each not over fifty miles, and in many
places only fifteen miles from shore to shore. It trends nearly due
north and south, leaning a little north-west and south-east, and
receives many large rivers, as the Red, the Saskatchewan, and the
Winnipeg. The waters of these are again carried out of it by other
rivers that run from the lake, and empty into the Hudson's Bay. There is
a belief among the hunters and voyageurs that this lake has its tides
like the ocean. Such, however, is not the case. There is at times a rise
and overflow of its waters, but it is not periodical, and is supposed to
be occasioned by strong winds forcing the waters towards a particular
shore.

Lake Winnipeg is remarkable, as being in the very centre of the North
American continent, and may be called the centre of the _canoe
navigation_. From this point it is possible to travel _by water_ to
Hudson's Bay on the north-east, to the Atlantic Ocean on the east, to
the Gulf of Mexico on the south, to the Pacific on the west, and to the
Polar Sea on the north and north-west. Considering that some of these
distances are upwards of three thousand miles, it will be perceived that
Lake Winnipeg holds a singular position upon the continent. All the
routes mentioned can be made without any great "portage," and even a
choice of route is often to be had upon those different lines of
communication.

These were points of information communicated by Norman as the canoe was
paddled along the shore; for Norman, although troubling himself but
little about the causes of things, possessed a good practical knowledge
of things as they actually were. He was tolerably well acquainted with
the routes, their portages, and distances. Some of them he had travelled
over in company with his father, and of others he had heard the accounts
given by the voyageurs, traders, and trappers. Norman knew that Lake
Winnipeg was muddy--he did not care to inquire the cause. He knew that
there was a hilly country on its eastern and a low level land on its
western shores, but it never occurred to him to speculate on this
geological difference.

It was the naturalist, Lucien, who threw out some hints on this part of
the subject, and further added his opinion, that the lake came to be
there in consequence of the wearing away of the rocks at the junction of
the stratified with the primitive formation, thus creating an excavation
in the surface, which in time became filled with water and formed th