370 ASSINNIBOINE AND SASKATCHEWAN EXPEDITION. 



Qu'appelle I got afterwards on my arrival at Fort Ellice, 

 from an old Indian seventy years of age, who had been 

 once upon a time a great hunter and warrior, now in 

 peace and comfort spending his remaining days at the 

 hospitable Fort. With a piece of charred wood he drew 

 on the floor a map of the Qu'appelle Valley from the 

 Fishing Lakes to the Assinniboine, showing every little 

 creek so accurately that I easily recognised them. Mr. 

 McKay, who was then in charge of the Fort, kindly acted 

 as interpreter on the occasion. The Cree name of the 

 Qu'appelle river is Katapaywie sepe, and this is the origin 

 of the name as told me by the Indian : — A solitary Indian 

 was coming down the river in his canoe many summers 

 ago, when one day he heard a loud voice calling .to him ; 

 he stopped and listened and again heard the same voice 

 as before. He shouted in reply, but there was no answer. 

 He searched everywhere around, but could not find the 

 tracks of any one. So from that time forth it was named 

 the « Who Calls Eiver." 



Pakitawiwin is . six miles long and half a mile wide, and 

 is most wonderfully deep. In one place, by means of put- 

 ting together various pieces of cord, sashes, &c., the sound- 

 ing line being too short, the depth was found to be about 

 sixty-six feet. The mean of several depths is fifty-two 

 feet. It is famous for the quantity and quality of its fish. 

 For three miles we passed through a dense decaying mass 

 of confervas, which an east wind had driven to the upper 

 parts of the lake. The smell of it was most unpleasant ; 

 the men pushed through it as hard as they could, no easy 

 matter, as it impeded the progress of the canoe consider- 

 ably. The valley here is about the same depth as it is at 

 the Mission, but the slopes are not so precipitous ; one of 

 them, that on the south side, has been the whole way 

 covered with a dense growth of young aspens, and the 



