OFF FOR. LAC LA BIG HE 19 



It was well we had a stout sleigh, for, much to my as- 

 tonishment, the snow seemed little more than a foot deep 

 anywhere, while in the road it had been worn down by 

 much travel, and the rocks were numerous and aggressive. 

 We made twenty-two miles by noon of the first day, and 

 took our dinner at Fort Saskatchewan, the most northerly 

 post of the Northwest Mounted Police. Up to this 

 point of the day's journey the road had been plain, and 

 the country not unpleasant to the eye. In fact, in some 

 parts it is rather pretty, of a general rolling character, 

 fringed with small timber, mostly of the poplar variety, 

 though pine is fairly abundant. It looks like, and is, in 

 truth, a grazing country more especially, though the 

 horses and cattle I saw en route were rather poor a con- 

 dition to be probably expected in a land where every- 

 thing is new and the settlers lead a hand-to-mouth exist- 

 ence, as all settlers do. An Edmonton enthusiast I 

 think he must have had property for sale assured me 

 with great gusto that the land around that town would 

 yield from 35 to 75 bushels of wheat to the acre, and from 

 IOO to 200 bushels of oats, the latter weighing 42 pounds 

 to the bushel ; the lumber, however, he acknowledged 

 " wasn't much to brag on." 



The one well-defined road we had been following all 

 day broadened out towards sunset into a valley, showing 

 in turn several depressions in the snow here much 

 deeper which we assumed to be roads. No one at 

 Saskatchewan was able to direct us intelligently, and not 

 a soul had been seen since leaving there from whom we 

 could ask our way. Grierson, who was driving us, and 

 who is one of the Queen's Hotel proprietors, had never 

 before been over the road, but his bump of direction was 

 well placed and abnormally developed. People in this 

 country do not seem to consider knowledge of the roads 



