Canada and Its Provinces

Table of Contents

Seldom in the history of a nation has there been such rapid economic development as Canada has enjoyed during the last two decades. Within that time the Dominion has felt the throb of a new industrial life from ocean to ocean. Railroads have opened up to the settler vast stretches of fertile soil. Immigration has proceeded vigorously, and the country has received a large influx of population from both Europe and the United States. Wide tracts of prairie land, which twenty years ago were uninhabited and which appalled the traveler by their unbroken solitude, are now dotted with the buildings of the settler. Cities and towns have sprung up, as in a night, equipped with the conveniences of modern civilization. The increase in the production of gold and silver has been no less phenomenal the fame of the Yukon and of the Cobalt region has gone all over the world. From Sydney on the Atlantic to Prince Rupert on the Pacific the signs of rapid advancement are everywhere visible. Vacant lands are being settled, mineral resources exploited, great rivers bridged and mountains scaled or tunneled. The shifting of population from the older and historic settlements to the new sections and from rural districts to urban centers is also a feature of the present situation. While European nations have been devoting much of their energy to navies and armies, Canada has been concentrating all her forces on the conquest of nature for the use of man.

But, in the enthusiasm of commercial and industrial activity, of increasing wealth and population, it is not to be forgotten that the national character is not molded exclusively by economic causes. Flung over an enormous geographic range, the Canadian communities are not yet bound together by continuity of settlement. There remain differences of environment, of local interest, of language and race. Under such conditions the danger of sectionalism, in spite of material success, is greatly to be feared, unless this destructive tendency is met by the positive and constructive idea of the Nation. Read more...

Table of Contents

New France, 1534-1760
Vols. 1 - 2
Section 1

British Dominion 1769-1840
Vols. 3-4
Section II

Notes About the Book:

Source: Canada and its Provinces, A history of the Canadian People and their Institutions, Volume I, Editors, Adam Shortt and Arthur G. Doughty, 1914, Printed by T. & A. Constable, Edinburgh University Press, Toronto.

Online Publication: The manuscript was scanned and then ocr'd. Minimal editing has been done, and readers can and should expect some errors in the textual output.