The modern tourist travelling westward on the main line of the Canadian Pacific Railway, across the Dominion of Canada, finds himself really launched into the prairies as he leaves Winnipeg. An hour from Winnipeg, he sees to the North, great prairie stretches; to the South, a narrow stretch of arable land, bounded at the horizon by woods. He knows that the Assiniboine River is taking its leisurely way, behind that irregular strip of timber, to join the Red River. Another half hour and he is at Portage la Prairie - a city, quaintly named; the smallest of the three Manitoba cities.