50 THE SPORTSMAN’S AND TOURIST’S GUIDE. 
River Valley, but it has also made easy 
of access to the sportsman the most ex- 
tensive hunting grounds on this conti- 
nent, stocked with a greater variety of 
game than may be found elsewhere with- 
in the limits of a single season’s excursion. 
Starting from St. Paul by the main 
line of the St. Paul & Pacific Railroad, 
to the trains of which elegant sleeping 
himself in the lower Red River Valley 
in the northwestern corner of Minnesota. 
On the prairies anywhere in this region 
the sharp-tailed grouse is abundant, and 
in the timbered bottom lands of Red 
River and its numerous tributaries there 
is good woodeock shooting and plenty 
of ruffed grouse. In the immediate 
vicinity of the railroad a few settlers 
have established themselves within the 
lust year or two, but toward the east, 
for a distance of two hundred and fifty 
miles, extends an unbroken, almost un- 
explored wilderness, where the deer, the 
moose, the elk, and the bear as yet roam 
in undisturbed security. 
Getting tired of venison, grouse, and 
woodeock the sportsman may again take 
the northward bound train, and a jour- 
ney ofa few hours will land him in Win- 
nipeg, the capital of Manitoba. 
Ife will here find a city of some eight 
thousand inhabitants, which in the intel- 
ligence and cultivation of its people and 
substantiality and even elegance of its 
buildings, will lose nothing when com- 
pared with any Western city of equal 
population and much greater pretentions, 
The city is prosperous, growing fast, and 
doing an immense business, being the 
entrepot of the whole British northwest. 
The hotel accommodations are excellent. 
The country abort the foot of Lake 
Winnipeg is low and marshy, and scarce- 
| glected. 
cars are attached, the sportsman-tourist | 
will in less than twenty-four hours find | 
ly in any part above the level of the 
lake. In Autumn the shallow lakes and 
the streams thereabouts are covered 
with water fowl—dueks, geese, pelicans 
and swans—which halt on their migrat- 
ing journeys southward. The pursuit of 
the goose becomes, under these circum- 
stances, a pleasure not lightly to be ne- 
It is the practice of many in- 
habitants to encamp on the banks of the 
small ponds, and lay in supplies of 
feathered game for Winter consumption. 
A little later on the game freezes, and 
it requires no further curing to be kept 
fresh until the next May. ‘The geese, 
after resting on the water all night, 
' repair to the gravel beds among the 
marshes at early dawn to take in ballast, 
without which they do not fly well. 
About these beds the sportsmen build 
brush or reed screens, and at short range 
secure many geese. A good shot has 
been known to kill forty inside of an 
hour, without moving from his screen. 
Having rested, take steamer down Red 
River and Lake Winnipeg to the mouth 
of Saskatchewan. Here have your traps 
transferred to one of the several steam- 
boats plying on this great stream. Once 
on board you may, by this means of con- 
veyance, without fatigne or trouble, 
reach the heart of the continent and 
penetrate, if such should be your desire, 
to the foot of the Rocky Meuntains. 
The valley of the Saskatchewan is one of 
the finest and largest in America, and is 
a great game resort. The varieties are 
about the same as those of western 
Dacotah, Montana, and Idaho—the 
buffalo (in untold multitudes), the grizzly, 
black, and cinnamom bear, the elk, deer, 
and antelope, and feathered game in 
great variety and abundance. At any 
of the forts or trading-posts of the Hud- 
son Bay Company-—at Cumberland 
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