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“From Little Smoky River to the located line at the Lobstick, the soil on the
valleys and side-hills is generally good, though frequently wet and marshy ; on the high
ground light, sometimes sandy, and barren, with moss and musskegs. There are a few
small prairies in the Lobstick Valley ; the rest of the country is covered with poplar
cottonwood, spruce, pitch pine, birch and tamarac, mostly of the original erowth, a
large proportion being of good size and fine quality. Brulés and windfalls are numerous
and very extensive in this section of the country.

“A seam of coal 8 inches thick was found near the water level of Pine River.
Saal blocks were found in the gravel above the streams, widely separated from each
other.

Report by Rev. D. M. Gordon..

The Reverend D. M. Gordon, who accompanied Messrs. Cambie and McLeod of the
Canadian Pacific Railway survey in 1879, has this to say on page 102 of that report :—

“The Hudson’s Bay Co.’s posts, a few mission stations, and two or three ‘free
traders’ establishments are the only places occupied by white men throughout this vast
northern country that we speak of as the Peace River District, and these are uniformly
found on the fertile flats near the river’s edge. On those flats the soil is usually of the
richest character. 4

“The garden of the Hope yields excellent potatoes, onions, beets and other
vegetables, as well as barley and wheat, the seed of this year’s crop having been raised
from a single grain, which Dumas, the agent, found accidentally among some rice. On
a similar flat at Fort St. John, about 40 miles further down the river, barley and wheat,
as well as a great variety of vegetables, are successfully cultivated, while a still greater
variety, including cucumbers, are grown with even greater success at Dunyegan, 70
miles below Fort St. John, where wheat has been raised as long ago as 1828. It is the
same at all the Hudson’s Bay Co.’s posts along the valley. Situated generally near the
river level, these stations of the company have each their garden, with, in some cases, a
small farm attached, and in these almost every vegetable and cereal commonly cultivated
in Canada can be grown with success. Wheat is grown as far north as Fort Simpson,
at the mouth of the Liard, lat: 64 north, and it is said that potatoes are grown at Fort
Good Hope, near the mouth of the Mackenzie. Wheat and barley grown at the
Chipewayn Mission, Lake Athabasca, lat. 58° 42’ north, received a medal at the Phila-
delphia Centennial Exhibition of 1876.

“Tt is not, however, by the character and capacity of the soil on the fertile flats
around the Hudson’s Bay Company’s posts that the merits of the Peace River District
must be tested, as these flats are comparatively few and small. The district proper
consists of extensive plateaux, which stretch away for miles on either side of the river,
at an altitude at Dunvegan of about 800 feet above the river, an altitude that gradually
diminishes to less than 100 feet 500 miles down the river.

“From Pine River eastward to Lesser Slave Lake, and from Dunvegan northward
about 70 miles to Battle River, and southward to the 55th parallel, the examination
was tolerably fair. Throughout the whole of the district traversed in these explorations,
with very few exceptions, the soil was found to be excellent, with rich herbage, luxuriant:
wild hay and pea-vine, and in some parts a great abundance of saskatoon, or service
berry bushes. Some tracts lying north of Peace River appear peculiarly fertile, while
the district known as ‘ La Grande Prairie,’ lying between Smoky River and Pine River,
from 35 to 70 miles south of Dunvegan, is exceptionally good. Even those parts that
are swampy, such as a portion of the country between Smoky River and Lesser Slave
Lake, might be drained and made fit for cultivation with no great difficulty by the
removal of beaver dams, etc. Endeavouring to ascertain the character of such portions
as we could not possibly examine, we were reliably informed that, following the north
and west bank ct the Peace River, the soil is excellent for a distance of from. 25 to 70
miles from the river; that from Hudson’s Hope to Fort St. John, with few interrup-
tions, it is heavily wooded ; that below Fort St. John the open prairie alternates with
groves of aspen and other light woods, for 120 miles, to Smoky River ; that from Smoky
River to Old Fort Vermilion, a distance by the river of more than 300 miles, there is
more woodland than open prairie, although the soil is good for about 40) miles back from
the main river; that below Vermilion, for a belt of from 15 to 40 miles, the soil is
fertile, with occasional interruptions, such as the Cariboo Mountains, at least as hs ‘
the Salt Springs on Slave River. Following the south and east bank of Peace River, the

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