84 REPORT OF THE No. 3 



it with Minnietakie is in the nature of a river but one cannot detect a current. 

 It is very marshy and full of wild rice and reeds and it was only with a great 

 deal of difficulty that we were enabled to push our canoe through. The southern 

 portion of this lake is surrounded by high rocky hills covered mostly by Banksian 

 pine, poplar and white birch. The bays are long and narrow ending up in low 

 marshy places. 



I then continued into the southeastern bay into which the English River 

 empties, tieing into the English River power reserve line as we proceeded. This 

 is, in my opinion, the best part of the main shore of Minnietakie Lakes for 

 summer resort lots. The big rounding bays are mostly of a sandy nature and 

 the country lends itself generally to this purpose. In fact there are already 

 several locations laid out; the big majority, however, are on islands. 



I connected up with the south boundary of Drayton township, where it 

 intersects the easterly shore of Minnietakie Lake, on the 7th of August. I had 

 no difficulty finding the post, although the country has all been burnt over. 



I then traversed what remained of the islands. This took me considerably 

 longer than I anticipated, when I wrote you on the 4th of August, on account 

 of adverse weather conditions, but we finally did complete them and returned 

 to Sioux Lookout, entraining for Port Arthur on the 16th of August. 



There are two hundred and thirty-seven islands in both lakes ranging 

 from small rocks to islands six and seven miles in perimeter, also numerous 

 reefs which are shown on the accompanying plan. The acreages and description 

 of islands is appended hereto. 



At intervals of about a mile apart on the shore, prominent trees were blazed 

 on the side next to the lake and marked thus: "1, 2, 3, etc." In like manner 

 trees on islands were marked by the letters "R", "K", followed by the number 

 of the island. These points were tied into the nearest transit station and the 

 bearing and distance recorded in the field notes. They are also recorded on 

 the accompanying plan in red. Whenever we located a suitable spot, a short 

 bronze metal post was cemented into the rock with Portland cement and a 

 wooden post was planted alongside in a mound of stones as a reference point, 

 both posts being marked similarly. These posts are shown circled in red on 

 the plan which accompanies the report. Posts were planted well above the 

 high water mark at points where I tied into known lines. 



All the details as to shore lands, trees marked, measurements, bearings 

 and posts planted are shown on the plan. 



A Watt transit and D.L.S. stadia rod were used throughout with the ex- 

 ception of two occasions, when I had the misfortune to fall into the lake and 

 wash out my cross hairs, when I used a Davis & Son six-inch transit with good 

 results. With the latter transit, however, I had to use a constant of .9434 for 

 every chain read on the rod. The main stations were plotted by latitudes 

 and departures every day on the cross section paper on a scale of twenty chains 

 to the inch so that any error which might creep in was at once located and 

 corrected. Frequent observations for meridian were taken, and copies of 

 them accompany this report. 



Game 



Both these lakes seems to be well supplied with pike and pickerel, but the 

 fishermen met with did not seem to have very good luck. No trout were seen 

 at any time throughout this trip. The red deer and moose are the most plentiful 

 of any part of the country that I have yet been. Beaver and muskrat are 

 present in small numbers. 



