330 Our North Land. 



decline to a few feet. The timber changes from poplar to spruce 

 and poplar, then to balsam, whitewood, pine, tamarack, maple, elm, 

 ash, etc., until at last one can find almost any sort of bush indigenous 

 to the country. Some of the spruce is large, measuring three feet 

 in diameter. The whitewood grows to a great size also. The brush 

 is sometimes thick and much tangled, and is mostly alder. • 



The Sepenock Channel is one of the odd features of the Sas- 

 katchewan. Through it a portion of the water of the main stream 

 is carried into the Carrot River, which joiDS it again at The Pas, 

 about one hundred and twenty miles below. Not far below the 

 Sepenock, the traveller comes to the Cut-Off — a new channel forced 

 by the ice through the heavy forest, thereby cutting off a long bend 

 of the river. At this point we see how the river ranges at will over 

 the country. After the water passes through the Cut-Off, instead of 

 taking its regular course in the river, most of its waters flow up its old 

 bed, and have forced their way by another channel into the Stur- 

 geon River that flows into Pine Island Lake, and thence, through 

 the Big Stone and Tearing Rivers, empties into the Saskatchewan. 

 From the point where the channel first mentioned enters the old 

 bed of the Saskatchewan to where the Big Stone River enters it, there 

 is but little water, and still not very much until the confluence of 

 the Tearing River is reached. The old bed from the Cut-Off to the 

 mouth of the Big Stone may eventually dry up and disappear. 

 The water, sometimes, between Pine Island Lake and the Sas- 

 katchewan, in the Big Stone, flows both ways, depending upon the 

 height of water at its extremities. 



Cumberland House, an old Hudson's Bay post, and the trading 

 capital of the Cumberland district, is situated on the south-east side 

 of Pine Island Lake, a small body of water on the north side of the 

 Saskatchewan, and connected with it. The lands in the neighbour- 

 hood are low, and the scene can scarcely be called picturesque- 

 There are numerous small islands in the lake. Besides the Hudson's 

 Bay Company's buildings, which are surrounded by the usual stock- 

 ade, there are a number of half-breed houses, and, near by, Indian 

 huts and wigwams. 



There is a Catholic mission at the post, and the Church of England 



