Tomatoes and Indian Corn.
On September 6 of this year (1906), Indian corn well headed out was seen in Mr. Halcrow’s garden at the Hudson’s Bay Company’s post, the ears large and full and quite fit for table use. The Indian, never a very enthusiastic agriculturist, succeeds everywhere in getting good crops of potatoes, and at the homestead of an old settler named George Cowan, on Cormorant lake, an exceptionally good yield of very large potatoes was being dug in September.”
Mr. McInnes, during his explorations in 1906, gave particular attention to the question of climate, which he rightly considered of vital importance in connection with this region. He kept a careful record of temperatures, and from the time it was begun, on June 19, until the night of September 29, when the thermometer fell to 26, there was no frost that affected even tender vegetation. On the night of August 10 the temperature fell to the freezing point, but did not get low enough to do damage, at least not in the valley of Grassy river, though some of the potato vines on the summit of the high ridge north of The Pas were slightly touched. Mr. McInnes said he was convinced that the district is not at all too cold for general agricultural operations. The longer daily duration of summer sunlight in these high latitudes, he points out in his report, must be taken into consideration, and, for purposes of comparison with more southerly localities, yearly averages of temperature are of no value. A region lying in a higher latitude, though showing a lower yearly average temperature, may, during the growing months, owing to its longer hours of sunshine, have quite as good an average as one farther south. Mr. McInnes’s record showed that during July the temperature at 6 o’clock p.m. was equal to or higher than the noon temperature on fifteen days; during August on nine days; during September on eight days. The 6 p.m. averages for these months were lower than the noon averages by only 1°, 1½° and 2° respectively. For the purpose of comparison, Mr. McInnes procured from the Director of the Meteorological Service at Toronto an abstract of the same summer’s temperatures at Minnedosa, Stony Mountain, Hillview and Brandon, and, comparing them with his record, he concluded that the country along the route of the proposed railway to the bay
Is Conspicuously Warmer
than the same latitude four hundred miles further east.
Mr. McInnes, examined before the select committee of the Senate in 1907, declared that the whole region from Split lake to a line about forty miles north of the Saskatchewan is a clay-covered country. After leaving Split lake, ascending the river, this clay-covered country shows absolutely no boulders and no gravel. Even the shores of the lakes, until you reach a height of about eight hundred feet, show no gravel bars at all. There is absolutely nothing to interfere with the cultivation of the soil there. It is a country that has been burnt over. The witness assumed that Burntwood river got its name that way. It has been subject to repeated burns. At the present time it is covered by a very open forest. Grasses grow fairly luxuriantly. There are two species of this, blue joint grass and a wild rye, that are the prevailing grasses. He understood from Professor Macoun, though he was not very familiar with the grasses himself, that these are very excellent meadow grasses, and make excellent fodder. Mr. McInnes left Norway House in the second week of June, and made the circuit and came out at The Pas on September 6, so it was in June, July and August he was there. He saw grass growing from eighteen inches to two feet high.
The witness computed the area of this country at about ten thousand square miles. He did not mean to say, he explained, that all of that ten thousand square miles is good land, but the basin characterized by this deposit of clay has an area of about ten thousand square miles. It is bounded on the north by Churchill river. The witness was at about the centre of the basin. The Indians told him it extended north to the basin of Churchill river. Beyond that, northwards, mud and gravel took the place of clay. Starting at The Pas and proceeding towards Churchill, the witness first passed through about one hundred and forty miles of country underlaid by the flat limestone of northern Manitoba. He walked for miles over
Hills of Almost Bare Limestone
with hardly any soil. Beyond that—that is, about the contour he had spoken of where this clay was deposited, there is about one hundred and seventy miles to Split lake (Split lake is about two hundred and fifty miles from The Pas), possibly in a straight line about as the railway is projected, that is characterized by these clay deposits.
As to the flat country in Keewatin, beyond this clay area, it is a country of a different character. The witness proceeded from the Albany one hundred miles across country by the portage route to a large lake on Agnooski river and then another one hundred miles across to Winisk lake, and down Winisk river to the sea, and he crossed through the country between Agnooski and Winisk by three different routes, perhaps forty or fifty miles east and west from one route to the next, and the country is very much the same character. It is a country that is very much denuded. The country generally is characterized by hills of boulder and gravel and intermediate valleys very largely muskeg. Except in the immediate valleys of the larger rivers there is very little land that would be suitable for agriculture. From one hundred and fifty miles inland down to the sea, the country is of an entirely different character again; that is to say, it is country that is originally overlain by from a very few feet at its edge to one hundred feet or more, a very tough impervious boulder clay, which holds up the water, and on which the drainage, up to the present time, is of a very imperfect character. The present drainage of that area is comparatively recent, and imperfect. An instance of its imperfection is seen in Winisk river. There is a lake near the head of the Winisk from which the main river flows, and from which the west branch flows north. They come together at a point (following the main stream) two hundred and fifty miles below, inclosing an island two hundred and fifty miles long. There are two other islands of this character