326 Our North Land. 



into the river, leaving cut banks far above the water. Some of 

 these land slides comprise hundreds of acres, and now compose a sort 

 of river bottoms. The banks thus formed are mostly perpendicular. 

 There are places in these broken districts where the trees are thrown 

 into great confusion, some being left almost bottom-side up, and 

 others nearly horizontal. Those with the washed out gorges, boulders 

 and gravel, comprise a perfect chaos. 



The mud-streams are a strange feature in the banks of the 

 Saskatchewan. This mud, softened by the melting ice and snow, 

 flows dowD the ravines like glaciers. Woe to the careless one who 

 trusts to this mud to bear up his weight, as he will sink in it very 

 quickly. There are immense boulders, as it were, floating on its 

 surface, leading one to think that it is perfectly safe to walk upon ; 

 but should you step upon one of them it will shoot down as if in 

 water. These mud-ravines and gorges are to be met with along 

 the shores frequently. 



Leaving the Forks, the timber increases in size and quantity as 

 you near Fort a la Corne, and at the latter place there is good spruce, 

 tamarack, Norway pine, balsam, birch, whitewood and poplar. The 

 underbrush is often very thick with willows and alder, with various 

 flowering shrubs, which give parts of the river a very pretty 

 appearance. Wild peas, honeysuckles, columbine and other flower- 

 ing plants grow in wild luxuriance. Here the banks are high and 

 frequently sliding into the river ; and now and then one may see a 

 double shore, where one bank, it may be half a mile long, has been 

 carried down by the ice and set in front of another. 



Small game is not very plentiful ; but one may see, every now 

 and then, moose and black bears walking leisurely along the shores. 

 The latter afford very entertaining sport. 



Fort a la Corne is a Hudson's Bay trading post. It is named after 

 an old French trader, who, more than eighty years ago, conducted a 

 small trading station there. He fled on the approach of the Black- 

 feet Indians, who had come to rob him. It is believed to this day 

 that there is a cache somewhere in the vicinity where he buried his 

 liquor before taking his departure, and the natives in the vicinity, 

 Crees, are still hoping that some day they will come across it. Fort 



