The chapters that compose this book originally formed a series of papers which recorded journeys and studies made in Canada during the past three years. The first one to be published was that which describes a settler's colony in which a few titled foreigners took the lead; the others were written so recently that they should possess the same interest and value as if they here first met the public eye. What that interest and value amount to is for the reader to judge, the author's position being such that he may only call attention to the fact that he had access to private papers and documents when he prepared the sketches of the Hudson Bay Company, and that, in pursuing information about the great province of British Columbia, he was not able to learn that a serious and extended study of its resources had ever been made. The principal studies and sketches were prepared for and published in Harper's Magazine. The spirit in which they were written was solely that of one who loves the open air and his fellow-men of every condition and color, and who has had the good-fortune to witness in newer Canada something of the old and almost departed life of the plainsmen and woodsmen, and of the newer forces of nation-building on our continent. CONTENTS PAGE I. Titled Pioneers 1 II. Chartering a Nation 11 III. A Famous Missionary 53 IV. Antoine's Moose-yard 66 V. Big Fishing 115 VI. "A Skin for a Skin" 134 VII. "Talking Musquash" 190 VIII. Canada's El Dorado 214 IX. Dan Dunn's Outfit 290 ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE _The Romantic Adventure of Old Sun's Wife_ Frontispiece _Dr. Rudolph Meyer's Place on the Pipestone_ 2 _Settler's Sod Cabin_ 3 _Whitewood, a Settlement on the Prairie_ 4 _Interior of Sod Cabin on the Frontier_ 5 _Prairie Sod Stable_ 7 _Trained Ox Team_ 9 _Indian Boys Running a Foot-race_ 31 _Indian Mother and Boy_ 36 _Opening of the Soldier Clan Dance_ 39 _Sketch in the Soldier Clan Dance_ 43 _A Fantasy from the Pony War-dance_ 47 _Throwing the Snow Snake_ 51 _Father Lacombe Heading the Indians_ 61 _The Hotel--Last Sign of Civilisation_ 69 _"Give me a light"_ 73 _Antoine, from Life_ 79 _The Portage Sleigh on a Lumber Road_ 83 _The Track in the Winter Forest_ 87