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Travel a thousand miles up
a great river; more than another thousand along great lakes and a
succession of smaller lakes; a thousand miles across rolling prairies;
and another thousand through woods and over three great ranges of
mountains, and you have travelled from Ocean to Ocean through Canada. All
this Country is a single Colony of the British Empire; and this Colony is
dreaming magnificent dreams of a future when it shall be the "Greater
Britain," and the highway across which the fabrics and products of Asia
shall be carried, to the Eastern as well as to the Western sides of the
Atlantic. Mountains were once thought to be effectual barriers against
railways, but that day has gone by; and, now that trains run between San
Francisco and New York, over summits of eight thousand two hundred feet,
it is not strange that they should be expected soon to run between
Victoria and Halifax, over a height of three thousand seven hundred feet.
At any rate, a Canadian Pacific Railway has been undertaken by the
Dominion; and, as this book consists of notes made in connection with the
survey, an introductory chapter may be given to a brief history of the
project.
For more than a quarter of
a century before the Atlantic was connected by rail with the Pacific
public attention had been frequently called, especially in the great
cities of the United States, to the commercial advantage and the political
necessity of such connection; but it was not till 1853 that the Secretary
of War was authorized by the President to employ topographical engineers
and others "to make explorations and surveys, and to ascertain the most
practicable and economical route for a railroad from the Mississippi River
to the Pacific Ocean." From that time the United States Government sent a
succession of well-equipped parties to explore the western half of the
Continent. The reports and surveys of these expeditions fill thirteen
large quarto volumes, richly embellished, stored with valuable information
concerning the country, and honestly pointing out that, west of the
Mississippi Valley, there were vast extents of desert or semi-desert, and
other difficulties so formidable as to render the construction of a
railroad well nigh impracticable. Her Majesty's Government aware of this
result, and aware, also, that there was a "fertile belt," of undefined
size, in the same longitude as the Great American Desert, but north of the
forty-ninth degree of latitude, organized an expedition, under Captain
Palliser, in 1857, to explore the country between the west of Lake
Superior and the Rocky Mountains; and also "to ascertain whether any
practicable pass or passes, available for horses, existed across the Rocky
Mountains within British Territory, and south of that known to exist
between Mount Brown and Mount Hooker," known as the "Boat Encampment
Pass." It was unfortunate that the limitation expressed in this last
clause, was imposed on Captain Palliser, for it prevented him from
exploring to the north of Boat Encampment, and reporting upon the "Yellow
Head Pass," which has since been found so favourable for the Railway and
may soon be used as the "gateway" through the mountains to British
Columbia and the Pacific. The difficulties presented by passes further
south, and by the Selkirk Mountains, led Palliser to express an opinion
upon the passage across the Mountains as hasty and inaccurate as his
opinion, about the possibility of connecting Ontario or Quebec with the
Red River and Saskatchewan Country is now found to be. After stating that
his expedition had made connection between the Saskatchewan Plains and
British Columbia, without passing through United States Territory, he
added,—"Still the knowledge of the country, on the whole, would never lead
me to advise a line of communication from Canada, across the Continent to
the Pacific, exclusively through British Territory. The time has forever
gone by for effecting such an object; and the unfortunate choice of an
astronomical boundary line has completely isolated the Central American
possessions of Great Britain from Canada in the east, and also almost
debarred them from any eligible access from the Pacific Coast on the
west." The best answer to this sweeping opinion, is the "Progress Report"
on the Canadian Pacific Railway exploratory survey, presented to the House
of Commons, in Ottawa, in the Session 1872, in which the advantages of the
Yellow Head Pass over every other approach to the Pacific are shown; and
as complete an answer to the second part will be furnished in the Report
to be presented in the spring of 1873. The journals of Captain Palliser's
explorations, extending over a period of four years, from 1857 to 1860,
were printed in extenso by Her Majesty's Government in a large "Blue
Book," and shared the fate of all blue books. There are, probably, not
more than half a dozen copies in the Dominion. A copy in the Legislative
Library at Ottawa is the only one known to the writer. They deserved a
better fate, for his own notes and the reports of his associates,
Lieutenant Blakiston, Dr. Hector, M. Bourgeau and Mr. Sullivan, are
replete with useful and interesting facts about the soil, the flora, the
fauna, and the climate of the plains and the mountains. M. Bourgeau was
the botanist of the expedition. On Mr. Sullivan, an accomplished
mathematician and astronomical observer and surveyor, devolved the
principal labors of computation. Dr. Hector, to whose exertions the
success of the expedition was chiefly owing, had the charge of making the
maps, both geographical and geological; and, whenever a side journey
promised any result, no matter how arduous or dangerous it might be, Dr.
Hector was always ready. His name is still revered in our North-west, on
account of his medical skill and his kindness to the Indians, and most
astonishing tales are still told of his travelling feats in mid-winter
among the mountains.
After printing Captain
Palliser's journal, Her Majesty's Government took no step to connect the
East of British America with the Centre and the West, or to open up the
North-west to emigration, although it had been clearly established that we
had a country there, extending over many degrees of latitude and
longitude, with a climate and soil equal to that of Ontario. In the
meantime, the people of the United States, with characteristic energy,
took up the work that was too formidable for their government.
Public-spirited men, in Sacramento and other parts of California, embarked
their all in a project which would make their own rich State the link
between the old farthest East and the Western World on both sides of the
Atlantic. The work was commenced on the east and west of the Rocky
Mountains. Congress granted extraordinarily liberal subsidies in lands and
money, though in a half sceptical spirit, and as much under the influence
of "Rings" as of patriotism. When the member for California was urging the
scheme with a zeal that showed that he honestly believed in it, Mr.
Lovejoy, of Illinois, could not help interjecting, "Does the honorable
member really mean to tell me he believes that that road will ever be
built?" "Pass the Bill, and it will be constructed in ten years," was the
answer. In much less than the time asked for it was constructed, and it is
at this day as remarkable a monument to the energy of our neighbours as
the triumphant conclusion of their civil war, or the re-building of
Chicago. Three great ranges of mountains had to be crossed, at altitudes
of eight thousand two hundred and forty, seven thousand one hundred and
fifty, and seven thousand feet; snow-sheds and fences to be built along
exposed parts, for miles, at enormous expense; the work, for more than a
thousand miles, to be carried on in a desert, which yielded neither wood,
water, nor food of any kind. No wonder that the scheme was denounced as
impracticable and a swindle. But its success has vindicated the wisdom of
its projectors; and now no fewer than four different lines are organized
to connect the Atlantic States with the Pacific, and to divide with the
Union and Central Pacific Railways, the enormous and increasing traffic
they are carrying.
While man was thus
triumphing over all the obstacles of nature in the Territory of the United
States, how was it that nothing was attempted farther north in British
America, where a "fertile belt" stretches west to the base of the Rocky
Mountains, and where the mountains themselves are pierced by river-passes
that seem to offer natural highways through to the Ocean? The North
American Colonies were isolated from each other; the North-west was kept
under lock and key by the Hudson Bay Company; and though some ambitious
speeches were made, some spirited pamphlets written, and Bulwer Lytton, in
introducing the Bill for the formation of British Columbia as a Province,
saw, in vision, a line of loyal Provinces, from the Atlantic to the
Pacific, the time had not come for "a consummation so devoutly to be
wished." Had the old political state of things continued in British
America, nothing would have been done to this day. But, in 1867, the
separate Colonies of Canada, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, became the
Dominion of Canada in 1869 the Hudson Bay Company's rights to the
North-west were bought up; and, in 1871, British Columbia united itself to
the new Dominion; and thus the whole mainland of British America became
one political State under the aegis of the Empire. One of the terms on
which British Columbia joined the Dominion was, that a railway should be
constructed within ten years from the Pacific to a point of junction with
the existing railway systems in the Provinces of Ontario and Quebec, and
surveys with this object in view were at once instituted.
What did this preparatory
survey-work in our case mean? It meant that we must do, in one or two
years, what had been done in the United States in fifty. To us the ground
was all new. None of our public men had ever looked much beyond the
confines of their particular Provinces; our North-west, in some parts of
it, was less an unknown land to the people of the States along the
boundary line than to the people of the Dominion; and, in other parts, it
was unknown to the whole world. No white man is known to have crossed from
the Upper Ottawa to Lake Superior or Lake Winnipeg. There were maps of the
country, dotted with lakes and lacustrine rivers here and there; but these
had been made up largely from sketches, on bits of birch-bark or paper,
and the verbal descriptions of Indians; and, as the Indian has little or
no conception of scale or bearings; as in drawing the picture of a lake,
for instance, when his sheet of paper was too narrow, he would, without
warning, continue the lake up or down the side; an utterly erroneous idea
of the surface of the country was given. A lake was set down right in the
path of what otherwise was an eligible line, and, after great expense had
been incurred, it was found that there was no lake within thirty miles of
the point. In a word, the country between Old Canada and Red River was
utterly unknown, except along the canoe routes travelled by the Hudson Bay
men north-west of Lake Superior. Only five or six years since, a lecturer
had to inform a Toronto audience that he had discovered a great lake,
called Nepigon, a few miles to the north of Lake Superior. When so little
was known, the task was no light one. Engineers were sent out into
trackless, inhospitable regions, obliged to carry their provisions on
their backs over swamps, rocks, and barriers, when the Indians failed
them, to do their best to find out all they could, in as short a time as
possible.
Far different was it with
our neighbours. They could afford to spend, and they did spend, half a
century on the preparatory work. Their special surveys were aided and
supplemented by reports and maps extending back over a long course of
years, drawn up, as part of their duty, by the highly educated officers of
their regular army stationed at different posts in their Territories.
These reports, as well as the unofficial narratives of missionaries,
hunters, and traders, were studied, both before and after being
pigeon-holed in Washington. The whole country had thus been gradually
examined from every possible point of view; and, among other things, this
thorough knowledge explains the success of the United States' Government
in all its treaty-making with Great Britain, when territory was concerned.
The history of every such treaty between the two Powers is the history of
a contest between knowledge and ignorance. The one Power always knew what
it wanted. It therefore presented, from the first step in the negotiation
to the last, a firm and apparently consistent front. The other had only a
dim notion that right was on its side, and a notion, equally dim, that the
object in dispute was not worth contending for.
Was it wise, then, for the
Dominion to undertake so gigantic a public work at so early a stage in its
history? It was wise, because it was necessary. By uniting together, the
British Provinces had declared that their destiny was—not to ripen and
drop, one by one, into the arms of the Republic—but to work out their own
future as an integral and important part of the grandest Empire in the
world. They had reason for making such an election. They believed that it
was better for themselves and for their neighbours; better for the cause
of human liberty and true progress, that it should be so. But it is not
necessary to discuss the reasons. No outside power has a right to
pronounce upon them. The fact is enough, that, on this central point, the
mind of British America, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, is fixed. But,
to be united politically and disunited physically, as the different parts
of Prussia were for many a long year, is an anomaly only to be endured so
long as it could not be helped; and when, as in our case, the remedy is in
our own hands, it is wise to secure the material union as soon as
possible.
On the twentieth of July,
1871, British Columbia entered the Dominion. On the same day surveying
parties left Victoria for various points of the Rocky Mountains, and from
the Upper Ottawa westward, and all along the line surveys were commenced.
Their reports were laid before the Canadian House of Commons in April,
1872. In the summer of the same year, Sandford Fleming, the Engineer in
Chief, considered it necessary to travel overland, to see the main
features of the country with his own eyes, and the writer of these pages
accompanied him, as Secretary. The expedition started from Toronto on July
16th, and on October 14th, it left Victoria, Vancouver's Island "on the
home stretch." During those three months a diary was kept of the chief
things we saw or heard, and of the impressions which we formed respecting
the country, as we journeyed from day to day and conversed with each other
on the subject. The diary was not written for publication, or, if printed
at all, was to have been for private circulation only. This will explain
the little personal details that occur through it; for allusions and
incidents that the public rightly consider trivial, are the most
interesting items to the private circle. But those who had a right to
speak in the matter said that the notes contained information that would
be of interest to the general public, and of value to intending
immigrants. They are therefore presented to the public, and they are given
just as they were written so that others might see, as far as possible, a
photograph of what we saw and thought from day to day. A more readable
book could have been made by omitting some things, coloring others, and
grouping the whole; but, as already explained, the object was not to make
a book. The expedition had special services to perform in connection with
one of the most gigantic public works ever undertaken in any country by
any people; it was organized and conducted in a business-like way, in
order to get through without disaster or serious difficulty; it did not
turn aside in search of adventures or of sport; and therefore an 'exciting
narrative of hair-breadth escapes and thrilling descriptions of "men whose
heads do grow beneath their shoulders" need scarcely be expected. |
