Manitoba

man-i-to-ba', a central province of the Dominion of Canada. It lies directly north of Minnesota and North Dakota. It is rectangular in shape, and has an area of 73,096 square miles. The lake area is large. It includes Lake Manitoba, Lake Winnipegosis, and Lake Winnipeg. The capital is Winnipeg, at the junction of the Assiniboine and Red Rivers. The greater part of the province is a level, fertile prairie, lying in the former bed of glacial Lake Agassiz. There are four groups of low mountains or hills in the west. Named from north to south, they are known by the names of Porcupine, Moose, Riding, and Turtle. The eastern border is a country of cedar, spruce, willow, cottonwood, and tamarack. There are dense forests of pine in the northwest. The rest is prairie. The rivers and the lakes teem with fish. Waterfowl, once so numerous in the northern Mississippi Valley, including ducks, geese, brant, and teal, still nest in the province. Partridges, pheasants, prairie chickens, and other grouse, as well as moose, elk, and deer afford excellent hunting. The climate is severe in the winter time; the summers are delightful.

AGRICULTURE. The province is, above all, agricultural. It embraces some of the best wheat-growing land in the world. Oats, barley, flax, and hemp are important productions. Potatoes and garden vegetables generally thrive. The prairie grasses are famous for hay. There is unlimited pasturage. Stock raising and dairying are becoming important industries. The chief manufactures are lumber, flour, and mill products. The province is crossed by the Canadian Pacific from east to west. The lines of the Great Northern and other roads enter from the south.

HISTORICAL. Explorers in the interest of the Hudson Bay fur traders from England visited Manitoba as early as 1769. In 1812 Lord Selkirk, a Scottish peer, formed a settlement on the Red River. The territory was, for a time, in possession of the Hudson Bay Company. The company desired to hold it as a fur preserve and did not encourage settlement. In 1867 the rights were sold to the British government. In 1870 the province was organized by act of the Canadian Parliament. A number of French settlers were dissatisfied. They rose in rebellion repeatedly under Louis Riel. In 1885 he was executed. A liberal policy of granting public lands, similar to the homestead policy of the United States, has led to the rapid settlement of the country. Men of eighteen years of age, as well as female heads of households, are allowed a grant of 160 acres of land on easy conditions.

GOVERNMENT AND EDUCATION. Local affairs are managed by a local legislature and a lieutenant-governor. The latter is appointed by the governor-general of Canada. Manitoba sends ten members to the Canadian House of Commons. In addition to provincial expense, about $2,000,000 is expended annually for schools. One of the first cares of the province was the establishment of an undenominational system of schools. Attendance is compulsory. As in the northwestern part of the United States, each sixteenth section of land was set aside to be sold for school purposes. A provincial college has been established at Winnipeg. Other state institutions are maintained at Brandon and Portage la Prairie. There is also a normal school at Winnipeg.

POPULATION. The Scotch element is strong in Manitoba. The Presbyterian is the leading denomination. Others named in order of membership are the Episcopal, the Methodist, the Roman Catholic, and the Baptist churches. It is needless to add that the population is industrious, intelligent, and enterprising. The population in 1900 was 254,947, including 5,827 Indians and about twice as many halfbreeds. Settlers are pouring into the province so rapidly that the figures given in this statement are likely to require doubling for the year 1910.

STATISTICS. The following statistics are the latest to be had from trustworthy sources:

See Winnipeg; Red River; Lake Agassiz; Canada