BANKS OF RED RIVER. 



127 



side are Eoseau Eiver and German Creek. On the west side 

 it receives, in latitude 49° 53' 24", and longitude 96° 52', 

 theAssinniboine* Eiver; at the confluence of these streams 

 Fort Garry, the capital of Assinniboia, and the head 

 quarters of the fur trade in British America, is situated. 



The following description in detail of Eed Eiver, 

 within British territory, supposes the observer to ascend 

 the stream from Lake Winnipeg in a bateau or canoe, 

 and is confined to those objects which come under 

 observation during the voyage. 



Fourteen miles from the mouths of the river, the 

 Indian missionary village occupies a terrace thirty feet 

 above the summer level of the stream. Above the 

 village the banks are fringed with oak, ehn, and maple, 

 which soon give way to aspen, and then to open prairie 

 land, the trees of larger growth appearing at intervals on 

 the points and on the insides of the bends. 



About four miles above the Indian missionary village, 

 a remarkable bend in the course of the stream gives rise 

 to a sharp projection of the level plateau of the prairie, 

 called Sugar Point, from the groves of maple which 

 cover it. It has been preserved from the abrading action 

 of the stream by numerous fragments of limestone which 

 lie at the bottom of the river bank and continually 

 increase in number and size in its ascending course, as 

 far as the exposed strata of rock in position, at and above 

 the Stone Fort, where their place is supplied in part by 

 the parent rock. 



The maple, which at one time grew in considerable 

 quantities near Sugar Point, is not the true sugar maple 

 (Acer saccharinum) so common in Western Canada, but 



* Assinniboine, from " assinni " a stone — Cree. Howse, in his 

 grammar of the Cree language spells the name of the tribe, " Assinne- 

 boigne." 



