A tallow company is said to have swallowed up from $3,000 to $5,000 for the Hudson's Bay Company, and a good deal of money was spent in opening up a road to Hudson Bay. Thus was enterprise after enterprise undertaken by the Company, largely for the good of the settlers. If ever an honest effort was made to advance an isolated and difficult colony, it was in these schemes begun by the Hudson's Bay Company here. The most startling event during the rule of Governor Mackenzie was the Red River flood in 1826. The winter of this year had been severe, and a great snowfall gave promise of a wet and dangerous spring. The snow had largely cleared away, when, early in the month of May, the waters began rising with surprising rapidity. The banks of the rivers were soon unable to contain the floods, and once on the prairie level the waters spread for miles east and west in a great lake. The water rose several feet in the houses of the settlers. When the wind blew the waves dashed over the roofs. Buildings were undermined and some were floated away. The settlers were compelled to leave their homes, and took flight to the heights of Stony Mountain, Little Mountain, Bird's Hill, and other elevations. For weeks the flood continued, but at last, on its receding, the homeless settlers returned to their battered and damaged houses, much disheartened. The crops, however, were sown, though late, and a fair harvest was gathered in that unpromising year. The flood was the last straw that broke the back of the endurance of De Meurons and Swiss colonists. They almost all withdrew from the country and became settlers in Minnesota and other States of the American Union. Either from pride or real dislike, the Selkirk settlers declared that they were well rid of these discontented and turbulent foreigners. The year of the flood seems to have introduced an era of plenty, for the people rebuilt their houses, cultivated their fields, received full returns for their labour, and were enabled to pay off their debts and improve their buildings. During Governor McKenzie's régime at the time of the flood, the population of the Red River settlement had reached fifteen hundred.