TUB CROOKED LAKE. 



371 



other has been bare of trees except in some of its many 

 hollows and ravines. 



Leaving the lake we now descend the river at an aver- 

 age speed of four miles an hour, the rate of current being 

 generally about one mile and a quarter per hour. Pad- 

 dling was easy work, but the steering by no means so, for 

 the bends of the river are innumerable and very sharp, 

 and the waters sweep round them with great velocity ; 

 oftentimes, but for the strong and dexterous arm of the 

 steersman, the canoe would have been dashed against the 

 bank ; as it was he could not avoid sometimes getting en- 

 tangled among the overhanging branches of the willows. 

 The width varies from one chain to one and a half, and 

 the depth from four and a half to two feet. The bed, for 

 the most part, consists of soft mud, and is quite free from 

 boulders, as is the case the whole way to the mouth, ex- 

 cepting in one place to be mentioned hereafter. The 

 high water mark, very apparent on the willows growing 

 along the banks, was eight feet over the present level of 

 the water ; the whole bottom of the valley, I was told, is 

 often flooded to a depth of three feet. 



Nineteen small creeks flow into this portion of the 

 river, two only of them having names, the first and second 

 Pheasant Creeks, called in Cree Akiskoowi sepesis ; named 

 after a hill which lies to the north some miles away, from 

 near which they both take their rise. I took a cross 

 section of the valley here, and found it to be 320 feet deep 

 and seventy-eight chains wide ; it is, I think, the deepest 

 part of it. At noon, on July 23, we reached Crooked 

 Lake, called in Cree Kawawah-kamac, the most pictur- 

 esque of the Qu'appelle Lakes. Several streams draining 

 the prairies on both sides have excavated deep and wide 

 gorges opening into the main valley, which here sweeps 



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