EESOURCES LESSER SLAVE LAKE REGION 79 



stretch of imagination to foresee in future years a continuous 

 line of them from Edmonton to the lake, along the three 

 hundred miles of country intersected by the trail laid out 

 by the Territorial Government. 



As for the wheat problem, it is not at all likely that the 

 Roman Catholic Mission would put up a flour -mill, as they 

 were then doing, if it was not a wheat country. Bishop Glut 

 assured me that potatoes in their garden reached three and a 

 half pounds' weight in some instances, and turnips twenty- 

 five pounds. 



The kind people of both this and the Church of England 

 Mission generously supplied our table with vegetables and 

 salads, and we craved no better. Chives, lettuce, radishes, 

 cress and onions were full flavoured, fresh and delicious, and 

 quite as early as in Manitoba. Being a timber country, lum- 

 ber was, of course, plentiful, there being two sawmills at 

 work cutting lumber, which sold, undressed, at $25 t/O $30 a 

 thousand. 



The whole country has a fresh and attractive look, and one 

 could not desire a finer location than can be had almost any- 

 where along its streams and within its delightful and healthy 

 borders. And yet this region is but a portal to the vaster 

 one beyond, to the Unjigah, the mighty Peace River, to be 

 described hereafter. 



The make-weight against settlement may be almost summed 

 up in the words transport and markets. The country is 

 there, and far beyond it, too ; but so long as there is abund- 

 ance of prairie land to the south, and no railway facilities, 

 it would be unwise for any large body of settlers, especially 

 with limited means, to veiiture so far. The small local 

 demand for beef and grain might soon be overtaken, and 

 though stock can be driven, yet three hundred miles of forest 

 trail is a long way to drive. Still, pioneers take little thought 

 of such conditions, and already they were dropping in in 

 twos and threes as they used to do in the old days in Red 

 River Settlement, lured by the wilderness perhaps to priva- 



