The present canal was opened in 1897, providing a new link in the chain of waterways from the head of the Lakes to the Saint Lawrence. The Canadian lock is nine hundred feet long and when finished was the longest in the world. Since then it has been surpassed by one eleven hundred feet in length on the American side. The United States locks handle about ninety per cent. of the freight traffic, which has so increased in the last twenty years that it has been necessary to add three more locks to the original one on our side of the river. Two of these locks are longer by three hundred feet than the famous Panama locks at Gatun or Pedro Miguel. Each is big enough to accommodate two ships at one time. Nevertheless, during the open season one can often see here a score of steamers, some of them of from twelve to fifteen thousand tons, waiting to go through. The “Soo” is noted for having the heaviest freight traffic of any artificial waterway in the world. The tonnage passing through it in one year is three times as large as that of the foreign trade shipping of the port of New York, four times as great as the freight passing through the Suez Canal, and five times as great as that of the Panama Canal. For six months of the year an average of more than one steamer goes through every fifteen minutes. The chief freight commodity is ore from the iron mines of Lake Superior, which often comprises seventy per cent. of the total. Coal and wheat are next in importance. In coming to the “Soo” from Cobalt and Sudbury, I have been travelling through the new Ontario, the “wild northwest” of the Ontario we know on the shores of Lakes Ontario, Erie, and Huron. The land near those bodies of water is about as thickly settled as Ohio. It has some of the best farms of North America, producing grain, vegetables, and fruits worth millions of dollars a year. At every few miles are modern cities. The whole country is cut up by railways, and one can go by automobile through any part of it. The cities and town hum with factories, and the entire region is one of industry and thrift. This new Ontario is the frontier of the province. It is the great northland between Georgian Bay and Hudson Bay, extending from Quebec westward through the Rainy River country to Manitoba. This vast region is larger than Texas, four times the size of old Ontario, and much bigger than Great Britain or France. It is divided into eight great districts. The Thunder Bay and Rainy River districts in the west are together as long as from Philadelphia to Boston, and wider than from Washington to New York. The Algoma district, in the southern end of which the “Soo” is located, is almost as wide, extending from Lake Superior to the Albany River, while the Timiskaming district reaches from Cobalt north to James Bay, and borders Quebec on the east.