30 BEITISH EOUTE TO THE PACIFIC. 



spectaHe colonial names is being organised to place a continu- 

 ous boat and portage communication between Lake Superior 

 and the eastern side of the Eocky Mountains. There are said 

 to be two practicable routes, one exclusively tbrougb. British 

 territory, commencing at Pigeon Eiver on Lake Superior, thence 

 to Eed Eiver at Fort Garry, the British settlement there, — 

 down the Eed Eiver to Lake Winnipeg, — 250 miles through 

 that lake to its northern extremity, and finally up the south 

 branch of the Saskatchewan Eiver, (which in volume and 

 depth is said to be equal to the Mississippi above Dubuque,) 

 and is navigable for a distance, measured as the crow flies, of 

 700 miles, to a point near the eastern base of the Eocky 

 Mountains. This is said to be only eight days' journey from 

 the gold districts of British Columbia. The other route be- 

 gins at St. Paul's, thence through the Prairie, 250 miles, to 

 Graham's Fort on the Eed Eiver, from which point the stream 

 is said to be navigable for steam-boats down to the British set- 

 tlements at Fort Garry, where the two routes would join. 



Hitherto the vast territory proposed to be opened up by 

 this route has been represented to be unsuited by climate for 

 settlement, and capable of producing only furs and hides. It 

 has been so used by the Hudson's Bay and Isforth West Com- 

 panies ever since the French were expelled from Canada. And 

 the urgent efforts of Lord Selkirk, so early as 1805, to colon- 

 ise a tract which, from his personal knowledge, he estimated 

 as capable of supporting thirty millions of people, were, by a 

 combination of obstructions and disasters, finally extinguished 

 in favour of the fur trade. More recent investigation has 

 shown that the climate is not unfavourable to settlement, the 

 summer temperature on the south branch of the Saskatchewan 

 being the same as in the fertile region of northern Illinois and 

 southern Wisconsin, while the buffalo winters in the belfcs of 

 woodland on these northern rivers as safely as in the latitude 



