The 49th Parallel

One hundred years ago Canada, through a confederation of four provinces, came i to existence as a nation as a esult of British support, American hostility, and Canadian need. In a sense the spirit of unity necessary to bring about federation of these four colonial areas, differing considerably in the traditions, aims, and economic conditions of their peoples, was a by-product of the Civil War in the United States where armies, greater in numbers than Napoleon's, had been locked in mortal combat during the early 1860's. As Canadian statesmen in British North America struggled to formulate political plans and strategy to help bring about Confederation, the gunfire of Bull Run, Antietam and Fredericksburg rattled, so to speak, the windows of their Canadian offices. Threats, however superficial, of military action by Americans against the British colonies to the north were met by steps in Canada to defend the country. In those years of large-scale strife south of the border, there was in Canada much anxiety, even alarm, over the possibility of armed conflict with a neighbour of giant proportions. Actually whatever violence took place, such as that which occurred during unofficial Fenian raids from the south, was of a minor character. When the Civil War ceased the huge Northern armies, whose very existence had filled Canadian hearts with dread, melted away swiftly. In most democracies, once hostilities in which they happen to be engaged are ended, there is a marked tendency among soldiers to get home quickly, rejoin their families and resume peacetime pursuits. This is what happened in the United States. But without the application to Canadians of these dramatic external pressures it is most doubtful if Confederation could have been brought about at the time. But, as it was, these pressures helped to form and to foster in the northern parts of settled North America a national spirit and a new nationality. With Confederation accomplished, its chief architect and first Prime Minister, Sir John A. Macdonald, was sufficiently far-sighted to realize that union of four pro? vinces in the east would need to be followed by an expansion of Canada into the vast, sparsely populated, and potentially rich north-west, if that extensive territory was to continue under the British flag and connection. The construction of a rail? way linking Canada with British Columbia was becoming increasingly important. Aggressive elements of the population in the United States, caught up in a mood of buoyant expansionism, made no effort to conceal their hope and intention to control as much of the middle west of the continent as their country could usefully absorb. Steps had to be taken by Canadians without delay if the threatened extension of United States sovereignty north of the 49th parallel in that region was to be forestalled. It was Sir John's vision of a Canada reaching from the Atlantic to the Pacific that made him unique among Canadian statesmen of his day. In the years from 1858 to 1863 the boundary line along the 49th parallel had been run officially from the Pacific Ocean to the watershed of the Rocky (formerly Stony) Mountains. It was in

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