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PACIFIC GREAT EASTERN RAILWAY BELT
AND ITS ARABLE LANDS

A Description of the Country as it is To-day, with Special
Reference to its Soil, its Natural Resources, and the
Districts Best Adapted for Settlement and Home-building

HILE public attention has been largely centred during the past few

years upon farming operations in Western Canada, this publicity
has been confined for the most part to the great grain-growing areas of the
Canadian Prairie Provinces. Yet, more and more, as the normal tide of
immigration flows steadily westward and northward, it becomes apparent
that British Columbia, the picturesque Pacific Coast Province, is destined
to stir the imagination and whet the interest of the settler and ‘“ home-
builder” as the newest land of opportunity. It is British Columbia, with
her wonderful heritage of natural resources; with her smiling panorama
of lakes, woodland, streams, and meadows; with her fertile valleys and
prolific bench lands. It is British Columbia to-day that broadcasts the most
insistent and most alluring message of welcome to land-seeker, investor,
and sportsman as well.

The rich expanse of territory now being opened up and made available
for settlement by the construction of the Pacific Great Eastern Railway
embraces a very large area of valuable farming land, diversified in character,
but with excellent soil and highly favourable climatic conditions.

For the better information of the man who is unfamiliar with British
Columbia and who relies more or less on his map, it may be stated that the
Pacific Great Eastern is a Provincial or Government-owned road having
its Pacific or ocean terminus at Squamish, on Howe Sound, and running
north through the central part of the Province to Fort George, a distance
of 480 miles, where it will connect with the Canadian National transconti-
nental line.

This admirably constructed road, now thrown open to travel as far as
Quesnel, has already made available many thousands of acres of fertile
agricultural lands—areas which have heretofore remained uncultivated for
lack of transportation and market facilities.

The Pacific Great Eastern traverses the Coast Mountains by a series of
transverse valleys across the ranges to Lillooet, where it crosses the Fraser
River and follows the upper bench and hill-slopes to Kelly Creek, crossing
by this and Cutoff Valleys to the Interior Plateau in the vicinity of Clinton.
Here it traverses the Interior Plateau to Lac la Hache and descends San
Jose Valley to the Fraser, following the latter fairly closely till it is diverted
by loops north to Prince George.