McLeod Lake, with a chain of three lakes of two and a half to three miles in
length. The upper twenty-five miles of the river is very crooked and shallow; the
banks are low and cut by numerous arms and sloughs. There are numerous hay
meadows at the turns. For the greater part of this distance the river is from 100
to 300 feet wide, the water being quite dead, suggesting the broads of Norfolk, and
forming an ideal natural canal. On the lower part of the river the banks are low,
composed of silts thickly covered with alders and willows. The general course of
the river is about north. In a few places the stream narrows down and is rapid,
but very small, being occasionally reduced to a width of 5 or 6 feet. In these parts
if runs over gravel and boulders. Shallow sandbars exist in places over which the
water flows swiftly, and between the bars are holes and slack water from 6 to 15
feet deep. On the upper river travellers often find it necessary in summer to get
into the water at the bars and haul their canoes across. The last two weeks in
May are considered the best times for travelling on this river. :

The best way to reach good boating on the Crooked River—that is, at Davie
Lake—is to utilize the dry gravel jack-pine bench extending from there south-
easterly to the Fraser, instead of the route via Giscome Portage. By way of
Charley Paul Creek, about twelve miles up the Fraser from Giscome, was a route
used in the first gold-rush. There is good timber for boat-building at Davie Lake.
From there to McLeod Lake Post is deep slack water, almost a continual succession
of lakes and sloughs, ideal for motor-boats; in fact, with the exception of a short
stretch—about 100 feet—of swift water some few miles above the Nation River and
the Finlay and Parle Pas Rapids, the whole route to Rocky Mountain Portage, where
the canyon stops navigation, is good for steamboats for seyeral months of the spring
and summer. :

COUNTRY NEAR CROOKED RIVER.

The land generally near the Crooked River is undulating and covered with scrub
pine averaging about S inches, some balsam and cottonwood, and some small jack-

pine .and alder. Along the river-bank, extending back for from 5 to 10 chains, are
strips of spruce, poplar, jack-pine, and willow flats, where the soil, except in the
jack-pine, is suitable for agricultural purposes. Back of this the country is undulat-
ing, hilly, and timbered with spruce and jack-pine. The soil is sandy and gravelly.

About twenty-two miles from Summit Lake the river makes a big bend, and
about three miles east of this bend is Dominion Lake, and another smaller lake
about a mile north. The Little Salmon River joins the Crooked River from the
east, flowing around Tea Pot Mountain. The country and soil are similar in this’
vicinity. ;

For about six miles below here the river runs very swift over shallow rapids,

_ through a rocky spruce, poplar, and jack-pine country, when it widens through a
willow-flat and flows for about nine miles, practically dead-water about 10 to 15 feet
deep, into Davie Lake. This lake, about five miles long by two in width, is about
thirty-five miles from Summit Lake, along the-course of the river. Observations
here show: Latitude, 50° 31’ 41”; elevation, 2,425 feet.

A low range of hills forming the watershed between the Little Salmon and
Crooked Rivers slopes up from here for five or six miles to the summit, 700 feet
above the lake, timbered with some fairly good spruce and fir from 10 to 15 inches,
some birch and jack-pine, with sandy soil.

An unnamed creek empties into the Crooked River about a mile below the outlet
of Davie Lake, a stream about 20 feet wide. The land it drains does not differ from
the surrounding country. Six miles down-stream from this creek the river widens
into a shallow slough called Long Lake, and from there an Indian trail runs seven
miles and a half north-easterly to Tuchie Lakes, on the divide between the Crooked
and Parsnip Rivers, at an elevation of 2,800 feet above sea-level. The country here
is much about the same; in fact, it is characteristically the same from Summit Lake
to Fort McLeod. The two Tuchie Lakes are clear-water expanses surrounded by
well-timbered hills. he westerly lake drains down into the valley of the Crooked
River at high water; the other down a shallow river about five miles in length

12