During the winter of 1909 Sergt. R. W. Macleod, of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police, made a patrol across country from Fort Vermilion to the mouth of Hay river on Great Slave lake. In his report (p. 178, Annual Report of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police for 1909), he states that from Fort Vermilion for about sixty miles the country is prairie with small poplar bluffs scattered over it, and the next twenty-five miles is mostly pine bush with here and there a small prairie, then on into Hay river at Horse track is prairie with poplar bluffs and willow scrub, a total distance of one hundred and ten miles from Fort Vermilion. In 1905 the government had a road cut out, corduroyed, and graded the entire distance suitable for a wagon road. Previous to that time an Indian pack trail was the only way to travel. The Hudson’s Bay Company and Revillon Brothers each built a sales shop and residence at the end of the wagon road on the south bank of Hay river, and have been doing business there in the winter only, for fur. There are no white people in the country closer than Fort Vermilion. The country between Hay river and Fort Vermilion is nearly
All Apparently Suitable for Farming,
with a splendid supply of wood and water. Hay river is about one hundred yards wide at the Horse trace (local name) and is fed by numerous muskegs to the north of Dunvegan on Peace river, and the southeast slope of the divide between Peace and Liard rivers.
When Sergeant Macleod and his patrol were at Alexandra falls on January 29, they found that three small bands of Indian horses were wintering out on the portage, which is a prairie with poplar bluffs.
Corporal Mellor (of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police) in September of the same year, made a patrol with horses into the buffalo country southwest of Smith Landing. In his report the Corporal states that from Salt river “we proceeded northwest through about eight miles of small poplar, and then across a large stretch of prairie country. This is not prairie country in the generally accepted term, but simply ground of a marshy nature, perfectly flat, and covered with a luxuriant growth of grass. This would doubtless afford splendid land were it not that the water thereon is intensely salty and quite unfit for use. These prairies are of large extent stretching from Peace river, in the south, I am told, to Buffalo river, in the north, a distance of over one hundred miles. They are dotted all over with thick clumps of willows, the only trees growing thereon.”
Indian Camp near Fort Smith.
In the last annual report of Superintendent G. E. Sanders, D.S.O., commanding “N” Division at Athabaska, and dated October 1, 1911, that officer describes the area from Athabaska river to Great Slave lake and west to the Rockies as an agricultural country. He states:—“The general state of the district from an agricultural and business point of view is one of great development and progress. The stream of settlement into the country round about Athabaska and to upper Peace river and Grande prairie has continued to a much larger extent during the year. With the influx of settlement traders have followed and a general
Air of Prosperity Prevails,
with very optimistic hopes for the future. The homestead entries at Athabaska for the first three months of this year exceeded the entire number for 1909, and for the past months the entries are upwards of one hundred and seventy-five in excess of those received during the whole of 1910. The homestead entries at Lesser Slave lake and Grande prairie have increased at an even greater rate. At the latter place, the first day the Land Office opened there, seventy-five entries were received.”