Mr. Low describes Trout lake (east of Severn lake) as being forty miles long by twenty miles wide. He states in his report that Mr. Tait, the officer in charge of the Hudson’s Bay Company’s post at that point, “says that good crops of peas, potatoes and other roots are raised here yearly, and are very rarely injured by summer frosts. This being the case, the country to the westward, between Severn and Sandy lakes, which is more favourably situated, having all the appearance of a better climate and a richer soil, must undoubtedly be well suited for agriculture, and will at some future time prove valuable land for settlement.”
Mr. Low reports the soil around Fort Severn as a heavy clay and very swampy. Nothing but a few small turnips are with difficulty grown there. On August 8, strawberries, then beginning to ripen, were picked by Mr. Low on clearings around the post.
Mr. Low was examined at length before the Senate committee of 1907 (See p. [27]), and stated in his evidence that the country between Norway House and Hudson bay is not very elevated. The highest points in it are probably somewhere in the neighbourhood of one thousand feet above sea level. For about half the distance to Hudson bay it is practically a rolling plain, and the rocks are ancient rocks of the Laurentian and Huronian ages. Beyond that there was an ancient deposit of limestone and sandstone, extending in a wide line around the northern part about half way across. These are large limestones, and they are lying almost flat. The country for about half way down from Norway House to Churchill slopes very gently towards the bay, so that the grade is not more than eight or ten feet to the mile, if it is that. The northeastern part is practically a plain.
There are considerable areas of low swampy lands. The surface going down into Hudson bay after reaching the Wolstenholme country is fairly swampy. The rivers have thrown up banks, and it is only at an occasional place that a break through those banks occurred to let out the drainage. In many places the river banks are from five to ten feet higher than the surrounding country, and in consequence the land beyond is drowned more or less, very often extending back for a distance as far as one can walk in a day.
Mr. Low considered that probably half the country due east from Norway House, say for one hundred miles, would be
Fit for Agriculture.
He would rank the agricultural possibilities there as fair.
Of course there are very few settlements in there now, and the only one Mr. Low visited was a Hudson’s Bay post at Trout lake, and they were growing peas and garden truck of all kinds, also potatoes and fairly decent looking crops. They were not bothered very badly with summer frosts, as Mr. Low could see from the crop of green peas. The climate seemed quite favourable for hardy crops. The soil areas that are fit for agriculture are fairly large; the rocky hills crop out only at intervals, and there is quite a large area there that Mr. Low thought would be fit for future settlement.
The low flat plain, southeast of Nelson river, appeared to be largely covered with muskeg and small spruce. He would suppose that there was more muskeg and spruce land than hay areas. The subsoil is clay largely. Down in the lower country near the bay there is a certain amount of sand on top. There was a fair amount of vegetable growth. Mr. Low remarked that he would not consider this low-lying area a good agricultural country at present, but with some drainage he thought a great deal of that country around James and Hudson bays is going to make a good agricultural country.
With regard to that territory north of Lake Winnipeg and east of Norway House and in the country southeast thereof, Mr. Low thought it would be a somewhat rocky country, but probably not more than one-third would be of that nature. Most of the land not rocky would be timber land. This would run up to about the eighteenth degree or probably more.