BY J. T. BEALBY, B.A. WITH TWELVE FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOUR BY T. MOWER MARTIN, R.C.A., C. M. MANLY, HY. SANDHAM, ALLAN STEWART, W. COTMAN EADE, & MORTIMER MENPES LONDON ADAM AND CHARLES BLACK 1909 CONTENTS CHAPTER I. THE GREAT DOMINION II. THE FAR WEST III. HOME-LIFE IN CANADA IV. WINTER SPORTS V. FIFTY BELOW ZERO VI. LAW AND ORDER IN CANADA VII. THE SHIP OF THE PRAIRIE VIII. GOLDEN WHEAT AND THE BIG RED APPLE IX. CANADIAN TIMBER X. WEALTH IN ROCK AND SAND XI. SPOILS OF SEA AND

If you look at a map of North America, you will see that the whole northern half of it is one vast extent, coloured perhaps in red, and stretching north from the boundary of the United States to the Arctic Ocean; you will see that it is deeply indented by the great Hudson Bay on the north, and the Gulf of St. Lawrence on the east; that it has an outline projecting into many bold headlands, and a coast washed by three oceans, fringed with countless islands, great and small. This is Canada, a land

The province of British Columbia, which is separated from the rest of Canada by the great range of the Rocky Mountains, is itself a "sea" of tumbled mountains, which reach all the way from the Rockies to the Pacific Ocean, and, like the northern portion of the Dominion, is covered with forests. Here again there are several large rivers, such as the Fraser and the Columbia, and a great many lakes. British Columbia is an exceptionally highly favoured region. Not only is she rich in natural resourc

The English visitor to a Canadian city finds things much as they are at home: there are different names for articles in common use; the hotel elevator goes faster than the lift at home; the trams are street-cars, the streets are not so clean; the traffic is not so well managed; and the public buildings and parks are newer, and lack the grace and beauty of the old land architecture. The houses all have verandas, on which, in summer, the people spend a great part of their time, even eating and sle

As soon as the ground is covered with snow, and the snow gets hard enough, every boy and girl in Canada fetches out his or her flexible flyer, bob-sleigh, or other form of child's sleigh, and dragging it to the top of an incline, sets it off gliding to the bottom. The flexible flyer is a small sleigh that will not carry more than one big child or two very small ones. The rider lies stretched out on the sleigh, flat on his stomach, with his legs sticking out behind. A bob-sleigh is larger—often m

So long as there is no wind the cold in Canada is, on the whole, not disagreeable. The air is, as a rule, so dry and still that the cold is exhilarating rather than painful. Even when the thermometer drops as low as 50° or 55° below zero—that is to say, when there is as much as 80° to 90° of frost in all—a man will be able to take his coat off and keep himself warm at an active occupation such as wood-cutting. Very often, in fact, you only know that it is freezing as hard as it actually is by he

In the older parts of the country, with the exception of the larger cities, crime is rare, justice is well administered, the ordinary forms of English law being followed; but the country has suffered in this respect from the fact that there have been criminals among the many emigrants arriving in recent years. One naturally expects that there will be lawlessness in the opening up of new countries, but certain wise laws have saved Canada from this evil. Many of the towns have passed laws prohibit

"All aboard!" Such is the commanding cry which rings out in a Canadian railway-station when a train is quite ready to start. "All aboard!" shouts the conductor as he walks briskly alongside the train. In climb the waiting passengers, and without further warning the big, ponderous engine begins to move; and as it moves, the big bell which it carries begins to toll, and keeps on tolling until the train is well clear of the station. There is no string of guards and porters crying, "Take your seats,

The most important product of the Dominion of Canada is wheat. Except for a little hay and oats, the big prairie provinces of Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta are especially noted for their production of wheat, which they yield in truly enormous quantities. In point of quality Canadian wheat ranks amongst the best in the world. But the three big prairie provinces are not the only ones that produce wheat; it is also grown in Ontario, as well as, in smaller quantity, in each of the other provin

The largest share of the natural wealth of Canada is derived from her unlimited acres and square miles of wheat-lands. Next in importance to her wheat is her timber. Considerably more than one-third of the total area of the Dominion is covered with forests. With the exception of the province of Prince Edward Island, all the older provinces are rich in valuable trees. British Columbia is said to have "the greatest compact reserve of timber in the world." The vast prairies of the North-West have n

The history of gold and silver has always been romantic and exciting, and Canada has furnished her full share of adventure and fortune, riches won in a day and lost in a night. All known minerals are found scattered here and there over the thousands of miles of north land. Besides the precious metals, the most important are coal, iron, nickel, and asbestos, and the deposits of the last two are much the most important in the world. Gold was first found by the Indians, who made ornaments of it; th

"You often hear tall stories of the way the salmon swarm in the Fraser River," remarked an old frontiersman one day to a "new chum" recently arrived in Canada from England. "Those stories are often dished up to suit a palate that is just waiting to be tickled with cayenne, but they are not altogether fiction." The new chum, having still "tender feet," hesitated about putting his foot in, and merely looked the inquiry which he was unable to conceal. "Well, you may believe me or not, sir, but it i

One of the most remarkable features of Canada is the great number of lakes and rivers of all sizes, which interlace the land from east to west and north to south. Generally speaking, the country is divided into three great basins, the St. Lawrence and the Great Lakes, the Prairie, and the Pacific Slope. The great lakes, five in number, form a chain of connected fresh-water seas leading to the Atlantic through the St. Lawrence River, and into them empty a great number of rivers and streams. The g

The earliest white inhabitants of Canada, who have remained and helped to build up the Canadian nation, were settlers from France. There were, indeed, earlier arrivals from Europe, but they did not make anything like a permanent settlement. These were certain adventurous Norsemen who sailed out from Iceland in the year 1000, or even a little earlier, and returned with tales of a fertile country which they had discovered somewhere across the Western sea, and to which they gave the name of Vinland

The earliest white settlers on the shores of the St. Lawrence came from France, and the country of their adoption was known as New France. To this very day, not only the language, but the manner of life and most of the social institutions of the province of Quebec, are still emphatically French. And yet the French-Canadians, despite their passionate devotion to their race and their language, their religious creed (Roman Catholicism), and the customs and manners of their ancestors, manifest an ir

One day in the year 1755 consternation and dismay invaded every heart in what is now Nova Scotia, the large peninsula on the east of Canada that fronts the fierce Atlantic gales, and bears the full brunt of their fury without murmur or groan. At that time the inhabitants were nearly all, like those of Quebec and the St. Lawrence shore, descendants of people who came from France, more especially from Brittany and Normandy. Originally the country was called Acadia. It was James I. of England who c

One day two gentlemen were driving by the side of a small but beautiful inland lake, when they met a little, shrivelled old man, with a forward tilt of the body, a lurching, shuffling gait, and a parchment-like wrinkled skin. Met! Yes, but when the odd-looking little man caught sight of the rig or vehicle approaching, he hastily turned off the road, and passed the conveyance at a good distance away. Yet as he passed he never once lifted his head. This behaviour excited the curiosity of one of th