summers are warm and the winters cold. The average heat of summer is about the same as that in New York State, but there is never the scorching heat which characterizes Kansas and other western States and deals disaster to their crops.