Vitae:

CANADIAN

ViOlgs eX TORONTO,

MARCH, 1908

MAGAZINE

No. d

Prince Rupert

By CY WARMAN

Author of “The Story of the Railroad,”

‘* The Last Spike,

GAMUEL G.. BEY PEE, the well-

known Washington correspondent,
who is responsible for the ‘‘Who’s
Who and Why”’ column in the Satur-
day Evening Post, has written a series
of articles on ‘‘The Mastery of the
Pacific,’’ meaning, of course, in the
United States. His observations be-
gan at Los Angeles and ended at
Seattle, showing the natural advant-
ages and setting forth the claims of
the several cities. Each, it is hardly
necessary to say, counts itself the Pa-
cific gateway to the Orient.

Up to the time of the advent of
the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway
there was but one ‘‘Frisco’’ in Can-
ada, and that was Vancouver. From
this time forward that wonderful city
by the sea is to have an ambitious and
aggressive rival. Prince Rupert, the
Pacifie coast terminal of the Grand
Trunk Pacific, will have to be reckon-
ed with. Prince Rupert is new and
attractive. It is to be a model city
in every sense of the word. It ouar ds
what is said to be the finest natural
harbour on the coast, if not in the
world. It is the terminal town of a

transcontinental railway which bids
395

OS DA Ge

fair to surpass anything ever yet
attempted in the way of railway con-
struction on this continent, crossing
from ocean to ocean without a single
mile of mountain grade or grade that
can by any stretch of imagination be
considered an obstacle to the economi-
cal operation of the road. Prince
Rupert is also at the end of the long
portage on the shortest route around
the world. Any scheme which has for
its ultimate object the swift circling
of the sphere must reckon Prince
Rupert on its right-of-way. The min-
eral wealth of all that vast mountain
region, the forest products of North-
ern British Columbia, as well as the
food products of the Prairie Pro-
vinees and the fur of the far north—
that is to say, all the export wealth
of this resourceful Dominion origin-
ating north and west of the South
Saskatchewan, bound for the Orient
by the Occidental route—will funnel
down and pass out by way of Prince
Rupert.

Probably because I have travelled
a great deal in and written much
about the West, I am often asked as
to the climate of Prince Rupert. It