CEDAR LAKE AND LAKE WINXIPEGO-SIS. 459 



well wooded with balsam-spruce, birch, poplar, tamarack, 

 cedar, and Banksian pine, could furnish an abundant sup- 

 ply of fuel ; thus offering, like the Saskatchewan, facilities 

 to steam navigation ; but a considerable portion of the 

 land is reported to be swampy and unavailable for agri- 

 cultural purposes. 



Cedar Lake is separated from Lake Winnipego-sis (the 

 Little Winnipeg) on the south, by a low isthmus called 

 the Mossy Portage, by which the Hudson's Bay Company 

 formerly sent their supplies to the Swan Eiver district. 

 (They are now sent via the Little Saskatchewan.) The dis- 

 tance between the lakes at this point is about four miles, 

 and Lake Winnipego-sis is about four feet higher than 

 Cedar Lake, according to Mr. Dawson's measurements. 



The portion of the Saskatchewan between Cedar Lake 

 and Lake Winnipeg is nearly twenty miles in length, and 

 its general direction is easterly. Through this channel, 

 the great volume of water brought down for many hun- 

 dred miles by the main river, and its north and south 

 branches, together with that collected by many tributaries 

 through a wide extent of country, is disembogued by one 

 grand mouth into Lake Winnipeg. 



Where the Saskatchewan issues from Cedar Lake the 

 bed of the river is divided for a short distance into two 

 channels by an island. We entered the smaller or south 

 channel', and found it only two or three chains wide, for a 

 distance of about a quarter of a mile. At its narrowest 

 part, near the beginning, the Indians have a fishing sta- 

 tion, and white fish and sturgeon are caught there in 

 abundance. Along the side of this watercourse there is 

 an outcrop of horizontal limestone, three to four feet in 

 thickness, above the water, covered with a thin coating of 

 vegetable mould, supporting small poplar, willow, and 

 dogwood. I brought away some specimens of the rock, 



