Rising again, and skimming over Hudson Bay, we overtake a ship of the Company making her yearly voyage to England with a cargo of furs. Yes, it is the same old Corporation of Adventurers, carrying on its ancient trade. Times have changed even up in the North, but the change has been very slight compared to the transformation of the South under the magical touch of steel rails. Steam has long taken the place of sails, at sea; stern-wheelers ply at intervals on the Peace, Mackenzie and Stikeen Rivers; but everywhere the stout rowboat and fragile canoe in summer, the dog cariole in winter, are still the express trains of a country thousands of miles wide, from British Columbia to Labrador. On the shores of all three oceans, and at scores of posts between, the Company goes on bartering goods for the furs brought in by Indians and Eskimo.
On and on we glide, over the land of the midnight sun, with its Eskimo encampments. We leave the continent behind, but the land is still almost continuous: we are crossing the Arctic Archipelago, and some of its islands are huge. Threading its way among them goes a little steamer, apparently on its way to the North Pole. No, but it goes within seven degrees of the Pole, on its yearly voyage with supplies for the Canadian Mounted Police stations and post-offices on the east and north shores of Baffin Island, on North Devon, and on Ellesmere, the most northerly island of all.
It is only when we reach the top of this island that we look down on the northern boundary of Canada, and realize that our Dominion has enormous breadth as well as length. From this point to the southern boundary of Manitoba is about 2,450 miles in a straight line; to the south extremity of Ontario, 2,650 miles.
We are scarcely tempted to spend the winter up here, though the Police would be very good company. Turning back towards the mainland, we fly in silence to the west, a vast expanse of sea on one hand, a barren shore line on the other. The whole world may be dead, for all we see of life, except the life of the birds.
Hark! In the midst of this utter solitude, the virgin air gives birth to a still, small human voice. Incredible, yet true. It is a wireless message giving us news from home, two thousand miles away, and telling also of events that happened a few hours ago in Europe, in India, in Australasia. Speeding on, we see at last the explanation. There on Herschel Island, in the Arctic Ocean, is a wireless station, the end of a chain of aerial communication stretching south to the prairies of Alberta, west to Dawson City, Prince Rupert and Vancouver, east to Norway House, Winnipeg and Ottawa, and keeping this outermost sentinel of Canada in touch with the whole civilized world. The Mounted Police wave a greeting to us as we pass.[1]