84 



RED RIVER EXPLORING EXPEDITION. 



the Woods, is described by Mr. Pettier, and the Indians 

 who were questioned about it, as consisting of a springy, 

 movable surface, overlying a vast deposit of peat, through 

 which a pole might frequently be pushed to the depth of 

 thirty feet without reaching the bottom. The surface 

 sustains low bushes, with here and there islands of small 

 pine. Its borders approach and recede from Eainy Eiver 

 with the windings of that stream ; the breadth of the dry 

 wooded and fertile valley varying from half a mile in the 

 rear of Fort Frances, to six or eight miles in the direction 

 of the Lake of the Woods. The average breadth of 

 superior land for a distance of seventy miles might 

 perhaps, with propriety, be assumed to be not less than 

 four miles, giving an area of available soil of high fertility, 

 exceeding 170,000 acres ; and there can be little doubt, 

 that with the progress of clearing, much that is now 

 included in the area occupied by swamps would be re- 

 claimed without difficulty or great expense. 



In 1858 Mr. S. Dawson was instructed to examine the 

 country on the right bank of Eainy Eiver, with a view 

 to ascertain the extent of surface available for the 

 purposes of an agricultural settlement. He reports as 

 follows : — 



" The land immediately bordering on Eainy Eiver, on 

 the British side, is of an alluvial description, and almost 

 as uniformly level as the prairies at Eed Eiver. For a 

 mile or so inland from the main stream the ground is 

 dry, and a dense growth of large timber, consisting of 

 poplar, elm, oak, basswood, and occasional white pines, 

 indicates a productive soil. For a mile or two beyond 

 this, however, swampy ground predominates, while beyond 

 that again the land gradually rises to a range of hills of 

 no great eminence, which, as far as we could observe, 

 seemed to run parallel to the river, at a distance of from 



