The Book of the West: The story of western Canada, its birth and early adventures, its youthful combats, its peaceful settlement, its great transformation, and its present waysKennedy, Howard Angus
History
The Book of the West: The story of western Canada, its birth and early adventures, its youthful combats, its peaceful settlement, its great transformation, and its present ways
Kennedy, Howard Angus
Northwest, Canadian
“That’s the size of it. Next time the Prince of Wales comes out to his
ranch, you send him along, and I reckon she’d cook him a four-course
dinner on a chip-and-a-half of firing, if he was keen on style, which he
doesn’t seem to be. Of course we’ve got a fireless cooker; she planned
it from one she saw in a paper, and little Jim made the box. But,
listen! There they are.”
Melodious sounds are echoing through the woods—“Comin’ through the
rye,” sung in unison by two robust young voices, and jingling tug-chains
for accompaniment.
With that music echoing in our ears, and the “three cheers” of the whole
happy family as we take off, we sail away down the middle of the
Province to the South.
* * * * *
There’s the Okanagan Valley, with its beautiful houses, set gem-like in
their gardens, looking out on battalions, brigades, whole army corps of
apple and cherry and plum and peach and apricot trees, knee-deep in
vetch and alfalfa; on spreading fields of tomatoes, onions and celery,
and potatoes; all watered from the mountain streams close by. And this
is only one, though the chief, among the fruit valleys of this rich and
corrugated Province.
“They used to laugh at us,” an English orchardman says, “and what they
called our ‘style’—‘Piccadilly in the Wilds,’ and all that—but we know
how to work.” No, if we ever laughed we stopped when we saw 3,400
men—3,400 from a total population of 15,000—pouring out of this valley
to fight for our common cause. When those thousands hurried off to the
War, those who were left doubled up and did their work for them, as far
as human beings could. . . . Of the 590,572 men in the Canadian
Expeditionary Force, we do not forget that 200,569 came from these four
Western Provinces, besides 2,327 from Yukon. British Columbia sent
51,438, Alberta 45,146, Saskatchewan, 37,666, and Manitoba 66,319.
* * * * *
Turn east again, across a labyrinth of mountain and forest. A blast of
hot air rises from one spot—a highly effective kind of hot air, too.
That smelter pours out sixty million pounds of refined zinc in a
year—nearly the whole zinc production of Canada.
That broad valley where two rivers meet, the Columbia and the Kootenay,
was filled with dense jungle a few years ago. It has been transformed
into a garden, by the co-operative industry of the Doukhobors. This is
the headquarters of their community. That black snake winding for miles
up to the head of a waterfall is their new irrigation pipe-line, and
that big building beside the railway is their jam factory.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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