20 DEPARTMENT OF LANDS.

small poplar, and the soil, which is very fertile, consists of a deep black loam with
a clay subsoil. The majority of the settlers here are engaged in mixed farming,
some of them having between thirty and fifty head of cattle. The south side of
the lake has very few settlers, owing to the land being heavily timbered, involving
much time and labour in clearing.

“The district Jying between Francois and Ootsa Lakes is most suitable for mixed
farming, and especially dairying. Large areas of open land frequently occur which
could be brought under cultivation with very little effort. The land generally is of
a rolling nature and the soil highly productive. Splendid grazing land is to be found
throughout the district, besides numerous lakes of various sizes. The settlers here,
the majority of whom are located on the north side of.Ootsa Lake, are engaged
principally in raising cattle and dairying on a small scale.”

FRANCOIS LAKE.

Francois Lake, according to Colley’s survey, is almost sixty-three miles long,
and the 54th parallel of latitude passes almost through the centre of it from end
to end. It averages from one and a half to two and a half miles in width. It is
one of the most beautiful lakes in the north country, but rather difficult to navigate
with canoes, as fierce squalls spring up very suddenly and frequently. The elevation
is 2,875 feet. The lake lies, in the main, nearly east and west, but is slightly sinuous
and shows a decided tendency to narrow at its western end. It resembles the valley
of an ancient river, which, from change in relative elevation of its lower end or
blocking of its outflow in some other way, has been converted into a lake. The two
sides maintain a remarkable parallelism, following each other in their flexures, so
as to preserve the width of the lake nearly uniform, but there is a marked departure
from the appearance usually seen in river-valleys in one respect. The wider reaches
of the valley appear rather to lie in the mountainous flats of its length than in those
comparatively flat and low. The depth must in some parts be great, the shores often
sloping steeply down from the base of the high land surrounding it. Owing to its
depth, no doubt, it does not freeze as readily as many of the lakes of the plateau.
The outlet is near the eastern end, the Stellaco River breaking from the north-east,
about a mile from the end of the lake.

THE LAKE-SHORE.

The north shore of the lake for about twenty miles, with the exception of a few
rocky hills of small height, is low, and in many places, after rising pretty steeply
to a height of 50 to 100 feet, runs back a long way before attaining a much greater
elevation. One little range of hills occurring about midway in this distance reaches
a height of 800 feet above the lake, but rises very gradually from it. Low, sandy,
and gravelly flats, running out as points in the lake, and fringed along the shore
with white-barked cottonwood-trees, are not uncommon, and add much to its beauty.
The south shore is rougher, and in contrast with the more open appearance of the
other side is well timbered. Uncha Creek, draining from Uncha and Takysie Lakes
to the south, enters the lake about twenty miles from the lower end. About two
miles west of this creek there are mountains on either side of the lake; that on the
north about S800 feet high and the one on the south about 1,000 feet, both having
bare, grassy, and stony slopes. The south shore continues low from this point to
the upper end of the lake, seldom rising more than 100 feet above it. The north
shore is also generally low, broken with a few rises, and Shesnun Mountain, a steep
and stony height of about SOO feet, rising abruptly from the lake.

THe “ Harris SerrreMENT.

Thirty miles from the head of the lake and on the north side is the Harris
Ranch, consisting of 800 acres, one of the best, as well as the oldest, in the country.
(See Pre-emptors’ Map 8p, Nechako Sheet. The settlement is on the lake where