Speaking of the Hudson’s Bay Company’s trading post at Norway House, Mr. McInnes said:—“The chief factor in charge of the district cultivates a large garden, where, on June 10, peas, beans, beets and other vegetables were well started. Wheat had been successfully grown here as well as at Cross lake farther down the river, in latitude 54° 40′. There are many tracts of land along the river suitable for cultivation, though for long stretches the banks show only rounded surfaces of biotite gneiss, smooth and glaciated. The cultivable areas are confined to tracts overlain by lacustrine clays which alternate along the shores with glacial gravels and the bare rock surfaces devoid of any soil cover.”
Mr. McInnes also reports:—“Below Cross lake no land is under cultivation until Split lake is reached, just north of latitude 56°, where the postmaster for the Hudson’s Bay Company raises potatoes and the commoner garden vegetables.”
Mr. McInnes reports that, ascending Burntwood river a few miles above Odei or Hart river, there is much land “apparently well adapted for cultivation. The clay is entirely free from boulders, and mixed near the surface with enough vegetable humus to produce a friable and seemingly productive soil. The gentle slopes give good natural drainage, and the open character of the forests makes it a country easily cleared. For the next nineteen miles the river valley and neighboring country present the same general aspect. Where the valleys of the main river and the Odei approach one another they are separated only by a dividing ridge a little over a mile across, and a hundred and fifty feet high. The ridge is clay covered to the flat summit, where knolls of gneiss project. Beyond the valley of the Odei, to the north, is a rolling forested country with hills clay-covered to the tops, rising by gradual slopes to about a hundred feet above the intervening valleys, that are themselves from twenty to fifty feet above the river level. For the next twenty-eight miles the river, flowing in a rock-bound basin, has the character of a long, narrow lake from half a mile to over a mile in width. Covering the well-rounded ledges of gneiss that form the immediate shores is the same thick mantle of clay forming
A Country of Very Attractive Appearance.
Rising gradually from the river level to heights of from twenty to fifty feet, a flat or gently sloping plateau extends back from two to three miles to another rise, where the general level is increased to about a hundred feet. Recurring forest fires have not only denuded this section of its trees, but the stumps have for the most part been burned away, so that it is now covered only by an open growth of small white birch, poplar, willow and Banksian pine, with an undergrowth of vetches, grasses and small shrubs. Just above is Manasan falls where the river pitches over a ledge of gneiss with a vertical descent of thirty feet.
“Above Manasan falls,” Mr. McInnes continues, “the river expands again to form a long, narrow lake for the next ten miles of its upward course. The same rolling clay plateau extends back from both shores of the lake, rising gradually to an undulating, higher tract, perhaps one hundred feet above the lake level. The forest growth is still very open, allowing a good surface carpet of grasses, vetches and other vegetation. Diversified here and there by small open tracts where the grass-covered surface is free from trees, this country often presents quite a park-like aspect. Throughout all the clay-covered region the absence of erratics is striking; for miles no perched boulders nor transported materials of any kind; other than the lacustrine sediments, are seen, and even the country rock is deeply hidden under the heavy clay deposits that seem to be very homogeneous throughout, not laid down in thin layers as in the case of many clays of apparently similar origin in eastern Canada, but, if stratified at all, only in very heavy beds that seldom show their bedding planes. For the next fifteen miles to Wuskwatim lake, the river has a quicker descent and its course is broken by several small rapids. The surrounding country is slightly higher, rising in places about two hundred feet above the river, and more steeply from its shores. From the south shore a clay-covered bench a quarter of a mile wide rises to a comparatively steep slope to a height of one hundred and thirty feet, and extends back for miles at about that level, with a gently undulating surface, free from boulders or rock, excepting very rare exposures. As a matter of fact, but one small knoll of the underlying rock was actually seen, rising through the clay at a point about two miles back from the river. The Indians report that this plateau-like country extends right across to the valley of Grassy river with only gently swelling ridges and no high hills.”
Mr. McInnes estimates the size of Wuskwatim lake as eight miles by four, with a long bay extending to the west from its southern end. He states that “on all sides of the lake are large tracts of
Nearly Level Clay Land