s of the St. Lawrence from Montreal to the Quebec district, the
fur-trade of the forests that stretched away beyond the Laurentides,
was not only a source of gain to the trading companies and merchants of
Acadia and Canada, but was the sole occupation of many adventurers
whose lives were full of elements which assume a picturesque aspect at
this distance of time. It was the fur-trade that mainly led to the
discovery of the great West and to the opening up of the Mississippi
valley. But always by the side of the fur-trader and explorer we see
the Recollet or Jesuit missionary pressing forward with the cross in
his hands and offering his life that the savage might learn the lessons
of his Faith.

As soon as the Mississippi was discovered, and found navigable to the
Gulf of Mexico, French Canadian statesmen recognised the vantage-ground
that the command of the St. Lawrence valley gave them in their dreams
of conquest. Controlling the Richelieu, Lake Champlain, and the
approaches to the Hudson River, as well as the western lakes and rivers
which gave easy access to the Mississippi, France planned her bold
scheme of confining the old English colonies between the Appalachian
range of mountains and the Atlantic Ocean, and finally dominating the
whole continent.

So far we have been passing through a country {12} where the lakes and
rivers of a great natural basin or valley carry their tribute of waters
to the Eastern Atlantic; but now, when we leave Lake Superior and the
country known as Old Canada, we find ourselves on the northwestern
height of land and overlooking another region whose great
rivers--notably the Saskatchewan, Nelson, Mackenzie, Peace, Athabasca,
and Yukon--drain immense areas and find their way after many circuitous
wanderings to Arctic seas.

The Central region of Canada, long known as Rupert's Land and the
Northwestern Territory, gradually ascends from the Winnipeg system of
lakes, lying to the northwest of Lake Superior, as far as the foothills
of the Rocky Mountains, and comprises those plains and prairies which
have been opened up to civilisation within two decades of years, and
offer large possibilities of power and wealth in the future development
of the New Dominion. It is a region remarkable for its long rivers, in
places shallow and rapid, and extremely erratic in their courses
through the plains.

[Illustration: Rocky Mountains at Donald, B.C.]

Geologists tell us that at some remote peri