The Queen's Highway, from ocean to ocean, etc

Front matter

PRINTED BY SrOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE LONDON J^Royvi Ocean to Ocean BY STUART CUMBERLAND^.E.G.S. CHEVALIER OF THE ORDER OF CHRIST, ETC. AUTHOR OF ' BESUCHER AUS DEM JENSEITS ' ' THE RABBI'S SPELL ' ETC. WITH NUMEROUS COLLOTYPE ILLUSTRATIONS AND TWO MAPS LONDON SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON, SEARLE, & RIVINGTON CROWN BUILDINGS, 188 FLEET STREET 1887 (All rights reserved) CO CANADA'S TRUEST FRIEND THE MOST HON. THE MARQUIS OF LORNE, K.T, I pr.itatc Ibis $oo_ s. c. CONTENTS. CHAPTER PAGE I. The Province of the Midnight Sun— The Island Portion 1 Victoria and Vancouver Island ..... 1 The Queen Charlotte Group 37 II. The Province of the Midnight Sun — The .Mainland 4b Vancouver, the ' Terminal City ' 4s New Westminster and the Fraser River District 84 Port Moody, the Present Terminus 91 The Climate and General Resources of the Province . 106 iii. esquimault as a naval centre, and its bearing vpon Russia's Position in the Pacific . . 110 IV.

On the Highway 136 From the Pacific to the Rockies . . . . . 136 Across the Open Prairie ...... 173 V. The Halfway House 190 VI. Round the North Shore of Lake Superior . . 275 VII. Ottawa, the Dominion Capital 319 VIII. Montreal, the Commercial Capital .... 3JO IX. The City of the Narrowing Waters . . . 363 X. The Highway's last Stages 380 From Point Levis to the Sea 380 The Atlantic Terminus 403 a LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS AND MAPS. Mount Stephen and Kickinghorse River . . . Frontispiece Victoria, British Columbia to face />. 0 Vancouver, the Pacific Terminus of ' The Queen's Highway ' „ 50 The Princess Louise's Pine „ 80 New Westminster „ 86 Esquimault ,,120 Mount Ross and Glacier ...... „ 158 Fourth Bridge at Loop, Mount Ross ... ,, 15!) The Snow Range, Selkikks ,, 161 Gateway to Beaver Canon ,, 165 The Lower Kickinghorse Canon „ 166 Tunnel on Kickinghorse, looking West . . „ 167 The Lower Kicking Horse River .... ,, 163 The Cathedral Mountain ,, -170 Winnipeg „ 190 Fort Garry ,, 246 The Great Northern Packet page 258 Ottawa to face p. 319 Montreal „ 340 Quebec „ 363 Halifax, Nova Scotia „ 403 Chart of the World, showing new Route through Canada. Map of the Dominion of Canada. FROM OCEAN TO OCEAN.

Chapter I. The Province Of The Midnight Sun- The Island Portion

I. VICTORIA AND VANCOUVER ISLAND. From Her Majesty's dominions lying under the soft effulgence of the Southern Cross to those in the North Pacific is a long cry ; but, with the opening of the new line (the Canadian Pacific) across Canada, connecting the Atlantic with the Pacific, the Antipodes and the ' Province of the Midnight Sun ' — British Columbia — will, in the immediate future, be brought nearer together by many days. At present there is no direct communication between Australia and Canada, and we have to thank American enterprise for carrying us over the 7,000 miles which separate British possessions in the North and South Pacific. This consists of a monthly mail service between Sydney, N.S.W., and San Francisco, n the steamers stopping at Auckland, N.Z., the Samoan group (sometimes), and Honolulu en route.

The time occupied in making this trip is from twenty-four to twenty-five days. On arriving at San Francisco, a weekly steamer — which, by the bye, you invariably miss by a day or so — takes you on to Victoria, Vancouver Island. There are two vessels, both of American build, running on this route : one, the Queen of the Pacific, is a fair ship : whilst the other, the Mexico, is a wooden tub, possessing neither sj.eed nor comfort. It was my misfortune to journey by the latter. The transcontinental railway, I learned, would be in working order in the early part of July ; so I took the June mail from Sydney in order to be the first passenger to make the through journey from the Antipodes to England over the new route. I was not only, however, the first through passenger, but, I believe positively, the first person to go over the line of rail between the Pacific and the Atlantic in a journalistic sense, I having been commissioned by a syndicate of Australasian, Indian, and English newspapers to give a description of the country through which runs this new Queen's Highway.

In recording my travels I have earnestly sought to make our kinsfolk in the South Pacific more fully acquainted with the vast provinces and territories comprised in the Dominion of Canada ; for I am convinced that with the bringing of the Australasian colonies and Canada together not only will trade, to their common advantage, spring up between them, but the bonds of kinsmanship will be materially strengthened — which ha these days of disunion and rumours of disunion must not be underrated. I have also endeavoured to show India the advantages of this new line, which, failing the Suez Canal route, may in time of necessity be the only safe road by which she could have touch with Great Britain. An increased trade between the East Indies and Canada will, I also hope, arise from this closer communication.

I have also, in my letters to China and Japan, done all that I could to impress upon those countries the advantages to be derived from the opening of the Canadian Pacific Railway. Commerce between this portion of Asia and the Dominion cannot fail to materially increase. Canada's products, such as timber, coal, skins, and oil, are in ever-increasing demand in those countries, whilst their teas are welcomed in the Dominion for home consumption or reshipment. Already traders have taken advantage of the new route, and tea ships from Asia are constantly arriving at Port Moody, the present terminus of the trans continental railway. ' The Queen's Highway ' is in no way a reprint of any newspaper letters, as they only form the basis _2 of the present work ; and in order to lend additional interest to the descriptions contained herein I have had the pages interspersed with numerous striking illustrations.

Many of the pictures are from photo graphs exhibited in the Canadian Court at the Indian and Colonial Exhibition, and kindly given me for the purpose of illustrating this book by Sir Charles Tupper, High Commissioner for Canada, to whom I am indebted for other kindnesses. Many books have been written about Canada, the Marquis of Lome and the Princess Louise especially having with pen and pencil done much towards making the country known ; but in ' The Queen's Highway ' I shall, I think, be the first person to describe the country lying between the two oceans in a connected form. Coming north from the ' Golden City,' you sight Vancouver Island as soon as you round Cape Flattery. Victoria, its chief town, lies in the Strait of Juan de Fuca, and it is some sixty miles from the point of entrance.

This strait divides the island from the mainland of the United States, Washington Territoiy. Further on it runs into an island-dotted sea, called Puget Sound. North of it commences the Strait of Georgia, and there ends the territory over which float the Stars and Stripes, and there begins the mainland of British Columbia, which, save where it is cut into by Alaska — the land acquired by the United States of Russia — has a stretch northward of close upon 760 miles, where it finally loses itself in the weird loneliness of the Arctic Ocean. This important province of British North America has an estimated area of 390,344 square miles, con taining about 250,000,000 acres, in which limits are in cluded Vancouver Island, the Queen Charlotte group, and about a thousand small islands adjacent thereto.

The southern boundary of the province is in the 49 th parallel, and its northern the 60th degree of north latitude. British Columbia, it will thus be seen, is greater than California, Oregon, and Washington Territory combined. Looking eastward from the Strait of Georgia, if the eye could carry so far, it would rest upon nothing but British land for close upon 4,000 miles. It is through this vast tract of country, comprising timber limits of inexhaustible extent, mineral belts of untold wealth, and millions upon millions of corn-producing acres and rich grazing lands, that this new rail way runs, serving to connect the Pacific with the Atlantic, and giving us the only highway we have to Asia and the Antipodes. From the moment the traveller arrives in Victoria until Liverpool is reached he will have been under no flag other than the British.

Victoria is not only the capital of- Vancouver members, and a Legislative Assembly of twenty-five members, elected by the people for a term of four years. In practice the Executive Council holds office at the will of the Assembly. Victoria is not a bustling place, neither is it sleepy ; but there is an air of old-worldism, of quiet content about it, affording a striking contrast to the active towns I left behind me in Australia. The streets are neither very long nor very broad (the principal ones are Government Street and Yate Street), but the houses therein are in the main substantially built, whilst in various parts buildings of improved style and greater size are in the course of erection. The shops are well supplied, and London goods can be purchased for a slight advance upon London prices.

There is a first-class hotel (Driard House), where, for twelve shillings a day, one can get much better accommodation than is afforded in many of the larger provincial towns in England. Although everything is reckoned by dollars, and the currency is American money, there is little of the Yankee element in Victoria. It is distinctly British, and the people are more in the h_7it of looking towards England than to Canada ; indeed, many have never got over the bitterness engendered within them by the incorporation of British Columbia with the Dominion of Canada. As in the case of the Great North-West, it was VICTORIA, B.C the Hudson's Bay Company who first brought this place in commercial touch with Europe. From a mere fort of the Company's has sprung the present city, which, with its railway and shipping connec tions, promises finally to become one of the most im portant ports in the North Pacific.

The harbour of Victoria, whilst it is of considerable extent, does not in its natural state afford accommodation for vessels drawing more than 18 feet of water ; but Esquimault (which I shall deal specially with in another chapter), although it is some 3^ miles distant, will ere long be part and parcel of Victoria ; and it possesses a magnificent harbour, capable of containing vessels of almost any draught. Esquimault, it is asserted, will in the immediate future be a naval depot of the highest importance, and already a scheme is in hand for the fortifying and defending of the harbour and its approaches. But of this in another place. Victoria, from the time that the consolidated Hudson's Bay Company founded its trading ports in these regions, became the general supply point. This was in 1843, and the Company named the stockade, where stands the present block, Fort Victoria, in honour of her Majesty the Queen.

Then the trade of the entire country was almost exclusively in furs, and the route taken by the ships engaged in this trade was round Cape Horn ; so that the island was separated from the mother country by nearly 20,000 miles of water. The journey was then one of months, now it is one of days. With the present connection, and at the present rate of speed, the distance between Liverpool and Victoria can be readily encompassed within fourteen or fifteen days. Outside of the Hud son's Bay Company's ships very few vessels touched at either Victoria or the mainland, and life for the early settlers must, under such circumstances, have been dreary in the extreme. In 1856 a gold craze swept over these parts, gold having been discovered on the mainland, on the Columbia and Fraser Rivers. Speculators and experts, vagabonds and idlers, rushed in their thousands to Fort Victoria, as the centre from which they could eventually depart in their search for the precious metal.

At one time it was estimated that there were, consequent upon this rush, not less than 30,000 people encamped in the neighbourhood. It was, I believe, chiefly owing to the firmness displayed by Sir James Douglas, chief factor of the Hudson's Bay Company at Victoria, that law lessness was kept under, and the rabble did not attempt to serve the fort as the Barbarians and mer cenaries served ancient Carthage. Whilst gold was discovered in considerable quantities, it by no means panned out so well as was expected, and the wave of excitement gradually subsided. Of thousands who had rushed in search of fortune, the greater part returned in poverty. Several hundreds remained behind, some in possession of wealth, others in the search for it. The craze, however, was the chief means of making the colony known, and it in a measure caused Victoria and other towns on the Columbia and Fraser to be built up.

Gold is still found in the neighbourhood of these rivers, some of the old claims being even yet worked at a profit. It was in 1849, some seven years previously to this, that Vancouver Island was constituted a Crown colony ; whilst two years later, in 1858, the mainland, the paradise of the Indian fur-hunter, was also made a colony with the name of British Columbia. It had previously gone by several names, the chief one being New Georgia, a title bestowed upon it by the explorer, Captain George Vancouver. At that time Vancouver and British Columbia were separate colonies, but in 1866 they were united, and so they remained till 1871, when they were incorporated in the Dominion of Canada. In thus forfeiting its independence the colony received certain handsome concessions from the Dominion Government, one of the chief conditions being that a railway should be built opening up the country from the Rocky Mountains to the sea.

After several delays this promise has been fulfilled, and British Columbia is now as much an integral portion of Canada as are the Upper and Lower Provinces. The island of Vancouver is oblong in shape, ex tending north-westwardly parallel with the mainland, from which it is separated by the island-dotted channel of the Gulf of Georgia, a distance of close upon 300 miles. It has a varying width of from thirty to fifty miles, and its area is estimated at 12,000 square miles. Whilst being densely timbered, much of this land is altogether unsuitable for cultivation, and would not pay for the clearing. The timber, however, is in places very large and sound, and lumbering industries cannot fail to be remunerative for many years to come. The interior of the island is generally mountainous, some of the peaks attaining an altitude of from 6,000 to 9,000 feet.

There is but very little level land in any part of the island, and, so far as is yet known, the arable tracts are principally confined to the extreme south-eastern portion. I am, however, assured that there is some fairly level land at the extreme north which would repay the agriculturist. But the good land is in patches — here and there, between the forks of rivers and between the mountains and the water, and in no part is it sufficient to warrant agricultural operations upon an extensive scale. A great — the greater part, in fact, of the country is unknown. The interior of the island is still a terra incognita, and, save in and about the coast, there are neither roads nor settlements. Victoria, Esquimault, and Nanimo, the great coal centre, are the only places of note. About midway between Victoria and Nanimo there is a small agricultural settlement called Cowichan ; and on the same east coast, engaged in similar undertakings, are Maple Bay, Chimainus, and Somenos.

Saanich is at the extreme south-east ; whilst Comox, a logging centre, is sixty miles further north than Nanimo. What land there is is good, and anything will grow on it. With the draining of the marshes, of which there is no end, rich pasturage will be afforded, and the island should have no equal in the matter of hay-producing. The climate of Vancouver Island is, to my thinking, the most delightful in the world. There is a certain balminess about the air which at once creates contentment ; and one speedily arrives at the laudable condition of being at peace with all mankind. In summer — and I speak from experience — it is never too hot ; and the winters, I am assured, are never too cold. True, rain falls somewhat heavily in the autumn, but winter brings with it little frost and less snow.

Sometimes the inhabitants get a fortnight's sleighing or an equal amount of skating, but the winter in such case will have been exceptional. Flowers bloom and flourish in the Victorian gardens all the year round. The whole island is Flora's paradise. Sweet old-fashioned Erjglish flowers abound in profusion, keeping the settlers, in memory at least, in touch with the mother country beyond the seas. There are beautiful drives around Victoria, and the roads are excellent. There is the scent of wild flowers about everywhere as the team spanks along the macadamised roads. A few late dog-roses peep from out of the hedges, exhaling a delicate perfume, which eventually gets lost in the overpowering odours of the trailing honeysuckle, which is in extraordinary abundance. Here there are natural hedges of it, whilst there its waxen petals are beating out their perfume on the trunk of an oak as the soft July wind fans them up and down.

Ferns are in countless profusion. The banks are a quivering mass of them, whilst they nod like plumes from the crests of moss-grown stones. In some places they burst like tufts of waving hair from the sides of monster trees, or hang like curling feathers from the lower branches. There are water-ferns and rock-ferns, wood-ferns and tree-ferns ; some coarse and vulgar, others delicate and well-bred, all forming one great family of healthy, flourishing, well-to-do plants. Most of the larger trees have already fallen by the woodman's axe, but there are still a few left within the city limits sufficient to give you an idea of the timber wealth of the island. They are in great variety — hemlocks, cedars, maples and firs, oaks and dogwood, and the evergreen arbutus, which is heavier than oak, and resembles box in its grain.

In the copses grow the wild cherry and prickly raspberry, and trailing over the rocky banks are the blueberry and blackberry ; in the swamps is to be found a species of gooseberry, and the hedges are often red with rasp berries, or purple and white with varieties of wild currants. Singing birds are scarce, but game is plentiful. Grouse rise up from beneath your feet at almost every step you take in the woods, and not infrequently cross the road just in front of your horse's nose when you are out driving. Deer and mountain goats are in plenty within a short distance of the town. Fish ing, for those who care for it, can be had anywhere. The views afforded by a drive along the coast roads are simply exquisite. Between the pines, little lakes sparkle and ripple in the sun, whilst frogs croak amongst the browning rushes, or a fish splashes suddenly upwards in chase of a gaudy fly which has been temptingly skimming the surface of the water.

A duck, with shining blue wings, may whirl from out of the lily leaves with a hoarse note of alarm, or a water-fowl duck his black head in fear beneath the water. To the right is an Indian camp, and the blue smoke rises high above the top of the tallest cedar in curlinsr, linjrerins: columns, whilst the air is odorous with burning pine fumes. As the team mounts a hill higher than the others, one can look down in the valleys. A green expanse strikes the eye, although here and there a streak of blue denotes the existence of a stream, and the patches of red glowing in the sunlight speak of habitations. At this point one unconsciously draws in the pure air, and invigorated thereby continues to open one's mouth the wider — this consciously, of course. The resinous perfume of the firs tickles one's nostrils, and one sniffs and sniffs as if it were impossible to have enough.

A feeling of exhilaration creeps over one, and all the petty troubles and worries of everyday existence are mo mentarily forgotten. As the horses descend, the way leads through some scrubby timber, such as dwarf spruce and bark-shedding arbutus ; we are approaching the shore. The stones rattle from the rocks on either side, and the sand flies up in stinging clouds from beneath the horses' hoofs. Round the race course we speed, and then down to the pebble-strewn beach, where break the white-crested waves of the Pacific. The gulls and other white and black plum aged sea-birds are spreading their wings in the sun or are diving after fish. An Indian is mending his nets, and a Chinaman is collecting mussels from off the rocks, the haunts of the ghastly octopi. Some children are bathing close inshore ; the water is not deep, but the bathers are fearful of venturing out too far because of the devil-fish.

Some half-breeds are propelling a canoe, which is fantastic with carved emblems and gaudy with colour ; and spread over the surface of the water are frail sail-boats. There is no coast in the world which affords such facilities for safe boating as does Vancouver Island. Everywhere the land seems to run out in forks as if to enfold the water ; and the water, nothing loth, rushes into the land's embrace and nestles there, wearing away the soil into placid blue basins. Some waves more daring than the others rush still further onward, piercing a way into the interior, creating numerous little inner seas, which afford safe boating at all times. The same thing occurs on the main land, and there is no doubt of the coast-line being the most wonderful in the world. It was this peculiarity of bay-indented shores and tortuous inlets which so struck the Earl of Dufferin when he paid a visit to British Columbia in his capacity as Governor- General.

In a speech delivered in Victoria his Excellency said, with regard to this matter, ' Such a spectacle as its coast-line presents is not to be paralleled by any country in the world. Day after day, for a whole week, in a vessel of nearly 2,000 tons, we threaded an interminable labyrinth of watery lanes and reaches that wound endlessly in and out of a network of islands, promontories, and peninsulas for thousands of miles, unruffled by the slightest swell from the adjoining ocean, and presenting at c every turn an ever-shifting combination of rock, verdure, forest, glacier, and snow-capped mountain of unrivalled grandeur and beauty. When it is remembered that this wonderful system of navigation, equally well adapted to the largest line-of-battle ship and the frailest canoe, fringes the entire seaboard of your province, and communicates at points, sometimes more than a hundred miles from the coast, with a multitude of valleys stretching eastward into the interior, while at the same time it is furnished with innumerable harbours on either hand, one is lost in admiration at the facilities for intercommunication which are thus provided for the future inhabitants of this wonderful region.' For a long time Vancouver Island was thought to be part and parcel of the mainland, and the early Spanish and English explorers designated it as such.

It was, I believe, Vancouver himself who, in 1792, cleared up the matter by exploring Puget Sound and the Gulf of Georgia. Just previously to this the Spanish had taken possession of a small English settlement at Nootka Sound, on the west coast of the island, and held it in the name of their sovereign. This act almost precipitated a war between the two countries. An understanding was, however, eventually arrived at; and in a treaty, signed in 1790, Spain undertook to vacate Nootka Sound, without prejudice to what she considered to be her general rights in the region. On the arrival of Captain Arancouver two years later, Don Bodega y Quadra, acting commissioner for Spain under the treaty, surrendered the post of Nootka Sound to him. One can well understand how the early navigators were united in the matter of imagining Vancouver Island to be a part of the mainland, as in parts chains of small islands almost connect the two ; and, in the original survey of the transcontinental rail way, it was intended to carry the railway over one of these chains on to the island.

This scheme being found to be impracticable was eventually abandoned, and the railway was built some distance further south, with a terminus at Burrard's Inlet, distant upwards of sixty miles from Victoria. So that, instead of there being a complete line of rail from the British Columbian capital to the far east, there are these miles of sea to be got over before one strikes the iron highway. It is in order to lessen the water distance that Mr. Dunsmuir (the British Columbian millionaire) has built a railroad along the coast from Victoria to Nanimo, a distance of ninety miles, leaving only some seventeen miles to be got over by steamer. This will be a distinct advantage to winter traffic. Mr. Dunsmuir — who, by the bye, is not only absolutely without ' side,' but is the most obliging millionaire I have ever had the pleasure of meeting — was good enough to place at my disposal c a special train, in order that I might go over the track as far as it was then constructed.

At that time no portion of it was open to traffic ; but it is now, I believe, in working order, and available for the public. The line goes through some charming scenery. The train glides in and out of the woods, giving you a glimpse of the sea as you go along, or winds its way wearily round the purple hills. At one moment you are many feet above the sea, in another you are almost on the same level as the waves. Up and down, in and out you go, yet the grading is never dangerous, and the views are ever enchanting. I had a seat on an open platform in front of the engine, and at first a nervous shivering came over me as the engine pushed us along. As we w*ent downhill I thought that the chair upon which I was sitting must slide off, leaving a mass of unrecognisableness upon the rocks below ; or that as we toiled uphill the stool must fall backwards, passing me under the wheels of the tender.

The position was a novel one, but I very soon got used to it, and from my point of vantage I could take in everything there was to be seen. Whilst there is a great deal of bridging on this line there is but very little tunnelling ; indeed, I do not think there is more than one tunnel of importance along its whole length. The country en route was wild in the* extreme, there being scarcely a si"*n of cultivation. But the soil was anything but generous. Much of it was rank clay, whilst large portions of the high ground consisted almost en tirely of gravel. Here and there were patches of ground with a thick topsoil of decayed vegetable matter, but the country generally was nothing more than picturesquely barren. Picturesque it was, with out doubt ; and as one ran along the side of a mountain, with the blue sea below sparkling and gently foaming over its bed of many-coloured stones, and the dark setting of firs behind, the scene was little short of the sublime.

On several occasions startled deer dashed hastily over the iron rails or watched us curiously from their leafy fastnesses as we rushed past. Mingling with the fresh salt breezes frora the sea were the pungent odours of resin -yielding pines, the fainter scents of wild-flowers, and the somewhat sickly smells of ripening berries. A supreme silence reigned, alone broken by the puffing of the engine, or the dull boom of the blasters at work in the distance. The air was intoxicating, and, leaning back in my seat in meditative peacefulness, I drank my fill. In the fulness of time country residences of the rich of Victoria will dot the valleys or nestle amongst the hills along the line of rail, and the inhabitants of the city will make these views common property with their cheap excursions and picnic parties.

As yet, no part of the country through which I passed had been vulgarised by man ; in fact, outside of those engaged in the construction of the railway, neither forest nor valley had known the presence of any living person. It is not for the purpose of affording pleasure resorts for the people of Victoria that the line has been built, although naturally its promoters are anxious to secure sufficient public patronage to make it a paying concern ; but in order, firstly, that there should be a direct highway to the coal mines at Nanimo ; and secondly, that the agricultural country — and there is, I understand, some very good land further on towards Nanimo — should be opened up for settlement. As Esquimault is to be developed into a first-class naval station, this bringing of the coal centres into direct connection with it will be of the highest advantage to it.