B. Lytton.
4. In Canada West, a system of communication from Fort William to Fort
Garry, and thence to the Pacific, was intrusted to a company--the
"Northwest Transit"--which was by no means inactive. A mail to Red
River, over the same route, was also sustained from the Canadian
treasury; and Parliament, among the acts of its previous session, had
conceded a charter for a line of telegraph through the valleys of the
Saskatchewan, with a view to an extension to the Pacific coast, and even
to Asiatic Russia.
Simultaneously with these movements in England and Canada, the citizens
of the State of Minnesota, after a winter of active discussion,
announced a determination to introduce steam-navigation on the Red
River of the North. Parties were induced to transport the machinery
and cabins, with timber for the hull of a steamer, from the Upper
Mississippi, near Crow Wing, to the mouth of the Cheyenne, on the Red
River, where the boat was reconstructed. The first voyage of the steamer
was from Fort Abercrombie, an American post two hundred miles northwest
of Saint Paul, _down north_ to Fort Garry, during the month of June.
Pages:
303
304
305
306
307
308
309
310
311
312
313
314
315
316
317
318
319
320
321
322
323
324
325
326
327