3-074-631 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Sketches on the Canadian Pacific railway line, 1883. 'Tunnel through Rat Portage Island. The Canadian Pacific Railway, which will, when completed, have a total length of 2869 miles for the main line, sets forth from a point of connection with the lines near Ottawa, the Federal capital of the Dominion of Canada. Its route passes by Lake Nipissing, and runs westward through the wild country north of the Great Lakes, Huron and Superior, to cross the outlet of the Lake of the Woods at Rat Portage and Keewatin, proceeding to Selkirk and Winnipeg on the Red River...It is manifest that the Canadian Pacific Railway is destined to change the balance of population on the North American Continent, and possibly to alter the course of travel and traffic. In contrast with these wonderful prospects of advancing civilisation, our Sketches of the wild natural scenery of a few places, very far apart, through which the railway is carried, may seem to present a very different aspect. But such aspects of nature, especially those of the forests and the great rivers, have a peculiar and abiding impressiveness of their own'. From "Illustrated London News", 1883.