Jón Bjarnason Academy - 01.05.1936, Side 37

Manitoba in Transition
By the HONOURABLE J. S. McDIARMID,
Minister of Mines and Natural Resources.
The economic history of Manitoba dates from a period shortly
after the dawn of the nineteenth century when the Earl of Selkirk
dreamed of Empire in Northwestern America and with the character-
istic energy of that era transplanted from their native Scottish glens
a colony of hardy agriculturists to “Red River.” The first of these
settlers arrived in the summer of 1812 and there laid the foundation
of the future Province of Manitoba in the area now largely in-
cluded in the City of Winnipeg.
Like many another dream of Empire in new lands Selkirk’s vision
of a prosperous agricultural community waited long years for fulfil-
ment. The agricultural training of the early pioneers was not of the
kind that was readily adaptable to conditions as they found them
in their new world. Difficulties of production and lack of an avail-
able visible market for products of the soil had the inevitable result
of forcing the colonists into other lines of effort.
Those who resisted the urge to migrate south and east to lands
of apparently greater opportunity remained in the colony to enter
the fur trade and it was 64 years before the first shipment of wheat
left Red River but with this first shipment of wheat in 1876 the agri-
cultural era of the province dawned and wheat farming drew thous-
ands of settlers to the province) until by the end of the century
Manitoba No. 1 Hard Wheat had become the standard of quality in
the grain markets of the world and the annual production of this
cereal alone reached almost a hundred million bushels. From that
point onward agriculture became of a more diversified and intensive
nature. Stock raising and the development of the dairying industries
marked its progress until exclusive wheat growing became a memory
and agriculture in its broadest sense held the centre of the stage.
But the earliest of all activities of the province—the fur trade—
continued a thriving industry. Even today in spite of the encroach-
ment into the forest fastness by the settler, the fisherman, the sur-
veyor, the engineer, and the miner the fur trade still produces new
wealth to the extent of 2V2 millions of dollars annually and the Win-
nipeg fur auction sales are the mecca of scores of buyers from the
large eastern cities on both sides of the International Boundary in
their search for the finest in raw furs.
During this period also the wealth of the three great fresh water
lakes was explored and with the advent of another group of pioneers
to the shores of Lake Winnipeg from far away Iceland in* 1875, the
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