The Old Crow Wing Trail. 



Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen. 



It has fallen to my lot to have seen and traversed, with 

 the exception of part of one, all the summer and winter roads 

 which, many years ago, connected the Red River or Selkirk 

 settlement with the outer world, and they maj be enumerat- 

 ed as follows : 



1. The old North West Company's route, from the mouth 

 of the Kaministiquia through Shebandowan, Lac des Mille 

 Lacs, the beautiful lakes and streams of the height oF land be- 

 tween Superior and Lake Winnipeg to Rainy Lake, the lovely 

 river which drains it into the Lake of the Woods, that lake 

 and the river which bears its waters to Lake Winnipeg, which 

 with its rapids, chutes and falls is, I think, unsurpassed in 

 beauty by any river of Lauren tian Canada. 



2. The Hudson's Bay York Factory route, too well known 

 to need any description, and of which I have only seen a 

 part. 



3. The Breckenrid^e Flats route, skirting the west bank 

 of the Red River to near where it receives the name at the 

 junction of the Sioux Wood and Ottertail rivers, and crossing 

 the Red River at Georgetown or Abercrombie to traverse to 

 the Ottertail Ford the fiats which gave the route its name, 

 and enter the rolling lake-dotted country which lay between 

 it and St. Cloud on the Mississippi, 80 miles above St. Paul. 



4. The winter monthly mail carriers' dog train route of 

 the old days-, which, crossing the Red River at Fo t Pembina, 

 sought for shelter and night encampment the skirting of Min- 

 nesota woods at the sources of the eastern affluents of the Red 

 River, as far as Red Lake, crossing which on the ice it tra- 

 versed many of the small lakes which form the extreme head- 

 waters of the great Mississippi down to Leech Lake, and 

 thence southward, passing through mazes of small lakes and 

 through the hunting-grounds of the " Pillagers," to the junc- 

 tion of the Crow Wing with the Mississippi River, and then 



