At times the settler and his family went by rail as far as the Red River, and reached a town two hundred and twenty-five miles by land above Fort Garry. Here a Red River steamer was taken, and by following seven hundred miles of the winding river the destination was reached. The Red River steamer was of the Mississippi type, flat-bottomed and easily running over shallows. Indeed, speaking in western phrase, it could run over the prairie if there was a good heavy dew upon the grass. The extra goods were towed in barges behind the steamer, and old-timers still delight to recount the picturesque scenes connected with the Red River steamboat. At times, when the river had flooded its banks, the steamer lost her course in the night, and was compelled to fasten her bow to a tree on a prairie bluff till the morning. Thousands of the early settlers of Manitoba remember the river steamers--the delay of days together when stranded on the rapids--the wretched meals, and the primitive accommodation. Arrived at Fort Garry, the settler found the troubles and discomforts soon forgotten in the hurry and bustle of a new life.
Then the toilsome journey, on steamboat or over muddy roads, with myriads of mosquitoes and inevitable hardships, was past, and the steamer "tied up" at the warehouse, or the prairie caravan crossed the ferry of the Assiniboine and camped by the walls of Fort Garry. The sun seemed to shine all the brighter and the air was all the more exhilarating since the goal had been reached and the land of promise entered on.
At a distance of about half a mile from the fort was now springing up the straggling village of Winnipeg. This nucleus of the present city was a separate place, with different ideals and often divergent aspirations, from old Fort Garry. For years the struggle prevailed as to which should rule, but the increase of population, the influx of men of wider view, and the softening influence of time abolished the rivalries, and the Hudson's Bay Company has in late years entered into all the objects and prospects of the city along with its most enterprising citizens. The picture of that early Winnipeg is a strange contrast to the city of to-day.
Soon after his arrival the family patriarch and his stalwart sons found their way to the land office, inspected the list of vacant lands, ascertained where acquaintances had gone, and after visits and journeys hither and thither, made up their minds where to take up lands from the embarrassing plenty that was offered them. New townships were opening up in all directions where the surveyors had gone, and east and west new settlements sprang up like magic.