Leaving Rat Portage, we pass to what is known as “Section Fifteen.” It is nearly forty miles in length, and, like “Section B,” runs through a district remarkable for its rugged aspect. For a long distance west of Rat Portage the country is much the same in character as the Lake of the Woods: full of rocky, tree-covered ridges and islets, the former a labyrinth of deep, narrow, winding sheets of water, separated by tortuous granite bluffs. If the lake has within its limits hundreds of islands, the land embraces innumerable lakelets. It was this rugged and broken country, so repelling in its condition in the wilderness, which dictated the opinion of a quarter of a century back of high authorities that the country between Lake Superior and Red River was not practicable for railway construction. The difficulties have, however, been grappled with and overcome, necessarily with great labour and great cost; and, as I was passing over it, it struck my mind as no bad example of the danger of positively asserting a negative. The necessary work of placing the trestlework in good condition on “Section Fifteen” is more advanced than on “Section B.” The train, therefore, runs at a higher rate of speed. As we proceed we can observe that the roadbed is fairly well ballasted, and we run at about thirty miles an hour on the finished portion of the line, over the gigantic earthworks of Cross Lake, Lake Deception and the succeeding lakes. The distance from Lake Superior to the Red River at Selkirk is 410 miles, and notwithstanding the extreme roughness of the country through which it passes, the railway, when completed, will bear comparison with any other line on this Continent. The utmost care has been exercised to establish gradients favourable to cheap transportation. In this respect I know of no other four hundred miles of railway in the Dominion or in the United States that can be compared with the section west of Port Arthur.