2 Taverner, Birds of Red Deer River, Alta. yj&n. 



satisfactory. The rather clumsy boat and low power motor while 

 not adapted for navigating against the current were admirable 

 for going with it, and had the trip to be made over again I know of 

 no important detail that might be altered. 



The river was at about mid-height. The high spring floods were 

 past but the water had not reached its low summer level. No 

 rapids of importance were encountered and in only two places was 

 navigation more than mildly exciting. The first was the " Canyon," 

 some twenty-five miles from Red Deer via the river, though only 

 eight miles overland. The other was just above the Grand Trunk 

 Pacific Railway crossing south of Alix between camps 3 and 4. 

 We had heard from residents of the danger of these places and 

 probably at certain stages of water they may be bad, but when we 

 passed we found that the risk had been much exaggerated. 



From Red Deer to Drumheller the river was usually deep and 

 water could always be found for much deeper draught than ours. 

 Occasional shallows occurred and islands divided the current, 

 necessitating some care in choosing the proper channel. It was 

 necessary also to put such a motor as we had on a hinge to avoid 

 disaster when through misjudgment the wrong channel was taken 

 and shallow water was unexpectedly encountered. A little above 

 Drumheller and continuing below, the river widens and shallows 

 and the bottom changes from boulder and gravel to sandy mud, 

 forming shifting shoals between which the channel meanders con- 

 fusingly, rendering navigation more complicated though mistakes 

 were annoying rather than serious. 



The whole valley of the river lies some 100 to 250 feet below the 

 general prairie level. Above Nevis, Camp 4, it is comparatively 

 narrow and bounded by simple hills, steep bluffs or rocky cliffs, 

 usually as well covered with vegetation as the slope and age of 

 exposure permits. The prairie begins close to the river at the 

 verge of the first embankment and the ox-bow bends are well 

 wooded. Below Nevis the aspect of the landscape changes con- 

 siderably, bare, raw, freshly eroded exposures are the rule and bad- 

 land conditions are assumed. The ox-bows are extensive gumbo 

 flats with the woods confined to the river edge; otherwise bare 

 bluffs rise straight from the water, or raw clay hills, striped hori- 

 zontally with black coal seams, succeed each other as far as the eye 



