Afterwards the conversation shifted to timber-wolves and the Yukon. One of the passengers scoffed at the notion of a dog being able to kill a timber-wolf, as happens in one of Mr. Jack London's novels. A northern timber-wolf, according to this critic, is at least twice the size of the European wolf, with a disproportionately large and powerful jaw--a single snap from which would polish off any dog. Two or three of the biggest dogs known could hardly even hold a timber-wolf much less kill it. I dare say there was more in this criticism than in one I heard later, anent Mr. Maurice Hewlett. A very solemn fruit-rancher was ploughing wearily through one of Mr. Hewlett's earlier romances, and he looked up presently to say it was funny the sort of yarns these writing chaps seemed to believe in. There was a girl in the book who milked a wild deer. He had seen plenty of deer in his time, but none of them had seemed to fancy coming close enough to { 251} be milked. If a chap wanted to write about the country he ought to know it right through like Mr. Service. Had we read Service's poems? Several of the men in the compartment evidently had read them; and, indeed, Mr. Service's poems concerning the Yukon seemed to have reached the heights of popularity. I think it is due in part to the fascination which the north exercises on all sorts and conditions of Canadians, not only because it stands for romance and mystery, but because a sort of idea is gaining ground that these inhospitable and well-nigh polar regions only await a sufficiently hardy type of colonist to have as great a boom almost as some of the more southern districts. The idea exists not only among business-like estate-agents, who see themselves in fancy selling Arctic blocks to this expected race, but among quite disinterested and patriotic people, who talk of it, as Mr. Service himself does, as a strong man's land. A few peculiarly strong men may survive there; and it is excusable for a poet to regard them as super-men--Canada's noblest type. As a matter of fact it is at least as romantic to weave halos about the heads of the crowd that seeks the Yukon country as it is to make one's heroine milk a wild deer. A certain praise { 252} is always due to pioneers, and the struggle with nature at its cruellest and most wild is not a bad test of an individual's character; but for respectable ranchers and fruit-growers (who have never been to the Yukon themselves, but have struggled with nature quite as valiantly elsewhere) to talk enthusiastically about the great lone land as the country for breeding men is absurd. Canadians may be able to colonise further north than they have done at present, and their descendants will, no doubt, be a fine and hardy race. But there is a point in the north just as there is a point in the south beyond which no white man's country lies. If any strong men are going to perpetuate their families beyond that northern point, they are going to be strong Esquimaux--not strong Canadians. Esquimaux already do quite a lot of grappling with nature in lone lands, but they are not the heroes of Mr. Service's poems. I don't wish to labour the point, but this northern strong man business seems to me entirely overdone. There is always going to be romance attached to the uninhabitable country, and adventurous young men will get there; but the theory that these are the people of whom Canada has peculiarly to be proud will not do. Adam Gordon's bush-riders { 253} had a certain merit; so had Mr. Kipling's gentlemen-rankers; so have Mr. Service's prospectors; but none of them ever forwarded civilisation very greatly. The fact is, there are true and admirable pioneers, men like Hudson and Thompson, of whom Canada has had plenty; and there are pioneers of doubtful value like those in Mr. Service's poems. These latter are picturesque enough in verse, especially in Mr. Service's verse, which catches the fascination of the north at times admirably, but the others are the men worth boasting about.