Next part of the world overview is done! It's a short one for now.
The World in a New Century, Section II: The Laurentine Countries
Published by the McNally Corporation in Chicago, 1901.
Much of the land north of the United States is held by Great Britain. While Newfoundland and the Labrador coast are governed directly by Parliament, the other British possessions in the Laurentine region are dominions. This means that they have a degree of self-government, but still hold Queen Victoria as their head of state and are under the sovereignty of the British Empire. The British dominions north of the United States are the Acadian Union, Canada, Deseret and the Hudson Bay Company. Aside from these countries, Russia also possesses the Alyeska colony in the far northwest of the North American continent.
The governments and cultures of the different British dominions are all very different. The Acadian Union is the furthest to the east, and is a collection of the smaller provinces of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island. Due to the great number of Irish migrants in Acadia, Gaelic has replaced English as the main tongue spoken there. Canada, meanwhile, is mostly divided between French and English speakers. Canada has a bicameral Parliament similar to that in London, but peculiarly, the two houses are in separate cities. The Senate of Canada serves in Kingston, Ontario, while the House of Commons is located in Montreal in Quebec[1].
Continuing west from Canada, the other two British colonies north of the United States are Deseret and New Caledonia. Deseret was settled by Mormons after they left the United States and has a bicameral legislature similar to the United States and Great Britain. Deseret has become very rich as a vital transportation link between the resources of the Hudson Bay Company's operations to the west and the major cities to the east. The Hudson Bay Company operates over all of the Dominion of New Caledonia and has a great influence in affairs there, approaching the authority the East India Company has in the Indian subcontinent. The few English settlements in New Caledonia are on the coasts of either Hudson Bay or the Pacific Ocean, or along the railroad that connects the two. While the region is rich in mining and agricultural wealth, it is still mostly settled by Indians, similar to the Great Plains territories in the United States.
Besides the British, the Russians also possess a colony in North America. The colony, called Alyeska, has recently become very wealthy for the Russian Empire with the discovery of abundant resources of gold and silver in the mountains and rivers. The cities of Sitka and Rodagrad[2] are the main cities in Alyeska. The gold in Alyeska is easily found by panning the Yukon and other rivers, but most of this gold goes to the Tsar in Saint Petersburg. The ore mining has attracted many settlers not just from the Russian Empire but also from California, and the United States in the past decade, but few Americans and Californians have stayed due to the horrific winter climate.
[1] No repeal of the Corn Laws means no movement from Kingston, but the French get uppity about where the Parliament is located eventually.
[2] OTL Nome, at one point the largest city in Alaska. Rodagrad means "ore city".
