Against the living background of Canadian history in all its varied activities, no one contributing factor stands out with such prominence as that of this Hudson's Bay Company which, for two and a half centuries, dominated the country and whose commercial importance played so large a part in her development. Let no one mistake the purpose of the Company, however, as one inspired by purely philanthropic or patriotic ardour. The dominant aim was by no means primarily that of the development of the new and almost unknown country. The servants of the Company were not braving the terrors and hardships of the wilderness on exclusively altruistic inspirations. On the contrary, it was { 11} their policy to conceal the existence of the vast riches of the land and to represent it as inaccessible to any one beyond Indians and hunters. Even as late as the comparatively recent date of the decade of 1860-70, the pupils in Canadian schools were taught that all the Hudson Bay region was uninhabitable; that it was a desolate "No Man's Land," so to speak, covered with ice and snow. No effort to change this impression was made by those concerned with the administration of the Company, but, rather, they were more or less untiring in assisting to confirm it. They had their occult reasons for not being averse to the representation of the entire North-West as being quite valueless for the purposes of civilisation. The impression, if not the conviction, was well authorised that the climate rendered the region quite impossible for habitation; and the region in which now lies the most wonderful wheat-growing belt of the world, and whose fertility under cultivation renders it capable of supporting a population as large as that of the entire United States at the present time (estimated at one hundred millions), was assumed to be a region only capable of sustaining wild animals, Indians, and the most hardy hunters and traders. Now it is traversed by three transcontinental railways which have opened an immense business of travel and traffic; and beside dozens of prosperous young towns and villages it contains Winnipeg with its quarter of a million people; Edmonton, Calgary, Saskatoon, { 12} Regina; the important new terminal seaport of Prince Rupert, and the still older and more developed port of Vancouver; to say nothing of the scenic grandeur through all the Mount Robson locale, that has captured the enthusiasm of the world. The tradition of the rigours of climate has become so popularised that even as late as the summer of 1915 a New England tourist faring forth for a trip through the great North-West of Canada was urged to provide himself with furs and rugs enough to fit out an expedition to the Polar regions. As a matter of fact the only embarrassment encountered as to temperature was that of trying to discover sufficiently thin clothing for Winnipeg in the opening September days, where the sunshine poured down just then with a flood of radiance that fairly rivalled that of a summer in the Capital city of the United States. Yet, even in all this splendour of sunshine and discomfort of heat, that wonderful quality of the Canadian air was not wanting--a peculiar invigoration which one who has visited the Dominion misses for a long time after leaving the country. Edmonton repeated the same wonderful luxuriance with the same delicious coolness at night; and the journey on through the magnificent mountain scenery to Prince Rupert had the exquisite temperature of an Italian spring.