SOURCE OF ST. PETER's RIVER. 51 



it must be acknowledged, that there are but few facili- 

 ties for a foreign market. The communication with 

 Hudson's Bay is too long and too difficult to offer any 

 well grounded hope of its being ever resorted to for 

 an export trade. That with Lake Superior may be carried 

 on by two routes, either by Lakes Winnepeek, and of the 

 Woods, or by Red Lake ; but both of these present great 

 difficulties; the easiest navigation to the sea is undoubted- 

 ly up Red river to Otter-tail Lake, and thence by the Ri- 

 viere de Corbeau and the Mississippi to New Orleans. We 

 do not consider the route by Lake Travers and the St. 

 Peter as offering any prospect of being ever adopted. 

 The only foreign market which appears to us therefore 

 as open to Pembina, is that obtained through the port 

 of New Orleans; but the distance of upwards of three 

 thousand miles must for ever render this route an unprofit- 

 able one ; the intermediate country, far from presenting 

 any hopes of a market, will likewise have a surplus agri- 

 cultural product to send down to the mouth of the Missis- 

 sippi, where it will arrive less encumbered with expenses 

 of transportation. The produce raised at Pembina never 

 can be sufficiently valuable to compensate these disadvan- 

 tages; and we very much question, whether the coun- 

 try be adapted to the raising of hemp, as was anticipated 

 by the founder of the colony ; to the west and north-west 

 we see no prospect of a market. It has been said, that the 

 support of the persons engaged in the fur trade would be 

 an object for the agriculturist ; but if it be borne in mind, 

 that in the days of the greatest prosperity of the British 

 fur trade, and at a time when the two rival companies had 

 a much larger number of Engages than they probably 

 will ever have in future, the aggregate of the servants of 

 both companies did not exceed five thousand men ; we 



