The New Student's Reference Work/Manitoba

Manitoba (mǎn'ĭ-tō'ba) was called the prairie-province up to 1906, when Alberta and Saskatchewan, having received provincial autonomy, also shared the title. It lies near the center of North America and midway between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. The southern boundary is Minnesota and North Dakota. The 60th parallel is its northern boundary and it embraces a third of the western shore of Hudson's Bay.

Area

In size it is larger than Scotland, Ireland and Wales combined: it embraces 251,000 square miles of territory. Conceive the extent of its rich acres. Placing a family of five on every half section of land, there is room for 2,000,000 of a farm population.

History

The first white settlement (the Selkirk Colony) was made in 1812 on both sides of the Red River below Winnipeg, then called Fort Garry. The colonists were mostly from Scotland, and many of their descendants still reside on the old homesteads. The colony remained under Hudson Bay Company rule at Fort Garry until 1870, when the whole western country, excepting British Columbia, which already was an independent colony, passed under the control of the British government by purchase. The prairie was at that time known as Assiniboia. The price paid to the Hudson Bay Company to extinguish their title was $1,500,000, they retaining two one-mile-square sections of land in each township of 36 sections (six miles square) and small areas around their trading-posts, about one twentieth of the land all told. In 1870, when Manitoba was created a province and became a part of the Canadian federation, the boundaries were much smaller than the enlargements of 1880 and 1912 made them. Only 36 per cent, of the population is native to the province. In the early days the population was largely French and French half-breeds. When the agricultural possibilities of the country became known, there was a large immigration from the United States, Great Britain, central and northern Europe and eastern Canada.

Drainage

The fertile belts paralleling the shores of Lake Winnipeg at one time, it is thought, formed the bed of the lake. (Scientists call it Lake Agassiz.) When the lake disappeared, it left deposits of clay and silt which are now overlaid by two to four feet of black vegetable mould, constituting the most magnificent wheatlands in the known world. Through this valley Red River flows northward into Lake Winnipeg, which with Lakes Manitoba and Winnipegosis on the west (in reality parts of one whole) finds its outlet in Hudson Bay, and thus the lakes and rivers of the province drain the whole country. All Manitoba belongs to the Hudson Bay drainage-system. For this drainage the great lakes of the province are the reservoirs.. Winnipeg River is some 200 miles long. At its falls from Lake of the Woods is one of the greatest and most easily utilized water-powers in the world.

Climate

Unlike some of the other provinces, Manitoba possesses but little variety of climate. There is much sunlight the year through. This ensures rapid and successful growth of vegetation. The autumns are long and agreeable. During the winter, on account of the dry atmosphere, the low temperature is not so much felt as in countries with more moisture.

Resources

Agriculture will always remain the chief occupation of the people. At first wheatgrowing was the chief item; mixed farming is now increasing; nearly all the wheat is sent to Europe either in the grain or as flour made in Canadian mills. Large flouring-mills are to be seen everywhere. So thickly are the railroads intersecting the province that but few farms are more than 8 or 10 miles distant from a road. There are four systems: the Canadian Pacific, the Canadian Northern, the Great Northern and the Grand Trunk Pacific, extending to Prince Rupert, B. C. Winnipeg, Brandon and Portage la Prairie are the chief centers of population. The province has 2,000,000 square miles of arable land, but only about one sixth is under cultivation.

Manitoba was the sphere of the pioneering efforts in western Canada's immigration. It is only 36 years since the province had only 17,000 inhabitants. Today its population is more than 455,000. In 1870 its agricultural production found no place in the records. In 1881 it was credited with producing 1,000,000 bushels of wheat on 51,300 acres and 1,270,268 bushels of oats. The acreage under crop in 1902 was 3,189,015; 2,039,940 of which were in wheat, producing a yield of about 53,000,000 bushels. In 1905 the acreage in wheat was 2,643,588. The yield was 21.07 as a general average, making a total yield of 55,761,416 bushels. On 432,298 acres there was a total crop of 14,064,025 bushels of barley. These crops made $58,682,471 for the 45,000 farmers or over $1,300 each in 1905. The rapid expansion of the province is mirrored in these figures. Its wheat-yield for 10 years averaged nearly 22 bushels per acre.

Water and fuel are important considerations for the settler. In Manitoba the country is everywhere at easy distances intersected by creeks and rivers, and there are many lakes, especially in the northern portion. Water can be secured almost anywhere by sinking wells to a moderate depth.

Mr. Sifton, a former minister of the interior, who has resided many years in the northwest, wrote, before the extension of Manitoba's boundaries in 1912: "In Manitoba and the two new provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan there are, roughly speaking, over 200,000,000 acres known to be fit for cultivation, and the population at the present time is about 750,000 souls. They last year cultivated altogether about 5,250,000 acres. They produced 60,000,000 bushels of wheat, and 66,000,000 bushels of other grains. This year (1905) there will be 5,750,000 acres under cultivation. The rest awaits the plough. If 750,000 peoplecultivating 5,250,000 acres of land produce 126,000,000 bushels of grain, and there yet remain more than 190,000,000 acres to be brought under cultivation, is it too much to say that within a few years the grandiloquent title of the Granary of the Empire will be more than realized?"

The coalfields of the west and the timbered districts of the north and east, as well as the south, will supply fuel for hundreds of years.

Education

There is but one school-system——the public-school system under which all schools are free to all children between 5 and 15. High schools in all the cities and larger towns are free to resident pupils, and in Winnipeg and Brandon there are colleges possessing a standing equal to that of the institutions of the older provinces. Excellent training is provided for teachers, and their qualifications are of a high standard. The public schools are maintained largely by government appropriations, at present about $2,000,000 yearly. In this province, as throughout Saskatchewan and Alberta, the Dominion government has set apart two sections of land in each township, the income from which is applied to the support of its schools, the remainder of the funds being provided by a land-tax. One eighteenth of the land is set apart for school purposes. Private schools, business colleges and public libraries are numerous, as well-equipped, as those in similar communities anywhere, and are established in all the cities and towns of importance. With the splendid public schools these offer educational facilities fully equal to those of any country. In 1886 the number of schools was 422 with a school-population of 16,834. In 1908 there were 2,014 public schools, with an attendance of 71,031. There also is a large number of Roman Catholic parochial schools. There is an experimental farm at Brandon that is doing much to educate the farming population. Accurate records of all experiments in practical work are kept, and the information is given to the settlers free. There also are dairy-schools, farmers' institutes, live-stock, fruit-growers', agricultural and horticultural associations that are doing much to educate the settlers, free of charge, in all the most successful methods of carrying on all the branches of their calling.