extending back for several miles at heights of from fifteen to fifty feet above water level, and beyond that continuing at a level of a little over one hundred feet. . . . . The grass-covered slopes that rise with very gentle gradients from the shores of the lake, make this a country of most attractive appearance and one that apparently would be well suited for cultivation. The Indian inhabitants of this section cultivate with success small garden patches of potatoes.”
Country of the same general character, Mr. McInnes states, extends for thirty miles up the valley of the Burntwood above Wuskwatim lake.
On the shores of Footprint lake, in latitude 55° 45′, small fields of potatoes planted by the Indians were looking remarkably well, the vines being eleven inches in height and about ready to blossom when this locality was visited by Mr. McInnes, July 10, 1906. Above the lake broad flats extend back from the river on both sides, rising, from half a mile to a mile back, to fifty feet above the river. The greater part of the flats and practically all the high land has been burned over within twenty years, and is clothed now with an open growth of small mixed timber; the land is free from boulders and gravel and has a good carpet of native grasses, including such good meadow forms as the blue-joint (Calamagrostis canadensis, Calamagrostis hyperborea) and the wild rye (Elymus dasystachum). The open character of the forest permits a somewhat luxuriant growth of these grasses, mixed with vetches, strawberry vines, etc., and with currant, gooseberry and other small shrubs and bushes.
“The land lying to the southward of the most southerly bend of the river was found to rise with a comparatively steep slope to a height of sixty feet above the river, and to extend back as a level clay-covered plain with about five inches of clay-loam soil well mixed with vegetable matter gradually merging downwards into pure clay. The plateau has a gently rolling surface, the bottoms of the hollows, where small areas of muskeg often occur, having a deviation forty feet lower than the slopes of the ridges, and the highest land reaching not more than one hundred feet above the river. For six miles back, the areas of muskeg that are not sphagnum swamps, but rather grassy marshes, are comparatively insignificant in extent, the higher land, wooded with Banksian pine, poplar and spruce and diversified by many open grassy glades, largely preponderating. Beyond this, however, a broad belt of wet, grassy marsh land extends southwesterly across to the heads of brooks running into Grass river below Wekusko lake, and forms practically the western limit of the clay-covered uplands, though in the river valleys and along the flanks of their bordering hills the clay land extends much farther west.
“Of the whole of this extensive plateau land, extending from the valley of the Nelson river westward to near Burntwood and Wekusko lakes (west longitude 90° 45′), northerly to beyond latitude 56°, and southerly to the limestone escarpment, an area of
About Ten Thousand Square Miles,
it may be said to be characterized by a heavy clay soil entirely free from boulders. Lacustrine clays, composed of the rock flour once held in suspension by glacial streams and deposited by them as they reached the quiet waters of a great lake, are essentially the soils of this region. There is no distinct surface soil clearly separable from the clay subsoil; the one merges gradually into the other, the clayey character of the soil being strongly apparent at the very surface where merely the shallow cover of decaying leaves and other vegetation is scraped away. Generally, for from five inches to over a foot down, the clay is deep brown in colour from the admixture of vegetable matter, and quite friable, and rootlets of even the smaller surface vegetation reach down far below this level, though on the tops of many of the ridges the light-buff coloured clay, without any appreciable coloration from vegetable matter, comes quite to the surface. The rolling character of the plateau generally provides fair drainage, but over considerable areas in its central portion, far from the valleys of the larger streams, there are large tracts that have not sufficient gradients for the proper flow of the surface water, and which could be made available for agricultural uses only by being artificially drained. The western limit of the good country is about longitude 99° 45′.”
Portage on Moose river.
Mr. McInnes reports that the country lying to the south of Reed and Wekusko lakes, and stretching to Saskatchewan valley, contains very few tracts of land suitable for settlement. Practically only the river valleys, a few tracts adjoining some of the lakes, and parts of some of the slopes flanking the limestone ridges, can be considered as affording land suitable for cultivation. The upland is generally almost bare of soil, flat-lying limestones forming its actual surfaces, and the slopes, though covered to a good depth by clay, are for the most part too bouldery for tillage. Limited tracts occur here and there, suitable for individual holdings notably near some of the principal lakes. Of the agricultural possibilities of the country south of Reed and Wuskwatim lakes, Mr. McInnes writes:—“Experimentally but little is known of its capabilities, though we have instances here and there throughout the area, to beyond its northerly limit, of the cultivation of all sorts of garden vegetables, including, at The Pas,