After the transfer of this northern territory from the Hudson’s Bay Company to the Canadian government, the town grew steadily. Its first real land boom occurred in 1882, when it was rumoured that the Canadian Pacific would build through here on its way to the Yellowhead Pass over the Rockies. The excitement caused by this rumour was short lived, however, as the officials decided to cross the mountains by the Kicking Horse Pass farther south. It was not until 1891, or almost ten years later, that the Canadian Pacific built a branch line to Strathcona, just across the river. A year later Edmonton was incorporated as a town, and in 1898 its growth was greatly stimulated by its importance as an outfitting post for the thousands of gold seekers who made their way to the Klondike by the overland route. [Illustration: Four fifths of the coal reserves in the Dominion are in Alberta. In addition to the big producing mines, there are many “country banks,” where the settlers can come and dig out the coal for themselves.] [Illustration: Throughout central Alberta are many dairies that supply the creameries of Edmonton and other towns. Butter is sent from here to the Northwest and Yukon territories, and is even shipped to England by way of the Panama Canal.] In 1904, when its population was ten thousand, Edmonton became a city and the capital of Alberta. It was then a typical frontier town of the New West. Its main thoroughfare was a crooked street laid out along an old Indian trail, and its buildings were of all shapes, heights, and materials. The older structures were wooden and of one story, the newer ones of brick and stone and often four stories high. The town was growing rapidly and the price of business property was soon out of sight. A fifty-foot lot on Main Street sold for twenty thousand dollars, and there was a demand for land in the business section at four and five hundred dollars per front foot. That year the Canadian Northern transcontinental line reached Edmonton, and four years later the Grand Trunk Pacific was put through. In 1913 the Canadian Pacific completed the bridge uniting the northern part of the city with its former terminus across the river at Strathcona, which had been made a part of Edmonton the year before. In addition to these three transcontinental lines, Edmonton now has railway connection with every part of central and southern Alberta, as well as a road built northwesterly along the Lesser Slave Lake to the Peace River district. The trains run over that route twice a week; they are equipped with sleeping cars and a diner for most of the way.