insignificant,
and were it not that causes might at any moment arise which would
rapidly develop it into consequence, it would not now claim more than a
passing notice. These causes are to be found in the existence of gold
throughout a large extent of the territory lying at the eastern base of
the Rocky Mountains, and in the effect which the discovery of gold-fields
would have in inducing a rapid movement of miners from the already
over-worked fields of the Pacific States and British Columbia. For some
years back indication of gold, in more or less quantities, have been
found in almost every river running east from the mountains. On the
Peace, Athabasca, McLeod, and Pembina Rivers, all of which drain their
waters into the Arctic Ocean, as well as on the North Saskatchewan, Red
Beer, and Bow Rivers, which shed to Lake Winnipeg, gold has been
discovered. The obstacles which the miner has to contend with are,
however, very great, and preclude any thing but the most partial
examination of the country. The Blackfeet are especially hostile towards
miners, and never hesitate to attack them, nor is the miner slow to
retaliate; indeed he has been too frequently the aggressor, and the
records of gold discovery are full of horrible atrocities committed upon
the red man. It has only been in the neighbourhood of the forts of the
Hudson Bay Company that continued washing for gold could be carried on.
In the neighbourhood of Edmonton from three to twelve dollars of gold
have frequently been "washed" in a single day by one man; but the miner
is not satisfied with what he calls "dirt washing," and craves for the
more exciting work in the dry diggings where, if the "strike" is good,
the yield is sometimes enormous. The difficulty of procuring provisions
or supplies of any kind has also prevented "prospecting" parties from
examining the head-waters of the numerous streams which form the sources
of the North and South Saskatchewan. It is not the high price of
provisions that deters the miner from penetrating these regions, but the
absolute impossibility of procuring any. Notwithstanding the many
difficulties which I have enumerated, a very determined effort will in
all probability be made, during the coming summer, to examine the
head-waters of the North Branch of the Saskatchewan. A party of miners,
four in number, crossed the mountains late in the autumn of 1870, and are
now wintering between Edmonton and the Mountain House, having laid in