For
twelve years he had been member of parliament for Huntingdon, and
since 1812 had been the determined opponent in England of Lord
Selkirk's plans of forcible colonization. After his death, however, in
1821, a sudden movement for reconciliation took place between the two
Companies. Thenceforth the Hudson's Bay Company ruled over the vast
regions of British North America, beyond Newfoundland, New Brunswick,
Nova Scotia, and the two Canadian provinces. Under their government
the work of geographical exploration went on apace. In 1834 one of
their officers, J. M'Leod, discovered the Stikine River in northern
British Columbia, and by 1848 J. Bell and Robert Campbell had revealed
the Porcupine and Yukon Rivers. By the time Thomas Simpson, Warren
Dease, and Dr. John Rae, on behalf of the Hudson's Bay Company; and
Franklin, Back, Parry, Richardson, and M'Clintock, for the Imperial
Government, had completed the explorations mentioned in Chapter VI,
all the main features of Canadian geography were made known. The next
series of pioneers were to be those of the mining industry--it was the
discovery of gold in 1856 which created British Columbia; of
agriculture--the wheat-growers of the Red River region made the
province of Manitoba; of the steamboat; and above all the railway.
Developments of science scarcely yet dreamt of will demand in further
time their pioneers, and these will not come from abroad, but will
assuredly be found in this splendid Canadian people, the descendants
of the men or of the types of men I have attempted to describe.
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