“The acreage under crop in Lesser Slave lake sub-district is about seven hundred and thirteen acres of oats, three hundred and one acres of barley, twenty-three acres of spring wheat, nineteen acres of fall wheat, twelve acres of fall rye. One acre of sugar beets and mangolds were grown this year as an experiment and turned out very successfully.
“The crop all round was good; only one farmer suffered any loss, about twelve acres of his barley being damaged by hail.
“Next year there will be a much increased acreage under crop, a lot of breaking having been done this summer and autumn.”
A Pleasant Country to Live in.
Not only does the climate of the Peace country appear to be satisfactory from the view point of the farmer, but it is also described by travellers as exceptionally pleasant to live in. Mr. Warburton Pike, in his book (See p. [19]) refers enthusiastically to the beautiful autumn of the Peace country. He writes:—“We reached Fort Vermilion late in September, in the full glory of the autumn; the sharp morning frosts had coloured the poplar leaves with the brightest golden tints, and the blue haze of an Indian summer hung over prairie and wood. Away on Great Slave lake a half-breed had told me of the beauties of Fort Vermilion as a farming country, and had explained that all the good things of the world grew there freely, so that I was prepared for the sight of wheat and barley fields, which had this year produced a more abundant harvest than usual; potatoes and other vegetables were growing luxuriously; cattle and horses were fattening on the rich prairie grass, and it seemed that there was little to be gained by leaving such a fertile spot in the face of the winter that would soon be upon us.”
Speaking of his trip up the upper Peace between the date mentioned and the end of November, Mr. Pike wrote:—“I do not remember to have ever seen in any other part of Canada such a fine autumn as we enjoyed between Vermilion and the Rockies. There was hardly a day’s rain the whole time, and, although a sharp white frost usually made a cold camp, the days were bright and at times almost too hot for tracking.”
That the climate of Peace river country is exceptionally healthy is declared by all the white people who have lived there, and their declaration appears to be borne out by the fact that a considerable portion of the inhabitants have attained a very old age. Mr. Charles Mair in his book “Through the Mackenzie Basin” mentions that when the Indian Treaty expedition was at Lesser Slave lake in 1899 his attention was drawn to the number of people of extreme old age among the inhabitants. He especially mentioned the case of an aged half-breed woman, Catherine Bisson, who was born on New Year’s day in the year 1793. She was blind at the time Mr. Mair saw her, and scarcely able to walk, but was able to talk, and even cracked jokes with those about her. In a footnote Mr. Mair states that this very old woman died in the spring of 1908 at the remarkable age of one hundred and fifteen years.
| [15] | It will be observed that this paragraph and other portions of this testimony really refer to the Athabaska country treated of in the preceding chapter, but to save an awkward dislocation of Professor Macoun’s testimony it has been kept intact. (E. J. C.) |
| [16] | The railway is now being constructed, and there has been a remarkable development in this section since Inspector Howard penned this report. |