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The stream of immigration steadily flowing westward in ever-increasing volume is rapidly exhausting the reserves of vacant land in that part of the Canadian west which used to be known, to the detriment of the territory farther to the north, as “The Fertile Belt.”

Already settlement has overflowed the northern frontier of the “belt of supposed limited fertility” and many thousands of acres of agricultural land have been surveyed by the Dominion Government immediately north of the North Saskatchewan and in the Peace river valley, and the surveys are being rapidly extended to keep up with the pressure of advancing settlement. While the trend of immigration is turning northward, the eyes of the capitalist are attracted in the same direction. Information concerning the resources of the country once ignored is now sought for. Facts about the climate, the soil, the timber, the rivers, the lakes, the minerals, the fish, the game obtained at the risk of life and limb by fur trader, explorer, missionary, geologist and sportsman, even those facts regarded not so long ago as merely interesting, have now a practical value.

The once prevalent notion that the whole of the immense territory north of the North Saskatchewan was a sterile, frost-bound waste destined for all time to remain a wilderness, is now largely a thing of the past, and the opportunities which the latent resources of the silent places of the unexploited northwest afford to the enterprising and adventurous at the present moment challenge the attention of the world.

With interest powerfully attracted to the more easterly sections of the country under review by the recent extensions northward of the limits of the prosperous provinces of Ontario and Manitoba, and with easy means of communication with the larger divisions farther west assured, thanks to the progress of the construction of railways northward to Port Nelson on Hudson bay and to McMurray in the Athabaska country, it certainly looks as though the long neglected Northland were coming to its own at last.

By connecting with the three thousand miles of almost uninterrupted steamboat communication on Athabaska, Peace, Slave and Mackenzie rivers, and Athabaska and Great Slave lakes, the railway being pushed into the Athabaska country will place the whole of Mackenzie basin within easy reach of the prospector, the explorer, the sportsman and the tourist. The line being constructed to Hudson bay, as soon as steamboat connection is established therewith, will lay the very heart of that alluring El Dorado which we call the Barren Lands, with its herds of musk-oxen and caribou and its mineral wealth, open to the prospector and the sportsman, for, via Chesterfield inlet, Baker lake and the Thelon, there is a splendid, uninterrupted waterway from Hudson bay for a distance of five hundred and fifty miles into the interior.

The exceptional attractions which the Northland holds out to the sportsman are certain to contribute largely towards the discovery and development of the natural resources of the country. A couple of years ago Mr. W. T. Robson, General Advertising Agent of the Canadian Pacific Railway, submitted to a convention of railway men a thoughtful paper on the value of the tourist sportsman as a means of publicity for undeveloped country, in which he pointed out that the cultured business men who find their greatest pleasure, relaxation and physical benefit from trips into the wilds, are quick to discern the commercial value of water powers, timber and minerals, and he related a number of instances where hunting trips had resulted either in the discovery of unexpected natural resources or in large investments in the country visited.

The object of the present publication is to present, with some degree of systematic arrangement, all of the authentic information available at the moment as to the natural resources of the less-known and unexploited portions of northern Canada lying west of Hudson bay and James bay and east of the main range of Rocky mountains.

This general definition of area brings within the scope of this volume the whole of that portion of the old provisional district of Keewatin recently divided by act of parliament between the provinces of Ontario and Manitoba, those portions of the provinces of Saskatchewan and Alberta north of the unsettled and unsurveyed territory, the basin of Mackenzie river, and that immense country north of the new provincial lines extending from Mackenzie basin to Hudson bay, which has apparently, undeservedly, come to be known as “Barren Lands” or “Barren Grounds.”

In these immense regions there are wide areas of which we in this year of grace 1912 know as little as was known of Bow river valley in 1812, and that was nothing. On the other hand considerable is known in a general way about certain portions of every one of the great districts which form this vast territory, or, to be quite exact, considerable has been written about them. The subject matter has been so widely distributed that no one could be expected to be familiar with it all.

Practically the first authoritative data as to the natural resources of Canada’s unexploited northland was contained in the published evidence of a British parliamentary committee which sat in 1749 to enquire into the resources of the country administered by the Hudson’s Bay Company. With this as a nucleus, a considerable amount of information on the subject has gradually accumulated. The journals of officials of the big fur-trading companies have contributed to this fund of information and so have the writings of missionaries, the reports of British, Canadian and United States official government explorers, the narratives of sportsmen and adventurous travellers, and the patrol records of that inimitable and ubiquitous body the Royal Northwest Mounted Police. A very wide range of information regarding the various sections of these territories, too, has been placed on record as a result of several Canadian parliamentary investigations.

Some idea of the large amount of literature relating to the great northland which has accumulated, can be obtained from the fact that in the preparation of the present book nearly three hundred publications have been consulted, necessitating an amount of reading which was not anticipated when the task was undertaken. Much of this reading was absolutely unproductive, a considerable portion of the books written by men who have lived in or travelled through the country being merely narratives of travel and adventure, containing no direct information of any value as to natural resources.

For various obvious reasons many books written by scientific and observant men who have visited the still new west are of little value in throwing light upon the questions of the natural resources of the country. One of these reasons is referred to by Sir Alexander Mackenzie, who states in the introduction to his narrative:—“I could not stop to dig into the earth, over whose surface I was compelled to pass with rapid steps; nor could I turn aside to collect the plants which nature might have scattered in the way, when my thoughts were anxiously employed in making provision for the day that was passing over me.” The distances to be travelled in the far Northland are generally so great that the slender stores of supplies carried by the explorer and traveller do not permit of time being devoted to thorough investigation by the way. Again, much of the travelling in the unsettled north has been done in winter, when the surface of the ground was covered with snow, making an examination of the soil and rocks impossible.

Nevertheless, the literature relating to the new Canadian northwest is so voluminous that it contains, scattered throughout it, an aggregate amount of practical information regarding the resources of even the more remote sections of the country that, as assembled within the two covers of a single volume, will probably astonish most readers.

The present volume, according to the instructions the undersigned received from the Department of the Interior, is purely and simply a compilation. Care has been taken to avoid the temptation to try and produce a work of original literary merit, and in the following pages it will be found that the compiler has introduced only as much original writing as is necessary to introduce intelligibly the various quotations, or to establish the connections between them, his aim being to present all the data available in the original text, or as near to it as the exigencies of compilation and space would permit.

With the object of properly introducing some of the chief authorities quoted and of placing the reader, from the beginning, au fait with the circumstances under which the principal information regarding the resources of the country was obtained, the presentation of the data has been prefaced by a brief historical chapter.

At the end of the book a list of the written authorities from which quotations are made will be found.

It will be observed that, to avoid confusion, the vast region under review has been divided into five distinct territorial units, and that the matter relating to each unit is in turn divided into four sections, relating respectively to the resources in the way of arable land, timber, minerals, and fish and game. The compiler found that this system of classification was satisfactory in his two previous volumes of a somewhat similar type, “Canada’s Fertile Northland,” and “The Great Mackenzie Basin,” and a continuation of the system will facilitate reference between the present volume and those which were its forerunners and its inspiration.

Perhaps I might be permitted here a word of personal explanation. I have had only a slight acquaintance with any part of this great waiting Northland, having campaigned a little over its southern margin between North Saskatchewan and Beaver rivers, in Fort Pitt district, during the operations against Big Bear’s Indians in 1885; but what I saw of the country then, with its park-like groves of fine trees, its valleys covered with luxuriant grasses, its sylvan lakes teeming with fish, and every prospect a gem of nature’s own perfect landscape gardening, made such an impression on my mind that I have ever since felt a personal interest not only in that particular section but in the vast regions beyond which have not the charm of the soft and lovely scenery of Loon lake and Beaver river. Having this feeling towards the country I have followed as a hobby the literature relating to it, and it has been naturally a pleasure to contribute my mite in helping it along towards its ultimate destiny.

The idea of the present volume was not mine but that of the late Mr. Robert E. Young, D.L.S., Superintendent of Railway Lands and Chief Geographer, the most enthusiastic believer in the Northland who ever lived, probably, and whose untimely death was a grievous loss to the country. If this book possesses any merits it is due altogether to his original suggestion, to his wide knowledge and to his enthusiastic and kindly co-operation.

ERNEST J. CHAMBERS.

The Senate, Ottawa.

May 11, 1912.