Pictures of Canadian Life by James Ewing Ritchie

I am writing from Calgary, a little but growing collection of huts and wooden houses planted on a lovely plain with hills all around, a river at my feet, on the banks of which some poplars flourish, and I can almost fancy I am in Derbyshire itself. It is a gay place, this rising town, at the foot, as it were, of the Rockies, and just now is unusually gay, as the Queen's birthday is being celebrated with athletic sports and a ball; and, besides, a new clergyman has made his appearance, the Rev. Parks Smith, from a Bermondsey parish, who is to preach in the new Assembly Hall, which is to be set apart as a church on Sundays. I am going to hear him, and already I feel somewhat of a Pharisee-I have on a clean collar, which I religiously preserved for the occasion, and have had my boots blackened. The sight is so novel that I have spent half an hour on the prairie contemplating the effect of that operation. Already I feel six inches higher.

I can't say that I think quite so much of Calgary as do the people who live in it. In splendour, in wealth, in dignity, and importance, they evidently anticipate it will be a second Babylon. Well, a good deal has to be done first. The situation is pleasant, I admit. You incline to think well of Calgary after the dreary ride across the prairie, and you have quite a choice of hotels, and of shops, all well stocked; but then these shops are little better than huts, and the hotels certainly don't throw the shops into the shade.