[Illustration: Junction of Skeena and Bulkley Rivers, British Columbia]
One of the interesting features of this town, which is one full of surprises lying in wait for the alert and expectant traveller, is the great dry dock of the Grand Trunk Pacific and Ship Repair Company, which has cost something like three million dollars, and was completed in 1915. This ship-building and repair plant is virtually three docks in one; and it can handle a ship of twenty thousand tons displacement and a length of six hundred feet, drawing thirty feet of water; moreover, it can deal with three ships at a time. It has derricks that can lift out, for repair, boilers weighing sixty tons, and after passing them through the shops replace them in the ship. It also furnishes power, light, compressed air, with wharf and storage space. The dock, in conjunction with the machine and the repair shops, can handle any class of work, wood or steel, boilers or any kind of mechanism. During its construction { 198} over a hundred and fifty men were employed, with a pay-roll that ran to some twelve thousand dollars a month. The inestimable convenience of such a plant for vessels in these waters in need of repair can hardly be over-estimated.
In June 1915 the great enterprise was undertaken across the harbour opposite Prince Rupert of clearing seven hundred acres for residential use. Within three months one hundred acres of this was prepared, but from causes connected with the war, and temporary conditions of finance, the entire completion of the work is delayed for a time. In Prince Rupert the site for the magnificent terminal station is already cleared; and when the war shall be ended and conditions in the Dominion resume their prosperity, these buildings will be erected. The telegraph service of Prince Rupert is admirable. There is a direct service establishing through communication with the East, and the rates between Prince Rupert and Vancouver have been reduced to one dollar for a ten-word message. There is direct communication by telephone with Hazleton, Skeena Crossing, and with the mine of the Montana Development Company at Carnaby.
The civic affairs of Prince Rupert are well administered. The city has adopted the single-tax plan. It owns its electric lighting and power, its telephone and water systems. The fire department is equipped with the most modern appliances. It has twenty-one miles of planked roadways; it has five miles of { 199} plank pavements for pedestrians; and has already three miles of sewers. Five parks aggregate nearly a hundred acres of reservation for the city's recreation.