The Unexploited West: A Compilation of all of the authentic information available at the present time as to the Natural Resources of the Unexploited Regions of Northern CanadaChambers, Ernest J.
History
The Unexploited West: A Compilation of all of the authentic information available at the present time as to the Natural Resources of the Unexploited Regions of Northern Canada
Chambers, Ernest J.
Canada -- Economic conditions; Northwest, Canadian -- Economic conditions
The land between Lac la Ronge and Prince Albert in some places is very
good. It is all forest practically until to about thirty miles from
Prince Albert, or perhaps twenty or thirty. Then the open country begins
where it is not heavily timbered. To the west of Lac la Ronge the
country is very much the same. It is not rocky, some muskeg and some
pretty good land, but all timbered—in some places heavy timber. There
is spruce and poplar. The spruce is good enough for lumber, and of
course it would do for pulpwood. The witness had travelled the country
about Lac la Ronge pretty thoroughly, and if it were cleared of timber
it would, in his opinion, be generally
FAIR AGRICULTURAL LAND.
The rocky country is north of that.
So far as agriculture at Lac la Ronge is concerned, Archdeacon McKay
said he had raised good wheat at his former mission on Churchill river
for seven years in succession without having it frosted. The climate is
good. It is a rocky country, and there is not a great deal of good land;
but so far as the climate is concerned it is all right for raising
anything that can be raised in Saskatchewan generally. Potatoes grow
splendidly.
[Illustration: Potatoes at Anglican Mission, Lac la Ronge.]
He could not describe what the grasses are, but they are grasses that
grow mostly in moist land, something like slough hay, grasses that grow
on the margins of lakes, and along the rivers. There was not much stock
there, but he had stock when he lived on the mission on Churchill river,
fifteen head of cattle and two horses. That is a little north of Lac la
Ronge, and is practically the same country. As to the Lake Ile à la
Crosse country, he considered it fairly good. It is not rocky and there
is plenty of timber and plenty of hay as a rule—some prairie hay and
some swamp hay, and the soil is fairly good—better than Lac la Ronge.
It gets better as you go west. It is certainly better about Ile à la
Crosse than at Lac la Ronge, and there is no rock country about Ile à la
Crosse. The hay is long. It is very much the same as the natural hay in
Manitoba. The only whites in the country he had described north of the
Saskatchewan were the Hudson’s Bay Company’s officials and traders.
There is no agricultural settlement at Lac la Ronge. There are only
Indians there, and they have not gone into anything in the direction of
agriculture more than raising a few potatoes.
Archdeacon McKay stated that it is a peculiarity of that part of the
country around Lac la Ronge that the frosts are very late. On a small
island in the lake Archdeacon McKay has seen potatoes in the beginning
of October with the
VINES UNTOUCHED BY FROSTS
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