Excerpt from A Survey of the Topography, Climate, Resources, Industries, Transportation and Communication, and Institutional Services of the Province of Alberta Selkirk - The next epoch in the life of the Great West was the inauguration of successful agricultural settlement. The first attempt at serious settlement in the new land was made by Lord Selkirk. He was a member of the Hudson's Bay Company. He had started one colonization scheme in Prince Edward Island and decided to change his activities to_ the interior of North America, where he finally purchased land from the company. He reached the Red River with his colonists in 1812. Here he purchased square miles. The progress of the colony was rather slow. Its administration continued to be controlled by the company for the next fifty years. The charter of the company was renewed from time to time, but long before 1867 it was felt by the British Govern ment that the progress of agricultural settlement and the need of agricultural settlement were together calling for an end of the type of rule represented in the administration of the fur companies. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.