MODE OF IMPROVING THE GRAND RAPID. 473 



the rapid, hauled over the portage, or " warped " up the 

 rapid itself. Seeing that the Company's large bateaux 

 are hauled up the rapid by manual labour, it does not 

 seem impracticable for an empty steamboat, with engines 

 of great power, to ascend it, by the aid of hawsers and 

 guy-ropes stretched from the steamer to the land, using, 

 along with capstans, the motive power of the steamer as 

 far as available. But in any case, unless a canal were 

 constructed, a transhipment of cargo bound upwards 

 would have to take place, whether there were steamers 

 plying above and below the rapid, or whether steamers 

 were forced up the rapid ; so that it would be necessary 

 to construct a good road or tramway on the present line 

 of portage. The features of the country in the vicinity 

 of the Grand Eapid are very favourable for a road, and 

 even for a settlement, as the banks of the river are high, 

 with a considerable depth of good soil, from the second 

 rapid east of Cross Lake to near Lake Winnipeg. There 

 is also abundance of timber for fuel and building. 



From the foot of the Grand Eapid, the Saskatchewan 

 flows with a pretty strong current, in a northerly 

 direction till it enters Lake Winnipeg. Its mouth has a 

 width of about twenty-eight chains, and is a little over two 

 miles below the lower end of the rapid. On the coast of Lake 

 Winnipeg, immediately east of the mouth of the Saskat- 

 chewan, there are several deep and narrow bays, or 

 estuaries, marshy at their inner extremities, and separated 

 by narrow points or spits of gravel, by which it seems not 

 improbable the Saskatchewan entered the lake at some 

 period of its existence, and that north-easterly gales and 

 shoves of ice have driven up these barriers, and caused 

 the river to excavate new outlets. 



We visited an Indian encampment on the north bank 

 of the river, a little below the foot of the rapid, in the 



