CANADA IN PICTURE AND STORY

Dominion, Volume 27, Issue 297, 12 September 1934, Page 7

CANADA IN PICTURE AND STORY

Address to Rotary Club t ST. LAWRENCE TO THE WIDE PACIFIC “The Maple Leaf”-was heartily sung, by the members of the Wellington Rotary Club*'as the prelude to an illustrated talk on Canada by the Rev. W. Gilmour, who was a resident of that country for a period of 25 years prior to coming to New Zealand. Mr. Gilmour, in describing his nationality, said “he came from Scotland to.be .born in the North of Ireland, and from there went to Canada, over the length and breadth of which he had travelled eleven times, always with a growing appreciation of its vastness in territory and resources.” “Canada is a great country in so many ways,” said Mr. Gilmour, "and knowing it as I do I think it is going to- recuperate very rapidly. Its huge area, extending from the Atlantic to the Pacific and from the border of the United States to the Arctic Circle, presents a field of varied production. It is truly a land of great opportunities.” • ■ Journey of 3600 Miles, With the aid of a "movie” picture, Mr. Gilmour took his attentive audience a journey of 3000 miles—from St. John’s, New Brunswick, on the east, ,to Victoria, 8.C., on the west coast — a rich and fertile slice of the British Empire. At, St. John’s, one of the two Canadian winter ports—the River St. Lawrence is frozen- for from four to five months of the year—Rotarians were transferred, as by a fairy wand, to the wonderful apple orchards, which are said to produce the finest apples on the Continent. Then the picture passed on to Quebec, the old French capital, and showed glimpses of that great river port and the Chateau Frontignac, which stands on the site of the. French camp which was stormed from the river heights by the British troops under General Wolfe, who thus won Canada for England. Montreal’s Churches. From there the picture followed the St. Lawrence to Montreal, that great centre of the Canadian east. It was Mark Twain who said of Montreal that “a stone thrown from any window would hit a church.” A few fleeting and quite unsatisfying views of this city, and-the scene was changed to Ottawa, with its stately House of Parliament and' lofty campanile housing a full carilioh. Then there were flashes of Toronto, the Niagara Falls, and on * round Lake superior to Fort Williams, with its regiments of grain elevators. Winnipeg next, the metropolis of the west, with its 960 miles of level prairies—the greatest wheat-producing area in the world —waving oceans of wheat as far. as the eye; 1 could reach and much further. Regina, the capital of Saskatchewan, is now a city of some dignity, with skyscrapers and magnificent hotels. Then on to Edmonton, the gateway of the great Peace River country, of which the world would learn a good deal later on. . j

The final section of the journey was across ' the Rockies, with momentary pauses at Banff and Lake Louise, and so over the , great ; divide to the busy haunts of men in hustling' Vancouver and, beautiful Victoria, 8.C., from whence Canada reaches out to all the Pacific.

On the motion of Dr. F. Bowerbank, the Rev. L Mr.' Gilmour was given a hearty- vote of thanks for his pictured talk, and the hope was expressed that he would give another and more intimate address'on that country in the future.