Democratic Sentinel, Volume 18, Number 23, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 June 1894 — A DARING SCHEME. [ARTICLE]

A DARING SCHEME.

To Link Hudson Bay and the Gulf of Mexico. Representative McCleary, of Minnesota, who is a member of the committee on rivers and canals, has laid the foundation of a scheme to connect the Gulf of Mexico with Hudson bay. Mr. McCleary proposes that the United States and Canadian governments carry out the project together, His plan is to have the survey made by way of the Minne-ota river, whose headwaters and those of the Red River of the North nearly join through Big Stone and Traverse lakes. In high water boats of considerable size have crossed from one lake to the other and it would not require a very large canal to connect the waters of' the Red and Minnesota rivers. While the difficulty of connecting the Red and Minnesota Rivers is not great, it is claimed that the rapids in ttfe Winnipeg River have always discouraged the Canadian government from the undertaking. There have been several conventions of citizens of northern Minnesota, North Dakota and Winnipeg looking to the opening of the Winnipeg, River, in the hope that they might find a short water outlet to the seaboard. Each of these conventions ha? been confronted with the obstruction in the Winnipeg Fiver, but Mr. McCleary thinks that if the United States should take some steps toward opening up a channel on this side of the boundary the Canadian government might bo inclined to take some action looking to opening the Winnipeg River.