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The Ottawa Naturalist 



[Vol. XXXII 



water birds, grebes, ducks, and rails nested in im- 

 mense numbers, and with stony islets in the lake pop- 

 ulated by nesting gulls, tern, pelicans, and cormor- 

 ants. Today this description and outline are hardly 

 recognizable. The water has fallen from eight to ten 

 feet from its old level, as indicated by the old shore 

 line still visible and the outline and conditions are 

 greatly changed. The Narrows are now high, dry 

 hay fields and the creek channel is a dry ditch wind- 

 ing its way across two miles of open prairie cutting 

 the lake into two separate bodies of water having no 

 communication with one another. The surrounding 

 marshes have disappeared and in their place are 

 broad reaches white with alkah crystals. The islets, 

 deserted by their original tenants, are of considerable 

 extent and with long sand and stone shoals reaching 

 toward each other or toward the shore. Of the 

 luxuriant growth of reeds nothing remains but the 

 root tops in the mud, prevented probably by increas- 

 ing salinity from following the water in its retreat 

 from the old shore-line. Of the vast numbers of 

 birds that once treaded the mazes of the marsh 

 practically none remain but the few that are re- 

 stricted to the borders of the rapidly disappearing 

 pools back from the shores. 



A tradition from aboriginal sources asserts that 

 the lake rises and falls regularly with a period of 

 about fifteen years. Mr. Seton informs me that "the 

 waters of Shoal Lake, in common with all in Mani- 

 toba, have a fashion of rising and falling in periods 

 of about seven years". However regular this rise 

 and fall may be and what the period is. Shoal Lake 

 was high in 1867 when visited by Gunn, also in 1901 

 when Chapman and Seton were there. The Wards 

 arrived on its shores about 1889 and Ward, Sr., 

 declared that at that time the lake was low. It is 

 evident from the reports of Arnold and Raine that 

 the water was fairly high in 1894 and the Wards 

 say that it reached its maximum about 1899. It 

 rises faster than it falls we are told. Whether the 

 water will ever come back agam to its old level 

 remains for the future to show. Should it do so it 

 will offer a remarkable interesting ecological study 

 in investigating the effects of the change from highly 

 alkaline to practically fresh water upon the con- 

 tained and surrounding life. Before this change 

 takes place it is most desirable that a comprehensive 

 study should be made of the present biological con- 

 ditions as a basis of contrast with higher stages of 

 water. 



The lake has no important inlet and no outlet. 

 The level is probably governed by the variation in 

 annual rainfall extending over a series of years. 

 The geological strata in which the lake lies is 

 obviously porous and fissured with underground 

 channels, as evidenced by changes in the water of 

 near-by wells, but I have heard nothing of corre- 



sponding variations in level of the great lakes on 

 either hand, so the local conditions are probably 

 independent of them. 



The surrounding country is prairie, liberally 

 sprinkled with small clumps of bush. These clumps, 

 called "bluffs" throughout the prairie provinces, 

 range from mere spots of one or two low growing 

 bushes to several acres of woodland and are oc- 

 casionally a mile or more in their longest direction. 

 They are usually very dense and sometimes all but 

 impassable owing to underbrush, felled tops, or burnt 

 trunks criss-crossed on the ground like jack straws. 

 The edges, however, are sharply defined and be- 

 tween them runs the clear prairie, winding in and 

 out, narrowing here to grassy lanes and widening 

 there to green glades or broad meadows of vary- 

 ing extent. All the woodland has suffered severely 

 from fire. Grazing is the principal industry and 

 the practice of burning the dead grass to induce a 

 vigorous growth has not only tended to check the 

 natural spread of the bluffs but has devastated many 

 of them and groups of black skeleton trunks offend 

 the eye more often than is desirable. 



Most of the timber composing the bluffs is poplar 

 with willow and other smaller shrubbery about the 

 edges. In the largest bit of woodland in the 

 neighbourhood of our camp is a small stand of bun- 

 oak and on Maple Island, some five miles up the 

 lake an island no longer is a little maple (Sp. ?) 

 from which sugar used to be made. At the head 

 of the upper lake, we are informed, considerable 

 spruce or evergreen exists, but there is none in the 

 parts visited by us. Poplar is the principal timber 

 and that upon which the residents rely for general 

 uses and for fuel. Viewed by eyes accustomed to 

 eastern woodlands none of the growth is large a 

 ten-inch trunk is the maximum now seen, though 

 occasional rotting stumps indicate that larger trees 

 were more common before they fell to the axe of 

 the early settlers. Now most of the growth is little 

 more than pole size and rarely exceeds a height 

 of 40 feet. 



Here and there, where the level of the land is 

 lower, there have been marshes and the so-called 

 red-root bogs are common and muskeg occurs 

 locally. Now, however, owing to the lowering of 

 the water-line these are mostly dry except in spring 

 and represented by damp areas with a few reed-like 

 water grasses growing about the occasional watery 

 spots which still persist. On my return in Septem- 

 ber I found that most of these hydrophytic evidences 

 were obliterated and the usual hay grass was grow- 

 ing where in the spring cat tails and reeds had 

 flourished. Occasional ponds had remained through 

 the summer's drought, but few of these promised 

 to last long. 



The spring of 1917 was late and as we passed 



