The New Student's Reference Work/Canadian Pacific Railway, The

Canadian Pacific Railway, The, crosses Canada from east to west. Its completion saw the beginning of the real development of Canada. It enabled those who lived in eastern Canada to realize that our western prairies and unexplored northwest comprise a rich tract of about 600,000 square miles. The train of inflowing settlement since 1900 has become a rush. Each year thousands of well-to-do immigrants from all lands reach this great fertile country via the C. P. R. Along its main line are rapidly growing cities, and its branch lines are bordered with thrifty and growing settlements. In three provinces alone crossed by this road, viz. Manitoba, Alberta and Saskatchewan, the population has grown from 420,000 in 1901 to 1,322,000 in 1911. The railway management is enterprising and progressive. Some years ago its directors decided to undertake the irrigation of a tract 30,000,000 acres in extent, 40 miles wide and extending 150 miles east of Calgary (Alberta). Construction was well-begun in 1904 on this work which, when completed, will be the largest irrigation system on the American continent. The settler pays 50 cents an acre for the water his land requires. About one third of the work is now satisfactorily completed. Along the main line of this road we reach North Bay, Port Arthur, Fort William, Kenora, Winnipeg, Brandon, Portage La Prairie, Banff, Regina, Kamloops, Medicine Hat and Vancouver and other well-known prosperous places.

The Canadian Pacific also has a magnificent steamship service on both oceans (Atlantic and Pacific). Its steamships on the Montreal-Liverpool route are palatial. It furnishes a highway round the world.

It has a coast fleet including 15 vessels plying between coast points from Victoria, Vancouver, Seattle, Nanaimo, Ladysmith, Crofton and Comox to northern British Columbia and Alaskan ports. Its royal-mail “Empress” liners make regular trips from British Columbia to China and Japan, and its Canadian-Australian boats serve Hawaii, Fiji, New Zealand and Australia.