332 ASSINNIBOINE AND SASKATCHEWAN EXPEDITION. 



fact that eleven hours constant, steady tracking enabled 

 us to progress only five miles in a straight line through 

 the valley, and not less than 200 courses and distances 

 were recorded in the canoe. Some little time was lost in 

 crossing from one side to the other in order to avoid the 

 willow bushes, which only grew on the inside of a bend, 

 rarely or never on the outside or longest curve. The 

 breadth of the river where we left it was forty feet, and 

 the speed of its current one mile and a quarter an hour. 

 The fetid air from the marshes made most of the party 

 feel unwell, and I therefore determined to carry the canoe 

 in a cart on the immediate edge of the prairie, keeping 

 the valley in constant view, and occasionally descend- 

 ing into it and crossing it, to ascertain by levelling and 

 measurement its leading dimensions. 



No rock exposure was anywhere to be seen ; drift 

 appears to cover the country to a great depth. Where 

 land slips have occurred and exposed an almost per- 

 pendicular section, yellow gravelly clay alone is visible. 

 Some of the limestone erratics strewed over the sides 

 of the ravines resemble those frequently seen on the 

 south-east side of Lake Winnipeg. 



Near our camp, on the 23rd, were six or seven log- 

 houses, occasionally inhabited during the winter months 

 by freemen^ that is, men no longer in the service of the 

 Company. The prairie above the freemen's houses slopes 

 gently to the edge of the valley from the distant horizon 

 on both sides. Clumps of aspen vary its monotonous 

 aspect, and though clothed with green herbage, due to 

 the late abundant rains, the soil is light and poor. Some 

 distance back from the vaUey it is of better quality, the 

 finer particles not having been washed out of it ; the 

 grass there is longer and more abundant, but the greatest 

 drawback is the want of timber. 



