30 ASSINNIBOINE AND SASKATCHEWAN EXPEDITION. 



We arrived at this isolated body of water, soon after 

 noon, and camped on a beach or barrier thrown up in 

 the form of semicircular ridges, about half a mile across 

 the arc, and connected in the form of the letter 8. In the 

 formation of these ridges granite or gneissoid boulders 

 are first pushed by ice upon a limestone gravel bar, 

 aspens and willows grow on the ridges rapidly formed by 

 sand and gravel washed up in the rear of the boulders, 

 and the space partly enclosed or sheltered by the curve is 

 soon filled with reeds, thus forming extensive marshes at 

 the eastern extremity of St. Martin Lake. Near the 

 channel which separates this maze from the main body of 

 the Lake, a new beach is now in process of formation, 

 and consists at present of a long semicircular line of 

 stranded boulders, over which the sea washes in easterly 

 and westerly gales. Eound about the boulders, limestone 

 gravel is accumulating, and thus, in this direction at least, 

 the lake is slowly diminishing in size, the materials being 

 in great part supplied from the wearing away of islands, 

 and the adjoining coast. 



We succeeded in passing the Narrows before breakfast 

 on the morning of the 28 th, and made our way into the 

 main lake through a channel varying from three to nine 

 feet in depth, kept open no doubt by the Partridge Crop 

 Eiver, which takes the name of the Little Saskatchewan 

 or Dauphin Eiver, after it has passed through St. Martin 

 Lake. Having landed on Sugar Island, we were followed 

 by a little fleet of eighteen canoes, whose owners ap- 

 peared determined to reach Fairford before us, if possible. 

 The chief with some ostentation informed me that the 

 island belonged to him, but he had no objection to my 

 exploring it. He further stated, that as chief of the band 

 he claimed the whole country from Fisher Eiver, on Lake 

 Winnipeg to the mouth of Partridge Crop Eiver 



