Through The Mackenzie Basin Part 9

That the country is great and possessed of almost unique resources is beyond doubt; but that it has serious drawbacks, particularly in its lack of railway connection with the outer world, is also true. And one thing must be borne in mind, namely, that, when the limited areas of prairie within its borders are taken up, the settler must face the forest with the axe.

Perhaps he will be none the worse for this. It bred in the pioneers of our old provinces some of the highest qualities: courage, iron endurance, self-denial, homely and upright life, and, above all, for it includes all, true and enn.o.bling patriotism. The survival of such qualities has been manifest in mult.i.tudes of their sons, who, remembering the record, have borne themselves manfully wherever they have gone.

But modern conditions are breeding methods new and strange, and keen observers profess to discern in our swift development the decay of certain things essential to our welfare. We seem, they think, to be borrowing from others--for they are not ours by inheritance--their boastful spirit, extravagance, and love of luxury, fatal to any State through the consequent decline of morality. The picture is over-drawn. True womanhood and clean life are still the keynotes of the great majority of Canadian homes.

Yet very striking is the contrast with the old days of household economies, the days of the ox-chain, the sickle, and the leach-tub.

All of these, some happily and some unhappily, have been swept away by the besom of Progress. But in any case life was too serious in those days for effeminate luxury, or for aught but proper pride in defending the country, and in work well done.

And it is just this stern life which must be lived, sooner or later, not only in the wilds of Athabasca, but in facing everywhere the great problems of race-stability--the spectres of retribution--which are rapidly rising upon the white man's horizon.

For the rest, and granting the manhood, the future of Athabasca is more a.s.sured than that of Manitoba seemed to be to the doubters of thirty years ago. In a word, there is fruitful land there, and a bracing climate fit for industrial man, and therefore its settlement is certain. It will take time. Vast forests must be cleared, and not, perhaps, until railways are built will that day dawn upon Athabasca. Yet it will come; and it is well to know that, when it does, there is ample room for the immigrant in the regions described.

The generation is already born, perhaps grown, which will recast a famous journalist's emphatic phrase, and cry, "Go North!" Well, we came thence! Our savage ancestors, peradventure, migrated from the immemorial East, and, in skins and breech-clouts, rocked the cradle of a supreme race in Scandinavian snows. It has travelled far to the enervating South since then; and, to preserve its hardihood and sway on this continent, must be recreated in the high lat.i.tudes which gave it birth.

MR. COTe'S POEM.

Sortez de vos tombeaux, peuplades endormies A l'ombre des grands pins de vos forets benies!

Venez, fils de guerriers, qui jadis sous ces bois Bruliez vos tomahawks, vos armes et vos carquois!

Que sur vos pales fronts l'aureole immortelle Pour votre bienfaiteur s'illumine plus belle.

Neophytes, venez en ce jour de bonheur Proclamer les vertus de l'ill.u.s.tre pasteur, Qui pour vous ses agneaux, ses brebis les plus cheres.

Consacra sa jeunesse et ses annees entieres.

Venez, fleurs qui brillez au jardin de Bon Dieu.

Repandre les parfums qu'exhale le saint lieu Sur l'ill.u.s.tre vieillard qui de sa voix benie Vous fit epanouir dans l'hoeureuse patrie!

Tendre et venere pere, apotre magnanime, Grand pretre du Seigneur, votre oevre fut sublime.

Des bords du Missouri jusqu'aux glances du nord, Voyez, semeur beni, cinquante sillons d'or; Voyez sur le versant de la montagne sainte De votre charite l'imperissable empreinte; Voyez cette legion d'ames regenerees Portant par votre main les celestes livrees.

Quoi, muse profane, indigne chalumeau, Oserais-tu planer sur un theme si haut?

Pour chanter du heros les fetes jubilaires Descends de ces hauteurs a demi-seculaires!

Muse prosterne-toi. Hosanna! Hosanna!

Au ciel gloire au Tres-Haut. Jube, alleluia!

Hommage sur la terre a l'Oblat de Marie, Qui dans son cycle d'or brille sur la patrie!