VERMILION-ON-THE-PEACE

“Lofty I stand from each sister land, patient and cheerily wise,
With the weight of a world of wonder in my quiet, passionless eyes,
Dreaming of men who will bless me, of women esteeming me good,
Of children born in my borders, of radiant motherhood,
Of cities leaping to stature, of fame like a flag unfurled,
As I pour the tide of my riches in the eager lap of the world.”

—­Service.

It is on August 27th, in the evening, that the crew, all slicked up in their Sunday-go-to-meetings, draw us up on the beach of the City in the Silences, this Past-in-the-arms-of-the-Present,—­Vermilion-on-the-Peace.  The first thing to meet our eye is the red roof of the flour-mill of the H.B.  Co., a picture of progressiveness set in a living frame of golden wheat, the heavy heads nodding to the harvest.

Vermilion is an old post of the Old Company.  Alexander Mackenzie on his way to the Pacific found people at work here far back in 1792.  The Vermilion of to-day stands a living monument to the initiative faith and hard work largely of one man, Mr. Francis D. Wilson, who has had charge of H.B.  Co. interests here for nineteen years.  Mr. Wilson found this place a fur-post on the edge of civilisation, and he has made of it a commercial, agricultural, and manufacturing centre.  And his example has been contagious, for the half-breeds around him have become farmers, the Indians who traded furs a dozen years ago now buy harness and ploughs and breach-loading guns from The Company, paying for the same with wheat of their own growing.

[Illustration:  The Flour Mill at Vermilion-on-the-Peace]

Vermilion is in latitude 58 deg. 30’ N.,—­that is, about four hundred miles due north of Edmonton, and on practically the same parallel as Stockholm.  The flour-mill that we now inspect is the most northerly wheat-mill on this continent, and it has been running for five years.  It is the roller process, with a capacity of fifty barrels a day, the motor-power being a 40 H.P.  Corliss engine.  The wheat which feeds these rollers is all grown in nearby fields, and the resultant flour is consumed by the people of the lone posts of the Peace and the lower Mackenzie.  Two years ago the H.B.  Company paid to farmers, all of whom lived within a radius of five miles from the mill, the sum of $27,000 spot cash for their wheat.  An electric plant lights the mill and fort buildings, affording fifty six-candle-power lights.

Right up to the door of the mill extends the sixty-acre wheat-field of the H.B.  Company, from which Mr. Wilson computes that he will this year thrash two thousand bushels.  If the H.B. wheat-field were to sell the H.B. mill these two thousand bushels at $1.25 a bushel (the ruling Vermilion price), there would be a net profit of $1500, after paying all expense of culture, to the credit of one branch of Mr. Wilson’s commercial institution.  For thirty years, wheat, oats, barley, and vegetables have been grown in Vermilion, not as an experiment, but as regular commercial crops.  Cereals are sown late in April or early in May, and the harvest is gathered in August.  More than once, wheat has matured in eighty-six days from seed-sowing to seed-garnering.