Evening Republican, Volume 17, Number 101, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 April 1913 — A BOY INTERPRETER [ARTICLE]

A BOY INTERPRETER

A Young Massachusetts Swede In Canada Twenty Years Ago Wants to Return. Twenty years ago, a blond-haired young Swede, a boy of about 10 years of kgef accompanied a party of his fellow-countrymen on the then long trip, to Western Canada as an interpreter. The party he accompanied located at Wetasklwin, Alberta, now one of the most thriving and best settled districts In Western Canada. For three years he remained In the district. Homesickness took him back to hls home at Fitchburg, Mass., and he has remataed there for 17 years. He has heard frequently from his friends in the West. He has followed their movements and watched their progress. He has heard how the town he helped to establish has risen from a shack to a growing, thriving, brisk business center, with the surrounding country peopled now by thousands who are occupying the territory In which he was one of the first to help plant the colony of twenty or twentyfive. In his letter to an ofllclal of the Department of the Interior, he says: “When I was up In Canada, Calgary was a small town and so was Edmonton, but I understand they have grown wonderfully since.” ~ The young man when he went last learned a machine trade, he has patents and inventions but he wants to go to Canadh again. And he likely Will, but when he does he will find a greater change than he may expect Calgary and * Edmonton are large cities, showing marvelous and wonderful growth. Where but one line of railway made a somewhat tortuous and indefinite way across the plains to Its mountain pass, there are three lines of railway dividing the trade of hundreds of thousands of farmers, carrying freight to the hundreds of towns and cities crossing and crlss-croßßing the prairies In all directions, reaching out into new settlements, and preceding districts to be newly opened for incoming settlers. He will not be able to secure a homestead unless at a considerable distance from the town, the three dollar an acre land is selling at from 315 to $35 an acre. He will find now what was but a theory then, that this land that was then $3 an acre Is worth the S3O or $35 that may be asked for It, and a good deal more. But he will find that he a homestead just as good as any that were taken In his day, and today worth $35 an acre, but at some distance from a line of railway, yet with a certainty of railway In the near future, and he will find too that he can still get land at sls to $lB an acre that will In a year or two be worth S3O or $35 an acre. Mr. Moseson Is talking to his countrymen about Canada. Advertisement.