178 



SKETCH OF A JOURNEY 



TO THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS AND TO THE COLUMBIA 



RIVER IN NORTH AMERICA: 



r 



By Thomas Drummond, Assistant Naturalist to the second Land Arctic 

 Expedition^ under the command of Captain Sir John Franklin^ B. N. 



WIU& 



through a country hitherto unknown to the Naturalist with any ob- 

 servation, further than to say, that it embraces the period of time 

 when Mr. Drummond quitted Sir John Franklin, Dr, Richardson, and 

 the other officers of the Expedition, at Curaherland House, to that 

 of his rejoining them at the same place. — Ed.] 



Cumberland House, of which the latitude is 53^ 56' 40" N., 

 longitude 102^ 16' 41" W., is situated upon a small island, 

 called Pine Island, formed by the branching of the Saskatch- 

 awan, which divides into two channels, just before its junction 

 with a lake, called Pine Island Lake. In times of high. 

 water, occasioned by the melting of the snow upon the 

 mountains where it takes its rise, the river runs into the laK^ 

 the upper channel, and empties itself by the lower. 

 During the time which elapsed between my arrival at Cum- 

 berland House, on the 28th of June, and the 10th of August, 

 when the waters began to fall, the lake had risen six feet 

 perpendicular, reducing the island, which is naturally low, 

 to a very small compass, and destroying the corn which grew 

 immediately around the fort. This was a very unusual cir- 

 cumstance, and I found, when afterwards ascending the Sas- 

 katchawan, that the waters had attained to upwards of twenty 

 feet above their winter level. The country in the neigbhour- 

 hood of Cumberland House is limestone, similar to that de- 

 scribed by Dr. Richardson In the vicinity of Lake Winnipeg- 

 The following list comprises some of the plants which 1 

 collected during my stay at Cumberland House, but it cannot 

 be considered as a full enumeration, since many of the spring 

 flowers were past, and a still greater number must have 

 escaped my memory i-^Hippuris vulgaris, Utricularia ^}' 

 garis and media, Veronica peregrina and scutellata, a species 

 of Lycopusf 2 species of Sarpus, a species of Eriophor^^ 



