The Unexploited West / A Compilation of all of the authentic information available at the present time as to the Natural Resources of the Unexploited Regions of Northern Canada

by Ernest J. Chambers

“Like the other posts Fort Simpson has its farm, and according to some statistics which I received from Mr. Laviolette, the various crops raised, with the exception of wheat, which does not ripen, and the dates for planting and reaping are much the same as those previously stated for Fort Providence. Potatoes are usually planted between May 15 and 20, but this season (1888) were not put in, owing to the unusually late spring, until May 28, and require about four months to mature. In the ordinary year forty bushels of seed will yield from six to seven hundred bushels, but the crops are sometimes injured by summer frosts. Barley, which is the only cereal grown, is sown about May 20, and is usually ripe by September 20. No difficulty is experienced in raising such garden vegetables as cabbages, turnips, beets, etc., and Mr. Camsell seemed sanguine that even melons and tomatoes would ripen if properly tried. The soil here is a stiff clay loam. . . .”

Mission Garden at Fort Providence.

“Fort Good Hope is situated a short distance below the Ramparts and is the lowest fort on the Mackenzie. It was originally built over one hundred miles lower down, and has been moved several times before the present site was finally selected. It is situated only a few miles south of the Arctic circle, but this does not prevent some gardening from being attempted. Potatoes, turnips and other garden vegetables are raised in some quantity, and even barley has occasionally been ripened, although the ground is permanently frozen three or four feet from the surface. Cattle and poultry are kept at the fort, but the former have to be fed over seven months in the year. . . .”

Can Furnish Local Food Supply.

In summing up the result of his explorations, Mr. McConnell stated in his report:—“At all the posts of the Hudson’s Bay Company, along the Mackenzie and its tributaries, with the exception of Fort McPherson, small plots of land are annually cultivated and large quantities of potatoes, turnips, beets and other vegetables are grown for use in the district, while at Fort Liard and Fort Providence, the two most southerly posts in the district, both wheat and barley have been tried with success. There is, however, little reason to hope that Mackenzie river district as a whole, or even the southern part of it, except in limited areas, will ever be able to support a purely agricultural community, or that its products will ever be able to compete in the open markets of the world with the produce of more favoured regions. Its agricultural development will depend on a local market being obtained. When the time comes, as come it must, when the undoubted mineral resources of the region are drawn upon, the food required by the mining population, or the greater part of it at least, can be supplied locally. The amount of arable land is small compared to the total area, and is mostly confined to the vicinity of the larger streams. Away from the rivers, frozen marshes and muskegs and shallow lakes cover the greater part of the surface. The alluvial lands along Slave river, the upper part of Mackenzie river, and the country bordering the Liard for some distance above and below Fort Liard and west of the mountains, are the best parts of the district.”

Climate of Mackenzie Region.

Mr. McConnell, in his report of his explorations of both 1887 and 1888, makes the following references to the climate along Mackenzie river:—“The warm weather which commenced at Fort Simpson on May 1, continued throughout the month, and under its influence the snow quickly disappeared, and the spring advanced with astonishing rapidity.

“In the lower part of the river the ice was broken up at Fort Wrigley on May 18, at Fort Norman on May 19, and at Fort Good Hope on May 21. The ice on the river above Fort Simpson, between the mouth of the Liard and Great Slave lake, did not, however, move until after June 1.”

May 31, 1888, Mr. McConnell found Anemone patens, the first flower of the season, in full bloom above Fort Wrigley. When Mr. McConnell left Fort Norman June 12, 1888, the trees were still leafless, but the various species of willows and birches had hung out their catkins, and the early flowering anemones and other flowers brightened the valley with colour. June 18, when Mr. McConnell left Fort Good Hope, anemone patens and other early flowering plants were in bloom, but the general forest still remained leafless.