1,30 Featherstonhavgh s Geological Report. 



embarking, four other rapids occur, three of them near to each 

 other, and the fourth about a mile distant. The river soon 

 re-assumes its ancient breadth of one hundred yards, and 

 winds through an extensive meadow edged with zizania. The 

 otters were swimming about in numbers among the wild rice, 

 and the water was almost covered with wild ducks and teal. 

 The muskrats had already begun to build their tall conical 

 houses in the water, formed of the straw of the zizania. Be 

 yond this we passed abroad coulee, made by an immense herd 

 of buffaloes, fifteen to twenty thousand in number, which had 

 crossed the river here. The channel now becomes contracted 

 and rocky again, a stream called Mea-wakon (by the traders 

 Chippeway river) comes in from the left, about fifty feet wide 

 at its mouth, soon after which the St. Peter s narrows to thirty- 

 five yards. Here the prairies were on fire, and further on 

 were burnt quite black down to the water s edge. The valley 

 still continues about two miles broad, and the bends of the 

 river are so numerous that I could see it in six different places 

 from the slope of the upland prairie. These bends would be 

 sometimes fifteen hundred yards round, and only sixty at the 

 base. The river at length became very narrow, and so blocked 

 up with fallen trees, that we were often delayed by being, 

 obliged to stop and cut our way through. The last stream 

 which falls into the St. Peter s south of Lac qui parle, and 

 which conies from the right bank, is called Ghan-ikpah-watapah, 

 or the last wooded river. At Lac qui parle there is a stock 

 aded trading-house of the American Fur Company, the resi 

 dence of Reinville, one of the partners, an intelligent man, 

 possessing a great deal of influence with the Nacotah tribes, 

 having been brought up amongst them. The post is about a 

 mile east of the lake, and is the rendezvous of great numbers 

 of the natives. The voyageurs estimate the distance from the 

 Warhajoo to the lake at eighty leagues, and as this estimate is 

 the result of great experience, it is probably more accurate 

 than any one that can be made by a traveller, whose progress 



