20 ASSINNIBOINE AND SASKATCHEWAN EXPEDITION. 



direction from a series of small lakes and swamps, through 

 a level, low country abounding in fine spruce and tamarac 

 forests, broken by gravelly ridges supporting poplar and 

 birch. The breadth of the river at its mouth is thirty 

 feet, but where it passes through the swamp it is broad 

 and deep, and so continues for some distance into the 

 country. Jack Fish Eiver is a favourite fishing station of 

 a tribe of Swampy s, and was once the seat of a missionary 

 establishment. 



It has been mentioned in a subsequent chapter that 

 this tribe were deterred during the winter of 1858 from 

 wintering here, by a threat from a noted conjuror of 

 the Grand Eapid, illustrating the abject position in which 

 superstition frequently places these unfortunate people. 



Leaving Jack Fish Eiver, or the Pike Head, as it is also 

 termed, from a promontory bearing that name near to 

 the mouth of the stream, we coasted under sail past 

 Wicked Point across the traverse of Kinwow Bay, rounded 

 Macbeth Point, and camped at Point Turn-again, beyond 

 the Cat Head. The coast at the Cat Head is very pre- 

 cipitous ; the limestone cliffs rise about thirty-five feet 

 from the water, without any intervening beach, so that 

 boats cannot land, and must necessarily push on until a 

 narrow beach is found a few miles beyond it. Limestone 

 cliffs, similar in all respects to those of the Cave Point, 

 occupy the coast at intervals as far as the Cat Head, and 

 probably fringe the Mantagao-sebe Bay, as they are seen 

 near the mouth of the Little Saskatchewan, and on the 

 north point of the great bay which derives its name from 

 that river. Taking advantage of a fair wind and fine 

 night we carried on across Lynx Bay, and camped at 

 half-past eleven, p. M. 



At half-past four on the following morning a westerly 



