I

FIRST YEAR.-NUMBER 5
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 4,1909
THRSE DOLLARS A YEAR
YSTE

Central British Columbia Has More Miles of Navigable Rivers and Lakes Than All of the Pacific Coast States Put
Tog-ether--Steamboats Can Be Rubi on Fraser River Alone for Nearly 500 Miles—The Nechaco
and Stuart Rivers are Navigable to Fraser and Stuart Lakes.
FORT GEORGE IS THE CENTER-POINT OF THESE RIVERS AND LAKES
While placer mining has been carried on along the Fraser river and its tributaries for half a century, and for a lesser tirne. on the Firicilay river and in the Orne-nica, little is known on the outside of the waterways of Central British Columbia and the part they will play in the settlement and development of the. country. A new country to be attractive to settlers
- must have transportation facilities, for it is out of the question to transport farm produce long distances by wagon, even
, .were not the making of good wagon roads expensive. But when a country is provided witAi--Taaiural transportation routes, the -improvement oi which would be inexpensive, that country has in advantage, and it is. the advantage that Central British Columbia has, with its millions of acres of farming lands.
-, ;   -No^nterior part of the Pacific-Coast is
. so advantageously situated. Central Brit- ish Columbia has more miles of navigable /waterways than the states of Washington, •Oregon, and California put together, and yet the waterways of these three states played a very important part in their early
jlflays.    Had it not been for the Columbia !ancl Willamette rivers, the settlement of
* Oregon and Washington and part of Idaho would have been retarded for thirty years. Steamboats on the Willamette gave the farmers of the Willamette Valley a means  of landing their produce at markets that were profitable; and steamboats, handicapped as they were by several portages, made it possible for such towns as The Dalles in Oregon, Walla Walla in Washington, and Lewiston in Idaho, to get a start, arid all three of these towns are today the centers of fine fanning and fruitgrowing districts. In California, the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers were the only means the pioneers of that state had for transporting goods to the mining • camps in the interior of the state, and carrying brick to Sacramento, Stockton, and San Francisco the products of farms, orchards, and ranches. Yet the total navigable mileage of all these rivers, that played a most part in the settlement of three great states, in which thousands of Canadians have homes, is not as great as  the navigable mileage of rivers and lakes that radiate, as it were, from Fort George as a center. Take the Fraser,a river that has not the
volume of water flowing in it that the Columbia has, the latter being fed by great tributaries like the Snake, the PencV Ore-ille, and the Kootenay; but it is a river longer in miles. Emptying into the Gulf of Georgia a few miles below New Westminster, it is navigable for steamboats to Yale, a distance of over 100 miles. From Yale north to Lillooet it is not navigable because of rapids. But fiorii Lillooet to Tete Jaune Cache, a distance of over 600 miles, it is no more difficult of navigation than were the Columbia and the Snake from Portland, Oregon, to Lewiston, Idaho, for nearly 30 years. There would be-short portages, over which freight conic ! be hauled by rail or by wagon; but frorr. Soda Creek, 165 miles south of Fort ' George, to Goat River rapids, 204 miles
of Fort George, a steamboat was rai\u
fall without
nite statement on; but, in any event, they are waterways on which freight can be handled by canoes and scows for a distance of over 400 miles.
There are several tributaries of the Fraser on which boats and canoes can be used for miles, and the settler who can pole<a canoe-load of produce to market or to a steamboat landing is not so bad off.
All of these rivers flow through valleys in which there is good land, as good as there is anywhere on the Pacific Coast for mixed farming. With good land, a climate that,is no more severe than, ^arts of both Canada and the United'States, in which millions of people are making a living, and natural transportation |aeili:.-ties in connection with a 'transcontinental railway now under construction, the sSt-
| :ain claimed he comdrTiave gone thrkugh^ | to Tete Jaune Cacrje, which is 111 eaafof Goat River rapids, had he starte^Whe trip a. week earlier.   His boat (th§J^-chaco) was drawing over 20 inches.  Twd other boats (the Charlotte and the Ques-nel) made regular trips during the season between Soda Creek and Fort George.
The Nechaco and $tuart rivers maybe taken together, as the latter joins the former at a point 57 miles west of Fort George. There are rapids in both rivers, but both have been navigated this year by the Nechaco, and in former years by a steamboat built when Oniineca district was attracting attention, and she is today beached on Stuart lake. From a point 17 miles above where it joins the Nechaco, Stuart river for 70 miles is a fine steamboat stream; it is deep, has little current, and there are ho obstructions. Stuart lake, from which the river flows, is one of the finest lakes in the province. The NechcLCo is difficult of navigation, because of rapids and rocks. These two rivers and the lakes from which they flow in; ike close on to. 300 miles of waterways on which steamboats have been run, west and northwest of Fort George.
After crossing Giscombe portage, between Fraser river and Summit lake, a short eight miles, is another system of natural waterways. Whether or not the streams and lakes which form it are navigable for steamboats for long stretches is a point The Tribune cannot make a deft-

• The settlement of a new cotmfxy depends on something besides transportation facilities.    The early settlers in Ontario, a. hush country, were/without transportation facilities other than .waterways for years.    They had man^^wii^cks to contend with, principal of which wastack of experience, for thousands of the men who came to Canada in the early days knew nothing of farming and few of them knew anything about clearing bush land. They had to contend with frosts, some of them going for years without   raising enough wheat to make a good-sized grist. But these settlers, in the main, came from the old country and had pluck.    They were also land hungry, for few of them had been land-owners in Great Britain. They had perseverance coupled with industry; with most of them it was "root hog or die".   They made Ontario the richest farming country in North America, barring none.   They sent forth sons and daughters who made  names for themselves in the West.    Some of these sons are in Cariboo today, coming as Argonauts in search of the golden fleece. The men and women who come to settle in British Columbia will need pluck and perseverance if they succeed.   Most of the land is bush and will have to be cleared. Frosts come early and late; clearing the land will work a change. There is,plenty of timber for buildings, for fencing, for fuel.   There is plenty of water.
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