1908 DEPARTMENT OF LANDS, FORESTS AND MINES 107 



General Remarks. 



The climate, as observed during tlie three montlis was all that could be 

 desired for agricultural pursuits. Only one frost was experienced up to the 

 second week in September, and it was not sufficiently severe to do damage. 

 At the caches the vegetables freely grown included potatoes, cabbages, beets, 

 peas, lettuce, radishes, onions, tomatoes, and in fact nearly all the varieties 

 common to Older Ontario. Between the 20th and 26th July, the thermometer 

 ranged from seventy-five to ninety-three degrees Fahrenheit. The lowest tem- 

 perature recorded last winter at the English River Cache was thirty-five 

 deorrees ^p^ow zero, and that at Jack Fish tAventv-eight degrees. Navigation 

 on South Twin Lake opened this year on 18th May, it having been closed by 

 ice on 15th November, 1907. 



The lalter part of the summer of 1908, was particularly dry, and as a 

 consequence the starting of forest fires was difficult to avoid, but we are able 

 to record that none were occasioned by any members of our party. This is 

 perhaps due to the fact that usual camp lectures on the dangers from care- 

 lessness were further impressed upon the men by the devastations witnessed 

 in the early part of the season. Fire, said to have started at Nagagami Lake, 

 had swept parts of that territory about four or five years previously. Later 

 fires had cleared so much of the burned timber that little is left in some 

 places for the future settler to do in preparing the lands for farming, but he 

 will miss the timber necessary for the ordinary purposes of homesteading. 

 In other places the windfalls resulting from the first fire were almost impene- 

 trable and necessitated the employment of one or more axemen to clear the 

 way for the packmen. 



There is already a winter road from Jack Fish Station on the Canadian 

 Pacific Railway to the foot of Long Lake, about eighteen miles, used by the 

 Hudson's Bay Company and Revillion Brothers for freighting supplies for 

 the ensuing summer for use at their respective stores on the northwest and 

 northeast shores of Long Lake, the transport over Long Lake, a distance of 

 about fifty miles, being made by sailing boats in the summer season. It is 

 probable that this stretch of navigation will be served by steamboats during 

 the coming season and the necessary summer roads from Jack Fish to Long 

 Lake, and from the head of Loner Lake to the National Transcontinental 

 Railway, the latter a distance of about twenty miles, will be constructed by 

 the railway contractors. This appears to be the only feasible supply route 

 from the Canadian Pacific Railway to the National Transcontinental Rail- 

 way between Lake Nipigon and the new town of Cochrane, at the present 

 terminus of the Temiskaming and Northern Ontario Railway. 



When the agricultural land embraced by our survey of 1908 has been 

 made accessible by the completion of the National Transcontinental Rail- 

 way, some three years hence, we see no reason why this land should not be as 

 much sought after as that of northern Manitoba and Saskatchewan, the 

 excellence of which has been so well demonstrated. 



Accompanying this report are a general plan, field notes and triplicate 

 account. 



We have the honour to be. 

 Sir, 



Tour obedient servants, 



(Signed) Speight & Van Nostrand, 



Ontario Land Surveyors. 



The Honourable, the Minister 'of Lands, Forests and Mines, 

 Toronto. 



