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The Saskatchawan becomes wider above the Grand Rapid, and the scenery improves. The banks are high, composed of white clay and limestone, and their summits are richly clothed with a variety of firs, poplars, birches, and willows. The current runs with great rapidity, and the channel is in many places intricate and dangerous, from broken ridges of rock jutting into the stream.
The Cumberland House district, extending about one hundred and fifty miles from east to west along the banks of the Saskatchawan, and about as far from north to south, comprehends, on a rough calculation, upwards of twenty thousand square miles, and is frequented at present by about one hundred and twenty Indian hunters.
The ice on the Saskatchawan River and some parts of the lake, broke up, and the travelling across either became dangerous. On this account the absence of Wilks, one of our men, caused no small anxiety. He had incautiously undertaken the conduct of a sledge and dogs, in company with a person, going to Swampy River for fish.
According to Sir Alexander Mackenzie, "this range of hills continues in a S.W. direction until its local height is lost between the Saskatchawan and Elk Rivers, close on the banks of the former, in latitude 53° 36' N., longitude 113° 45' W., when it appears to take its course due north." Observations, taken in the spring by Mr.
Beyond the steep bank behind the house, commences the vast plain, whose boundaries are but imperfectly known; it extends along the south branch of the Saskatchawan, and towards the sources of the Missouri, and Asseenaboine Rivers, being scarcely interrupted through the whole of this great space by hills, or even rising grounds.
The cause of this change of purpose was their meeting with a band of Cree warriors, who had gone out, some weeks previously, on an expedition against a settlement of their enemies, the Stone Indians; and were now returning from the plains of the Saskatchawan, laden with spoils.
Our last resource was to plunge ourselves in the water, and from this uncomfortable situation we gladly escaped at day-light, and hoisted our sails. The Woody Lake is thirteen miles in length, and a small grassy channel at its north-western extremity, leads to the Frog Portage, the source of the waters descending by Beaver Lake to the Saskatchawan.
In the evening we crossed the Goose Lake, which is a little longer than Swan Lake, and afterwards the River Sepanach, a branch of the Saskatchawan, forming an island extending thirty miles above, and forty below Cumberland House. We turned to the westward on the Root River, which enters the Sepanach, and halted on its banks having made in direct distance not more than twenty miles since the 23rd.
Passage up Hayes', Steel, and Hill Rivers Cross Swampy Lake Jack River Knee Lake and Magnetic Islet Trout River Holy Lake Weepinapannis River Windy Lake White-Fall Lake and River Echemamis and Sea Rivers Play-Green Lakes Lake Winipeg River Saskatchawan Cross, Cedar, and Pine-Island Lakes Cumberland House. September.
The waters of Lake Winipeg, and of the rivers that run into it, the Saskatchawan in particular, are rendered turbid by the suspension of a large quantity of white clay. Play Green Lake and Nelson River, being the discharges of the Winipeg, are equally opaque, a circumstance that renders the sunken rocks, so frequent in these waters, very dangerous to boats in a fresh breeze.
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