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

11