"The Muse can knit What is past, what is done, With the web that's just begun."
Not only the romance of Canada, but the tangible realities of her prosperity are disclosed to the eye of the traveller. Farms in a high state of cultivation; comfortable, alluring farmhouses, with their lawns, and gardens, and parterres of flowers, and a rustic seat here and there are in continual evidence. The refinements of life, from the neatness and grace of rural homes to the beautiful little railway stations with their attractive architecture, their plots of greenery, their brilliant beds of flowers, are impressive to the onlooker, and do more to convey to travellers a true concept of the character of the Canadian people than can be fully estimated. The gratification of one's sense of beauty in these charming little way stations along the route adds immeasurably to the enjoyment of the journey.
Then, too, what can be said of that sail among the thirty thousand islands in the Georgian Bay? In colour and idyllic charm this sail rivals the famous cruise among the Ionian Islands:
"The Isles of Greece, the Isles of Greece, Where burning Sappho loved and sung,"
and all the summer resorts of this region, Minnecoganashene, Sans Souci, Rose Point, and various nooks of verdant charm are peopled by their summer lovers.
The Great Lakes, shared alike by the Dominion { 122} and the States, offer a delightful cruise between Sarnia (Ontario) and Duluth (Minnesota) with calls at Fort William and Port Arthur, and a further excursion to the Falls of Kakabeka, a cascade higher than that of Niagara, which are near Port Arthur.
Lake Nipissing and the French River are attractive grounds for the camper and the canoeist; but they are not suited to the "tenderfoot." It is amazing that a region which can be reached with ease is yet so absolutely a place where the lover of Nature in her wild solitudes can absolutely secure a vacation from relentless Time! In the Lake Nipissing land he may elude the postman and the telephone. Doubtless by 1920, some invading airship will drop a voluminous mail at his feet when he is out in his canoe; but at the present time the sojourner here is immune from cables, telegrams, Marconigrams, long-distance telephones, special deliveries, messenger boys, and all this incubus of what we call civilisation. If radiograms fall upon him they must needs come from the solar system alone. Emerson, even in the prehistoric period of the nineteenth century, declared solitude a thing impossible to find.