452 ASSINNIBOINE AND SASKATCHEWAN EXPEDITION. 



river are similar to those already described, being low 

 alluvial flats not exceeding two feet above the water, and 

 covered with willows and patches of balsam-poplar. The 

 tract of country back from the river is rather low and 

 wet ; and the Indians make portages in one or two places 

 from the river to small lakes north of it. The current is 

 now much slacker than before, being only one to one and 

 a half miles an hour. 



About thirteen miles below Tearing Eiver, Fishing- Weir 

 Creek falls into the Saskatchewan ; by which, during high 

 water, boats sometimes go to Cumberland. About fourteen 

 miles farther down, at what is called the Big Bend, the 

 general direction of the Saskatchewan changes from a 

 north-easterly course, which it has maintained from the 

 Grand Forks, to a south-easterly one. This Big Bend is 

 the most northerly point on the river, being very near 

 the 54th parallel of latitude. The Pas or Cumberland 

 missionary station, where we arrived about sunset, is nearly 

 twenty-two miles below the Big Bend. About three miles 

 above, or west of the Pas, the Saskatchewan makes an 

 abrupt semi-circular curve, (called by the Indians " The 

 Pound Turn,") causing eddies and whirlpools, the river 

 being at the same time diminished in width. The depth 

 of the river was here found to be thirty-three feet, and its 

 breadth about ten chains. Near the Round Turn there is a 

 wooded ridge, upwards of fifty feet high, about half a 

 mile from the north bank of the river. About three- 

 quarters of a mile above the Pas, Eoot Eiver, a long 

 affluent with a width at its mouth of two chains, empties 

 into the Saskatchewan. 



The Pas, or Cumberland Station, is a missionary post of 

 the Church of England, situated at the confluence of the 

 Saskatchewan and the Basquia River, a tributary about 

 three chains wide at its mouth. 



