the season, on June 7th this year. It will be seen from the above that it is rarely,
if ever, that passengers waiting for the first steamer on Lesser Slave Lake can
connect with the June trip of the Peace River steamer. One is never able to get
freight before the July boat on the Peace, unless it is sent to Peace River Crossing
on sleighs during the previous winter. When the roads are breaking up in the
spring, they are impassable for freight and almost so for passengers.

“Passengers or freight for the Pouce Coupe would leave the Peace River at
Dunvegan (sixty miles above Peace River Crossing) and travel by wagon-road
through Grande Prairie to the Pouce Coupe, a distance of about 150 miles.

“During the winter the entire distance from Edmonton has to be travelled by
sleigh. The sleigh-road leaves the Peace River at Dunvegan, going south to Spirit
River and Grande Prairie; therefore it is a difficult matter to get to Fort St. John
after the ice starts to run in the river. The few trips that are made are done with
dog-teams; although the Royal North-West Mounted Police, when building the
Yukon Trail, brought sleighs up overland during the winter.”

SURVEYS IN ADVANCE OF SETTLEMENT.

For many decades the Peace River country has been the land of romance—the
land of fur, the Indian, and the Hudson’s Bay Company. Through various channels
news of the fertile yalleys and plateau lands came down to the crowded places, and,
distant though they are until the railroads reach them, interest has grown in these
lands. ‘There is an eagerness on the part of many to reach into these distant places
in advance of the railroads, to pioneer in what will doubtless be, before a great space
of time has elapsed, a well-settled country.

Surveys are being made in advance of settlement, explorations in adyance of
surveys, and information is being made available regarding a large part of this
northern land division. This condition—of making surveys in advance of actual
settlement—has its advantages, as settlers may arrive on the ground with the fullest
information and take up their lands without fear of being disturbed by possible
future surveys. Until the present time the development of these great valleys of
the Northern Interior has been materially delayed because of their distance from
the main route of travel, and transportation has therefore generally been prohibitive
in cost, though never lacking altogether. But with the frontier of settlement each
year farther afield, and with the completion of the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway at
hand, to connect with the great waterway system into the very heart of these new
territories, a rapid development can be expected to follow in the near future.

GISCOME PORTAGE.

Giscome Portage, the southernmost point of the Peace River Land Division, is
on the divide between the Pacific and Arctic drainages, and at present is the general
route by which entry is made from British Columbia. Giscome Portage is in latitude
54° 15’ and runs about eight miles in a westerly direction to Summit Lake. The
road ascends 240 feet to the height of the divide and drops to the lake 40 feet by
good grades, being generally level on top. Messrs. Seaback and Hubble have a small
ranch and trading-store here where supplies may be obtained. The. soil is fairly
good, producing good vegetables and a small crop of oats, but the seasons are short
and they are bothered somewhat by summer frosts. The country on the portage
nearing Summit Lake is covered with small jack-pine and some small spruce. The
soil is light and sandy. It is generally level, but cut by gravelly ridges.

SUMMIT LAKE AND CROOKED RIVER.

Summit Lake lies at an elevation of 2,400 feet in latitude 54° 20’ and is about
three miles and a half wide and almost four miles long. The Crooked River flows
out of it. The country surrounding the lake is undulating and covered with scrub
al character of the land in the depression reaching to
McLeod Lake. ‘Lhe Crooked River, rightly named, winds from Summit Lake to

spruce, this being the gener

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