The Company then ruled over the greater portion of what is now the Dominion of Canada. The names of Fort York, Moose Factory, and Red River were as familiar to the Orkney boys of those days as Edinburgh, Glasgow, and Aberdeen are to us to-day. But Canada changed even more than Orkney during the latter part of the nineteenth century, and the great Hudson’s Bay Company have now handed over their vast territories to the rule of the Dominion. The fur trade still exists in the North-West, and there are Orkneymen still in the employment of the Company; but the days have gone by when this was one of the chief industries of the wander-loving sons of our islands. After the “Nor’-Wast,” as the Hudson Bay service was called, the “Straits” had the next claim on our youth. The Davis Strait whale-fishing fleet made an annual visit to our islands to complete their crews. This was in the spring or “vore,” when the crops were in the ground, and many men, both young and middle-aged, looked to the annual whaling trip to the north as a means of gain, just as their Norse ancestors did to the annual “vore-viking” raid on the richer shores of the South. This also has passed away; the harpoon and whale-lance are rarely seen in the islands; whales and whaling fleet alike have almost become extinct. But while agriculture was still in its infancy in Orkney, the “Straits” gave much-needed employment and modest gains to many of our hardy forefathers. The general tendency of life in Orkney has been away from dependence upon the sea for a living, and towards agriculture and the trade and commerce which it brings with it. In its methods of farming and in its general prosperity the county now compares well with any other part of the kingdom. But most of this progress has been made during the last half century or so. It was in 1833 that the Aberdeen, Leith, and Clyde Shipping Company, now the North of Scotland and Orkney and Shetland Navigation Company, first decided to send one of their steamers—the _Velocity_—to call at Kirkwall. The call was made once a fortnight, and only during the months of June, July, and August. The mails were then carried across the Pentland Firth in a small boat. The growth in traffic since that time is indicated by the fact that the trade and commerce of the islands now requires the weekly call of two steamers at Kirkwall and three at Stromness, with a daily mail steamer to both towns, in addition to numerous occasional trips of other steamers and sailing vessels, especially during the fishing season, while four smaller steamers maintain communication between the various islands. The Orkney farmer still has a somewhat niggardly soil and a stormy climate to contend with. His acres are few, and his boys will often turn to richer lands to seek their fortune. But life in these islands to-day is easy and comfortable compared with what it was during any of the ten centuries whose history we have passed in brief review.