The Klotz Overland Hudson's Bay Expedition. 321 



places further east. This year, 1884, they have 1,000 acres under 

 crop. 



Farther down there is a French half-breed settlement on the 

 east bank of the river, consisting of a few mud-plastered huts. 

 These people are raising good crops, and await only the advance of 

 civilization and commerce to become thrifty. Fifty miles above the 

 Forks, Pokan is reached. This is a Hudson's Bay Company's post, in 

 the midst of a magnificent rolling prairie, with rank grass, and a 

 great variety of rich flowering plants. From this point to the Forks 

 the current of the river is very strong, and on every hand the 

 country is uniformly good. 



At the Forks the North and South Saskatchewan Rivers join 

 and flow on in a mighty volume to Cedar Lake, Cross Lake, and 

 Lake Winnipeg, where, along with the waters of the Red River 

 system, they are lost in the great Nelson River which empties the 

 surplus waters of a vast basin into Hudson's Bay. 



The Forks of the Saskatchewan is an interesting point. It may 

 become, one day, one of the most important inland commercial 

 centres of the world. From Lake Winnipeg, or the Grand Rapids 

 at the mouth of the river, to the Forks, the distance is 41 G miles. 

 From the Forks to the head-waters of the North Saskatchewan, in 

 the valley of the Howse Pass of the Rockies, following the course of 

 the river, the distance is over 1,000 miles ; while that from the same 

 point to the head waters of the South Saskatchewan at Kootenay 

 Pass, following the stream, is about the same distance. The 

 branches diverge until, at their respective sources, they are nearly 

 400 miles apart. 



The Saskatchewan is navigable from the Grand Rapids at its 

 mouth to the Forks, and thence to Edmonton, and beyond, on the 

 North Branch, a distance of nearly 1,000 miles. Three steamers are 

 now plying those waters. This great Saskatchewan district, which 

 may be called the central area of the Prairie Region, contains over 

 400,000 square miles of fine agricultural and pastoral country. Its 

 western side, at the base of the Rockies, is over 400 miles long, and 

 it extends eastward, narrowing in its trend, until on the eastern 

 border of the fertile belt, in the silt country, it is but a few miles 



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