Indeed All The Traders
Assured Us It Was More Necessary To Be Vigilantly On Our Guard On The
Occasion Of A Visit To Them Than At Any Other Time.
Carlton House (which our observations place in latitude 52 degrees 50
minutes 47 seconds North, longitude 106 degrees 12
Minutes 42 seconds
West, variation 20 degrees 44 minutes 47 seconds East) is pleasantly
situated about a quarter of a mile from the river's side on the flat
ground under the shelter of the high banks that bound the plains. The
land is fertile and produces with little trouble ample returns of wheat,
barley, oats, and potatoes. The ground is prepared for the reception of
these vegetables about the middle of April and when Dr. Richardson
visited this place on May 10th the blade of wheat looked strong and
healthy. There were only five acres in cultivation at the period of my
visit. The prospect from the fort must be pretty in summer owing to the
luxuriant verdure of this fertile soil; but in the uniform and cheerless
garb of winter it has little to gratify the eye.
Beyond the steep bank behind the house commences the vast plain whose
boundaries are but imperfectly known; it extends along the south branch
of the Saskatchewan and towards the sources of the Missouri and
Asseenaboine Rivers, being scarcely interrupted through the whole of this
great space by hills or even rising grounds. The excellent pasturage
furnishes food in abundance to a variety of grazing animals of which the
buffalo, red-deer, and a species of antelope are the most important.
Their presence naturally attracts great hordes of wolves which are of two
kinds, the large, and the small.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 159 of 649
Words from 42864 to 43147
of 176017
