Half way between Winnipeg and the Pacific we reach Calgary, breezy, buoyant Calgary, the commercial metropolis of the foothills, already a busy mart and predestined to be the distributing point for many railroads.  The biggest man-made thing in Calgary is the C.P.R. irrigation works, the largest on this continent.  The area included in the irrigation block is twice as big as the Island of Porto Rico and one-eighth the size of England and Wales; and the ultimate expenditure on the undertaking will reach the five million mark.

Calgary is the centre of a country literally flowing with milk and honey and fat things.  The oil-fields of Pincher Creek, with their rich promise of becoming a second Pennsylvania, are contiguous to the city.  The winter wheat grown in Southern Alberta was awarded first prize and gold medal at the World’s Fair in Oregon in 1905.  The hackney carriage horses which took first prize at the last Montreal and New York horse-fairs were foaled and raised near Calgary.  If we were to continue going due west from this point, all the scenic glories of the Rocky Mountains would be ours—­seventy Switzerlands in one.  But that journey must stand over for another day, with the journey to Prince Rupert, the ocean terminus of the Grand Trunk Pacific.

Turning sharply to the north, we travel two hundred miles, and draw into where Edmonton, the capital of Alberta, sits smiling on the banks of her silver Saskatchewan.  As he sees us digging out our tents and dunnage, the porter asks, “Then yer not comin’ back?” “No.”  “You are goin’ to the North Pole, then, the place you wuz hollerin’ fer!”

With the exception of Victoria, Edmonton has the most charming location of all cities of Western Canada.  High Hope stalks her streets.  There is a spirit of initiative and assuredness in this virile town, a culture and thoughtfulness in her people, expectancy in the very air.  It is the city of contrasts; the ox-cart dodges the automobile; in the track of French heel treads the moccasin; the silk hat salutes the Stetson.

Edmonton is the end of steel.  Three lines converge here:  the Canadian Northern, the Canadian Pacific, and the Grand Trunk Pacific.  The Canadian Northern arrived first, coming in four years ago.  Now that Edmonton has arrived, it seems the most natural thing in the world that there should have sprung up on the Saskatchewan this rich metropolis, anticipating for itself a future expansion second to no city in commercial Canada.  But some one had to have faith and prescience before Edmonton got her start, and the god-from-the-machine was the Canadian Northern, in other words, William Mackenzie and D.D.  Mann.  Individuals and nations as they reap a harvest are apt to forget the hands that sowed the seed in faith, nothing doubting.  When this railroad went into Edmonton, as little was known of the valley of the Saskatchewan as is known now of the valley of the Peace.  Without exception, Canadian men of letters go to other countries for recognition, but not so all our men of deeds.  Mackenzie and Mann, “the Brains of a Trans-Continental,” stayed in Canada and put their genius to work here.  The Canadian Northern is the product of Canadian minds and Canadian money.