The coldest and bleakest

If your readers only kept in their minds the very vague ideas they entertained of what this Province of Manitoba was like as short a distance of time back as ten years ago, I think most of them will remember that Manitoba was then classed with the Hudson Bay itself in being only fit for habitation by the Eskimo, Northern Indians and fur traders. We inhabitants of the Northwest are particularly interested in the climate and resources of the Hudson Bay country. It is very clear to intelligent men at this date that the employees of the Hudson Bay Company are the last people to whom we must look for practical information of the navigation of the Hudson Bay and Strait, and the resources of its waters and surrounding territories, and it must be borne in mind that their forts or posts are nearly all, in that part of the country, close down to the bay, on the marshy ground that is generally to be found at the outlets of the rivers on which they are built, and I will give evidence further on to show that these spots, as a rule, are the coldest and bleakest in the territory.

Charles N. Bell, letter to the editor, Manitoba Free Press (reprinted in Manitoba Historical and Scientific Society, Transactions, Series 1, No. 7, 1883).