Canada - ENWhat is a tourist? What does he gain by being a tourist? What does he contribute to the country he visits, and to his homeland? What should Canada’s part be in encouraging tourist traffic?
The answers will be developed more fully as this article progresses, but in the meantime we may say that a tourist is one who travels for another purpose than that of business or taking up permanent residence; that he gains relaxation, acquaintanceship and entertainment; that he contributes knowledge and spends money; that he carries home friendship and understanding, and that there is no country in the world where the tourist business is so important as in Canada.
This war has, it is true, shrunk the earth in terms of travel time, but it has expanded the world in terms of the distances it is possible to travel. For thousands of years men walked. For thousands more they used animal transportation. And now, suddenly, startlingly, within this past brief century, the dammed-up desire for roving has been set free by invention of trains, automobiles, steamships, and airplanes.
The day has gone, it is to be hoped, when people went abroad merely to boast about home sweet home. Some travellers may still pass unmoved over fields of fame, or through cities of ancient renown, unconscious of the lofty deeds which there have been wrought, but for the most part tourists are open-eyed and open-minded. Today’s people of the world have lost the homely wits of home-keeping ancestors. Their travels have a deep social significance, whether they vacation in great cities or hie back to the primitive in nature.
From the beginning of this century up to the outbreak of the first world war there was phenomenal development in the tourist movement between countries, but it was essentially a movement of the privileged classes, reserved for the leisured and wealthy.
Between the wars touring became a mass movement. People travelled on buses, cars, trains, ships and airplanes; they crossed international borders on foot and by bicycle. The nervous tension of the last war was released, and whole peoples escaped from their domestic and national confines.
Canada has much to offer tourists. The changing beauty from east to west and from south to north is unending, opened to visitors by railroad, boat, highway and air. The war, and its attendant shortage of gasoline and rolling stock, and other interferences with the usual mode of living, has had its effect upon travel both within and outside the country. People are too busy to travel extensively; hotel facilities are filled to capacity, and the railways are carrying unprecedented loads of passengers as well as troops and war materials; but at war’s end there will be loosed a great flow of friendly people between provinces and across the international border.
Curtailment of pleasure travel outside Canada by exchange control and gasoline rationing turned many Canadians to exploration of attractions in their own land. They have learned that adjoining provinces have vacation places full of charm and good living. This is good for the country, because fluidity of travel within the Dominion will tend to relieve distressed areas, acquaint people with their neighbours’ problems and circumstances, form friendships, and broaden what might be parochial views into a national outlook.
Most people think, however, of the tourist business as something international, though it is only since the economic crisis of the 1930’s that tourist traffic as a factor in international trade received the serious consideration of governments. While the inward flow brings valuable foreign cash, the outward flow of nationals carries with it an opportunity to further national interests by stimulating exports and by advertising Canada. Travel stirs up business, and raises the standard of living in isolated and backward areas. Just as soon as the exigency of war permits, the barriers should be broken down, so as to encourage the most free interchange of visitors.
How important visitors from outside are to Canada may be seen by the statistics for some representative years. In 1938, Canada’s credit balance of international payments amounted to $184,800,000, of which 78.5 per cent was in the tourist trade. In that year, had it not been for the tourist business, Canada’s credit balance of international payments would have been negligible. For several years the tourist gains just about neutralized the unfavourable balance of trade which Canada had with the United States.
It has been said that Canada can make the tourist business its greatest source of income and natural wealth next to agriculture and mining. Another important aspect is that foreign travel in Canada, because of its advertising and educational value, would be of service in creating foreign commodity trade, and no country in the world has more at stake in this regard than Canada.
Tourist traffic is merely a sub-division of the goods and services which go to make up the total volume of trade between nations. Many persons have the same difficulty in realizing this as they have in believing that exports of grain from the prairies affect the income of fishermen in Nova Scotia, or that the success of our commercial service in finding a market abroad for products of the factories in Quebec has its repercussion on the welfare of families on the Pacific coast. Not everybody comes into direct contact with the tourist traffic. Everyone knows that hotels, railroads, airlines, restaurants, and curio shops draw part of their revenue from the tourists, but actually the payments made by tourists for services and goods reach down through the whole economy. A survey by the American Hotel Association found that the tourist’s dollar is spent in this way: retail stores, 31 cents; hotels, 23 cents; restaurants, 18 cents; garages, 10 cents; miscellaneous, 10 cents; theatres, 8 cents. Then the survey probed into disposition of the receipts. The proportion of the total tourist expenditure obtained by the hotel man was distributed by him for the following services: pay rolls, 31 cents; sundries, supplies, etc., 29 cents; merchandizing, food, beverages, etc., 19 cents; depreciation, 9 cents; insurance, taxes, etc., 6 cents, “leaving not quite enough to pay 5 per cent on one-half of the investment.” It will be seen that not very much of the total receipts from visitors lingers in the hands of the original recipients.
The tourist trade calls for everything from pins and needles to locomotives, and involves every line of business, farmers, bankers, builders, and all who are engaged in any commercial activity. It distributes money and employment, not only in the great cities, but throughout smaller municipalities and rural districts. It was estimated that in 1929 more thin 4 million pounds of butter, 18 million pounds of meat, 4 million dozen eggs, and other commodities in the same proportion, were consumed by tourists. It is obvious, then, that the prosperity of agriculture, commerce, transport, and everything else is bound up with this traffic. The more people we have as visitors to Canada, the greater will be the demand for the products of farms, forests, fisheries, mines and factories, and the more widespread the visitors are over our land, the better will be living conditions in all parts.
But tourist traffic is not something that just happens. Tourists want good roads, comfortable living quarters, excellent food, and entertainment. No country has a monopoly of the things that attract tourists, and the industry is highly competitive. Canada has more natural attractions than most countries, and her effort must be directed toward their enhancement by providing quality service. After advertising, which brings tourists to the country, there must follow the supplying of the things advertised. It is not enough to have some good roads in some parts of the country, some comfortable stopping places in some parts of some provinces, and some good food in some hotels and restaurants: the tourist must be assured that all of these will meet his reasonable expectations and will be ordinarily accessible.
It is true that in most parts of Canada the visitor may find a clean bed and an acceptable meal, but just merely enough is not sufficient to meet the need. In these things, Canada is competing with every State in the Union, and there are some startling comparisons possible. Take tourist cabins, for example: in the year before the war a traveller could go from end to end of the United States and find easily available cabins with private baths, hot water, cooking facilities, fireplaces, excellent beds, and good furnishings at $1 per person per night. And, in comparing these with casually-placed, barely furnished cabins encountered in many parts of Canada, what traveller is going to pause to think that the Canadian summer is so short that the return on the investment does not justify luxurious appointments? If Canadian accommodation is to attract, then Canadians must get over the idea that a bed and a chair and a dresser on a bare floor provide accommodation good enough, and that a cold shower and two toilets are sufficient for a whole camp. To sin in respect of hygiene and sanitation is unforgivable, and spells failure. What the visitors say on their return home will determine how many tourists will visit that locality in succeeding years, and all the expensive advertising in the world will not overcome the effect of bad impressions.
George A. Martin, President of the Resorts Section of the Hotel Association of Ontario, has this to say: “Of primary importance is the need of immediate efforts being made to improve the standards of service of tourist resorts of all kinds. Short winter courses for present operators would be helpful in improving the service now. More extensive courses should be established for those wishing to enter the business. Inspection of resorts, as recommended at the Ontario Tourist Convention, would do much to raise standards.”
Hotels constitute one of the most important factors in the tourist industry. No matter what attractions a country may possess, it is not possible to develop its tourist traffic without good and satisfactory hotels, because after his outdoor pleasures and exercise the visitor demands reasonable standards of indoor comfort – and standards are rising in this as in every other field of human living. It is true also that excellent hotel accommodations and service will attract tourists to places which do not rate so high as others in drawing power. They will bring back visitors again and again, and it is the repeater who is of greatest benefit to the resort, because he advertises it throughout the year between visits.
Food should feature the natural products and specialties of the section of the country the tourist is visiting. Many mother countries have contributed to the building up of Canada’s population, and they all have something to offer in the way of special dishes. It is not sufficient, however, to label a restaurant “French”, unless the atmosphere and cuisine are really French.
At a tourist trade convention at the turn of this year, the Minister of National War Services added his voice to those drawing attention to the great importance of raising the standards of hotels. The reference here is not to the great metropolitan hotels, whose standards are as high as any in the world, but to resorts which cater particularly, and often solely, to tourists. Improvements have been marked in recent years, it is true, but conditions were originally so unsatisfactory that there is still room for further progress along more modern lines. The Montreal Gazette, commenting on the statement that the amount voted by Parliament last year in the interest of the tourist trade would be increased ten times when the war is over, remarked that part of this vote should be appropriated for hotel improvement under effective government supervision. Quebec’s hotel school emphasized that the kitchen is the backbone of any hotel, and featured ways of providing food peculiar to that province.
Hotels represent large investments. About 93 per cent of the capital is in buildings, plant, equipment and furniture, all subject to interest and depreciation whether the rooms are occupied or not. There is no body of citizenry in Canada more eager to develop the summer and winter tourist traffic, internal and from foreign countries, than the proprietors of hotels, resorts, camps and cabins. But it must be done imaginatively. There is no use in trying to imitate slavishly things that are done in the United States: the tourist who has come all the way from his United States home is not going to be satisfied with a copy, however good it may be (and some are pretty bad), of what he is accustomed to seeing – even to the Stars and Stripes floating over it. He doesn’t want to visit cafes and hotels aping American prototypes, even to their names. There is a Canadian way of life, and visitors should be shown it.
Canada has so many natural beauties that the absence of human imagination and skill in developing others has not yet been greatly missed. It will be essential, after the war, to make the most of every attraction. Governments on all levels will need to make greater use of scenic, historic and cultural assets by purchase and renovation of old homes, battle fields, museums and beauty spots. Many forts have been restored in the past score of years, and have attracted thousands of visitors. These can be improved if signs are placed near important features, explaining the uses, for instance, of the sally port, the embrasures, the outworks, and the reason the fort was built in the shape and position it occupies. The battles fought around the fort can be dramatized in wall pictures, as is the Battle of Waterloo in the famous cyclorama on that field. Arrows on the earthworks, similar to those on Westmount Mountain, can point to the places where actions took place. The tourists will be delighted with the opportunity to follow out for themselves the events of their and our long-ago history.
Another feature which might be developed in Canada is Indian lore. Many parts of Canada could arrange Indian ceremonials and local-history pageants in old-time costume. These need not be elaborate affairs, such as last for a week at a time in New Mexico, but could be periodical two-hour displays, closely associated in their content and setting with local history.
Canada’s national parks have expanded from a small beginning nearly 60 years ago until today there are 26 of them, beckoning visitors to every province. They contain about 30,000 square miles, all under federal ownership and administration. Not long ago, 10,000 square miles were set aside adjacent to the Alaska highway in Yukon Territory; two sites have been offered by Quebec, one by New Brunswick, and there is discussion of a sea-level park in British Columbia. This system of parks, even without the proposed extensions, is one of the largest and finest in the world. The parks include regions of outstanding scenic beauty, natural phenomena, historic interest and unique animal and plant life. They conserve the country’s wild creatures under natural conditions. They provide ideal places for vacationing, no matter in what phase of outdoor life the visitor may be interested. One lack is that of small roadside parks, with sanitary and cooking facilities.
For more than 10 years the Canadian Youth Hostels Association has offered its facilities and its services to youths who like the open road, and nearly every province has its network of hostels. These contain accommodation in separate dormitories for boys and girls, separate washing facilities, a common kitchen and dining room. Bunks, mattresses, blankets and cooking utensils are provided by the hostel, usually a farm building where the farmer and his wife act as house-parents and supervisors for a small fee. Hostellers travel by bicycle or afoot, and may be alone or in parties. It usually turns out that groups form along the road, then divide the hostel duties -shopping, cooking, and so on, by lot or according, to aptitude. The evening is given over to swimming, camp-fire singing, and so on. All information about hostelling in Canada may be obtained from the secretary, C. ¥. H. Association, 51 Yonge Street, Toronto.
Canadians are just beginning to realize the recreation value of their winters. The immediate post-war period will see a greater opportunity than ever before for development of winter vacation places, because so many more young people will have become accustomed by war service to the conditions of outdoor life. There will be an urge to winter sports not only on the part of those who have learned to ski while on northern posts, but those who seek a change from the southern climates where they have served. Development of the winter use of hotels, cabins and hostels will enable those who manage them to undertake much improvement that would not be justified by short-term summer patronage alone.
How can Canada best go about attracting large numbers of visitors from the United States? The task of acquainting United States citizens with what Canada has to offer in holiday enjoyment must be tackled in a dramatic way, along bold and expansive lines. Americans are accustomed to dramatization, and an invitation couched in ordinary language will fall flat. The endeavour should be a mass one, enlisting as many of Canada’s citizens as possible, and making use of every known appeal of picture and word. Canadians should be organized, not merely asked, to invite their acquaintances across the border. Children in all grades in all schools might be given composition periods in which they would write invitation letters to their opposite numbers in the United States, to be distributed through American schools. The daily and weekly newspapers would doubtless be glad to assist in the project, might offer prizes for the best letters in their circulation territories, and print some of the replies. Such an imaginative plan would grow under its own momentum; a huge correspondence would result; some of the letters would be reproduced in United States papers, with attendant widening of the publicity. This crusade would appeal to editors, because it offers the children a constructive part in Canada’s material welfare, and to teachers, because it would widen the children’s knowledge of both Canada and the United States. As well, it would be of social significance, in view of the increasing interest these two countries are being compelled to take in each other.
It will not do to endeavour to attract the greatest possible number of tourists to Canada, and at the same time do all in our power to prevent our own nationals from visiting our neighbours. That would be as serious a breach of economic good sense as to endeavour to export everything and to import nothing. No nation lives unto itself; its wellbeing is closely interwoven with the fabric of all other nations. To the extent that nations discover one another, and find the striking similarities in their aspirations and trends, to that extent do they become friendly and helpful in a world where friendliness and helpfulness between nations is increasingly important. Interchange of nationals on holiday between Canada and the United States, on a far vaster scale than even the greatest migrations of the past, will remove whatever remains of national hyperconsciousness, and foster the growth of sympathy and understanding. The good relations which have existed between Canada and the United States for so long, and have so well withstood the trials of war, follow from the good relations of Canadians and Americans as people. Between no other two countries in the world has there ever been a flow of tourists to equal that across our border. In one year alone 20 million United States tourists came to Canada, and the Dominion, with one-twelfth the United States population, sent 2,800,000 visitors southward across the line, constituting 96.6 per cent of the total number of visitors to the United States that year.
This, then, might form the text of a sermon in favour of a new world. There is, humanly speaking, no more potent force to allay the fears and hatreds of nations than the tourist movement. Cultural life in nations is broadened, too, by the impact of new ideas carried to and fro across borders and within the boundaries of the nation itself; provincialism is broken down, problems become understood; and human understanding, fed by personal, acquaintanceship, takes the place of prejudice. On these grounds, as well as for business reasons, the bureaus and tourist organizations across Canada deserve the most wholehearted support of all the people.
Today, when any road will lead to the ends of the world, travel is prescribed for ills of both body and mind because of the new scenes and ideas which divert the mind from old emotions. Tomorrow’s citizen will be a great traveller. He will demand the best in travel by rail, by road, on the water or in the air. He will want comfortable and good living accommodation. He will demand value for his money, and there will be keen competition for his patronage. In supplying his needs, Canada will have a great opportunity throughout its reconstruction period. This is why the tourist industry should be given high priority in the post-war programme. Canada is a country with many gateways, but no gates. Access is easy to men and women of goodwill.
Canada From Sea to Sea
Lack of space forbids the giving of any adequate picture of the attractions of individual localities, and permits only barest mention of the special characteristics of each province. Fullest information, pictorial guides, maps, and particulars of tourist accommodation may be obtained free on application to the departments listed under each province, from the Canadian Government Travel Bureau, Ottawa, or from the tourist bureaus of municipalities.
Every section of Canada has its own special wealth of fishing and hunting opportunities, its summer and winter playgrounds, its glamour of history, and its attractions of environment, climate and “atmosphere.” From east to west, the provinces are:
Prince Edward Island
Canada’s Island Province is the smallest, yet one of the most charming of the provinces, with a gently undulating surface intensively cultivated, beaches of hard white sand, long and smooth and free from stones. Jacques Cartier, who discovered the Island on his first voyage in 1534, described it as “the fairest that may be possibly seen, and full of beautiful trees and meadows.” Charlottetown, the capital, has been called the cradle of Confederation, because it was there, in 1864,that the first conference was held which led to federation of British North American colonies as the Dominion of Canada. It is estimated that there are more Island-born heads of families in the United States than in the Island itself. Sarah Barnard, mother of the late Frank Knox, Secretary of the United States Navy, was born in Charlottetown. Lucy Maude Montgomery, author and poet, of “Anne of Green Gables” fame, was an Islander.
Prince Edward Island Travel Bureau, Charlottetown, P.E.I.
Nova Scotia
This sea-conditioned province is situated exactly half way between the equator and the north pole. No part of it is more than 50 miles from the ocean, and though some of its shores are beaten by the highest tides in the world, there are many miles of white sand beaches offering fine and safe playgrounds. Nova Scotia will repay a long visit, to enable the tourist to watch Scottish dances, go aboard a Lunenburg fishing schooner, spend an evening alongside a camp fire with guides, watch an Acadian procession on a Sunday morning, and attend an Indian carnival. Every world record in bluefin angling, except two, over a period of 34 years, has been made in Nova Scotia’s bays and harbours. Cape Breton, a mile from the mainland of Nova Scotia, is scenically another country, one of untamed natural beauty. Historically, it is one of the oldest sections of both Americas, the Norse under Leif Ericsson having cruised its shores in 986, and Cabot having landed there on June 24, 1497, on his discovery of the mainland of North America. One of the most noted of all historical places in North America is at Louisbourg, fortress and walled city. The only Gaelic college in the world is at St. Ann, off the Cabot Trail, a circular tour around north Cape Breton Island which winds through magnificent scenery and interesting seaside villages, and touches excellent trout and salmon streams. Near Cheticamp the trail enters Cape Breton Island’s national park, an exceedingly picturesque country of lofty peaks and deep stream-lined valleys. Near South Ingonish, at the main entrance to Cape Breton Park, is one of the finest anchorages on the eastern coast, frequented by many types of deep sea craft. At the foot of Littly Smoky is one of Nova Scotia’s magnetic hills. Motorists who place their cars in neutral are amazed to find that they are rolling apparently uphill. Around Englishtown are historic monuments, including the site of the first Jesuit Mission, the remains of Fort Dauphin, and a fort erected in 1629. Throughout Nova Scotia there are many interesting museums containing relics of Acadian and other settlements.
Nova Scotia Bureau of Information, Halifax, N.S.
New Brusnwick
Among the chief glories of New Brunswick may be reckoned her lordly rivers. Their very names are music in the ears – Restigouche and Riehibucto, Miramichi and Musquash. The Indians loved these rivers, their only highways, and gave them fitting names. Richibucto is “the long harbour,” Petitcodiac is “the river that bends like a bow,” and Nipisibuit is “leaping water.” At Moncton, the tidal wave, a wall of water 3 to 6 feet high, sweeps up the Petitcodiac from the Bay of Fundy, 20 miles away. One of the natural wonders of the world is the reversing fall at Saint John. Half the time the river empties naturally into the sea; the other half, it reverses its flow and rushes back inland. New Brunswick has many unique features. There are ancient covered bridges, fantastic rock formations, and old wells reminiscent of “Evangeline”. It was at the mouth of the St. John River that Lady LaTour defended the fort during her husband’s absence. Benedict Arnold settled in Saint John in 1785, and built a store. The Chignecto drydock is worth a visit. This ingenious contrivance of 17th century French seamen took advantage of the high tides to float vessels into a large timber-sided dock; the gates were closed and the water allowed to escape, leaving the vessels high and dry for repairs. Campobello Island, in the Bay of Fundy, has been the summer home of the late President Roosevelt’s family for many years.
Bureau of Information and Tourist Travel, Fredericton, N.B.
Quebec
Here, in the kingdom of the Saguenay, is the most ancient portion of the earth’s crust, containing elements from all geological periods, affording exceptional interest to scientists, prospectors, artists, photographers, and tourists. Standing proudly on its great rock towering over the St. Lawrence is the city of Quebec. Its streets twist in cow-path fashion between centuries-old houses, its hills catapult down the steep incline of the Rock, its Citadel guns peer out toward the sea from which Wolfe came in 1759 to make Canada British, while through gateways in its centuries-old wall stream all the vehicles that go to make up modern traffic. Downstream seven miles are Montmorency Fails, higher than Niagara, and across the bridge from them the Island of Orleans, where time unchanging carries the visitor away to another world. Jacques Cartier came ashore here in 1535, and christened it the Island of Bacchus; then followed Champlain and his soldiers; here Wolfe landed, waiting his chance to strike at the Rock. Today the quality of the island arises not from its memory of marching feet, but from the calm of its peasantry. On the south shore starts the Gaspe trail, leading to a peninsula of lovely scenery. Up the river, 140 miles, 1,000 miles from the sea, is the largest inland ocean port in the world, Montreal, where modern finance and commerce rear their great buildings beside the shrines of the Old World. Three city blocks from the Head Office of The Royal Bank of Canada stands a monument to Maisonneuve, where 200 Iroquois were defeated by the founder of the city and his 30 men, and over it towers ancient Notre-Dame, one of North America’s truly beautiful churches. Within a short drive are the Laurentians, providing a mountain summer and winter resort.
Province of Quebec Tourist Bureau, Quebec City, P.Q.
Ontario
From the shores of the St. Lawrence to the rim of the prairies, Ontario stretches for 1,200 miles. Within these limits are found bustling cities, great rivers, sleepy villages, busy mining towns, and the vast silences of northern primeval forests. It is a vacation land without a superior in North America, visited by as many as nine million Americans in a single peace-time season. Within a day’s drive of more than a third of the population of the United States and Canada, the Thousand Islands, St. Lawrence and Rideau Lakes districts afford ideal vacation places. Toronto, with its peace-time greatest annual fair on earth, the Canadian National Exhibition, is a centre from which to reach every kind of vacation land. In the Niagara Peninsula, with its ever-luring falls, are grown tobacco which compares with the finest produced in Virginia, grapes, and peaches. Northern Ontario, famous for its mines of gold, silver and nickel, is a paradise for the visitor who seeks the little known. There, too, is the home of the quintuplets. Rivers, lakes and canals form a water highway over which hundreds of motorboats and canoes carry thousands of vacationists. As many as 5,000 in a single day visit Hamilton’s sunken rock garden, a huge development introducing a new era in landscape gardening.
Ontario Travel and Publicity Bureau, Toronto, Ont.
Manitoba
The romance of the old west survives in Manitoba. Strange as it may seem, exploration began here in the age of Shakespeare, when Henry Hudson discovered the Hudson River and sailed Hudson Bay. Here in 1612 Sir Thomas Button landed, the first white man to set foot on what is now Manitoba soil. The French attempted to seize English trading posts on the Bay, but as a result of the victories in Europe of Winston Churchill’s ancestor, the first Duke of Marlborough, the French gave up all claim to the territory. The Union Jack has flown longer over Manitoba soil than over any other part of the North American continent. For decades, agriculture has been the mainstay of Manitoba’s economy. From the fertile plains of the south, the province stretches northward to the rugged timberland of the Canadian shield, and then on to its northern coastline along 440 miles of Hudson Bay. There are great areas of unspoiled vacation lakeland.
Travel and Publicity Bureau, Winnipeg, Man.
Saskatchewan
Canada’s great northwest holds a prominent place among the natural playgrounds of the continent. In Saskatchewan, the land of “swift running water”, the tourist may travel for weeks through forest, up and down numberless rivers, over glistening lakes, through park land and forest practically untouched by the hand of man. Although one of the “prairie provinces”, Saskatchewan is not by any means all a treeless, open plain. It has, in its northern part, hundreds of beautiful lakes surrounded by trees, with resorts providing fishing, boating, bathing and other sports. There are seven provincial parks in addition to Prince Albert National Park. The national park extends far beyond the haunts of man into unspoiled wilderness, containing within its borders thousands of lakes tied together by innumerable little rivers. At Lavallee Lake are rookeries of pelicans and cormorants, strange birds which provide visitors with hours of amusement. Regina, the provincial capital, is headquarters for the world-famous Royal Canadian Mounted Police, successors to the North West Mounted.
Saskatchewan Tourist Bureau, Regina, Sask.
Alberta
The Foothill Province, youngest and thriving, is not far from the days when it was a virgin territory inhabited by a handful of white traders and hunters, and Cree, Stony, Blackfoot and Sarcee Indian tribes. This prosperous agricultural province has many unique attractions. The mountain skyway, a modern motor road running through the heart of the Rockies from Jasper to Lake Louise and Banff is unequalled in all the world for breath-taking beauty. At the Great Divide the visitor may stand on a little island round which a stream divides, and dip his right hand in water flowing to the Pacific, and his left in water racing to join the Atlantic. In the Red Deer River Valley are the Bad Lands, which have attracted geologists, paleontologists and curious visitors for many years. This wide, fantastic valley of hoodoos, coulees, red shale hills, and gigantic bones of ages dead dinosaurs is near Drumheller, centre of the Alberta coal mining industry. Visitors are welcomed at the mines, some of which provide the rare thrill of going up – not down – the mine, because the earth upheavals have been so great that the coal face is frequently 300 feet higher than the mine entrance. Edmonton, the capital city, surrounds the site of an old Hudson’s Bay fort, founded in 1808, and within 30 miles of the city at Elk Island is the largest herd of buffalo in captivity in the world.
Alberta Publicity and Travel Bureau, Edmonton, Alta.
British Columbia
This province occupies the whole of Canada’s Pacific coast. It is a country of strange conjunctions, for smart modernity rubs shoulders with the savage art of earlier days, and a short journey carries the visitor from zones of brisk activity into regions of somnolent villages bristling with totems. The scenery of the mainland is majestic and varied, as lush meadow lands give place to snow-capped mountains, the park-like valleys lead into frowning canyons above which only a thread of sky shows. There are tumbling rivers and broad lakes, and everywhere fragrant leagues of spruce and pine. Vancouver, the business centre of the province, is only fifty years old, but its magnificent harbour is the resort of ships from every port from the Bering to the Baltic, and out of it operate the most palatial coasting liners in the world to the land of the Midnight Sun – Alaska and the Yukon. Vancouver Island, site of the capital city, Victoria, lies so far south that it actually overlaps the United States boundary. Sir Francis Drake, when he sailed his “Golden Hinde” from Chile in search of the North West Passage, named the island New Albion. Captain James Cook landed here in 1778. The capital is one of the healthiest cities in the world, with a death rate average of only 12.48 per thousand. It is a city of sunshine, averaging six hours of bright sun for every day in the year.
British Columbia Government Travel Bureau, Victoria, B.C.
Yukon and the Northwest Territories
North of the western provinces the Dominion extends over an area of 1½ million square miles, an area nearly equal to half that of the United States. It holds mighty rivers, like the Mackenzie and the Yukon, and huge lakes, such as Great Slave and Great Bear. There are many indications of mineral wealth, including gold and the only radium producing mines on the continent. The Yukon-Alaska Highway links the entire Northwest, through Edmonton, with the cities of the prairie provinces and the United States. Airplane development has been rapid, and construction of many new fields promises even greater expansion after the war. Adventurous people have thrilled to travel by air the 1,400 miles to Aklavik, on the coast of the Polar Sea, in a latitude within the Arctic Circle. In parts of the northland vegetation is dense, and there is a bewildering abundance of wild life. The Yukon has yielded 464 varieties of native wild flowers. Undoubtedly these northern territories hold out much of interest to the tourist, and their development is only a matter of time.