International exhibition Glasgow 1901
Official catalogue

light blue on plan. The Dominion of Canada. 177 of the Colony, such as may be witnessed in the Industrial Hall and Canadian Pavilion, in the grounds, of the Glasgow International Exhibition, are slowly but surely overcoming the prejudice that pervaded, and in a minor sense still pervades, the minds of unthinking persons in this country, that Canada is essentially a land of ice and snow—a land where tobogganing, skating, and snow-shoe walking is the only national pastime: in other words where the winter is of the longest and the summer the shortest in the Western Hemisphere. How far this prejudice is removed from the actual truth can be fully realised by merely a cursory glance at the many specimens displayed in the Canadian Section. Perhaps there is no country in the world where the climatic conditions are so varied. In the extreme north the cold is Arctic in its intensity, whilst in the south the summer heat is tropical. As the Horticultural Exhibit in the Canadian Pavilion will show, between these two extremes of heat and cold, there lies a huge tract of country which offers to the agriculturist an ideal opening to farm on the best possible conditions, where millions of acres of virgin soil lie ready for the hardy and industrious settler. The Dominion lands are laid out in quadrilateral townships, each containing thirty- six sections of one square mile, or 640 acres. Each separate section is also sub-divided into quarter sections of 160 acres. All the even-numbered sections except eight and twenty-six are free homesteads and can be obtained from the Local Agent of the District on payment of 10 dollars entrance fee. After three years, the settler, provided he has to the best of his ability cultivated a portion of the land granted to him, and resided upon it for six months of each year for those years, receives a patent from the crown for the same. In the event of his death his legal representatives succeed to the homestead right, on the understanding that they or some of them must complete the necessary duties. In townships which consist partly of prairie and partly of timber lands, the timber lands are divided into wood lots of not more than twenty acres and not less than ten acres. Settlers will, however, experience no difficulty in obtaining a sufficient supply of fuel, for in those portions of Manitoba and the North-West Territories where wood is not found to any great extent, nature has furnished coal as a substitute. In Southern Manitoba wood may be obtained from the Turtle Mountains, Brandon Hills and along the banks of the Souris River; and the Manitoba and South-Western Railway, a part of the Canadian Pacific Railway system, furnishes the best possible access to the Souris coal field, from which a considerable percentage of the fuel used in the southern portion of the province, and at many points on the main line of the Canadian Pacific Railway as far east as Winnipeg, and westward to Moose Jaw, coal is also obtained. In Northern Alberta and for some distance to the east of the Rocky Mountains and along the rivers in Southern Alberta, an abundant supply of timber for fuel is obtain- able and throughout the whole of the district there is an abundance of coal. So great is the supply that it is calculated there is sufficient to provide for She wants of tho whole world, if need be, for centuries. In the Province of Ontario it is provided that public lands which have been surveyed and are considered suitable for settlement and cultivation, may be appropriated as free grants. Two hundred acres is the limit of the Act regulating the disposal of free land, and the conditions specified by the Government are far from onerous. In what is known as the Rainy River district, to the west of Lake Superior, and along the line of the Canadian Northern Railway which is now being constructed free grants are made of one hundred and sixty acres to a head of a family; or to a single or married man without children, of one hundred and twenty acres. Each person obtain- ing a free grant has the additional privilege of purchasing eighty acres, at the rate ot