THE PARSNIP RIVER.

Heading in a small lake from which a short portage crosses the divide to the
Bad River, a tributary of the North Fork of the Fraser River—a route sometimes
adopted en route to and from the Peace River ecountry—the Parsnip River reaches
a width of 400 feet at the junction with the Pack. Several large tributaries join
it above the junction from the east, the largest being the Missinchinka and the
Misschinsinlika. The former takes its rise in Pine River Pass and, running westerly
for about twenty miles, empties into the Parsnip River, averaging about 30 feet in
width. Flour gold is panned along this stream. ‘The Nation River is the largest of
the feeders from the west, entering about thirty miles aboye the junction with the
Pack River.

The Parsnip River, so named on account of the profuse growth of cow-parsnips
on the banks, takes a winding course in a north-westerly direction toy vards its
junction with the Finlay, a distance of approximately eighty-nine miles. It is
broken up with sloughs and numerous islands, but free from any bad rocks or drift-
piles, and is good for boats and canoes at any stage of the water.

The Parsnip Valley from opposite the Pack has a width of about eight miles,
narrowing down to two miles. The river-bottom varies in width from half to a
mile along its entire length, the most of which is timbered heavily with small spruce
and cottonwood. On the east side the valley has practically all been burned over,
with the exception of a few patches here and there.

Above the mouth of the Pack River on the east of the Parsnip is a wide flat,
slightly rolling and timbered lightly with pine, spruce, and poplar, extending for six
to eight miles to the foot-hills of the Rocky Mountains. The low flat along the river
has an average width of about a mile between benches about 150 feet high, the river
winding from side to side between these benches.

About a quarter of a mile below the junction a creek about 15 feet wide and
1 foot deep enters from the west, about three miles up which are several small
seams of lignite. On the west side a range of snow-capped mountains runs about
parallel to the river about twenty or thirty miles back, and the intervening country
is hilly and densely timbered with spruce, poplar, and small jack-pine. The soil is
sandy and grayelly. Five miles from the junction on this side, flats covered with
spruce, jack-pine, and some cottonwood extend back for two or three miles to merge
into the hilly country. Below these flats ‘a small creek about 10 feet wide enters,
and here a poplar-fiat, burnt over and grown with peavine and brush, extends back
from half to two miles, for a mile running into spruce and poplar flats, which con-
tinue for seven or eight miles farther down. ‘There are numerous flats reaching back
to the rolling country, generally from half to a mile wide to the Nation River.

The country contiguous to the Parsnip Valley is generally rough and broken,
with benches varying from 50 to 250 feet rising from the valley, covered with second
growth of jack-pine, birch, and poplar. On the west side down to the Nation River
the country near the valley is rough and broken. Continuing down the Parsnip from
the Nation River, the west side is rough, a low range of hills following the river
for a distance of sixteen miles, these hills being rough and broken, and heavily
timbered with scrub pine, spruce, and birch, none of which is of much value. Then
for ten miles there is a strip of spruce, mostly on flats, behind which is a muskeg,
extending north and south for from twelve to fourteen miles, with width of from
one to two miles. -

BELOW THE NATION RIVER.

Below the junction of the Nation River the Parsnip River is very tortuous; its
bed becomes much wider, with numerous sloughs and back channels, at high water
forming islands densely wooded with poplar, and, on the older islands, with spruce.
The hills on the west of the river, extending down-stream for ubout sixteen Miles,
rise to a height of about 700 to S00 feet, and on the western side of the range the
valley runs back to the main range, which forms the western boundary of the

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