le-cheeked children and
fetid alleyways. Surely in bringing the workless man of the Old World to
the manless work of the New, the Canadian Government and the
transportation companies are doing a bit of God's work.

Half way between Winnipeg and the Pacific we reach Calgary, breezy,
buoyant Calgary, the commercial metropolis of the foothills, already a
busy mart and predestined to be the distributing point for many
railroads. The biggest man-made thing in Calgary is the C.P.R.
irrigation works, the largest on this continent. The area included in
the irrigation block is twice as big as the Island of Porto Rico and
one-eighth the size of England and Wales; and the ultimate expenditure
on the undertaking will reach the five million mark.

Calgary is the centre of a country literally flowing with milk and honey
and fat things. The oil-fields of Pincher Creek, with their rich promise
of becoming a second Pennsylvania, are contiguous to the city. The
winter wheat grown in Southern Alberta was awarded first prize and gold
medal at the World's Fair in Oregon in 1905. The hackney carriage horses
which took first prize at the last Montreal and New York horse-fairs
were foaled and raised near Calgary. If we were to continue going due
west from this point, all the scenic glories of the Rocky Mountains
would be ours--seventy Switzerlands in one. But that journey must stand
over for another day, with the journey to Prince Rupert, the ocean
terminus of the Grand Trunk Pacific.

Turning sharply to the north, we travel two hundred miles, and draw into
where Edmonton, the capital of Alberta, sits smiling on the banks of her
silver Saskatchewan. As he sees us digging out our tents and dunnage,
the porter asks, "Then yer not comin' back?" "No." "You _are_ goin' to
the North Pole, then, the place you wuz hollerin' fer!"

With the exception of Victoria, Edmonton has the most charming location
of all cities of Western Canada. High Hope stalks her streets. There is
a spirit of initiative and assuredness in this virile town, a culture
and thoughtfulness in her people, expectancy in the very air. It is the
city of contrasts; the ox-cart dodges the automobile; in the track of
French heel treads the moccasin; the silk hat salutes the Stetson.

Edmonton is the end of steel. Three lines converge here: the Canadian
Northern, the Canadian Pacific, and the Grand Trunk Pacific. The
Canadian Northern arrived first, coming in four years ago. Now that