Lastly, the luxurious passenger trains of the Grand Trunk Pacific are crossing Saskatchewan, with the promise of another easy ocean-to-ocean route; and the promise also of additional means of transportation for the annual millions of bushels of Saskatchewan’s wheat. But more quickly even than the railway companies have been pushing the construction of their new lines increases the product of the fields and farms; and every new avenue of transportation, while improving the situation in certain districts, also adds to the magnitude of the problem to be solved, for there are always people, regardless of isolation and hardships, ready to go in advance of the railways. At present the authorities are giving no encouragement to immigrants to settle in the northern part of Saskatchewan, for that district is entirely without transportation facilities, and is better suited to the wandering, adventurous lives of the hunter and trapper than of the would-be maker of a new home. The former serve best, perhaps, as heroes for boyish romances of the Ballantyne type; but the real interest of the story of the Canadian West belongs to the home-makers—the nation-builders—who are surging in to take possession of the land. In 1901, the population of Saskatchewan was nearly 91,300; in 1911, it was over 492,400, when, by the way, the male population exceeded the female by 91,000. During 1911, 44,000 immigrants settled in Saskatchewan. Of these 59 per cent. were Americans, whose experience of farming under similar conditions makes them excellent settlers; whilst the remaining number, which entered by ocean ports, represented no less than forty-six nationalities. Amongst the homesteaders for the year, besides Canadians from the east, and people from the British Isles and from the United States, were French, Germans, Belgians and Hollanders, Swiss, Italians, Roumanians, Syrians, Austro-Hungarians, Russians, Danes and Icelanders, Swedes and Norwegians. The people from Northern Europe make particularly good settlers, and though some of the foreigners appear to be of an unpromising type as material for the building up of a nation on British lines, they are often found, on closer acquaintance, to have some special excellence to contribute to the general “melting pot.” The assimilation of all these peoples is no small problem for the young Dominion, however. In Saskatchewan, as elsewhere, perhaps the greatest force for the Canadianizing of the newcomers is the common school, which has an influence extending into the home circles of the children who attend. It is fortunate for the nation that a large proportion of the teachers (chiefly young women) hold a high view of their calling, and therefore are peculiarly well-suited to act as guides to the newcomers.