EAST COAST OF LAKE WINNIPEG. 



21 



wind enabled us to pass the Bushkega and Sturgeon 

 Islands, and make the traverse across the Little Saskat- 

 chewan Bay to the mouth of the river. In making the 

 traverse we could not see the extremity of this deep 

 indentation in a south-easterly direction, where the Man- 

 tagao-sebe debouches. The greater portion of the bay 

 was coasted by Mr. Fleming, during his voyage from the 

 Grand Eapid to the mouth of Eed Eiver. The tem- 

 perature of the Little Saskatchewan was found to be 52^°, 

 of Lake Winnipeg one degree higher. 



The description of the west coast of Lake Winnipeg 

 from the mouth of the Little Saskatchewan to the Great 

 Saskatchewan is given in Mr. Fleming's narrative, Chap. 

 XXII., Vol. I. In order to complete a description of the 

 entire coast line of this lake, I append the following 

 extract from Sir John Richardson's " J ournal of a Boat 

 Voyage through Rupert's Land and the Arctic Sea." 



" The eastern coast-line of Lake Winnipeg is, in ge- 

 neral, swampy, with granite knolls rising through the 

 soil, but not to such a height as to render the scenery 

 hilly. The pine-forest skirts the shore at the distance of 

 two or three miles, covering gently rising lands, and the 

 breadth of continuous lake surface seems to be in process 

 of diminution, in the following way. A bank of sand is 

 first drifted up, in the line of a chain of rocks which may 

 happen to he across the mouth of an inlet or deep bay. 

 Carices, balsam-poplars, and willows speedily take root 

 therein, and the basin which lies behind, cut off from the 

 parent lake, is gradually converted into a marsh by the 

 luxuriant growth of aquatic plants. The sweet gale next 

 appears on its borders, and drift-wood, much of it rotten 

 and comminuted, is thrown up on the exterior bank, 

 together with some roots and stems of larger trees. The 



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