{
 "id": "james-mcintyre/canada-before-the-confederation-of-the-provinces",
 "title": "Canada Before the Confederation of the Provinces",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "James McIntyre",
 "poet_slug": "james-mcintyre",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "Poems of James McIntyre",
 "book_slug": "poems-of-james-mcintyre",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": null,
 "container": null,
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1889,
  "venue": "Poems of James McIntyre (1889)",
  "note": "First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established.",
  "uncertain": false,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/cihm_11791"
  ]
 },
 "source": {
  "kind": "standard-ebooks",
  "repo": "standardebooks/james-mcintyre_poetry",
  "file": "poetry.xhtml",
  "upstream": [
   "https://archive.org/details/cihm_09542",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/36068",
   "https://archive.org/details/cihm_11791"
  ],
  "rights": "public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931)"
 },
 "verification": {
  "level": "structural-only",
  "last_checked": "2026-08-20"
 },
 "stats": {
  "n_lines": 28,
  "n_stanzas": 7,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 41,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Canadian provinces they lay",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Divided by river and by bay,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Many a separate division,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Among them there was no cohesion.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "But statesmen saw that a great nation",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Could be formed by federation,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And soon they led public opinion",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To favor forming this Dominion.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Northwest with its streams and fountains,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With sources in the Rocky Mountains,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "It was all a great mystery,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Hunting for furs its history.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Though Northwest is filling slow",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Yet soon there will be mighty flow,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Millions to Northwest will hurry",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In last decade of century.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "For therein is an opening grand",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In great fertile prairie land,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For there the choicest wheat it grows",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Near where the Saskatchewan flows.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "And on many a river’s branch",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "There is found great grazing ranch,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Favoured districts therein abound",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Where cattle graze all the year round.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Protected from the stormy blast",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "By the Rocky Mountains vast,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Through canon blows no storm terrific,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But balmy breezes from Pacific.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}