Kitabı oku: «Pictures of Canadian Life: A Record of Actual Experiences», sayfa 7
CHAPTER IX.
IN THE ROCKIES – HOLT CITY – LIFE IN THE CAMP – A ROUGH RIDE – THE KICKING HORSE LAKE – BRITISH COLUMBIA
I am writing from Holt City – so named after a famous contractor out here – in the middle of the Rocky Mountains. Here the rail comes, but no further, as yet, though some 2,000 men are at work a few miles ahead, and making incredible speed in the construction of this gigantic intercolonial undertaking – an undertaking which would have been completed by this time had the late Sir Hugh Allan (the founder of the Allan line of steamers) and Sir John Macdonald had their way.
I left Calgary without shedding a tear – the train was only three hours late – after remarking to the manager of the leading hotel that, much as I had enjoyed myself under his humble but hospitable roof, I would give him leave to charge me twenty dollars a day if ever he caught me within his doors again.
When the train arrived, of course there was no room. This is the working season, and the C.P.R., as everyone calls it in Canada, is hurrying on men to the front as fast as they can be got.
However, I was permitted to get inside the mail van, in company with a contractor, his wife, and a baby, which behaved itself as well as could be expected under the circumstances; a lady who was going to visit her husband, one of the contractors on the line; and an invalid from Pennsylvania, who did not seem much to enjoy that rough mode of travelling. We reached Holt City about eleven, when it was quite dark, and the only bed I could find was a shelf in the van, on which I was glad to lie down – but not, alas! to sleep. Had I got out, I should have been lost, or run over by an engine – that is positive, as there is no road, only divers rails, as, for instance, the Continental Hotel at Newhaven. I am now writing in the post-office, which seems the great social centre of the place, though the mail only leaves twice a week. It is a decent-sized tent, with a desk and counter in the middle for the sale of stamps and cigars and the delivery of letters. Behind it are a couple of beds on which men are reposing in a way that I envy, and covered with buffalo skins – the possession of which I envy them still more. In front is a table, fitted up with old papers and a couple of uncommonly uncomfortable benches, whereon are sitting various loafers, smoking and talking, and warming themselves as best they can at the big stove – one of which you now see in every Canadian house, and which but feebly keeps out the raw cold of the morning.
Holt City is admirably located, to use an American phrase which I heartily detest. It is a clearance in the forest, bordered by the Bow River, which dashes foaming along. There is a shed, which does duty for a railway station; a collection of tents, in which the employés of the company dwell, or which hold the large stores it collects here; a large shed for meals, a railway car, in which Mr. John Ross, the able administrator of the C.P.R. in these parts, resides with his accomplished wife; and further off are other tents, which do duty as hotels, billiard-rooms, and shops. Up here, I see little to remind me of the Old Country, except bottles of Stephens’ inks, of Aldersgate Street, London, which, says the head accountant, are the only inks on which they can rely.
We are in a valley – a valley high up among the mountains – as fair as that in which Rasselas studied to be a virtuous prince, but of a character common in the length and breadth of the Rockies. I have seen scores of valleys as fair; and yet I own the exquisite loveliness of the spot – at any rate, in summer time – is marvellous. Around me rise Alps on Alps, up into the cloudless blue. Firs, all larch and pine, in all the freshness of their new-found greenery, clothe their base; while the snow, in wreaths like marble, glistens on their dark sides or crowns their rugged peaks. It would seem as if there could be no world beyond. It is really wonderful what pleasant nooks of this kind one sees everywhere. I stopped at one such last night, a station called Canmore, which, however, seemed to be the fairest of them all – and so the fish think, as the station-master tells me he often catches speckled trout seven or eight pounds in weight. Very near are valuable sulphur and other springs, and when the railway shall be completed, I look forward to the time when Pullman cars shall come here laden with health seekers from all parts of the world, who are fond of fishing and fine air.
I had a narrow escape from not coming here at all. When we stopped at Canmore for our evening meal, I found I was utterly unable to climb back into the mail van. I may be young in heart, but, alas! I have lost somewhat of the agility of early youth. I mentioned this to the station-master and guard, who both promised me repeatedly that they would have the train drawn up for me. Knowing this, I listened unconcernedly to the cry of ‘All on board!’ Judge, then, of my horror when I saw the train gradually gliding past.
‘Jump into the last car,’ cried the guard, as he saw me looking daggers at him.
Fortunately I succeeded in doing so: it is easier to get on to an American car when in motion than on an English one, on account of its peculiar construction. This is fortunate, as the railway passenger in Canada has to trust entirely to himself. He is ignored by guards and porters and station-master altogether. Unfortunately, I jumped on to the car sacred to the person of Sir John McNeil, and I was requested by the black cook to move off, which I declined doing till we reached the next station, when I moved into another car, and created not a little laughter as I told my story. It is to be trusted that Sir John enjoyed himself all the more for having got rid of my vulgar presence. I hope Sir John may enlighten his friends on his return; but I fear he will gain little knowledge of the people or the country, travelling in such a way. Perhaps he will learn as much about it as the Marquis of Lorne, or the Earl of Carnarvon, who recommends the poor people of the East-end to come to Canada, where the chances are they will be worse off than they are at home. Canada requires hardy, muscular men – if with money in their pockets so much the better – not the refuse of our towns.
Again, I repeat, people in England ought to have fuller information about Canada ere they go thither. It is a fortune for the strong man, but even he has to run risks. Everywhere I hear of what is called mountain fever, or Red River fever, or fever with some other name which stands for typhoid disease. Grand and beautiful as is the country, fertile as is the soil, people forget to observe sanitary laws at times and suffer in consequence. But I must own that all the men I met in Holt City were pictures of health and strength. For one thing, the company feeds them well. I have just breakfasted in camp with the men. We had good coffee and fried ham and other good things for breakfast, and good tins of preserved fruits, to which everyone did justice. Everyone here has to rough it. I washed this morning in the open air, having myself ladled into a tin basin the water out of a cask in which still floated the broken ice.
Holt City is, I suppose, the head-quarters of the C.P.R. Yet it is a place by itself. Nothing can be rougher than the rail from here to Calgary, or finer than the view. It is an advantage that the trains are so slow, as you have more time to enjoy the scenery, which has almost shaken my attachment to the Hebrides, though one misses the purple heather which lends such a charm to the grey hills of the North. But comparisons are odious, and the Rockies, in all their charms, must be seen to be appreciated. It was a wonderful view I had last night as I sat on the steps of the last car, drinking in all the strange beauties of the place. We were climbing hour by hour a wilderness of mountains. We were hemmed in by them from afternoon till night came down upon the face of the earth. Mostly they were black, with snowy variations; some were bare, others clothed with verdure. Some raised their heads in the clear blue sky as fortresses, others were peaks, others ragged and uneven, shapeless masses of matter growing out of one another. Some seemed to like good company, others stood solitary and apart.
In the dells and shadows there are tales yet to be told. For instance, here are some remains of the ancient road to British Columbia. Here, a man tells me, last year there was a terrible tragedy. An English gentleman and his son were camping near the spot. There came a forest fire. Awful to relate, when the son had time to look around him, his father was burnt to death. Fearful are some of the solitudes through which the passenger plunges. The bear and the eagle have them entirely to themselves. Few have explored them; fewer still have scaled the mountain heights by which they are girdled. But nowadays one is in search of silver or gold or coal, and has no time to think of mountain grandeur. Cities rise and fall very quickly here. Silver City, for instance, where we stopped last night, was all the rage a year or two ago. It is now deserted. Yet people say silver is still to be found there, and at Calgary, as an illustration of the fact, a ‘prospector’ showed me a fine specimen of silver, at the same time asking me to come and see the shaft. I replied I was as fond of silver as he was, but I sought it in another way.
But to return to the Rockies. I wonder not that in times past the Indians saw in them the home of the gods, or that there the scientist discovers in them the source of the whirlwind or the storm.
I am again train-bound. No one knows when we may have a train from the east, and till we have one it is impossible for me to get away. Physically, perhaps, this is a good thing for me, as it enables me to recuperate. Here I am, 5,000 or 6,000 feet above the level of the sea, breathing mountain air, and luxuriating in mountain scenery. Last night I slept in a caboose, and it was the best night’s rest I have had for a long time. I went to bed at nine and was up again at five. Do my readers know what a caboose is? It is a railway luggage-car on wheels. Mine is rather a superior one, and has an upper and a lower chamber, and has in the upper chamber a row of shelves, which do service as beds. I had one of these to myself, and, as I was well provided with blankets, did not much grieve at the absence of linen sheets.
My dear old friend, Mrs. Moodie, wrote a capital book, called ‘Roughing It in the Bush.’ Assuredly I may, one of these days, write one on roughing it in the Rockies, though the keeper of the caboose, out of respect for my age and infirmities, does all he can to make me comfortable. Already I feel the better for the air. For the first time since I have been in Canada I have felt hungry; for the first time, also, since I have been in Canada I have not had to physic myself with chlorodyne. A month up here in the Rockies would make a young man of me or of anyone else. I must be off before I become as gay as a horse fed on beans. This is, I take it, the real and sufficient reason of the peculiar spirits of the mountaineers, who rather alarmed me with their liveliness at Calgary. Their exuberance is due to air, and air alone. As I sit, a long row of mules files past; a man is riding at the head, the others follow with their burdens packed on their backs. He is a ‘prospector,’ and is on his way to the other side. Already as many as a thousand such have gone the same road this summer.
The mountains are full of wealth – in the shape of gold or silver, or coal or slate, or other precious commodities. Hitherto the cost of conveyance has kept people away. The opening of the C.P.R. will remove that inconvenience. They will have a chance now of getting rid of their minerals, when discovered, and of fetching up their stores from the East at less expense. As it is, things are dear enough in Holt City. For instance, if I send or receive a letter, I have to pay the postmaster a few cents in addition to the usual postage-stamp. Calgary I thought bad enough, but up here prices may be quoted as much higher. Yesterday I had a ride over the mountains. It will be long before I take such a ride again. No English coachman would drive such a road for five hundred a year. No English carriage could stand it, nor English horses either. I expected the buggy, as it was called, to be shattered into atoms every minute – it looked so light and frail, and the horses – a handsome pair, the property of Mr. Ross – to be ruined for life; yet we got safely to the front – where the men are hard at work cutting down trees, removing earth, tunnelling, and pushing on the work with all their might; and there, I must say, there are openings for any number of men who like to come out. Last year little was done in the winter, because the contractors believed the climate would be against them. No one before then had wintered in the Rockies, and everyone believed the climate to be much worse than it really is.
But to return to the ride. I yet feel it in every bone in my body, as all the time I had to hold on to my seat like grim death. Sometimes the coachman was high above me; sometimes I was at the top and he at the bottom; now we were deep in the mud, the next moment high and dry on a formidable boulder, bigger than a hogshead, and came down with a bang, which sent me quivering all over. Here we were with the water up to the floor; and then we came on a mudbank quite as deep. Not an inch of the ground was level. It was all collar work or the reverse. Fortunately we were shaded by the firs which climb all the mountains out here, or the heat would have been unbearable. As to conversation, that was quite out of the question, though the ‘boy’ who drove me came when a child from Devonshire, and had a strong wish to see the old country again, of whose lanes, yellow with primroses, and cottages bright with roses and honeysuckles, and farmhouses green with ivy, he had a very vivid recollection. He made a lot of money, he said. Indeed, he had more than he knew what to do with. Last winter, for instance, he stopped a month in Winnipeg, and spent there four hundred dollars. ‘How did it all go?’ ‘Oh! in treating the boys!’ was his answer. I rather intimated that was a poor way of using his money. ‘Oh!’ said he, ‘they all do it. That is the way of the boys in this country!’ I was glad to hear him say that he thought of taking a farm soon, and was putting by the money for that purpose. The Rocky Mountains cannot be a bad place for a ‘boy.’ One of them yesterday told me how he had vainly written to his father to come out, who was now in the old country breaking stones on the road. Here, at any rate, he would have been better off. It is a long journey, I know, for the British emigrant. We are more than 1,000 miles from Winnipeg, and the ride is a dreary one till you reach the Rockies. The run to Winnipeg from Toronto by Port Arthur and Owen Sound is a real enjoyment. It took us two days and two nights to reach Port Arthur from Toronto, and the trip from Port Arthur to Winnipeg is accomplished easily in twenty hours.
‘Any bears about here?’ said I to the ‘boy,’ in one of the few minutes allowed for conversation in the course of our rough ride yesterday.
‘Not many. I seed one near where we are passing. He was a black bear, and stood up and looked at me, and then I looked at him. I wished I’d had a gun, and then I would have shot him.’
Fortunately I saw no bear, black or brown, in the woods as we drove amongst them; scarcely a bird – only one, an owl I think, on the top of a tree, which never moved, though we were close upon it. ‘Do you make any difference in work on Sunday?’ I asked of one of the men. ‘Oh no; Sunday ain’t of much account here.’ This is to be regretted, if only for physical considerations. Everyone can work all the better for a day of rest. Again, I think the C.P.R. injures itself in this way, that it may lose the services of useful men who like to keep the Sabbath, either from physical or religious considerations. As a matter of fact, I found many did take a rest on Sunday, and it was amusing to see how the morning was devoted to haircutting and shaving and mending clothes in the open air. A man, I know, can spend his Sunday at honest work better than in drinking. But when we think of the wild life of the miners and navvies in the ends of the earth – a life so wild that the C.P.R. has got a law passed to forbid the sale of intoxicating drink, and people are appalled when they read, in spite of the law, whisky is supplied to men who have a large number of revolvers at their side – it seems that a little provision might be made for the religious wants of the community. The philosopher will laugh, I admit. My reply is: Men were lifted out of degradation by the Christian religion in some form or other, and as we root that out we may expect society to retrograde. These men to the front will pay for looking after. They are fine fellows mostly. At any rate, they are the pioneers of modern civilization, and should be reverenced as such. They are to be honoured for their work’s sake. They plant, we gather the fruit. They sow the seed, we reap the harvest, and their work remains a monument of perseverance, of the benefits of the Union, of enterprise, and capital and skill. That Canada has thus carried the railway and the telegraph across the Rockies shows that England and America will have to look to their industrial laurels.
I am alive, I am thankful to say; but it seems to me that I should have left my bones on the Kicking Horse Lake, which lies on the slope of the Rockies, situated in British Columbia, where the scenery becomes grander and the air balmier as it comes up laden with the soft breeze of the Pacific. You see that at once in the superior size of the trees which clothe the sides of that part of the Rockies.
As far as what the navvies call the front, I had the benefit of the temporary railway by which Mr. Ross sends his labourers. It is then the great difficulties of the work commence, as the rocks are tremendous, and one of the tunnels making will be three-quarters of a mile long.
This hot weather I can scarce imagine how the men and horses stand the work; of the former, some were digging, others cutting down the trees, others removing rocks, others filling up the swamps. Here the waggons were being laden with stores to be sent further to the front; now and then a long trail of mules sweeps by with miners and miners’ stores, and I plunge into the forest, shaded from the fierce sun by the tall firs, and as I struggle in the swamps caused by the melting snows, I can realize something of the hardships of the early travellers – hardships of which the tourist, when the rail is completed, will have no idea, though he will be a little alarmed as the mountains drop away beneath his feet for more than a hundred miles to the Columbia river, while the narrow track of rails winds along its sides. In the winter this pass, when covered with snow, is very dangerous, and many are the mules and horses dashed to pieces over the precipice.
The lake, when I reach it, is full of ice and snow, and all round the mountains rear their snow-capped heads. One of the peculiarities of this region is the abundance of water in some shape or other, and the shadows on the lakes reflect as a mirror all the surrounding scene – the dark forest at the base, the masses of slate-like rock above, the snow in all its radiant white higher up, the unclouded azure that crowns and glorifies all.
Heated and tired, I throw myself on the moss, and realize, in all its intensity, the appalling loneliness of forest life – I startle three wild ducks, that is all. Down on my left comes the rushing torrent in a series of picturesque waterfalls into the lake. I climb the mountain by the side of them. The water sends to me an ice-laden air, which revives me as I struggle upwards and onwards, watching the whirlpools and cascades as the water angrily struggles to force its way through the iron barriers by which it is hemmed in. I secure a fine specimen of petrified moss from a stream close by. But I may not linger. Already I feel weak as I plunge into the frozen snow, or sink where the sun has melted it into morass, or stumble over an old moss-grown trunk, or climb the big trunks which the axeman has already levelled, or pass the streams which intersect the plain on logs off which I expect to slip every moment. Then I come to the railway men, and avail myself of the imperfect and unconnected track which they have formed; but now the sun beats fiercely on me, and I can scarcely put one foot before another. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. Fortunately, I reach the tent of a good Samaritan. I refresh myself with water from the crystal stream. I lunch on bread and cheese, with tea kindly fetched from the company’s hut, but I have to lie down three hours before I feel myself equal to urging on my wild career again.
British Columbia seems at present to be chiefly occupied by miners. No other kind of emigrants are needed there. The country is mountainous – a regular sea of mountains; but, writes an occasional correspondent of The Toronto Mail, ‘there are beautiful valleys, far surpassing anything you have in Ontario, and the mountains and hills furnish pasture. Considering the climate, the rich soil, and the high price paid for all farming produce, I believe there cannot be a more desirable place for the farmer. I have no hesitation in saying that a farm of fifty acres is worth more than a hundred in the East. All you have to do is to sow your land with good seed and you are sure of a bountiful return. No weevil, midge, wire-worm, potato bug, nor, in fact, any farmers’ pests, exist here. There are no scorching hot days and sultry nights; no heavy frost or deep snow to impede work; consequently you are not driven like a slave for six months and frozen in for the other six, but have steady work all the year round.’
Other writers bear a similar testimony. With all its advantages, however, the country has one drawback – the scarcity and high price of labour. It seems well looked after by the Episcopalians, who have a Bishop here and several clergymen, and, as I may suppose the other denominations are equally in earnest and equally active, it is clear settlers may enjoy the advantages of the forms of religious life with which they are familiar, and under which they have been reared.
British Columbia, which entered the Canadian Confederation in 1871, is the most westerly of the Canadian Provinces. It has a coast-line on the Pacific Ocean of about 600 miles, that is, in a straight line. If its almost innumerable indentations and bays were measured, the coast-line would extend to several thousands of miles.
The area of the Province, according to the Census measurement, is 341,305 square miles. Its position on the American continent is one of great commercial importance, and its resources are in keeping with its position. If it were to be described from the characteristics of its climate, its mineral wealth, and its natural commercial relations, it might be said to be the Great Britain and California combined of the Dominion of Canada.
The Province is divided into two parts: the Islands, of which Vancouver is the principal, and the Mainland. Vancouver is about 300 miles long, with an average breadth of about sixty miles, containing an area of about 20,000 square miles.
British Columbia has numerous harbours and rivers, some of which are of importance, and all are remarkable for their bountiful, in fact wonderful, supplies of fish. The scenery which it possesses is magnificently beautiful.
The climate on the coast is more equable and much milder in winter than in any other part of Canada; but as the mountains are ascended, greater cold prevails, with more snow, and the characteristics of greater dryness of atmosphere which mark the climate of the interior of the continent are found.
The population of British Columbia, by the Census of 1881, did not exceed 49,459, of which 25,661 were Indians. This comparatively sparse population is due to the hitherto isolated position of the Province; but now that railway communication between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans through the Dominion of Canada is being rapidly pushed forward to completion by a route which offers the easiest gradients and the most important natural commercial advantages of any possible line across the continent of America, the inducements the Province offers to settlers are beginning to attract the attention, as well of the emigrating classes of the Old World, as of the migrating classes of this continent; and population is already beginning to flow rapidly in. It is beyond doubt that the percentage of increase which will be shown at the next decennial Census will be a statistical fact to excite men’s wonder. Its fisheries, its forests, its mineral resources, will provide work for thousands who are starving at home. And it will be easily reached when the Canadian Pacific Railway is completed.
I have now reached the end of my journey, and I sum up my emigration experiences. The emigrant, if strong and industrious, and ready to take advantage of opportunities, and not averse to roughing it, will be sure to find work; but he must be shy, if he has cash, of land schemers, and I would advise him, if he thinks of settling, not to be in a hurry about it, but to take time to look around. I have seen as fine farming country as anywhere in the world. I have seen other parts where no one can get a living. Amongst the emigrants I see many who must succeed anywhere, and many who will go to the wall wherever they may be.
Let me give you another illustration of the bursting of an emigration scheme. The London dailies often have advertisements offering for a certain bonus to provide young men with homes where farming in all its branches is taught. The London (Ont.) papers tell how a number of young fellows have been taken in in this way. They paid the advertisers sums from thirty pounds upwards, in addition to their passage money, the consideration being that on their arrival in Ontario they were to be placed on farms and kept there at the agent’s expense. Of course, when they reached their journey’s end, no farmers were to be found. If a young Englishman wishes to try farming in Canada, he cannot do better than hire himself to a farmer for a year or two and keep his money in his pocket for the purchase of a farm.
But even then he must not buy a farm till he knows something about it, and he cannot be long out here before he will find out where the good land is. A Canadian whom I met at Calgary, told me that he knew a farm near Toronto which was regularly in the market every year. It is safe to be bought by an Englishman, who tries it for a time, gives it up in despair, and then it comes into the market again.
‘Are there any stones on the farm?’ asked an Englishman, after he had purchased his farm.
‘I only saw one,’ was the encouraging reply: and it was a truthful one. There was but one stone, but then it embraced the surface of the whole farm.
The English purchaser must have his wits about him. Here he is by many regarded as a stranger, and they take him in. The poet tells us where ignorance is bliss ’tis folly to be wise. Ignorance is not bliss in Canada, emigrants really must have their wits about them or they will suffer much.
Near Moosomin there is some fine country where many English have settled. Only last week an Englishman selected a farm in that locality for a homestead. He at once proceeded there, having at considerable expense hired a conveyance for his wife and four children. When he got there he found the land already occupied. To add to his troubles, when he returned to Moosomin one of his children died; the result is that the wife has grown home-sick, the poor man disheartened; he wants to return to England, but he has already exhausted his means. This want of harmony between the land office and the guides, according to The Manitoba Free Press, is said to be of frequent occurrence. The Dominion Government ought to see to this. They are eager to promote emigration, but many such cases will make English farmers naturally a little reluctant to come out.
