Corporal Mellor (of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police) in September of the same year, made a patrol with horses into the buffalo country southwest of Smith Landing. In his report the Corporal states that from Salt river “we proceeded northwest through about eight miles of small poplar, and then across a large stretch of prairie country. This is not prairie country in the generally accepted term, but simply ground of a marshy nature, perfectly flat, and covered with a luxuriant growth of grass. This would doubtless afford splendid land were it not that the water thereon is intensely salty and quite unfit for use. These prairies are of large extent stretching from Peace river, in the south, I am told, to Buffalo river, in the north, a distance of over one hundred miles. They are dotted all over with thick clumps of willows, the only trees growing thereon.” [Illustration: Indian Camp near Fort Smith.] In the last annual report of Superintendent G. E. Sanders, D.S.O., commanding “N” Division at Athabaska, and dated October 1, 1911, that officer describes the area from Athabaska river to Great Slave lake and west to the Rockies as an agricultural country. He states:—“The general state of the district from an agricultural and business point of view is one of great development and progress. The stream of settlement into the country round about Athabaska and to upper Peace river and Grande prairie has continued to a much larger extent during the year. With the influx of settlement traders have followed and a general AIR OF PROSPERITY PREVAILS, with very optimistic hopes for the future. The homestead entries at Athabaska for the first three months of this year exceeded the entire number for 1909, and for the past months the entries are upwards of one hundred and seventy-five in excess of those received during the whole of 1910. The homestead entries at Lesser Slave lake and Grande prairie have increased at an even greater rate. At the latter place, the first day the Land Office opened there, seventy-five entries were received.” “It was generally expected that the railway would reach Athabaska in November, but the contractors have met with so many set-backs, due to the weather, shortage of labour and, lately, sickness amongst their horses, that it is extremely doubtful when the work will be completed. “As a consequence of the coming of the railway the town of Athabaska has experienced quite a boom in real estate, and the prices for lots in the townsite and for land adjoining have become very high, lots that sold for three hundred dollars last year are now exchanging hands at three thousand dollars, and land within a mile has been sold for one hundred and seventy-five dollars per acre. A great deal of building is going on and every one predicts an important future for the place on account of its many natural advantages, and its situation making it the distribution point for the vast country to the north.”