282 ASSINNIBOINE AND SASKATCHEWAN EXPEDITION. 



ox at the end of a year if the first gift was faithfully pre- 

 served was of no avail, the charms of the buffalo plains 

 were too tempting, or the seduction of gambling too 

 powerful to be withstood, notwithstanding the most 

 solemn heathen promises. The school, however, gives 

 better hope, and no doubt the rising generation of Indian 

 and half-breed origin at Prairie Portage, will form a 

 thriving, industrious, and Christian community. 



Prairie Portage is very delightfully situated sixty miles 

 west of Fort Garry on the banks of the Assinniboine. 

 The prairie here is of the richest description, and towards 

 the north and east boundless to the eye. The river bank is 

 fringed with a narrow belt of fine oak, elm, ash, and ash- 

 leaved maple, but on the south side a forest extends from 

 two to four miles in depth, and then passes into aspen 

 groves ; the river abounds in sturgeon and gold eyes, and 

 within eighteen miles there is an excellent fishing station 

 on the coast of Lake Manitobah, where the Portage people 

 take vast numbers of white fish every fall. The old water 

 course of the Assinniboine, near Prairie Portage, is now a 

 long narrow lake, fringed with tall reeds, a favourite 

 haunt of wild fowl and grackle, among which we ob- 

 served the showy yellow-headed blackbird (Agelaius 

 xanihocepha lus). 



Prairie Portage will eventually become an important 

 settlement, not only on account of the vast extent of 

 fertile country which surrounds it, but because it lies 

 in the track of the buffalo hunters proceeding to the 

 Grand Coteau and the South Branch by way of the 

 Souris Eiver. It is also near to the fertile region 

 drained by White Mud Eiver, and the road to the south- 

 western flanks of the Biding Mountain, passes by the 

 Portage. The current of the Assinniboine is very uni- 

 form here, careful leveling showed that it fell one foot 

 two inches in a mile, with a velocity of two miles an 



