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siderable distance. The Mock Suns' and Moons, called Parahelia and Paraselene, appear very frequently in the coldest months. The temperature of the air is subject to the most capricious variations; rain sometimes falls abundantly with a serene sky, or the sun will burst forth in the midst of the heaviest showers. Such is the region in which several of the Hudson's Bay Company's establishments are situated, and which could not be maintained but for the possession of some more temperate regions, from whence food is procurable.

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Hudson's Bay, discovered by John Hudson in 1610, is about 900 miles in length, by 600 at its greatest breadth, with a surrounding coast of 3000 miles, between the parallels of 51° and 65° north latitude. The coasts are generally high, rocky, rugged, and sometimes precipitous. The bay is navigable for a few months in summer, but for the greater part of the remainder of the year is filled up with fields of ice. The navigation, when open, is extremely dangerous, as it contains many shoals, rocks, sand banks, and islands; even during the summer icebergs are seen in the straits towards which a ship is drifted by a squall or current, rendering it very hazardous for the most skilful The transitions of the thermometer in summer are from 100° to 40° in two days, and the torrents of rain are surprising: whether in winter or summer, the climate is horrible; the range of the thermometer throughout the year is 140°. The sea is entered by Hudson's strait, which is about 500 miles long, with a varying breadth, and with an intricate navigation through several islands, viz.: Charles, Salisbury, Nottingham, Mansfield, and Southampton. The principal bays and inlets in this great inland sea, are, James's Bay, in the south-east, which is 240 miles deep by 140 wide; Button's Bay, and Port Nelson, on the western coast; Chesterfield Inlet on the north-west, which, after stretching far into the interior, terminates in a fresh water lake; Roe's Welcome, a deep strait on the north coast, and also Repulse Bay.

We may now examine the country between Hudson's Bay and the Rocky Mountains, commencing with the lakes and

rivers. The Great Bear Lake, the most northerly, is 150 miles in diameter, and communicates by Lake Martin with the Great Slave Lake, which is estimated at 260 miles from east to west, and 30 from north to south. Captain Back considers it as large as Lake Michigan; its soundings are from 40 to 60 fathoms. The north side of the lake is an entire jumble of rocks and hills; the south is level, not a hill or stone to be found. The Great Slave River joins this lake to that of Athabasca, which is 180 miles long and 15 broad,-receives the Peace, Athabasca, and Stone Rivers; the latter river forms the channel which conveys a portion of the waters of the Wollaston Lake (situated on table land) into Athabasca Lake; another portion of the waters of Wollaston Lake flows in a contrary direction through Deer Lake and River into the Missinnippi, Churchill, or English River, which forms several smaller lakes, and finally disembogues into Hudson's Bay, at Fort Churchill, in latitude 55° 45′ north, longitude 94° 25' west.

Lake Winnipeg, in latitude 50° 20′ to 53° 45′ north, is 240 miles long, and from 5 to 50 broad. It receives the River Saskatchewan, as it flows from the Rocky Mountains and northern ridge; also the Red and Assiniboine Rivers, and discharges itself into Hudson's Bay by the Nelson and other rivers. Winnipegos and Manitoba are branch or tributary lakes to Winnipeg.

That the trend of the land, and the dip, is towards Hudson's Bay and the eastward, is evident from the course of the Red River, which rises in about the parallel of 46°; flows to the northward across the American boundary parallel of 49°; joins the Assiniboine, or Nadawosis River, at Fort Garry, in 50° north latitude, and then disembogues into the south-western part of Lake Winnipeg, which, as before stated, discharges into Hudson's Bay.

The Moose River, which flows from the dividing ridge of highlands, which separates the Hudson's Bay territories from Canada, runs for 230 miles in a north-east direction, and has its embouche in James's Bay, lat. 51° 10′ north, long. 81° west.

The country between the sources of the Assiniboine, in 51

north, and the Red River, is almost a continued plain, the soil of sand and gravel, with a slight intermixture of earth, which produces a short grass, but trees are rare. The country around the southern part of Lake Winipeg is well wooded and watered, and abounds at seasons with herds of buffalo and deer; so also contiguous to the Winipegos Lake and Swan River, and along the route from Carlton to Isle la Crosse Forts in the 55th parallel. The northern part of Lake Winipeg is composed of banks of naked black and grey rock. Farther north occasionally greener spots are to be met with: some of the islands in the Great Slave Lake are clothed with tall poplars, birch, and pines, and well stocked with deer. Near the portage La Loche is a precipice upwards of 100 feet above the plain, from whence, according to Mackenzie, there is a ravishing prospect:'-the Swan (Pelican or Clear Water) River meanders for thirty miles through a valley about three miles in breadth, confined by two lofty ridges of equal height, displaying a delightful intermixture of wood and lawn. Some parts of the inclining heights are covered with stately forests, relieved by verdant promontories, where the elk and buffalo enjoy delicious pasturage.

The route from the Red River settlement (Fort Garry) to Fort Chipewyan, on Lake Athabasca, was traversed in December 1836, by Mr. Thomas Simpson, by the following stages, in a very short space of time :-

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These, and other forts and stations, arc necessarily wide apart, and in situations favourable to water communications, and to procuring animal, or, if possible, vegetable food.

The aspect of part of the country in which these forts are constructed, is thus noted by Mr. Simpson:-Fort Garry, the principal station of the Red River Settlement, is situated at the forks of the Red and Assiniboine Rivers, about fifty miles from Lake Winipeg, and is environed by plains; proceeding north-west the country is studded with a few copses of poplar and dwarf oak; but the greater part having been swept by the running fires in 1835 (so frequent and terrible in the prairies), presented a blackened and dismal aspect. There were a number of small natural mounds on which lay fragments of limestone, the great basis of the plain region, and quantities of little shells were strewn about in every direction.

The soil and climate about Manitoba, or Evil Spirit' Lake, is similar to that of the Red River. At Winipegos Lake the oak region terminates; but the shores are clothed with elm, poplar, and a few ash, birch, and pine-trees. The water in this lake is brackish in summer. At Duck Bay the first wood of pines was seen. The route from thence to Fort Pelly, south-west, lies through swampy meadows, alternating with woods of poplar, fringed with willow, and a few straggling clumps of pine in the neighbourhood of the Swan River and Duck Mountain, with its 'rude and impassable heights.' Thence west to north lie the Porcupine Hills, wooded to the very summit. Thunder Hills are about two miles in breadth, steep; and beyond them to the northward is Fort Pelly, in 51° 45′ 20′′ north latitude-102° 5' west, near the bank of the Assiniboine River. The track thence to Fort Carlton, lies through gently undulating eminences along the wooded banks of the tortuous Assiniboine, thence due west, leaving the Assiniboine far to the south, over a hillocky country, tolerably wooded, and abounding in small lakes and swamps to the west end of Stoney Lake, through a country consisting of narrow plains, studded with clumps of poplar, interspersed with little lakes and swamps; a great part of this district had been recently overrun by fire. Changing the course from west to west south-west, the traveller reaches the immense prairies of the

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Saskatchewan River, of which entire tracts are frequently bared by fire to the very soil. The cold in these plains in winter, with the wind from the westward, is terrific; there is not a shrub or even a blade of grass to break the force of the blast, whose temperature is at least 40° below zero. The only exposed part of the traveller, the eye-lashes, becomes speedily covered with a heavy crop of icicles, which the half-frozen fingers have a difficulty in removing. These plains in summer are frequented by the Indians as hunting grounds. The heat in these wild plains is as unbearable in summer as is the cold in winter. Throughout this country, says Sir G. Simpson, every thing is in unparalleled extremes. Cold and excessive heat,-long droughts balanced by drenching rain and destructive hail (sometimes 5 inches in circumference). At one period both whites and natives are living in wasteful abundance on venison, buffalo, fish, and game—at others reduced to the last degree of hunger, often passing several days without food. In 1820, when wintering at Athabasca Lake, Sir George Simpson says, he was for three days and nights without a morsel of food. Frequently hundreds of fine buffaloes are killed for the tongues alone. On one occasion Sir G. Simpson saw several thousand buffaloes putrifying the air for miles around. Unsheltered plains extend far to the south, to the ridges in latitude 49°, whence the Missouri descends. One of the prairies of the Saskatchewan crossed by Mr. Simpson, was fourteen miles wide, and only a few willows were thinly scattered on its surface. The country south of the Saskatchewan towards Assiniboine, has in various places lakes as salt as the Atlantic Ocean. As this region, which extends to the Rocky Mountains, has been erroneously considered adapted for European colonization, the following extract from Mr. Thomas Simpson's Journal may help to dispel the illusion. "Christmas Day, Sunday, the 25th: On shaking off our slumbers this glad morning, a troop of wolves were 'baying the moon,' as she rode in a cloudless sky. The country before us being intricate, we could not start till daylight; and, when we sallied forth on our day's march, the weather had

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