SHOAL LAKE. 



103 



the boundary line. The importance of the north-west 

 corner of the Lake of the Woods, and possibly also of 

 Shoal Lake at the terminus of a communication by land 

 with Eed Eiver cannot fail to be appreciated. 



The north-west corner of the lake is styled Monument 

 Bay; it marks the point where the boundary line between 

 British America and the United States, after passing down 

 the middle of Eainy Eiver and striking across the Lake of 

 the Sand Hills reaches the north-west corner of Monument 

 Bay; from this point the boundary line pursues a due 

 south direction, intersecting the 49th parallel in longitude 

 95° 15', according to Dr. Bigsby's map published in the 

 Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society, but on the 

 map of the Boundary Survey in the Crown Lands Office 

 at Quebec, the longitude of the Monument at the extre- 

 mity of the north-west corner of the Lake of the Woods 

 is represented to be 95° 24'. 



Shoal Lake, or Lac Plat, as it is also termed, was ex- 

 amined during the winter of 1857-8 by some of the assis- 

 tants attached to the Surveying Department of the 

 Expedition. The exploration having been made during 

 the winter months, when the deep bogs and wide spread- 

 ing marshes were frozen and covered with snow, loses 

 much of the interest it would doubtless have possessed 

 had it been executed during the summer season. An 

 effort to penetrate from Fort Garry to the Lake of the 

 Woods in the direction indicated by the exploring 

 party of the previous year, was wholly unsuccessful 

 in the autumn of 1858. A number of half-breeds 

 from the settlements at Eed Eiver also made the at- 

 tempt to reach the Lake of the Woods in September 

 1858, but were defeated in the attempt by impassable 

 swamps. In 1859 some half-breeds belonging to Mr. 

 Dawson's party succeeded in passing through with horses. 



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