P1. While the much-anticipated expansion of the western frontier was unfolding in accordance with the design of the National Policy, a new northern frontier was opening up to enhance the prospects of Canadian industrial development. long the preserve of the fur trade, the Canadian shield and the western Cordilleras became a treasury of minerals, timber and hydroelectric power in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. As early as 1883, CPR [Canadian Pacific Railway] construction crews blasting through the rugged terrain of northern Ontario discovered copper and nickel deposits in the vicinity of Sudbury. As refining processes, uses, and markets for the metal developed, Sudbury became the world’s largest nickel producer. the building of the Timiskaming and Northern Ontario Railway led to the discovery of rich silver deposits around Cobalt north of lake Nipissing in 1903 and touched off a mining boom that spread northward to Kirkland lake and the Porcupine district. Although the economic importance of these mining operations was enduring, they did not capture the public imagination to the same extent as the Klondike gold rush of the late 1890s.
P2. Fortune-seekers from all parts of the world flocked to the Klondike and Yukon River valleys to pan for gold starting in 1896. At the height of the gold rush in 1898, the previously unsettled subarctic frontier had a population of about 30,000, more than half of which was concentrated in the newly established town of Dawson. In the same year, the federal government created the Yukon territory, administered by an appointed commissioner, in an effort to ward off the prospect of annexation to Alaska. even if the economic significance of the Klondike strike was somewhat exaggerated and short-lived, the tales of sudden riches, heroic and tragic exploits, and the rowdiness and lawlessness of the mining frontier were immortalized through popular fiction and folklore, notably the poetic verses of Robert W. service.
P3. Perhaps less romantic than the mining booms, the exploitation of forest and water resources was just as vital to national development. the Douglas fir, spruce, and cedar stands of British Columbia along with the white pine forests of Ontario satisfied construction demands on the treeless prairies as well as in the growing cities and towns of central Canada and the United states. British Columbia’s forests also supplied lumber to Asia. In addition, the softwood forest wealth of the Cordilleras and the shield was a valuable source of pulpwood for the development of the pulp and paper industry, which made Canada one of the world’s leading exporters of newsprint. Furthermore, the fast-flowing rivers of the shield and Cordilleras could readily be harnessed as sources of hydroelectric power, replacing coal in the booming factories of central Canada as well as in the evolving mining and pulp and paper industries. the age of electricity under public ownership and control was ushered in by the creation of the Ontario Hydro-electric Power Commission (now Ontario Hydro) in 1906 to distribute and eventually to produce this vital source of energy.
P4. Western settlement and the opening of the northern resource frontier stimulated industrial expansion, particularly in central Canada. As the National Policy had intended, a growing agricultural population in the West increased the demand for eastern manufactured goods, thereby giving rise to agricultural implements works, iron and steel foundries, machine shops, railway yards, textile mills, boot and shoe factories, and numerous smaller manufacturing enterprises that supplied consumer goods. By keeping out lower-priced foreign manufactured goods, the high tariff policies of the federal government received much credit for protecting existing industries and encouraging the creation of new enterprises. to climb the tariff wall, large American industrial firms opened branches in Canada, and the governments of Ontario and Quebec aggressively urged them on by offering bonuses, subsidies, and guarantees to locate new plants within their borders. Canadian industrial enterprises became increasingly attractive to foreign investors, especially from the United states and Great Britain. much of the over $600 million of American capital that flowed into Canada from 1900 to 1913 was earmarked for mining and the pulp and paper industry, while British investors contributed near $1.8 billion, mostly in railway building, business development, and the construction of urban infrastructure. As a result, the gross of Canadian manufactured products quadrupled from 1891 to 1916.
1. Why does the author mention “the railroads” in paragraph 1?
