Eu-ti-a-kwe-ta-
chick Lake.

Kes-la-chick
River.

Toot-i-ai or
Fawnie’s
Mountain.

40 GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF CANADA.

reclothe itself. In the river valleys, however, and along some of the
lakes and ponds, very beautiful meadows of natural grasses appear, of

which, the area, though quite small when compared with the whole

country, must in the aggregate be considerable. In sheltered valleys,
and on the southern slopes of the lakes, Engelmann’s spruce is found
attaining a fair size. The Douglas fir does not occur.

Hu-ti-a-kwe-ta-chick Lake, eight miles in length, and averaging about
half a-mile in width, lying north-east and south-west, is a fine sheet of
water. The banks are bold, the country attaining its full height of 150°
to 200 feet near the lake. The north-western side is somewhat lower and
more broken than the south-eastern, which is the more heavily timbered.
At the lower end of the lake, the valley is continued by a flat marshy strip
of country of equal width with the lake, and not much above its level.
Through this, the issuing stream, now called the Kes-la-chick, pursues a
very winding course for three miles, when low banks of gravel and
drift-material appear, and making a right angle, it turns abruptly to the
left into a narrow rocky chasm, with walls nearly 300 feet high. A short
distance further on the stream again returns to the main valley. The
diversion appears to have been caused by a barrier of drift accumulated
during the glacial period, which must have been much higher and more
complete at the time the change first took place.

From this point to Na-tal-kuz Lake, the river, though flowing on the
whole in a direct north-eastward course, is very tortuous in many
places in detail. The sides of its valley become steep, and on approach-
ing the high country surrounding the base of Toot-i-ai Mountain
become absolutely perpendicular and cafon-like in places, and from one
hundred to nearly 200 feetin height. There is generally a little flat ground
a few feet above the water level, but the stream running at intervals
into the foot of the steep banks renders it necessary to cross and recross
in the endeavour to follow it. The largest stream observed to join the
river in this part of its course, was fifteen feet wide by six inches deep,
with a slope of about one in twenty. Before entering Na-tal-kuz Lake
the river has a breadth of about fifty feet, with an average depth of two
feet where it runs rapidly. The plateau above the river valley is densely
timbered, though generally with small trees, and scarcely affords any
pasturage. The soil throughout is poor, sandy or stony, and quite unfit
for agriculture, even if at a much lower level.

Toot-i-ai, Toodeeney, or Fawnie’s Mountain, near the north-western
base of which the Kes-la-chick passes, is the most prominent peak in
this part of the country. It has already been referred to as being on the