The Great Lone Land: A Narrative of Travel and Adventure in the North-West of AmericaButler, William Francis, Sir
History
The Great Lone Land: A Narrative of Travel and Adventure in the North-West of America
Butler, William Francis, Sir
Northwest, Canadian -- Description and travel
Two things strike the new-comer at Carlton. First, he sees evidences on
every side of a rich and fertile country; and, secondly, he sees by many
signs that war is the normal condition of the wild men who have pitched
their tents in the land of the Saskatchewan that land from which we have
taken the Indian prefix Kis, without much improvement of length or
euphony. It is a name but little known to the ear of the outside world,
but destined one day or other to fill its place in the long list of lands
whose surface yields back to man, in manifold, the toil of his brain and
hand. Its boundaries are of the simplest description, and it is as well
to begin with them. It has on the north a huge forest, on the west a huge
mountain, on the south an immense desert, on the east an immense marsh.
From the forest to the desert there lies a distance varying from 40 to
150 miles, and from the marsh to the mountain, 800 miles of land lie
spread in every varying phase of undulating fertility. This is the
Fertile Belt, the land of the Saskatchewan, the winter home of the
buffalo, the war country of the Crees and Blackfeet, the future home of
millions yet unborn. Few men have looked on this land-but the thoughts of
many in the New World tend towards it, and crave for description and fact
which in many instances can only be given to them at second-hand.
Like all things in this world, the Saskatchcwan has its poles of opinion;
there are those who paint it a paradise, and those who picture it a hell.
It is unfit for habitation, it is to be the garden-spot of America--it is
too cold, it is too dry--it is too beautiful; and, in reality, what is
it? I answer in a few words. It is rich; it is fertile; it is fair to the
eye. Man lives long in it, and the children of his body are cast in manly
mould. The cold of winter is intense, the strongest heat of summer is not
excessive. The autumn days are bright and-beautiful; the snow is seldom
deep, the frosts are early to come and late to go. All crops flourish,
though primitive and rude are the means by which they are tilled; timber
is in places plentiful, in other places scarce; grass grows high, thick,
and rich. Horses winter out, and are round-carcased, and fat in spring.
The lake-shores are deep in hay; lakelets every where. Rivers close in
mid-November and open in mid-April. The lakes teem with fish; and such
fish! fit for the table of a prince, but disdained at the feast of the
Indian. The river-heads lie all in a forest region; and it is midsummer
when their water has reached its highest level. Through the land the red
man stalks; war, his unceasing toil--horse-raiding, the pastime of his
life. How long has the Indian thus warred?-since he has been known to the
white man, and long before.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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