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HE Winnipegoosis country is at present one of the most inaccessible regions of the North-West. There is but one way of getting into it, and that offers few of the conveniences or attractions of modern travel. Starting from Winnipeg with a halfbreed guide and a couple of Red River carts to carry provisions for the trip, the explorer (tourist is not the word here) proceeds due north-west along a well worn trail running nearly parallel with the old survey of the Canadian Pacific Railway, and distant from it some ten or twelve miles. For twenty miles or so the road is through an almost dead level prairie; further on the land is more ridgy and uneven, the soil lighter and sometimes stoney. In Township 15, Range 2 west, we pass on the right a large sheet of brackish water, called Shoal Lake, swarming with pelican when we saw it last July. This is a very common bird in the North-West, an ugly unclean biped, with a bill over a foot in length, and a hideous pouch or fish. bag where it stores its food, which is not always in the best condition. Some twenty miles further on brings us to Oak Point, on Lake Manitoba, and close to the boundary line of Keewatin, or the North-West Territory, as it is now called in the new maps. Here a post of the Hudson Bay Com'pany has long been established, and around it have gathered a considerable population of half-breeds, some of them well to do in the world. Eight miles to the south there is another still larger settlement called the Saint Laurent Mission, which has a Roman Catholic establishment of some kind or

other. The land around both settlements is tolerably fair, being a black sandy loam resting on the universal white limestone, and having some loose stone through it. But there is. really no farming done except by the few white men who have taken up claims in that quarter. The half-breed here, as elsewhere over the whole country, is content with a weedy illfenced garden patch, which he has probably never put a hand to himself. From one of these people, a very intelligent and trustworthy person, we hired a York boat for the trip up the lakes; we also engaged two French half-breeds, old voyageurs in the service of the Hudson Bay Company, who knew the country well. These, with Mr. Walter Dickson, of Water Hen river, an old Hudson Bay officer, the writer, and two boys made up the crew of the York boat. This is the only sort of craft as yet on these waters. It derives its name from the original pattern invented at York Factory for the navigation of the rivers running into Hudson Bay. It measures 35 feet in length, with 8 or 9 feet of a beam, pointed at the stern, and carrying a large square sail and six long heavy spruce oars. It is not exactly the thing for lake navigation as sailing is next to impossible except with a fair or nearly fair wind; when that fails there is nothing for it but to lie over in some convenient shelter and wait for a change.

We were favoured with prevailing south winds and made a good run to the Narrows, which divide Lake Manitoba into two nearly equal parts.. Here the crossing of the Canadian Pa

cific Railway was to have been, under the old survey and the Mackenzie administration. We hauled up at Mr. William Sifton's, who has charge of the telegraph line which here crosses the lake. Mr. Sifton has one or two white neighbours who came to settle beside him in the hope of the railway crossing near them, and who are not at all pleased with the change of route. The country all around here, unlike the lower portion of the lake, is thickly wooded with very good poplar, ash, and oak. Mr. Sifton and his neighbours have cleared a number of acres, which were filled with the very perfection of garden vegetables. The root crops in the north-west are a standing marvel, but here they were exceptionally excellent. We never before saw such potatoes or such cabbages, beets, onions, and carrots. It may be here said that Mr. Sifton tells a very different story from what has been so industriously circulated about the country eastward to Selkirk, along the old route of the Pacific Railway. He has travelled it frequently, and maintains that there are no difficulties in the location such as to warrant the change to the south of the lake. The old route would certainly have been the shortest to the Saskatchewan, as it would have been a good thing for the Narrows and the Winnipegoosis country, which must long remain a terra incognita, unless something is done to put steamers on the lakes. On the other hand, the new route satisfies the Manitobans, and serves a settled country much in need of railway communication.

Sailing from the Narrows, and feeling grateful for the kind hospitality of our host and his amiable wife, we pass on the right the weird caves of the Manitou, where the 'untutored mind' was awed by the unseen power giving audible expression to itself.

Northward in the distance rises the bluff,' and between, a wide expanse of lake, the most exposed,

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and at times stormy, part of the waters north of the Narrows, but with a fair wind from the south, we made to within sight of the mouth of the Water Hen the same evening. A little before dark a squall rose, and we hauled up on the lea of an island for shelter and rest for the night. Rain came on, but we managed to start a fire on the beach, under the partial protection of the thick woods that came within a few feet of the water's edge. Our supper of duck pemmican, and the inevitable black tea, despatched, we lay down in our buffaloes and went to sleep, but at midnight our half-breeds raised a shout that the wind had changed, and our boat was in danger from the boulders on which she was hauled up, so we had to tumble into the stern sheets and get poled round a point of the island into shelter. It was pitch dark, and the rain came down in torrentswe had to remain in the boat. next day, as we sailed and rowed up the Water Hen river, and the following night, as we camped on the shore, the rain came pouring down; buffalo robes, blankets, every stitch of clothing we had on, or could put on, were soaking wet. Next morning broke fine, and as we were making our way into Water Hen Lake, and round the turn into the river again, we had time to get a good dry. Not one of us caught the least cold after our forty-eight hour's drenching. The Water Hen river, as in the gloom and mist of the wet morning we entered it, had a strange Indian look about it. It would have hardly been a surprise to have seen an army of braves start like Roderick Dhu's warriors from the reeds and willows as we slowly passed up the stream. The banks are uniformly low, with a varying belt of tall bright green grass extending from the water's edge to the dark line of woods in the background. Sometimes the woods came even to the water's edge, receding in a semicircle to give place to the broad belt of meadow grass,

which is the prevailing feature of the banks on both sides. The clumps of willows and scattered poplar often occur on these green patches, adding much to their picturesque beauty, and often assuming the appearance of an artificial landscape. Many tempting locations for settlement occur along the whole extent of the river. The land

is rich and heavily wooded, but the trees are seldom over a foot through at the butt; the clearing could thus be done with one-half the labour of the Ontario settler. The river is a beautiful clear stream with a pebbly bottom, never varying in depth more than a few inches, and stocked with the finest whitefish in the world! What more could be wished? and yet there is only one white man living on the Water Hen. The river flows nearly due south from Water Hen Lake, which receives its waters from Lake Winnipegoosis through a stream also called Water Hen river, which flows due north, and thus parallel with the other river. The two rivers run in opposite directions, distant from each other not more than six miles at any point. About the middle of the first stream the current is a little swift for a few miles, but nothing to interfere in the least with navigation by steam. This part of the river gets the name of Rapids, which is rather misleading, as we got well over them before I was informed that they were so designated, and it would never have occurred to me to apply such a term to what was little more than a perceptible current. We might easily have pulled our boat through, but our half-breeds preferred 'tracking.' although that involved walking through wet grass up to the shoulders, and sometimes wading in the river waist deep, in order to cut off corners or keep the boat in the channel. With a heavy load 'tracking' has always to be resorted to, but the voyageurs are used to it, taking to water like true spaniels. White men would hardly do this kind of work. The Water Hen is the only floating

entrance into Winnipegoosis, it adds thirty miles to the water stretch, and is the worst part of the route for a sailing craft, as the wind from any southern point, favourable as far as the 'turn,' is dead-a-head for the rest of the river passage into Winnipegoosis. It will always be the bête noire of lake navigation, except for pleasure excursions which are still far enough away in the future. South-west, some eight or nine miles from the outlet of the Water Hen into Manitoba, the distance between the two lakes, Manitoba on the east and Winnipegoosis on the west, is only one mile and threequarters. The barrier between is a low, marshy neck of land, at the highest point not more than ten feet above the level of Winnipegoosis. The difference of level between the lakes is said to be about eighteen feet. A cutting through Meadow portage, on this narrow neck of land, will no doubt be made some day, but unfortunately the water is shallow for a good way out on both lakes, so that besides the canal a long and wide channel leading up to it at both ends would require to be dredged out and something in the nature of breakwaters erected for the protection of vessels entering the canal, as there is no natural harbour on either side. The entire basin of the two lakes is hollowed out of a dull white limestone, somewhat shaley in texture, with the debris of which the shores of the lakes are almost everywhere strewed; the very sand seems to be nothing but granulated limestone. There would be no fear of the canal or the channels we have described being choked with mud or drift, as there is no sweeping current, but the bottom of the lakes, especially in the shallower parts, is crowded with boulders, and as ice forms at the bottom, the stones are lifted in the spring and floated about. But the filling up of the channels from this cause might be guarded against in the form and construction of the breakwaters. Mr. Dickson, my compagnon

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age, is a close and intelligent observer of natural phenomena; we had many interesting discussions on the geology and physical geography of the lake region. It was his opinion that the whole country was undergoing a gradual elevation. At one point on the east shore of Lake Manitoba, below the Narrows, where we camped for a short time, we observed, inland some 200 yards or so, a clearly defined beach, as if the water had just left it; it was at least ten feet higher than the present beach. Between it and the present beach was a low marsh, full of tall reedy grass. An old Indian half-breed lived in a house built a few yards above this former beach, and had been there for more than twenty-five years. He told us that when he first settled in the country the water was up to where his house now stood, and he pointed out a tree to which he used to fasten his

canoe.

The question naturally arose, what has caused the shrinkage? In support of his theory of a gradual elevation of the land, Mr. Dickson related some curious facts which came under his observation during his residence of thirteen years on the east coast of Hudson Bay. As he alludes to these facts in a manuscript work, illustrating his Arctic experiences, which has been put into the hands of the writer with a view to future publication, I will take the liberty of giv. ing his own words:

'An old Indian pilot, named Swallow, a native of the country, whose whole life had been passed in this part of the coast (near Cape Jones, east coast Hudson Bay), assured me that many of the islands in this particular quarter had risen above the sea during his own life time, having been only mere shoals when he was a boy. The Indian Swallow, when wandering about the hills near the sea coast one day, came upon an old ship's anchor firmly jammed into a crevice of a rock on the very summit of a hill fully four hundred feet above the present sea

level. The anchor had undoubtedly been lost by some ship which must have found several fathoms of water above this very hill. One fluke of the anchor, settled into the crevice of the rock, could only have been lifted out of its place by a buoy rope or chain attached to the crown. Whether this was attempted or not is uncertain, but probably it was not, for there was no hole in the crown for any such line. It is probable that the anchor itself had only a hemp cable attached to it originally, as neither shackle nor any portion of a chain was found. A clumsy wooden stock, very much de cayed, but still recognisable as oak, was found attached, and the iron, although a good deal corroded and scaled off, showed that it had been used on a large vessel, and must have once weighed a ton weight in iron alone.'

One would suppose that the tipping up of the end of a continent would back up the waters flowing towards that end and rather raise than lower the level in the upper courses. This would undoubtedly happen if the continent were a perfectly level plain, and the lower end raised above the axis of elevation, but would scarcely be expected in the case of the land be tween the lakes and Hudson Bay, so long as the Nelson river has a downhill course with abrupt and frequent rapids. To account for the shrinkage spoken of, on the theory of an elevation of the land, we must either suppose the elevation to have been local, or its axis to have been at a point far removed from the present lakes. There is another theory which struck the writer forcibly, when coasting the south shore of Lake Manitoba, on our return trip. The entire south end of this lake is now bare of timber like the surrounding prairie and for probably the same reason; that it has been swept by fires.

But at no very distant date heavy forests must have lined the shores, and these would resist the encroachment of the waters, which are now blown by the north

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wind and scattered over wide areas to the south and west. Mr. Sifton informed us that the depth of the water at the Narrows varied constantly with the change of wind. With a prevailing north wind the water fell at least two feet, returning to its former level in a calm or with a south wind. north wind, which had been blowing for two days and had taken us to the foot of the lake, was followed by a calm, and we had a striking illustration of the backward flow of the water which began after the wind abatedthe writer, in swimming across the narrow entrance into Lake Francis, being carried a considerable distance out by the current. Supposing the waters that now fill Lake Francis and the other interminable bays, creeks, and marshes at the south end of the lake-not to speak of those on the west side, were recovered and held within a secure and well-defined boundary such as existed when the forests were standing, the level of the whole lake would be raised probably to the height of the deserted beach above mentioned.

But to return to the Water Hen where we were about to make the bend to the south, on our way to the upper lake. Here we touch an Indian reserve, and are met by the whole Water Hen band, men, women and children, who turn out to see us. Some of the men boarded our boat and gave us a hand at the oars, some held up pails of berries, offering them for a little flour. We passed another reserve at Dog Creek below the Narrows, but the band were away on a bear hunt and we saw none of them. These Indians are nearly all Swampy Crees and are included in Treaty number two, numbering less than a thousand all told, scattered over several reservations. The agent in charge of them, that is who pays them the treaty money, resides several days'journey from some of the reservations and not immediately in the neighbourhood of any. Each band, on selecting its own reser

vation, was promised a supply of farming implements, such as ploughs, harrows, waggons, &c., and a certain number of oxen. Some five or six years ago the Water Hen band got their implements, but up to the time we met them the oxen had not arrived. Meantime the ploughs and harrows were rotting, or had been sold for a handful of tea. Thus are our Indian affairs managed in the North West ! The late appointment of Instructors is probably a step in the right direction if a proper selection has been made, and if they do away with the small reservations, and prevent the wily halfbreeds from mixing with the bands and sowing the seeds of discontent and rebellion.

The north branch of the Water Hen, which we now turned, is much the the same in appearance as the south branch. Although the water was at its highest, there was no perceptible current. Rather more than a mile from where the river opens out into the lake, or rather where the lake narrows into the river, and on the left or west bank, we came to Walter Dickson's house, a substantial log building 32 x 24 feet, the timbers of good-sized spruce, nicely hewn, and the corners neatly joined. Here we notice the same perfection of garden vegetables as we were struck with at the Narrows. The soil is the same and so is the timber, with the addition of spruce which occurs in clumps, never in continuous belts. Mr. Dickson selected this spot in the belief that, sooner or later, he would witness and reap the benefit of the change which accompanies the opening up of a country rich in natural resources, and requiring only to be known in order to be settled. is more than probable that he will not have to wait a great while to see the steamboat passing his door. We enter Lake Winnipegoosis, or rather a long arm of the lake, which, as before said, narrows into the Water Hen river. Coasting along the west side, we come to Salt Point, and encounter the same

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