to transport them to McLeod Lake Post, and from there down the Pack and Parsnip
Rivers to the Peace, and from Rocky Mountain Portage, where a post was estab-
lished by the Hudson’s Bay Company in 1805, the voyageurs and traders worked
up-river with the pelts and furs secured in trade with the Indians. Traders at
Soda Creek carried on business to the Rockies by this route. Now the railroad has
reached the Fraser River, and the Pacific Great Eastern, being completed up that
river to Fort George, is projected to the Peace.

THE HAZELTON ROUTE.

Another trade route was that from Hazelton and the Skeena. ‘The river-
steamers of the Hudson’s Bay Company, which have disappeared from the river
following the construction of the railroad, carried passengers and goods to Hazelton
from Port Essington; from Hazelton to Fort Babine, at the head of Babine Lake,
pack-trains travelled by trail; canoes and flat-bottomed boats voyaged up Babine
Lake, and thence the journey was made over a portage of twelve miles by wagon to
Stuart Lake, on which canoes and boats plied to Fort St. James, at the outlet of the
lake, 150 miles from Hazelton. A trail about eighty-five miles long runs from Fort
St. James to McLeod Lake Post, over which cattle can be driven. This trail reaches
McLeod Lake Post by way of Carp and Long Lakes and Long River, at the south of
the Peace River Land Recording Division.

CARP LAKE.

Carp Lake has an altitude of 2,750 feet and flows into Long Lake. The trail
south-west from it crosses over a generally flat country, with ridges and terraces
of sand and gravel. It formerly crossed Carp Lake at the narrows, but, as now
travelled, runs along the hillside to the north of the lake. Long Lake River, about
25 feet wide by 2 feet deep at the mouth, is sluggish near where the trail crosses,
but a short distance down becomes rapid, and within half a mile offers a great
amount of latent water-power; it drops by a succession of rapids and falls through
a vertical height of about 200 feet, and from here flows rapidly in a trough-like
valley. The trail runs over gravel benches north-east of the valley and some 300
feet higher, gradually descending over a series of terraces until it crosses the river
near McLeod Lake.

This trail is the old Iiudson’s Bay route, and from Fort McLeod continues to
Twodia Lake and Parsnip River, crossing it a mile and a quarter above the Missin-
chinka, and thence by way of this river to Pine River Pass, 2,850 feet, on to Hudson
Hope and Fort St. John, mainly by way of the South Pire River. The country
passed over between Fort St. James and McLeod Lake Post is, generally speaking,
a rolling plateau with an altitude varying from 2,600 to 3,000 feet, with gravel and
sand ridges and terraces, the surface being gently undulating. The soil consists of
gravel, sand, and clay.

VICINITY OF McLEOD LAKE POST.

Around McLeod Lake is a narrow margin of flat land, sand and gravel, covered
only superficially with mould and silt, which, while productive of a fine crop of grass,
etc., is not deep enough for successful cultivation. On the west side of the lake,
back from the flat bottom land, the hills rise gradually to the plateau level, the
whole being densely wooded with poplar, cottonwood, small spruce, and balsam. On
the east side of the lake the hills rise somewhat more rapidly to a height of about
600 feet above the lake, and are wooded with spruce of fair size; this side of the
lake haying seemingly escaped the general conflagration which denuded the plateau
to the west.

G. E. Townshend, Forest Ranger, who made a report on this section in 1918,
said: “At Fort McLeod I ascended the mountains to the north-east of the post, a
distance of three miles, to get a view of the surrounding country. These mountains
are burned clean and no growth of any sort exists at present, the soil itself having
been destroyed. Looking to the north-east towards the Missinchinka River and
farther on to Pine Itiver Pass, fire has taken everything before it, and, as yet, slight

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