One of our most interesting cities, and one to adopt all the newest improvements as soon as they come out, is Churchill, Hudson Bay, that most charming of northern sea-side resorts.  Churchill’s population is already 200,000, and is rapidly increasing.  Here are the celebrated conservatories which help to make the long winter as pleasant to the citizens as summer.  These famous promenades, or rather parks under cover, have a frontage of a mile and a half along the quay, with a depth of nearly 500 feet.  They contain two splendid hotels and a sanitarium, the latter being surrounded by a grove of medicinal and health-giving plants and trees from all parts of the globe.  A summer temperature is kept up through the vast building by utilising the heat from the depths of the earth, and by natural hot springs which flow from deep bores.  Another fine city of which we may well be proud is Electropolis, on Lake Athabaska.  Electropolis can boast of 100,000 inhabitants, and most enterprising citizens they are.  Their great idea is to work everything by electricity, and to them belongs the credit of all the latest discoveries in electrical science.  Their beautiful city is a great centre of attraction for scientific men, and many European electricians make a practice of coming over every Saturday to stay till Monday.  Here are the colossal thermo-electric batteries which work throughout the year by there being stored up in immense solid blocks of aluminium the heat of summer and the cold of winter.  The hot blocks, which are protected in winter, are exposed to the sun in summer, and are heated nearly to red heat by the rays concentrated upon them by a series of large mirrors.  The cold blocks are simply exposed to the intensest cold of winter and protected from the heat of summer.  Thus two permanent extremes of temperature are provided during the whole year, and the batteries only require to be placed in suitable positions with regard to the blocks to work continuously.

While speaking of cities in the far north, that of Bearville, on the shores of Great Bear Lake, in latitude 65 degrees, must not be passed over.  Bearville is the metropolis of one of the finest mineral districts in the world, but had it not been for the inexhaustible deposits of all the useful metals in its vicinity, it is probable a city would never have sprung up in such an inhospitable region.  Between the Coppermine and Mackenzie Rivers gold and silver are abundant.  Platinum and iridium are also common, and are exported from here to all parts of the world; they are in great demand by chemists and electricians.  A rough population from all quarters has been attracted to the district, of which Bearville is the centre, and it would astonish people who seldom come to the North to see how the ingenuity of man has made life not only tolerable, but enjoyable, in the neighborhood of the Arctic Circle.  Coal seams crop up above the ground in many places, and wherever this is the case, large frame conservatories are built which are lighted, not from the roof, but by wide double windows reaching from the eaves to the ground, and heated by numerous stoves into which the coal just taken from the ground is thrown.  Electric lights, magnesium lights and lime lights help to make the long nights of winter as cheerful as day elsewhere.