62 EXPEDITION TO THE 



three days. The distance by water has been variously 

 stated. Mr. Thompson, the able surveyor to whom* we 

 previously alluded, estimated it at ninety miles; we have 

 seen it laid down at one hundred and eighty ; our guide 

 allowed it to be forty leagues. While descending, Mr. 

 Colhoun admitted it to be one hundred and seventeen 

 miles, but as he considered his estimate \o be a low one, 

 we may safely assume it to be at least one hundred and 

 twenty miles. The general course of the river is north, 

 but the stream is extremely winding; we never had before 

 us a reach or view of more than one mile, and this only on 

 one occasion. The breadth of the river, after leaving Pem- 

 bina, is very uniform, and is about seventy yards. Its 

 depth is not great. In many points its navigation was ob- 

 structed by shoals, and in one or two spots by primitive 

 rocks apparently out of place ; but the river was at that 

 time unusually low. In an ordinary stage of water, it must 

 afford a pleasant and safe navigation ; its bed as well as the 

 banks are muddy ; they rifee from eight to twent3''-two feet. 

 We saw along the bank trees, which, from the bark being 

 rubbed by ice, seemed to indicate that the river at times 

 rises at least fifteen feet. Our guide told us, but we are 

 induced to doubt the accuracy of his statement, that some- 

 times it rises forty feet and inundates the prairies between 

 Fort Douglas and Pembina, so that canoes are paddled 

 over the prairies. Without admitting this, we may believe 

 that in many seasons the river would afford ample scope 

 for a steamboat navigation. There are no rapids, properly 

 speaking, in the river; the current averages about one mile 

 per hour. Sometimes the prairies approach to the edge of 

 the water, but generally there is a line of woods which 

 extends along the banks, on a breadth of from fifty yards 

 to half a mile. This consists, near the margin of the river, 



