Quebec is a strangely old-world town, noticeably so after the very modern West. I went into a shoemaker's shop to get a shoe mended, but had to make my wants known chiefly by signs, as the man spoke a queer old French and knew no English. This journey down through the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence is so exceedingly beautiful that it is a pity more people do not take it. But it is only possible in the summer months. After October the lakes are too rough, and in winter the St. Lawrence is blocked by ice. As we steamed out of Quebec the Heights of Abraham looked very fine with the sunset behind them. We went by the northern passage, between Labrador and Newfoundland. At night the Northern Lights lit up the sky for two or three hours together, and just here we had to go slowly for fear of sunken icebergs. We got to Liverpool on September 15, but though we arrived at 4 p.m., we did not get off the boat till 7.30 p.m., as a White Star liner was at the landing-stage, so I did not get home till next morning. CHAPTER XX SOME PRESENT-DAY NEEDS OF THE PRAIRIE In the interview which I was granted with Archdeacon Knowles and Archdeacon Dobie before leaving Regina, I tried to explain my conviction that the future of the Anglican Church on the prairie depended on the training of the children. If they remained as ignorant of religion as we found them in many places, it was obvious that their generation would have no use for the Church. On the other hand, they were now in an intensely receptive state, and the parents were more than willing that they should receive instruction, and had supported us by every means in their power, both by promising to carry on our work and by giving us most generous hospitality. Experience had proved that a caravan was the best means of reaching these outlying districts, first because they were often so far from the railway, and also because there was no accommodation for women visitors in most of the shacks.