The founding of Halifax was in truth the symbol of the
renewal of the struggle for a continent.
CHAPTER V. The Great West
In days before the railway had made possible a bulky commerce by
overland routes, rivers furnished the chief means of access to
inland regions. The fame of the Ganges, the Euphrates, the Nile,
and the Danube shows the part which great rivers have played in
history. Of North America's four greatest river systems, the two
in the far north have become known in times so recent that their
place in history is not yet determined. One of them, the
Mackenzie, a mighty stream some two thousand miles long, flows
into the Arctic Ocean through what remains chiefly a wilderness.
The waters of the other, the Saskatchewan, discharge into Hudson
Bay more than a thousand miles from their source, flowing through
rich prairie land which is still but scantily peopled. On the
Saskatchewan, as on the remaining two systems, the St. Lawrence
and the Mississippi, the French were the pioneers. Though today
the regions drained by these four rivers are dominated by the
rival race, the story which we now follow is one of romantic
enterprise in which the honors are with France.
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