Identifier: sandfordflemin00burp (find matches)
Title: Sandford Fleming, empire builder
Year: 1915 (1910s)
Authors: Burpee, Lawrence J. (Lawrence Johnstone), 1873-1946
Subjects: Fleming, Sandford, Sir, 1827-1915 Railroads
Publisher: London, Oxford University Press
Contributing Library: Robarts - University of Toronto
Digitizing Sponsor: University of Toronto

View Book Page: Book Viewer
About This Book: Catalog Entry
View All Images: All Images From Book
Click here to view book online to see this illustration in context in a browseable online version of this book.

Text Appearing Before Image:
id, remind you that in1858 there was not throughout the whole extent of North orSouth America a single transcontinental railway ; that therewas scarcely a mile of railway in the United States west ofthe Mississippi, and a very small mileage west of Chicago ;that the greater and by far the most valuable portion of whatis now known as the Dominion of Canada was held as a vasthunting-ground by the Hudson Bay Company, and it wasindeed fortunate that it was so held, as the present andfuture generations of Canadians will testify. At that datethe eight or ten provinces and territories west of the longitudeof Lake Superior were not thought of. British Columbiaitself was not even a Crown Colony. The city of Ottawa asthe capital of the Dominion was unknown. Winnipeg didnot then exist. Ten years later, there were only a few peoplearound Fort Garry and along the banks of the river, chieflyScotch and French half-breeds, known as the Red Riversettlers. Exclusive of pure Indians, there were probably
Text Appearing After Image:
BUILD UP CANADA 259 not more than eight thousand people in the whole North-West. The settlers were shut off from the outer world,except by such means of communication as that furnishedby dog-trains in winter and canoes in summer, together withRed River carts. It is a remarkable fact that in 1868 theinhabitants of that country which now exports yearly tensof millions of bushels of wheat were nearing starvation forwant of it, owing to the devastation of a plague of grass-hoppers. The Red River settlers gratefully received somethousands of bushels of grain purchased by the generousminded in the Eastern Canadian cities and transported incarts across the plains from the nearest railway station, somefive hundred or six hundred miles south of what is now themetropolis of Manitoba. 1 Long before this date the British North American pro-vinces were not without pioneer builders. There were thefar-seeing men who projected and subsequently built theWelland Canal, the Rideau Canal, the St. Lawrenc

Note About Images