--- title: Improvement Era description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930. authors: - Tanner, Joseph M. collections: - periodicals tags: - magazine - improvement-era periodical: Improvement Era volume: 14 number: 9 published: 1911-07 publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations publisher_place: Salt Lake City language: en type: magazine reference: 'Joseph M. Tanner, "Western Canada," *Improvement Era* 14, no. 9 (July 1911): 808–811.' source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera1409unse transcription: Transcribed from the Internet Archive scan of each issue (the item for each issue is named in the issue's own source); unnumbered advertising leaves are omitted, printed page numbers are kept as page markers. identifier: improvementera1409unse start_page: 808 end_page: 811 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1911-07) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera1409unse publication_year: 1911 note: The Internet Archive item metadata carries a blanket "© Copyright by Intellectual Reserve, Inc." notice. The library owner judged it inapplicable because this issue was published in 1911, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright. --- # Western Canada Western Canada. BY DR. JOSEPH M. TANNER. The romance of the West has long been the theme of the poet and novelist. There is a charm in adventure and successes that appeals to the imagination in such a way as to excite men and women to action, and to the accomplishment of the best that is in them. In the early history of our republic, the great western half of the continent between the Missouri river and the Pacific was considered generally a stretch of country having but little or no value. The development, however, of the great west within the confines of the United States was never so exciting and so surprising as the conversion of the great stretches of prairie in western Canada within recent years. The story of that land reads like a romance, and is exciting today throughout Europe and the United States an interest that has perhaps never before bee a felt in any great pioneer movement or immigration of settlers. It is difficult if not quite impossible to make people understand or appreciate the wonderful movement looking to the development of this new Canada. A few figures may be helpful, but rather, perhaps, beyond our appreciation, or even our understanding. If we examine the wealth that is yearly pouring into that land we should discover that its movement is marvelous. England has sent, all told, into Canada nearly two billion dollars for investment there. Within the last three years the people of that little island have sent to Canada a trifle less than half a billion. For the year 1910, the amount was $157,481,000. These are the statistics given by Mr. George Peish, one of the editors of the Statist, who recently read them before the Statistical Society of WESTERN CANADA. 809 Great Britain. The total in three years is considerably larger than the sum invested by the people of England in any other country of the world. Indeed, about six million Canadians have absorbed onefifth of all the money sent abroad by England for investment. Thousands of people are rushing over the frontier from the United States into that part of Canada. They are carrying with them millions. The exact amount will perhaps never be known. In a recent statement which comes to us through the press, it is learned that every day in March there passed through the city of Winnipeg into the western provinces, an average of more than one thousand a day. The movement started late in February, and by the end of March it reached the total of forty-two thousand. This is only one stream of the great flood of emigration. Thousands are moving over the line all along the frontier from Winnipeg to the Pacific. Trains going into Canada are crowded with settlers, and whole trains are made up of settlers' effects,and thousands of livestock are taken into the new prairie provinces. I stepped, the other day, into a schoolroom in one of our Utah towns. The teacher was giving a lesson on the geography of Canada, and was telling the students something about Alberta. The word challenged my attention. I stopped a moment and listened. After the exercises were over, I wanted to know how she came to make such a statement in the class. ''Why," she said, "I have the best of authority, a text book which has been adopted in our schools." And she placed in my hands Tarr and McMurray from which I read: "In the provinces of Alberta the climate is too arid for farming." Think of it! These western provinces too arid for farming! I said, "Did you know that the single province of Saskatchewan raises more wheat than any state of our Union excepting one?" She was surprised. And wheat raising in that province has barely begun. It is only a question of a few years when the two provinces of Saskatchewan and Alberta will produce by far more than any two states in the Union. The railroads of that country show, perhaps, today, as well as anything else, the marvels of the great Canadian west. Canada, according to the number of its population, is the first "railroad country in the world. It has a mile of railroad for every three 810 IMPROVEMENT ERA. hundred inhabitants, while the United States comes second, with a mile for every three hundred and fifty inhabitants. Two great continental railroads are now rapidly pushing their way westward. Soon Canada will have three great continental lines with branch lines in all directions. The Canadian government by the guarantee of subsidies and the guarantee of railroad bonds, is not waiting for settlers. Railroads are pushing through the great wheat districts, while the settlers are rushing in -to cultivate the land. If we except Denmark, no country in all the world belongs so much to the farmer as Canada does. Public utility commissions regulate the transportation, and in some instances own public utilities. The Dominion government has just now provided for the construction of a railroad up to the Hudson bay. It will be built at government expense, and in only a few years it will be possible to ship over these Canadian railroads through the Hudson bay and over the Atlantic, grain into the markets of Europe, a route that is twelve hundred miles shorter than that through the port of New York to Europe. Some have thought that reciprocity would be a disadvantage to the railroads of that country, that the Great Northern would make a hasty move across the line into Canada, but the Canadian government has the facilities to more than hold its own with the United States in the matter of transportation. It is not unlikely that within the next five years the farmers of the great west in the United States will be sending their products to Europe by way of Hudson bay. That route will be particularly favorable to the Dakotas, Minnesota and Wisconsin. If you want to see what Canada is doing by way of comparison, count the number of trans-continental lines in the United States. Nearly one hundred million people have six trans-continental lines in this country, while six million people, who, by fair comparison should not have one for some time, will perhaps within three years have three great lines. The story of Canada today is full of astounding things. Who could have believed it all? People going to Alberta have been told that they were going, even in southern Alberta, into the regions of perpetual snow and ice. At such remarks the Canadians smile. One of the trans-continental lines is now pushing its system into WESTERN CANADA. 811 the Peace river country, something like a thousand miles north of where people in southern Alberta are supposed to be living in snow-bound regions. What will they do in Peace river? They are raising a fine quality of wheat up there, and railroads have assured themselves that the production of wheat in that far northern latitude will justify the construction of a road. The reader will ask, "How has this all been kept from the general knowledge of the people for so many years?" Most information that has come to us from the great west has come through the wonderful Hudson Bay Company which, until a few years ago, discouraged rather than encouraged settlements. The "Mormon" people in southern Alberta were among the first to demonstrate the possibilities of wheat growing in southern Alberta. Only a few years ago, I began the development of a farm eight miles east of Cardston. I was almost alone out on a great prairie, with two or three neighbors from one to three miles distant. Sometimes whole weeks passed without an opportunity to get a glimpse of even a passer-by. Last summer there was really not a day that parties were not driving past my farm in automobiles. A railroad was brought up close to my farm, beside which an elevator was soon constructed. I must stop. The romance of the Canadian west will some day fill volumes. Alberta, Canada. Photo sent the Era by E. K. Winnie. Eskimo Graves on the Lower Yukon, Alaska.