Pictures of Canadian Life: A Record of Actual ExperiencesRitchie, J. Ewing (James Ewing)
History
Pictures of Canadian Life: A Record of Actual Experiences
Ritchie, J. Ewing (James Ewing)
Canada -- Description and travel; Canada -- Emigration and immigration
Again, I repeat, people in England ought to have fuller information about
Canada ere they go thither. It is a fortune for the strong man, but even
he has to run risks. Everywhere I hear of what is called mountain fever,
or Red River fever, or fever with some other name which stands for
typhoid disease. Grand and beautiful as is the country, fertile as is
the soil, people forget to observe sanitary laws at times and suffer in
consequence. But I must own that all the men I met in Holt City were
pictures of health and strength. For one thing, the company feeds them
well. I have just breakfasted in camp with the men. We had good coffee
and fried ham and other good things for breakfast, and good tins of
preserved fruits, to which everyone did justice. Everyone here has to
rough it. I washed this morning in the open air, having myself ladled
into a tin basin the water out of a cask in which still floated the
broken ice.
Holt City is, I suppose, the head-quarters of the C.P.R. Yet it is a
place by itself. Nothing can be rougher than the rail from here to
Calgary, or finer than the view. It is an advantage that the trains are
so slow, as you have more time to enjoy the scenery, which has almost
shaken my attachment to the Hebrides, though one misses the purple
heather which lends such a charm to the grey hills of the North. But
comparisons are odious, and the Rockies, in all their charms, must be
seen to be appreciated. It was a wonderful view I had last night as I
sat on the steps of the last car, drinking in all the strange beauties of
the place. We were climbing hour by hour a wilderness of mountains. We
were hemmed in by them from afternoon till night came down upon the face
of the earth. Mostly they were black, with snowy variations; some were
bare, others clothed with verdure. Some raised their heads in the clear
blue sky as fortresses, others were peaks, others ragged and uneven,
shapeless masses of matter growing out of one another. Some seemed to
like good company, others stood solitary and apart.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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