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CHAPTER XVIII

A MODEL PROVINCE: MANITOBA

HE first permanent white settlement in the district which is now the Province of Manitoba, was the Selkirk Colony which was founded by immigrants from Europe; most of them being Scotchmen. It was located on both banks of the Red River of the North, a short distance below the centre of the present city of Winnipeg, and at that time, 1812, was called Fort Garry. Many lineal descendants of those first Selkirk settlers still live on the homesteads which their ancestors acquired a century ago; but their comfortable dwellings and the spacious appointments of their households are in marked contrast with the conditions under which the Earl of Selkirk's immigrants at first struggled.

I do not overlook the fact that nearly eighty years before Lord Selkirk commenced his colonising efforts, Pierre-Gauthier de Varennes, Sieur de la Verendrye, had made his way northward and westward from Lake Superior, reaching Lake Winnipeg in 1733. One year later he built a fort near the site of the present Fort Alexander, which is just up from the mouth of Winnipeg River, that empties into Travers Bay, the southeastern part of the lake. Four years later, October, 1738, Verendrye established another trading post, which he

called Fort Raye, at the junction of the Red and Assiniboine rivers, on the site of the present city of Winnipeg.

After the transfer of proprietorship from French to British hands, 1763, this nearer region of the west rapidly developed as a fur-trading centre, and it was there that the rivalry between the Hudson's Bay and the North West companies was probably as keen as in any part of British America. There were a very few traders, both French and British, the latter mostly Scotchmen, in the region. Gradually, however, other immigrants who were satisfied to make their living by farming came into the Red River region. These men frequently took Indian girls as their wives (the word is used somewhat euphemistically) and from these unions sprang a race of Metis, or half-breeds.

The Hudson's Bay Company had been very gentle in its treatment of all people within its jurisdiction, whether European, Indians, or half-castes; but when its rule was supplanted by that of the Canadian officials, the zeal of these last led them to act somewhat hastily, causing eventually a revolt of the Metis under the leadership of one of their number, Louis Riel. The "Riel Rebellion," as it is called, had much influence upon the early history of Manitoba (and it contributed not a little towards strengthening the bonds of the then newly founded Dominion). It would be interesting to consider the rebellion fully here, but space forbids; yet I recommend my readers to look it up.

Through its resident agent at Fort Garry, the Hudson's Bay Company continued to exercise control over the Selkirk colony (as well as over all its vast possessions)

until 1870, when the whole northern and western parts of British North America, excepting British Columbia which had already attained the dignity of being an independent colony, came under the control of the Dominion Government. The colony (Manitoba) was then known as Assiniboia (a name which was subsequently applied, for a short time, to part of the country immediately west).

The Hudson's Bay Company received a million and a half dollars for its landed rights; but it stipulated for two sections (one mile square each, i.e., 640 acres) in each of the six-mile square townships which were to be surveyed and set off in thirty-six sections as the basis of title for private ownership in the future. It was also given small tracts at each of its trading-posts. Thus, in addition to its liberal money indemnity, the Company retains, in the enormous territory over which it was permitted by the terms of an elastic charter to exercise proprietory rights, about one-fifteenth of the land all told, and much of Manitoba is in this chain of title.

When Manitoba was made a Province in 1870, and became a political unit of the Dominion, its area was much smaller than it now is. Indeed, the boundaries have been changed several times in these forty-three years. At present they are: on the south, the 49th parallel of N. lat., which divides Manitoba from Minnesota and North Dakota; on the west, the meridian of 101°20′ W. northward to the 60th parallel of lat.; on the north, that 60th parallel to Hudson Bay, the shore of which is followed southeasterly until the northwestern boundary of Ontario Province is reached, at a point