persuasion and sent a commission of three, Donald A. Smith
(afterwards Lord Strathcona), Colonel de Salaberry, and Vicar General
Thibault. Smith was gradually restoring unity and order, when the act
of Riel in shooting Thomas Scott, an Ontario settler and a member of the
powerful Orange order, set passions flaring. Mgr. Tache, the Catholic
bishop of the diocese, on his return aided in quieting the metis.
Delegates were sent by the Provisional Government to Ottawa, and, though
not officially recognized, they influenced the terms of settlement. An
expedition under Colonel Wolseley marched through the wilderness north
of Lake Superior only to find that Riel and his lieutenants had fled. By
the Manitoba Act the Red River country was admitted to Confederation as
a self-governing province, under the name of Manitoba, while the country
west to the Rockies was given territorial status. The Indian tribes were
handled with tact and justice, but though for the time the danger of
armed resistance had passed, the embers of discontent were not wholly
quenched.

The extension of Canadian sovereignty beyond the Rockies came about in
quieter fashion. After Mackenzie had shown the way, Simon Fraser and
David Thompson and other agents of the NorthWest Company took up the
work of exploration and fur trading. With the union of the two rival
companies in 1821, the Hudson's Bay Company became the sole authority
on the Pacific coast. Settlers straggled in slowly until, in the late
fifties, the discovery of rich placer gold on the Fraser and later
in the Cariboo brought tens of thousands of miners from Australia and
California, only to drift away again almost as quickly when the sands
began to fail.

Local governments had been established both in Vancouver Island and on
the mainland. They were joined in a single province in 1866. One of the
first acts of the new Legislature was to seek consolidation with the
Dominion. Inspired by an enthusiastic Englishman, Alfred Waddington,
who had dreamed for years of a transcontinental railway, the province
stipulated that within ten years Canada should complete a road from the
Pacific to a junction with the railways of the East. These terms were
considered presumptuous on the part of a little settlement of ten or
fifteen thousand whites; but Macdonald had faith in the resources of
Canada and in what the morrow would bring forth. The bargain was made;
and British Columbia entered the Confederation on July