emptying into the Parsnip River about 100 miles from its headwaters. The timber
is smaller here, but country and soil the same. The Parsnip is about 200 feet wide
where it is joined by this stream, and is about six miles west of the Rockies.

DAVIE LAKE TO LONG LAKE.

From Dayie Lake to Long Lake the Crooked River is practically dead-water
10 to 15 feet deep, with the exception of a few rapids, running through willow-
bottom land, which extends about 20 or 30 chains back to the foot of spruce ridges.
The surrounding country, twelve or fifteen miles back to the watershed, is hilly,
timbered with spruce and some scattered birch and poplar. The soil is sandy and
gravelly. From here to Kerrys Lake, about two miles, spruce ridges follow along
close to the river, and at the end of Kerrys Lake, about five miles long by two miles
wide. A spruce-flat broken by strips of willow and jack-pine extends for about ten
miles down-stream, and the river varies from 5 to 8 chains wide, almost dead-water.
Below here the spruce-flat widens, extending to the foot of the hills, and there is
some fairly good land for agricultural purposes. About three miles from its outlet
into McLeod Lake the hills close in. The river narrows to about 50 feet about six
miles from the lake and runs swiftly. The land is poor except through the willow
bottom. ‘There is a long point reaching into the lake at the mouth of the river.

McLEOD LAKE AND FORT McLEOD.

McLeod Lake, altitude 2,250 feet, is about seventeen miles long by a mile in
width. The country surrounding the south end is low and marshy for a couple of
miles back, when the hills rise and are considerably higher than those encountered
near the Crooked River, the highest being about 500 feet above the lake. The rock
formation changes here from diorite to limestone, this formation continuing to the
Peace River. On the east side of the lake there is no extent of meadow or open
land, except about 40 acres opposite the north end.

Fort McLeod is at the north end of the lake, sixty-five miles from Summit Lake.
It is the oldest Hudson’s Bay Post in British Columbia, having been established by
the North-west Trading Company in 1805 and taken over by the Hudson’s Bay
Company in 1820. Thomas Hammett has been in charge since 1905 at this post.
He has a small garden and grows some fine vegetables. Regarding the winter, he
states that the average snowfall is about 5 feet, the lake freezing over about Noyem-
ber 1st. The Indian village is situated close to the post, just north of the Long
Lake River. ‘There are about ninety-eight left of the Sikanni, who hunt and trade
here. These Indians are dying off fast. They are a meat-eating people and hunt
all the year round. The men usually trap on the Parsnip River in the fall and
winter and sometimes fish in summer. Due to the activity of these hunters the big
game is pretty well cleaned out of this section. The beaver and small fur-bearing
animals are becoming scarce for the same reason. The streams and lakes, however,
abound with fish, trout, and chub, which will keep them from actual starvation.

Fort Mcleod is on the route of the fur trade from the Peace to the Fraser.
The post, first of the fur-trading stations in the Northern Interior, was built in 1805
by James McDougall. The lake and post was named in honour of Archibald Norman
McLeod, of the North-west Company. ‘The post was first known as Trout Lake
House, then Fort McDougall, La Malice Fort, and later Fort McLeod. It is the
oldest of the posts, having been the first trading-fort erected by the fur-hunters west
of the Rockies. Sir Alexander Mackenzie and James Finlay ascended the Peace
and Parsnip Rivers, the former in 1793, the latter in 1797; he examined the Finlay,
to which he gave his name, and then proceeded up the Parsnip and Pack Rivers to
Mcleod Lake. Simon Fraser followed in 1805 shortly after McDougall established
Fort McLeod, and returning to the Rocky Mountain Portage he built the Rocky
Mountain House, which has since given way to the post at Hudson Hope.

In the days before the steel of the Grand Trunk Pacific was laid, big flat boats
were towed up the Fraser River from Soda Creek, where their freights were assem-
bled by wagon over the Cariboo Road, to Giscome Portage, and the merchandise and
supplies were hauled over to the Crooked River, where boats and canoes were used

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