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Maps, plates, charts, etc., may be filmed at different reduction ratios. Those too large to be entirely included in one exposure are filmed beginning in the upper left hand corner, left to right and top to bottom, as many frames as required. The following diagrams illustrate the method: Les cartes, planches, tableaux, etc., peuvent Atre filmfo A des taux de reduction diffirents. Lorsque le document est trop grand pour Atre reproduit en un seul clich6, il est fiim6 A partir de I'angle supArieur gauche, de gauche d droite, et de haut en has, en prenant ie nombre d'images nAcessaire. Les diagrammes suivants illustrent la mAthode. 1 2 3 , 1 2 3 4 5 6 PJk ctM. UTvAJte^ W^ u^ \^oi r /Ayl} BRITISH COLUMBIA, ALASKA, AND THE LONDON ARTIZAN COLONY AT MOOSOMIN, ASSINIDOIA. SKVEN LETTERS BY THE ' REV. HUGH HULEATT, M.A., VICAK OK SHALKORU, LATB CHAPLAIN OK THE FORCES, AND KOKMKKI.Y VICAR OK ST. John's, iiethnal grekn. PRINTED BY UNWIN BROTHERS CHILWORTII AND LONDON MDCCCI-XXXIX H Price Sixpence. nib J Hi 147037 ] s F tl e a tl s n s; • 11 n c tl /. T PREFACE. How to provide for our redundant population, and thus save our country from the deluge of an ever-increasing pauperism, is the great social problem of the day, and patriotism demands that every one should do his own part in furthering its solution. Redundant, unoccupied land is the simplest provision for a redundant population, and an experiment carried out under the auspices of " The London Artizan Colonist Society " gives a practical proof that it is adequate and successful. This Society entrusted me with the selection of fourteen East London artizan families, and settled them four years ago on free homesteads at Mooso- min in Assiniboia. I am constantly receiving letters of artizans from all parts of the country, earnestly wishing to be sent out under similar conditions ; and as so many are showing an interest in the subject, I am induced to publish these letters in con- nection with a visit I recently paid to the East London colonists. I took the same opportunity of crossing over the Rocky Mountains and visiting British Columbia and Alaska, to which I also refer in these letters; for though the PRE FACE. prairies of North-West Canada are more especially favour- able for agricultural colonists, there are lumbering, mining, and fishing industries all along the coast of the North Pacific that afford abundant openings to sober, hard- working families to achieve a speedy independence, and the climate is healthy and salubrious. H. H, Allan Line s.s. " Polynesl\n," July 31, 1888. Imperl\l Confederation is recognized by most thoughtful men as essential to the permanent greatness of the British Empire. Loyal subjects of our Queen, both at home and in the Colonies, eagerly catch at the idea ; but ideas, like words, unless in our acts we give them practical effect, come to nothing. This present voyage suggests to me a way in which many could help to give practical effect to this confederacy between her Colonies and the Mother Country. In this present year our supplies of tea from India and Ceylon make us more independent of China than we have ever been before, and at the same time we are promoting Imperial Confederation by spending our money with our fellow- subjects, and for their benefit, instead of sending it to Chinese outsiders. Now why should we not carry out this same rule of promoting Imperial Confederation in the matter of health and recreation as well as of tea? The teas of our colonies are found on experience to be quite equal to those of China, and I speak from experience when I say that our great colony of Canada, as a summer health resort, is unsurpassed by any other country on the face of the globe. The ocean voyage, the Canadian rivers, the Niagara Falls, the great lakes (all these can be managed within six weeks), and then if you have a longer time, right across the rolling prairies and the glorious snow-capped Rockies, 2 BRITISH COLUMBIA, ALASKA, from'Quebec and the Atlantic to Vancouver on the Pacific — all this affords a variety of scenery, and an amount of rest and healthful recreation, specially adapted to restore and invigorate the overwrought denizens of our large cities. The ocean voyage so many dread is the very thing to set them up, for the art of the chemist has never discovered such a restorative tonic as the pure ozone of the broad Atlantic. We are altogether seventy saloon passengers on board this ship, and there was only one lady absent from the dinner-table to-day. Ladies who came on board already half ill with the dismal forebodings of coming seasickness find to their surprise that they are all right. They are as regular as clockwork at all their meals, and in singing, playing the piano, and in various other ways, they employ their energies in making themselves and those around them happy ; so that the voyage is most enjoyable. And then in addition to this we are promoting " Imperial Confederation." Those in the saloon are in about equal proper cions from the Old Country and native-born Cana- dians, and we are so mixed up together that it is impossible to tell one from the other. In fact we thoroughly con- federate on board ship, and then when we land we shall still be going forward on the same principle by spending our time and our money amongst our English-speaking relations instead of in the foreign hostelries of continental Europe, where those who clutch our cash can neither speak our language or sympathize in our national aspirations. However, as I confine this first letter to "On board ship," I shall now end by giving you, as the fruits of my own experience: " Try the ocean voyage once, and you are sure to do it again and again." ■» » AND THE LONDON ARTIZAN COLON\ THE CANADIAN CENTRES OF COMMERCE, GOVERNMENT, AND COLONIZATION. Winnipeg, August II, 1888. Montreal and Toronto are the two Canadian cities that outstrip all the others in the race for commercial supremacy. Toronto, with her 140,000 inhabitants (chiefly Anglo-Saxon), has within the last thirty years made such tremendous commercial strides as to astonish even our Yankee cousins. Nevertheless, her older rival on the St. Lawrence still holds her own, and seems likely to do so, for not only is the Anglo-Saxon population steadily on the increase in Montreal, but what is even more important, the Montrealites of French descent are becoming more Anglo- Saxon both in their habits of thought and in their methods of carrying out commercial transactions. In fact, as regards the great body of the leading men in Lower Canada, we may apply the words that one of themselves lately uttered in public as expressive of his own feelings, " I am an Englishman though I speak the French language." Those are the published words of Sir George Cartier, the descen- dant of the old French navigator who founded Montreal ; and the more this sentiment prevails amongst the inhabitants of Lower Canada, the more firmly will Montreal maintain her position as the great emporium of Canadian commerce. On the whole, this rivalry between the two cities is a healthy BRITISH COLUMBIA, ALASKA, one and productive of good. One result that has come out of it was the selection of Ottawa as the seat of the Dominion Government. The claims of the rival cities to be the seat of Government were so evenly balanced, that the Ministry of the day, as the only way out of the difficulty, fixed on the town of Ottawa, which is equi-distant from Montreal and Toronto ; and this selection has many things to recommend it. Ottawa is the great centre of the Cana- dian lumber trade, and so great is the demand, that at certain times, by the help of the electric light, they in- cessantly work in the sawmills day and night with fresh relays of men. As an illustration of the present prosperity of this branch of Canadian trade, I may mention that the sale of the Hamilton lumber limits at Ottawa last month brought together the local "lumber kings." One of the most eminent men in Canada who was present on the occasion assured me that those lumber kings in that one room represented a capital of over seventy millions, and that they were, with scarcely an exception, self-made men who had been working hands in the business of which they were then the acknowledged leaders. Ottawa is of much more recent date than Montreal, or even Toronto. It owes its origin to a colonel of our Royal Engineers, from whom it took its first name of Byetown ; and though at the present, in a commercial point of view, it cannot for a moment be compared with the other two cities, yet its commercial as well as its political possibilities are as vast as the Dominion of Canada itself. The mineral wealth in the neighbourhood is at present attracting much attention. United States capital is being largely invested in the development of it, and it would be well and wise if / • AND THE LONDON ARTIZAN COLONY. \ \ English capital flowed in the same direction. TheTiigh eulogium pronounced by (roldwin Smith on the archi- tectural beauty of the Government Buildings at Ottawa renders words of mine on this point needless. The site of them, on a high promontory jutting into the river, is one of the grandest I have ever looked on, and as I passed them by on last Tuesday I could fully enter into the feelings of the late Elihu Burhitt, who when he first beheld the Govern- ment Buildings at Ottawa suddenly exclaimed, " There indeed is the seat of an Empire." Another advantage that Ottawa has at the seat of Legis- lation is that there is no fear of anything like the Trafalgar Square Demonstrations. The people are fully employed ; neither beggars or idle loafers are to be seen in the streets ; and if those aspiring demagogues who, in their insane craving after notoriety, make themselves in London such a public nuisance were to try it on at Ottawa, they would be left to themselves to stew in their own juice and to waste their sweetness on the desert air. The public library at Ottawa is one of the finest on the continent of America. The presence of the Governor- General and Ministry renders Ottawa during the Parlia- mentary session like London during " the season." There is much general hospitality, and intellectual society of the highest order, and considering its many social, religious and educational advantages, I am very much surprised that larger numbers of our retired officers, and others with limited incomes and families to educate, do not select as their per- manent residence the picturesque capital of the Canadian Dominions. Let us now, as it were, cross the Rubicon, and leaving \ lO BRITISH COLUMBIA, ALASKA, W *4 I behind us the earlier colonized provinces of the Dominion^ let me finish with a few words on the great centre of the Canadian colonization in these latter years of the nineteenth century. Winnipeg, the capital of Manitoba, in the rapidity of its growth bears away the palm from all other cities ancient or modern. It was the boast of Herod the Great that within the reign of one Emperor he completed the city of Caesarea-Stratonis on the shores of the Mediterranean, with its quays and arsenals. Not merely in the reign of our gracious Queen, but even within the last twenty years of it, out of nothing Winnipeg has sprung up to her present mag- nitude and greatness, and, like Palmyra in the desert in the days of King Solomon, the prairie wilderness of Winnipeg has suddenly become a city of palaces. Twenty years ago, at the junction of the Assiniboine and Red rivers, there stood the solitary Hudson's Bay station of Fort Garry, with its thirty or forty employes. At the same junction of the two rivers at the present day we behold Winnipeg with over twenty-five thousand inhabitants, with public and commercial buildings that would not be out of place in the leading streets of London or New York, vvith Churches and Educational Institutions that, in the thoroughness of the instruction they impart, are second to ;ione on this whole continent. There is one other advantage ^hat I may not pass by in silence, for to those brought up in good old English ways it is very precious. Instead cf following the example of the large American cities in treating the Lord's Day as a mere secular holiday, in, Winnipeg Sunday is as well and religiously observed as in any other city or town I have ever visited. In fact, like the junction of her two rivers in one mighty • » AND THE LONDON ARTIZAN COLON stream that bears away her produce to the ocean and up her prosperity, so in like manner amongst her inhabi- tants there seems to be a junction of American "go-ahead " with British solidity and domestic habits that bids fair for a future of expansive greatness to this prairie queen of tiie great North-West. Next week's letter will have a much narrower scope, yet I think those at home will take an equal interest in the subject — " London Artizan Colonists at Moosomin, Assini- boia." 12 BRITISH COLUMBIA, ALASKA, THE LONDON ARTIZAN COLONY AT MOOSOMIN, ASSLNIBOIA. MOOSOMIN, August, 15, 1888. This little colony owes its origin to a drawing-room meeting at the Baroness Burdett-Coutts' under the inception of Sir Francis de Winton; it consisted of nineteen families (fourteen from the East End and five from Westminster), altogether a little over a hundred souls. Being entrusted by the Committee with the selection of the East End colonists, during those four years that they have been in the North-West I have kept touch with them. Yesterday, with an experienced agriculturist, I went over their home- steads, and with two exceptions visited all the East End families in their own houses, and can therefore speak with certainty as to their actual state at present. For these reasons I confine the remarks of this letter to the fourteen East End families. I have fallen in with only one of the Westminsters — Burke, who has a small shop in the main street of Winnipeg, and, judging from his appear- ance and premises, I should say he is doing remarkably well. When I asked him if he woulr! like to go back to the Old Country, his instant reply was, "Not for five hundred " AND THE LONDON ARTIZAN COLONY. pounds," and then, with a look as if he were thinkin|* of old times, he added, " Three good meals every day, plenty of work summer and winter, good openings, &c., for the children — I'll remain where I am." Avoiding the opposite extremes of the optimist and pessimist, I wish to set forth the state of things amongst "those East End famihes just as I saw them yesterday ; and I shall speak of them by numbers and not by names, for, however much I may wish it, it may be impossible to avoid certain comparisons that may not be equally pleasing to all parties concerned. The Book of Judges tells us that on the death of Joshua the children of Israel, when taking up their homesteads in the Promised Land, " did every man what was right in his own eyes," and the result was anything but a success; they missed Joshua's controlling hand. Now these London artizan colonists, in taking up their homesteads at Mooso- min, have followed this example of the children of Israel in the Book of Judges, and with the same results ; every man has been doing what is right in his own eyes, and so there have been many mistakes and disappointments. This, I consider, is the chief cause why five out of the fourteen East End colonists have turned aside from farming to follow their trades in Moosomin and other towns. While it gives me real pleasure to bear testimony to the generous sympathy shown to our colonists by Mr. Scarth and Mr. Bedford, who located them on their homesteads, yet those London artizans, accustomed to work under superintendence, and of the A B C of agriculture in a state of utter ignorance, needed not merely sympathy and counsel, but a personal control and guidance that those gentleman I '4 BRITISH COLUMBIA, ALASKA, from their manifold other engagements could not afford them. ■ Let me give one illustration of this point, told me by the parties concerned. Numbers 2 and 3, on the morning they commenced work, harnessed their oxen to the plough, but they would not move; the men thought the beasts were obstinate, and belaboured them most un- mercifully, but it was no use : from morning till mid-day men, oxen and plough remained in statu quo until a neigh- bouring farmer came to their help. He found the Londoners had so harnessed the bullocks that they could not possibly move ; he put them all right, showed them how to handle the plough and turn up the earth, and both these men are now average ploughmen. The radical weakness of this London Artizan Colony was its smallness, which' forbade the expense of that personal superintendence so essential to the development of such undertakings. That after an ordeal of four years on the prairies under those conditions, I should find the fourteen East End families in their present circumstances, affords me the most convincing proof that a well matured scheme of artizan colonization is the true remedy for the congested populations of our great cities ; and not only would the families themselves be materially benefited, but also their settlement would be of the greatest benefit to this new country, and at the same time in a financial point of view it might be rendered a thoroughly safe investment. Despite all those drawbacks and mistakes to which I have referred, I find these fourteen East End families at this present time in circumstances that justify me in saying, of each separate family. It is a success. By success, I mean that every one of these fourteen families is now in better AND THE LONDON ARTIZAN COLONY, •circumstances than when they left London, four years\||go, and also in better circumstances than they could reasonably hope to attain to in the Old Country, and the capital in- vested in their homesteads is secure — and this applies to the five families who are following their trades in town as fully as to the nine families who are permanently located on their homesteads. Three of the non-residents have their farms cultivated; two of those homesteads if they were sold to-morrow would fetch from a thousand to fifteen hundred dollars each ; and the other two non-resident homesteads, though not of the same value, could be easily sold next spring at a price amply to repay the Company's investment, and leave a little margin besides — and this, I think, is what ought to be done, and not leave the homestead idle. As regards the East End families on their homesteads, as well as those who are following their trades, there is great variety in the degrees of prosperity to which they have attained. I shall not weary you with long statistics, but just give you the particulars of the one who has done best and the one who has done least amongst our colonists, and leave you to estimate the average of success. No. 4. This man, in Bethnal Green, with a large family dragging him daily nearer the workhouse, was the poorest man amongst our colonists when they first came out. On his first arrival, the only investment his wife could make was in a setting of eggs. Yesterday the agriculturist estimated his crops at over sixty acres — I never looked over finer fields of wheat. When I thought of that man four years ago in the East End, on the threshold of pauperism, to recognize him as the owner of all that corn on which I was looking seemed like the fancies of a wild dream. His If'' t.-': i6 BRITISH COLUMBIA, ALASKA. children who, in the Old Country, were like a rope around his neck, are, in the North-West, the source of his wealth; and this man who just before he left had pledged his wife's wedding-ring to provide a morsel of bread for his starving little ones, is now the owner of this most valuable property. His eldest son is hired out for this present working season for a hundred dollars, with his keep, and he was offered nearly the same wages for the second son, but he can't spare him off the homestead. The boys are respectively aged 1 6 and 14. I should further add that the mother is a good woman, of great energy and resource, and has con- tributed quite as fully as the husband to the family success. His present stock on the farm consists of fourteen head of cattle, young and old, eighteen pigs, with fowls innumerable, eighty ducks, and thirty turkeys. The agriculturist considered that the crop of No. 5 had the turn of speed of No. 4. Though 5 was equally poor, he got some material help from a lady who was interested in the family, and on this ground alone I have given the palm to No. 4. No. 2 I regarded as one of the most c .tain to succeed, and yet he has made the least success of any of all the East End families. A total abstainer and a first-class car- penter, with a tidy, good wife, he is located on one of our best homesteads, that, from its proximity to Moosomin, would sell by action at any time for eight hundred dollars without any crop on it. He has also the best yoke of oxen amongst the East Enders, and yet he has only twelve acres under crop instead of sixty like 4 and 5. The secret of this great difference is that No. 2 is childless, and the want of children to help on the farm has barred his progress. He showed me over his kitchen-garden, which I 5 i AND THE LONDON ARTIZAN COLONWj' is a source of profit as well as of pleasure, as he we&ly sells three dollars' worth of his garden produce in the adjoining town of Moosomin. On the whole, his wants are few and simple ; he is happy and contented, and seems strongly attached to his homestead, though the least successful of the East End families. I may not end without warning intending colonists that nothing is to be got in the North-West without hard work. So far as I can see, there are no openings for idle loafers ; and still further, the colonists on the prairies have their own special trials, hardships, and dangers. During the fall of last year No. it of our colonists was working at Carrington. His wife had gone to a distant part of the farm to dig up some potatoes. On her way back she went into a neighbour's for a cup of tea, and as they were just seated they heard a peculiar sound, and rushed to the door : the prairie was on fire ! Exclaiming " Oh, my children ! " off the woman dashed ; but the flames drove her back. Two men who were ploughing near unhitched and mounted their horses, and tried to get through the brushwood, but at first they were driven back, singed and burned. At last, when they made their way through the burning embers, they found that little Lizzie Mitten (she was then only nine years of age) had, when she saw the fire coming, dragged the bed from the house into the centre of the broken ground, and placing the baby in the bed, and with the other little ones around her, calmly and bravely watched over her little brothers and sisters, with the fire all around ; and there the distracted mother found her children safe and sound. The length of this letter forbids giving further incidents '} It i\ 18 BRITISH COLUMBIA, ALASKA, of East End life on the prairies. Of course they would not be English if there were not some grumbling amongst them, but the real test is that not one of those families have the slightest desire to return home, but they all desire to get their relations out to them ; and if you were to hint to one of those East End colonists that he was not a success, I should not answer for the consequences. \ r^« AND THE LONDON ARTIZAN COLONY. | %a^ fr r \. PROGRESS IN THE FAR NORTH-WEST. Calgary, August 20, 1888. My present visit to Calgary may be described as a series of surprises. In July, 1883, I reached here in the second railway train that ever crossed the Bow river, and found around the station about a dozen tents and half a dozen wooden shanties. At the same station to-day I find a town of over three thousand inhabitants, with streets of solid stone and brick buildings, with two branch banks and all the other accommodations of modern civilization, with large shops lighted by electricity, supplied with all the necessaries and refinements of life ; and in the variety of goods they exhibit, and in the good taste with which they are arranged, these shops at Calgary would favour- ably compare with many an English town five times its size. The only thing that remains unchanged at Calgary is the native Indian ; with his painted face, his blanket of many colours, and his patient pony as thin as a greyhound, he is the very same now that he was when I first saw him five years ago. The Indian on the prairie, like the Cossack in the Crimea, never parts from his pony. They eat, drink, and lie down together ; and I cannot help thinking that in warfare those mounted Indians could be 20 BRITISH COLUMBIA, ALASKA^ trained to render the same valuable service that the Cossacks do for the Russians, as outposts and videttes. This morning I was very much struck with one of these fellows, over six feet high, and broad in the chest, at the corner of the street. He was leaning against the post of the electric lamp, with the pony alongside, and both man and beast motionless as a rock. He looked the very model of Cooper's " Last of the Mohicans," and as I passed him by an idea entered my head, which I give you for what it is worth — Surely those Red Indians must be the descendants of Esau, the Red Hunter in the days of old. The gene- rally received theory is that these Indians are of Japanese extraction, but this is disproved by their physiognomies. While every Japanese I have seen has an insignificant bit of a nose that turns upwards, the Red Indian rejoices in a well-developed nose that, added to the protruding upper lip of the sensual mouth, gives him a strong likeness (barring the costumes) to those gentlemen who in London call " Old clo' " down the areas. Though their hands are not the hands of Esau, but as hairless as those of Jacob himself, yet their faces prove that they must be first cousins to the Israelites, if not some branch of the dispersed tribes. I am in favour of their being only first tousins, because of the singular propriety of the descendants of Esau occupy- ing this paradise of wild huntsmen. The Calgary prairies were the favourite resort of countless herds of buffaloes twenty years ago, and even in 1883, on my first visit, the slews were still covered with wild duck and water-fowl in countless myriads, and the prairies were then alive with prairie birds ; and the Indian could then provide his food and living after the same fashion as his forefather, the red ^ t A AND THE LONDON ARTIZAN COLON hunter. But all this is past and gone. Where yo thousands of wild fowl and prairie chickens five years ago, it is now difficult to meet with one. The slews are becoming the meadowlands of the dairy farmers around, and 2,200 sheep on the ranche have made sad havock amongst the prairie birds. The domestic animal, day by day, eats up the cover where the wild bird brought up her brood, so they have migrated en masse ; for, as the ranche- shepherd expresses it, " The prairie chickens will not abide in the same place as the sheep." Thus it comes to pass that as the paradise of Eden was lost to man through human sin, so this paradise of the hunter disappears under the advance of human civilization. In fact, it is a mere question of time when ranching out at Calgary will dis- appear like the buffalo and prairie chicken. Even now the immediate neighbourhood is being parcelled out into dairy farms, so that where five years ago you drove right ahead with the wild pea up to your horse's fetlocks, you are now obstructed with ugly wire fences, that try your temper by turning you aside from the old trail and doubling the length of the journey. On my first visit to the Brekon ranche we reached it, from Calgary, in fourteen miles. Yesterday I had to travel over twenty- five miles before I could get there. There was no regular trail, so we had to drive up hill and down dale, with jolting enough to break the ribs of a donkey. With the exception of the balmy air, the flowing river, and the warm hospitality with which I was received, I found everything at the ranche changed. The lone house in the wilderness is now become the centre of a neighbourhood. Within half an hour's walk of the ranche there is an Oxford tutor with his wife and child, 22 BRITISH COLUMBIA, ALASKA, settled on their little bit of land; and nearer still is the much larger house of a medical man, who, in addition to his two sons and fivn daughters, boards and lodges six English pupils, whom he instructs, not in medical science, but in the arts of agriculture. Then there are dotted around the homesteads of McKenzies and Hendersons and other Scotch farmers, including big John Patterson, whose wife carried off the prize for the best butter at the late Exhibition. In fact, instead of continuing a ranching locality, the future of Calgary is a large town and a great centre of dairy farming. On the banks of her rivers and in proximity to her rail- ways, there arc many other sites for towns just as good as the Calgary bend of the Bow river — ^just the place to re- produce an English town after the model of the old Roman colony, which consisted not merely of one but of all classes of the community ; and if one or more capitalists would take this matter in hand, I am quite sure the Dominion Govern- ment would meet them half-way in the desirable object of settling up the land. Fifty thousand pounds embarked in establishing, on a favourable site, an English town of five hundred families, containing a fair sprinkling of professional men, retired naval and military officers as well as the working classes, would do more for the promotion of Imperial Con- federation in the Canadian Dominion, than all the talk that has been going on about it at both sides of the Atlantic ; and from the sympathy it would command in the Canadian Legislature, such an undertaking could be rendered a per- fectly secure and safe investment. AND THE LONDON ARTIZAN COLO, •i » RIGHT OVER THE ROCKIES TO THE PACIFIC SEABOARD OF BRITISH COLUMBIA. Victoria, British Columbia, Augtist 27, 1888. The train from Montreal was seven hours late at Calgary. The victim of this happy accident, and an illustration of the old proverb " It is an ill wind that blows nobody any good," I got on board our train at seven o'clock in the morning instead of at midnight, and thus rode up and down the Rockies in broad daylight — a privilege which falls to the lot of only a few who travel this journey, for it is one of the few drawbacks on the C. P. R. route that you generally pass through the finest scenery in British Columbia in the dead of night ; but surely this drawback can be and ought to be remedied. The continuous journey through the Rockies is like a surfeit of rich food : you can't digest it. To form anything like a conception of the scenery you should make several stop, pages during the journey at Banff, Field, the Glacier, &c., but circumstances forbade my doing this, and so I can only give you faint impressions of grand realities. Neither in Norway, nor in the Balkans, or even in the Alps, have I ever seen any other massing of mountains that give such a vivid revelation of the Homeric phrase, " Piling Pelion on Ossa with Olympus on the top of them." Those giants of 24 BRITISH COLUMBIA, ALASKA, the Rockies, like athletes in the circus, climb up on each other's shoulders until the topmost shoots his rigid head aloft and unites his virgin snow to the blue ethereal skies. Two days' continuous travelling up the sides of those giant mountains, and then right down into the depths of the canyons over some of the steepest grades on any railroad in the world, often looking down from the dizzy height on the rolling foaming torrents beneath — the continuous succes- sion of all this in the end so overwhelmed you that you almost lost the power of taking it in, and it was a positive relief when we at last reached level land again at the junction of the Thompson and Fraser rivers. After this description it is needless to add that Central British Columbia is not a country for colonists, except as lumberers and miners. While those rolling prairies that extend f^' thousands of miles from her eastern slopes are lil ly to become the garden of America and the granary of the world ; on the other hand, the Rocky Mountains will still retain their present characteristics and will still continue to be the refuge of the wild sheep and the grizzly bear and those other animals who now find their only rest in her primeval forests. It is but justice to British Columbia to further state that in the abundant fisheries along her coasts and in the level land along the course of the rivers, as well as in her mineral wealth, there are many most favourable openings for industrious settlers. Judging from the numbers of houses that are being built, I should think that skilled artizans would find abundance of work at remunerative wages at Vancouver ; and though its older neighbour Victoria is not so " go-ahead," yet it is one of the pleasantest places fi I AND THE LONDON ARTIZAN COLONY^. to reside in I have ever visited. These sister ftwns, though only a few miles of the sea divides them, are as different in their main charc.cteristics as if oceans lay between. The one is young, the other is old. The one is go-ahead with all the impetus of the American continent ; the other has an atmosphere of old-world quiet — it is the most English town out of England. A few years since, the town of Vancouver was a wild wilderness. Two years ago the devouring fire swept the then town off the face of earth, leaving just one house standing; but, phoenix- like, she rose up in renewed beauty from her ashes. Fresh blocks of buildings have been erected almost in the midst of the burning embers. Vancouver at the present time has over five thousand inhabitants ; and the Canadian and Pacific Hotel with all the bedrooms, with bath-rooms attached, with a menu that vies with that of the Windsor at Montreal, in. all the appliances and comforts of modern civilization justly claims to be second to no other hotel on the American continent. But, on the other hand, the older town of Victoria, on the other side of the water, has been keeping as quiet as a mouse, with her beautiful bays and her balmy sea-breezes, and the surrounding country a sort of mixture of Devonshire with Surrey. No wonder that this little town looks contented and happy ; and its special charm is that in Victoria you feel perfectly at home, because everything around you is so thoroughly English, from the rosy cheeks of the Httle children playing in the streets to the old- fashioned fireplace in your bedroom at the " Driard." This hotel, though taking its name from its French originator, is framed and modelled on the P^nglish type. There is an unpretentious bedroom, but it is scrupulously clean, and 26 BRITISH COLUMBIA, ALASKA, when you lie down you know that the bed is all right, for it sets you to sleep; and then when you dine there is no printed menu of numberless French-named dishes to puzzle you, but a quiet little dinner is set before you that makes you fancy the cook must have discovered the secret of your special likings, and unless you are dyspeptic and hypochon- driacal you must enjoy your food at the " Driard " : but, after all it is not so much the material food as the feeling that all parties concerned take a personal interest in promoting your comfort. While in the huge Continental Hotel, with its hundreds of bedrooms, you of necessity become a mere number, in the Driard you retain your identity. Every one in the hotel knows you by name and takes an interest in you. If you are willing to fall in with their old English ways, the staff of the hotel will meet you more than half- way, and make you feel perfectly at home in this oldest English town on the coast of the Pacific — Victoria, British Columbia. AND THE LONDON ARTIZAN CO. Juneau, Alaska, September 4, 1 888. On arrival at Victoria, I had the pleasure of meeting Colonel Stevens, the United States Consul, a most courteous gentleman, who spoke of the voyage to Alaska as a new- revelation in the regions of travel ; and if revelation means the making known of something of which we had no con- ception, then this word rightly expresses my present ex- periences. For the last ten days I have been in a state of continual wonderment, everything has been so contrary to my conceptions and expectations. Till the past week the geographical name of Alaska con- veyed to my mind the idea of barren rocks and stormy oceans, with variations of icy cold and fishy dampness. Within the last nine days we have steamed over twelve hundred miles through land-locked bays and narrow straits of crystal waters, that formed never-ending combinations of the scenery of the Norwegian fiords with that of the Therapia end of the Bosphorus, with a luxuriance of forest verdure that surpasses anything I have ever seen except in the tropics ; and then during almost the entire run of this water- way we have had a background of snow mountains and vast glaciers that, with the green foliage of the trees and the calm waters of those inland seas, form day by day endless panoramas of natural beauty to delight the heart of I i 28 BRITISH COLUMBIA, ALASKA, the artist, and to lead every believer to praise God for His goodness, and to declare the wonders that He doeth for the children of men. During the first week of the voyage we have had neither storm, nor wind, nor rain, nor unpleasantness of any kind. The air has been as balmy as in the south of Italy, with the breeziness of this more northern clime. There has been no excuse for even the most predisposed to fancy themselves sea-sick or anything of the kind. The table on board ship is excellent ; the captain, officers, and crew are kind and courteous and attentive ; and it is impossible to conceive a more enjoyable sea-trip — if it is right to give this title to a voyage where you never go into the open sea, but thread your way amid the innumerable .islands that extend from Puget Sound to the sixtieth degree of North Latitude. American geographers have set down the number of those islands at seventy thousand big, and little, Those islands abound with deer, wild-goats and bears, and small game of every kind, while the surrounding waters are alive with salmon, halibut, and other fishes. The Indians in those islands and along the coasts can procure their food with less trouble than any other people, civilized or savage, on the face of the earth. They can go out into the wood and shoot a deer or wild-goat whenever they please ; and with- out hook or line or any sporting appurtenance, the Indian just goes to the mouth of the nearest rivulet, and with a stick he knocks one of the multitudinous salmon on the head and brings him home to dinner. The wild-goats on those islands are as tame as sheep and as easily captured ; while the deer, when hunted by the bears, take to the water, where the Indians pursue them in their canoes and J) / f AND THE LONDON ARTIZAN COLON) catch them before they reach the land, so that ill those happy hunting-grounds the Indians can procure an abun- dant supply of venison without even firing a shot. I witnessed a deer hunt of this kind off one of the Prince Royal Islands. The animal was swimming to the opposite shore, with his whole body immersed, when the hunters caught sight of his head above the water, and off they dashed in quick pursuit. At first he held his own, and at one time there seemed a chance of his getting to the land before they could catch him ; but the poor deer got tired out, the canoe rapidly gained on him, and in the desperation of helplessness he turned round in the water and swam towards his pursuers, as it were appealing to them for mercy. I cannot help fancying that deer, like men, sometimes miscalculate the distance by water, and that many of them get drowned in the swift currents running between these islands. It is sad to think that in the face of all these natural ad- vantages the native Indian population is dying out along the coast of the Pacific, not from want of food, not from unhealthiness of climate, but from the loathsome contami- nation inflicted on those wretched heathen through contact with civilization falsely called Christian. I dare not foul my pen by describing the state of things amongst the Indian population at some of the Mining Stations on this coast. The Indian women and children who thronged the piers on the arrival of the steamboat reminded me of those I had once seen in a leper village of China. At this present time there is neither medical care or sanitary regulations, or preventive laws to repress the evil; and a profligacy that puts to shame the dogs in the streets, spreads J_,. 30 BRITISH. COLUMBIA, ALASKA, infectious disease like wildfire amongst those wretched creatures. It behoves the Governments of the United States and of Canada to look in the matter in their respective territories, otherwise the Indian difficulty will find an early solution in the disappearance of the whole nation, to the shame and disgrace of those Christian Governments who, in the sight of God, are responsible for their guardianship. On this point I am bound to add my convictions that the evil might be remedied. In fact the Rev. Mr. Duncan has made himself a power amongst the Indians by his successful efforts to preserve them from this foul contamina- tion, and I am told that the secret of his success is that he takes the law into his own hands. Being both magistrate as well as missionary, he gave a standing order to his native constables, on the arrival of any stranger in the village, to conduct him at once to the guest-house, where he was fed and lodged for the night without being permitted to go into the Indian houses or interfere with their domestic arrange- ments, and then if the stranger had no definite object in coming to the village, his departure the next morning was officially expedited. This has been strongly resented, and also misrepresented as an interference with the liberty of the subject ; but surely it is a parody on the phrase to apply it to those vile slaves who sacrifice their own souls and bodies as well as those of the Indians to the indulgence of devilish lust. When the Hon. Donald Smith was Governor of the Hudson's Bay Company, he made it penal to supply intoxicating drinks to the Indians in his territory, and that law has been productive of untold blessings to the prairie li AND T.IE LONDON ARTIZAN COLONY. 31 Indians. Why should not a similar prohibitive and penal law be passed against the other social evils which, with a more hideous and, if it were possible, with a more deadly destruction than even intoxicating drink, is corrupting and annihilating the manhood, the womanhood, and the childhood of the Indian race ? The result of Mr. Duncan's efforts in this direction has been that in the mines and cannaries along this Northern Pacific coast "Duncan's People" is a passport to con- fidential employment. Those who have been won over to the Christian faitlv through his ministry are broadly distinguished from the heathen Indians around them by their working energy and their domestic morality. I have not had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Duncan, and of the unhappy dispute that has arisen between him and the Bishop of New Caledonia I know nothing, therefore it would be most unseemly for me to say anything; but what- ever may be the merits of the case, his removal with all his Indians from Canadian to United States territory is an un- doubted calamity to the locality he has abandoned. However, Mr. Duncan has clearly laid down the lines on which those Indian Missions can be successfully worked, and it is to be hoped that those who take on his work will follow in his footsteps ; and I was very glad to find the Presbyterian Indian Mission at Sitka already doing so in their school — the boys are taught trades, and the girls are carefully trained in the performance of all household duties, and the result is those boys develop into skilled artizans, and the girls make excellent domestic servants. And there is one other thing that I may not omit, for it shows the I I I 11 !f BRITISH COLUMBIA, ALASKA, fatherly foresight of this Mission for the future of those children whom they have trained up in the faith. When the young men as artizans and the young women as servants have laid some little by, then they encourage them to marry by building them houses on the Mission grounds, which they allow them to have at a mere nominal rent. I went over several of those houses; they were all occupied by young couples, and as an illustration of this most satisfactory development of heathen boys and girls into Christian husbands and wives, I give you the history of the last of those households that I visited. Donald Austen and his wife Alice are full-blooded Indians. They were received into the Mission when they were very little children, and when Donald was bap- tized he was named after the resident missionary, the Rev. Mr. Austen. Donald has gone to the front — as a skilled cabinet-maker he can now earn very high wages ; and Alice has developed into one of those Indian women that Cooper loves to describe. A year ago they got married and took possession of their house. It is tidy, clean, and prettily papered and comfortably furnished, and eVery article in the sitting-room shows the taste and skill of the owner; and then to crown all the baby came three weeks ago, a perfect little beauty, and the only trouble is that Alice wanted the child baptized before he was a week old, and the missionary had some difficulty in persuading her to defer the ceremony a little longer. r •'4 AND THE LONDON ARTIZAN COLO « • % Sitka, Alaska, September 8, 1888. The previous part of my letter referred to the first seven days of our voyage ; yesterday a great change took place in both the weather and the scenery. The rain poured in torrents that reminded me of the tropics, and the dirty squally weather of this morning would do credit to the British Channel in the month of November ; nevertheless yesterday, taken alone, was ample recompense for all the expense and trouble of the voyage. At the entrance into Glacier Bay the green verdure and fresh foliage of the previous days entirely disappeared. Precipitous mountains in all the majesty of eternal barrenness shot their hoary heads into the clouds on our right hand and our left, while the whole expanse of waters as far as the eye could reach was covered with icebergs. All at once it became bitterly cold, and we seemed to be suddenly plunged into the Arctic regions. However, on went the good ship, cautiously threading her way so as to avoid collision with our fair friends the icebergs, which were rather eccentric in their movements and floated uncomfortably near us. However, the captain took it all as a matter of course, and never pulled bridle until we anchored close beside the great factory of the icebergs of the North Pacific Ocean. At its northern extremity, running down to the water edge, i I BRITISH COLUMBIA, ALASKA, is the huge glacier that gives its name to this bay. This glacier has been traced back sixty-five miles, and it probably extends four or five times that distance into the unknown continent. This glacier is the veritable factory of all the icebergs on the North Pacific — in fact we saw the manu- factory going on. First came an explosion like the sound of heavy cannon ; then we looked and saw the masses of hundreds of tons of ice, suddenly detaching themselves from the glacier, splash down into the sea, causing a huge wave that rolled our ship from one side to the other, occasion- ing just for a moment an uncomfortable feeling. We were anchored within two hundred yards of the glacier itself, and the variety and beauty of the prismatic colourings surpassed anything I had ever conceived ; the captain himself said he had never seen the colours to such advan- tage. We remained so long admiring it that the evening came on, with wind and rain, so we remained anchored all the night and heard the factory at full work just as I have described it. The next day we again threaded our way through the icebergs by the same way that we came, and reached Sitka late in the evening. Sitka was the earliest as well as the chief Russian settle- ment on the North American coast, and though they have now sold it to the United States, there are over two hundred Russians still in the place, with a Greek church and priest who renders the service in Sclavonic. I did myself the pleasure of calling on him, but as he could not speak a word of English, and I was in the same position as regards Russian, and there was no -nterpreter, I need not add our interview was short. I turned my steps to the Indian Mis- sion, where I met so much to interest me. The town itself I %i AND THE LONDON ARTIZAN COLONY. 35 I found the " most at homish " place out of Victoria. The scenery in its great and lonely beauty is unsurpassed even in this wonderful country, and lovers of nature or sportsmen could pass a month or two with real enjoyment in this old Russian settlement. I went out at four o'clock in the morning in die hope of falling in with a deer, but after a three hours' scramble through interminable jungle we saw neither hoof nor horn, and the only thing I brought back was a salmon I shot in the river: but this was a work of supererogation, for the salmon so abound that you can kick them out of the river with your boot, and the Indian who was with me knocked over one of them with a stone. It is impossible to convey to a European mind any conception of the teeming myriads of salmon on this North Pacific coast. It is a simple demonstration that seeing is believing. From what I have seen I am convinced that the seaboard of British Columbia and Alaska can afford an abundant fish supply to the whole world. I must now conclude, for I fear my letter is almost as long as the voyage I am just ending. However, if the perusal affords to the reader one hun- dredth part of the pleasure the voyage has given me, the end for which I have written it will be accomplished. N» 1 .~ - ■MM \ ' ; 36 BRITISH COLUMBIA, ALASKA, THE RETURN JOURNEY, AND VISIT TO THE SULPHUR SPRINGS AT BANF, THE SANA- TORIUM OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. On my return from Alaska, I found Victoria and the surrounding islands bathed in sunshine, and wearing that aspect of quiet loveliness that imparts to it such an English feeling and appearance. The same evening crossing the Georgian Sound to Vancouver, I rested for a couple of days, sleeping on land for the first time for nearly a month, and enjoying to the full the comfort and cleanliness and good food of the C. P. R. Hotel. In my previous letter I spoke of the rapid growth of this town, but as rapid growth conveys to many minds the idea of mushroom growth, let me add that solidity as well as rapidity is manifes' in the building of this city. In the main street of Vancouver I found massive blocks of buildings (some of them already inhabited), and in reply to my question, " Who has supplied all this money ? " I was astounded to hear that the builders and owners were Lord Durham, Lord Elphinstone, The Hon. Donald Smith, Lady Stephens, Lady Northcote, and 'Mr. Vanhorn. I give you those names, pretty much in the order in which their respective house property stands along the main street of Vancouver, as a proof that this is no ephemeral town of speculative contractors, but the solid foundations of a large and prosperous city being laid on the it AND THE LONDON AKTl/AN COLONY. ?o^ 37 shores of the Pacific, by men of substance and character, who know what they are about. Indeed, throughout the Canadian Dominion there is a prevalent conviction that Vancouver ere long will be both the commercial emporium of India, China and Japan, and also the imperial arsenal on the coast of the Pacific. For this latter purpose nature has peculiarly ada[)ted Treadvvell Pay, which is the most inland basin of the Vancouver inlet, lying some ten miles from the north end of the present town, and which could give shelter and anchorage to the fleets of the world. The whole locality reminds me very strongly of Sebastapol on an enlarged scale. Like Sebastopol, there is a very narrow entrance into Vancouver Bay, where heavy cannon placed in position would block the passage against the heaviest armoured ships afloat ; while in Treadwell Bay, ten miles farther up, with its background of impassable mountains and tangled forests, our fleets close to the arsenal would be free from molestation of every kind, and ready for action on a moment's notice, and at the same time enjoy inland facilities for drawing on the resources of Canada and the mother country, without hostile interference. Contrasting with those advantages of Vancouver's Bay the arsenal of Esquimault, within easy reach of which troops could successfully land at a dozen different points, so that if by any accident the hostile fleet of an enemy held possession of the open sea, the garrison and arsenal would be at the mercy of the enemy like a rat caught in a trap, truly it does seem like madness wasting money on this latter place, when the natural advantages of the former demonstrates, and the commercial interests of the country demand, that we should found and establish in Vancouver Bay an im- 38 BRITISH COLUMBIA, ALASKA, I I I ! perial arsenal, to protect the interest we have at stake, not only on the Pacific coast, but also in India, China, and the East, befitting the greatness of our world-wide dominion. On this important topic I write thus freely, for it is the duty of every loyal subject of our Queen tp strengthen the hands of the Executive in doing what is essential to the safety of the Empire, in spite of that inherent weakness of all constitutional governments, namely, the tendency of the political party in office to save money at all hazard by clap- trap and patchwork, to procrastinate everything like outlay except under the pressure of panic and public clamour. This is the simple reason why our prime ministers, chancellors of the exchequer, and lords of the admiralty are all such optimists as regards our naval and military defences, and the friendly disposition of foreign nations. They wish to put off heavy expenditure until some other party is in power. The fact is, our political parties are so evenly balanced, and Mammon amongst us is so universally worshipped, that while a Ministry that by hook or crook saves a penny in the pound income tax are regarded as if they were demi-gods ; on the other hand, if the Ministry of the day have 'Jtrength of character to incur those outlays that are essential to the safety of the Empire, they thereby give a handle to their political adversaries to hold them up to reprobation and to turn them out of office, unless they are sustained by the power of public opinion and the pntriotism of the nation at large. jtlowever, let me now leave this matter in more competent liands, and continue my return journey from the Pacific to the Atlantic. I took the occasion of my stay in Vancouver's to drive through the forest — a most delightful excursion — to r=rss. : at stake, ia, China, i^orld-wide I us freely, ur Queen oing what e of that :s, namely, Lve money )crastina^e ; of panic '. why our d lords of our naval of foreign mtil some :al parties us is so by hook regarded Ministry e outlays y thereby old them e, unless and the Dmpetent ^acific to icouver's sion — to • * AND THE LONDON ARTIZAN COLONY. Westminster, on the banks of the Frascr river, which, though distinguished from her elder sister on the banks of the Thames by the prefix of New, is really one of the most old- fashioned places in British Columbia. The genial kindness of those in New Westminster made me feel quite at home. I found the modern town abounding in rosy-faced children, as well as the most rosy pears and apples I have ever seen. They were all home products, and did credit to the British stock and parentage. I may also mention that, while at New Westminster, I was shown one of the oldest pieces of wood in the world, and also the noble peal of bells presented by the Baroness Burdett-Coutts to the cathedral. The piece of wood was taken out of the Chapel of Edward the Con- fessor in Westminster Abbey, and presented by Dean Stanley to the Dean and Chapter of New Westminster on the conse- cration of their cathedral. On the next morning I re- embarked on the Canadian and Pacific Railway, and never pulled bridle till we reached Banf, on the eastern slope of the Rockies, which seems likely ere long to become the great health and pleasure resort of the Canadian Dominions. Banf is the Aix-les-Bains of the New World. At the cave and the basin near the hotel, and at half a dozen other places, there are sulphur baths of every kind and sort that you can possibly want. Judging from the number of crutches hung all around, those sulphur springs must work veritable wonders. The only one for which 1 can vouch is that of a well-known solicitor of Winnipeg. He told me himself that he had arrived at the hotel, elever\ days before, so crippled with rheumatism that he could not move one leg before the other, and had to be helped upstairs from the hall to his bedroom ; and on the day before I left he piloted me during I )/ i 1 40 T/IJi LONDON ARTIZAN COLONY a long ride on horseback through mountain ravines and over a very rough country — he rode Hke a troo^'Tr, and seemed sound and well. However, it is not its healing waters, but its beauteous scenery that gives its special charm to this Alpine valley. Every ride and walk you take discloses such endless combi- nations of wood and water, mountain and valley, that the lover of nature is kept in a state of constant exhilaration. And then, though last not least, comes the hotel itself. Every bedroom has its own bath-room, and as 1 passed from the open hall, with its medieval fireplace, into the brilliant dining- room with its electric lights, and then, after an excellent dinner, rested in the drawing-room and listened to music familiar from childhood, I never felt so much at home in an hotel in my life ; in fact it seemed as if some philanthropic fairy must have suddenly erected a palace of loveliness in this valley of Rasselas, instead of being the prosaic work of the Canadian and Pacific Railway. I have never visited any place where I should prefer to spend a holiday of a fortnight or three weeks ; but the yearning for home was so strong upon me that, after three days, I again mounted the iron * horse, pnd, after passing through prairies and forests and crossing the Atlantic for the eighth time without misadven- ture or acciderjit, I find myself, through' God's love, once again safe at home. i;n\vin dkotueks, the gkissham j-kess, ciih.wokth and London. '