Canada To-day and To-morrowCopping, Arthur E. (Arthur Edward)
History
Canada To-day and To-morrow
Copping, Arthur E. (Arthur Edward)
Canada
The Archdeacon leads off with this appetising fact: cranberries,
raspberries, blackberries, blueberries, gooseberries, and currants grow
wild and abundant in the district. He reports that there are plenty of
trees there, notably spruce and poplar, which are good for pulp-wood if
not very important as timber. At Lac la Rouge he has seen good wheat
raised for seven years in succession without any trouble being
experienced from frost. Potatoes also grow there splendidly; indeed, as
the reverend gentleman put it, the locality is “all right for raising
anything that can be raised anywhere in Saskatchewan.” He explained that
if the country were cleared of timber it would, in his opinion, be fair
agricultural land. With regard to stock, he could merely say that he
himself had kept, at the mission on the Churchill River, fifteen head of
cattle and two horses.
Archdeacon McKay is also able to testify concerning the Ile à la Crosse
country, which lies in much the same latitude as the area already
alluded to, but some hundred and sixty miles farther west. This is his
instructive summary: “Plenty of timber, and plenty of hay as a
rule—some prairie hay and some swamp hay—and the soil is fairly good.
It is better than at Lac la Rouge, and it gets better as you go west.”
Questioned as to the wild grasses, he described them as “long,” and as
“very much the same as the natural hay in Manitoba.”
Once more we hear of prairie fires; and it would seem that they have
been particularly destructive in the rocky districts. Cross-examined
with regard to timber possibilities, Archdeacon McKay recalled the
interesting circumstance that he himself had erected a saw-mill, which
was run by water-power, at Lac la Rouge. He added these significant
details: “The logs average seventeen to the thousand feet, and are
fourteen or fifteen feet long. The diameter would be about two feet
across at the butt. They are large, clean logs, very much the same as
those at Prince Albert. This good timber is scattered all over the
country, sometimes for miles.” Pressed to give a more definite
impression of the timber area, he said he believed it extended right
away to the borders of the province. It appeared that he had travelled
backwards and forwards a good deal, “visiting Indian camps and so on,”
and he noted very much the same kind of trees everywhere. Of course
there are muskeg in some places, and in others he saw “heavy timber.”
Reindeer Lake was the most northerly point he had reached, and he saw
plenty of trees up there.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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