gion only the fur
trader and the missionary have as yet penetrated. The sullen Chipwayan,
the feeble Dogrib, and the fierce and warlike Kutchin dwell along the
systems which carry the waters of this vast forest into Hudson Bay and
thee Arctic Ocean.

This place, the "forks" of the Saskatchewan, is destined at some time or
other to be an important centre of commerce and civilization. When men
shall have cast down the barriers which now intervene between the shores
of Lake Winnipeg and Lake Superior, what a highway will not these two
great river Systems of the St. Lawrence and the Saskatchewan offer to the
trader! Less than 100 miles of canal through low alluvial soil have only
to be built to carry a boat from the foot of the Rocky Mountains to the
head of Rainy Lake, within 100 miles of Lake Superior. With inexhaustible
supplies of water held at a level high above the current surface of the
height of land, it is not too much to say, that before many years have
rolled by, boats will float from the base of the Rocky Mountains to the
harbour of Quebec. But long before that time the Saskatchewan must have
risen to importance from its fertility, its beauty, and its mineral
wealth. Long before the period shall arrive when the Saskatchewan will
ship its products to the ocean, another period will have come, when the
mining populations of Montana and Idaho will seek in the fertile lands of
the middle Saskatchewan a supply of those necessaries of life which the
arid soil of the central States is powerless to yield. It is impossible
that the wave of life which rolls so unceasingly into America can leave
unoccupied this great fertile tract; as the river valleys farther east
have all been peopled long before settlers found their way into the
countries lying at the back, so must this great valley of the
Saskatchewan, when once brought within the reach of the emigrant, become
the scene of numerous settlements. As I stood in twilight looking down on
the silent rivers merging into the great single stream which here enters
the forest region, the mind had little difficulty in seeing another
picture, when the river forks would be a busy scene of commerce, and
man's labour would waken echoes now answering only to the wild things of
plain and forest. At this point, as I have said, we leave the plains and
the park-like country. The land of the prairie Indian and the
buffalo-hunter lies behind us-of the thick-wood Indian and moose-hunter
before