During his examination before the Senate committee of 1907, Mr. Tyrrell described the whole stretch of country extending from Lake Winnipeg and Split lake on the east to Churchill and Athabaska on the west[14] as a “country essentially suited for agricultural purposes.” He could not say what there was beyond the limits mentioned as he had not been there. This was a forest belt. The eastern side of this tract would be Nelson river. Not having been east of that river with the exception of twenty or thirty miles, he could not speak of the country beyond. Mr. Tyrrell declared:—“That belt of forest is for the most part excellent agricultural land.” As far as the observations of Mr. Tyrrell went, he believed that that country, while a little harder to settle up, and not so attractive to settlers who are going in and looking for farms ready made and cleared for them and ready to put the wheat in, would be as fine an agricultural tract of land as there is in the Northwest. Everywhere in travelling through it, the evidence of rich vegetation was abundant, and everywhere where gardens or any kind of agriculture or horticulture had been attempted in this forest belt, it had been eminently successful. It is a forest country, a spruce covered country, and lies southwest of Hudson bay, west of Nelson river, north of Saskatchewan river, and extends to Mackenzie and Athabaska rivers. It would be about two hundred miles wide from north to south. Witness did not remember the length of it. It is land similar to that of Ontario, and will grow practically everything that will grow in that province, except possibly down in the southern peninsula. The summer is warm. The winter does not count, because things do not grow in winter. There is a good rainfall. A small part of the district is park country, half wooded. It is a continuation northward of the Saskatchewan country.