will be evident that the methods employed in smaller countries for taking the census cannot be used in Canada. In Ontario the largest census area was Algoma with 143,517 square miles, and in Quebec, Chicoutimi and Saguenay with 118,921 square miles. To accomplish the task of counting the population in these immense areas, enumerators had to take camps and camp furniture with them, be ready to ride on horseback, paddle a canoe and walk miles, all in one day. Fortunately no lives were lost, but one man, missing the path, had to kill and eat his horse to save his own life. The diaries of some of the enumerators read like passages taken from books of travel written for boys. Dangers threatening life and limb, impending starvation, narrow escapes by land and by sea, encounters with suspicious Indians and with wild animals, to whom white meat is a rare dainty to be secured with ravenous delight when the opportunity offers. In one instance, the enumerator and his band of assistants encountered an unexpected difficulty. He had forgotten to take with him the British flag. The Indians, with the traditional regard for the customs of the past, when all conferences between whites and Indians were held under the meteor flag of England, refused to recognize the enumerator. He had to send for the flag before they would give any information; when that arrived they willingly answered all questions. 251. The first census of the Dominion of Canada was taken on the 2nd April, 1871, and comprised the four provinces of Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. The Province of Manitoba had been admitted into the Confederation in the previous year, when a census of it was taken. It was not, therefore, included in the census of 1871. The total population of the four provinces was found to be 3,485,761. A census of Prince Edward Island, then an independent province, was taken in the same year, giving a population of 94,021; and a census of British Columbia was taken in 1870, when the population was ascertained to be 36,247, including Indians. This province was also at that time independent. The population of Manitoba at the taking of the census in 1870 was 18,995, including 6,767 Indians. The population, therefore, of what at present constitutes the Dominion, exclusive of the North-west Territories, may be set down to have been in 1871, 3,635,024. The population of the Territories was at the same time estimated to be 60,000. The next census was taken on the 4th April, 1881, and comprised the whole of the present Dominion, the total population of which was then found to be 4,324,810. The third census was taken on the 6th April, 1891, when the population was ascertained to be 4,833,239. 252. The following table gives the population of the several provinces according to the respective censuses :— *65,954 originally; 3,694 were taken off and added to Ontario, when the boundary was changed. Former issues of the Year-Book contained the population by electoral districts as they existed in 1881 and 1891. The following is a statement of the population of the several electoral districts in Canada under the Redistribution Acts of 1892 and 1893. The number of voters on the electoral lists of 1894 is also given. Population of Canada by Electoral Districts as redistributed for purposes of representation in the House of Commons: ONTARIO. (The population in the 1881 column is what it would have been if the redistribution of 1892-93 had been in 1881.) |