Excerpt from Our North Land: Being a Full Account of the Canadian North-West and Hudson's Bay Route, Together With a Narrative of the Experiences of the Hudson's Bay Expedition of 1884

The following pages are founded chiefly upon the experiences of the Canadian Government Expedition to Hudson's Bay and Strait; Mr. Klotz's overland Expedition to Hudson's Bay Dr. Bell's Hudson's Bay Explorations; the Travels and Explorations in the north-west of Dr. Selwyn, Mr. Marcus Smith and many others, and the Travels and Experiences of the Author.

I have endeavoured, from the information thus obtained, to give an account of the vast resources of the region in question, to describe the industries now in active operation, and to point out the possibilities of their future development. The export from the products of the oil-bearing animals of the waters of Hudson's Bay alone amounts, at the present time, to over annually, and inay be increased to five times that amount; in many districts the fur trade is yet in its infancy and the cod, salmon, and trout fisheries offer large and sure returns to almost any extent that capital and labour can be found to develop them.

In a description of the habits and customs of the native inhabitants, and an account of the adventures of traders, whalers, navigators and missionaries, I have not avoided a certain degree of romance, with which these narratives are necessarily interwoven. But the reader must not mistake this for fiction, which has been rigidly excluded.

In a discussion of the question of the practicability of the proposed Hudson's Bay route as a commercial highway, I have brought to bear upon the subject all the evidence obtainable, and left the reader to judge for himself, whether or not, in the near future, the necessities of trade will find a successful channel of transportation from China and Japan to Europe across the American Continent by way of the waters of Hudson's Bay and Strait and whether or not these waters will become a successful outlet for the products of the Canadian N orth-west.

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