miles up a long, easy ascent, through a timber country, to
an upper plateau, with, after passing the Heart River, occasional
small patches of prairie on the wayside. The plateau itself is the
anticlinal down which the North Heart flows to Peace River, which it
joins at the crossing.

The trail so far had been good, but after crossing Slippery Creek
it proved to be almost a continuous mud-hole, due to its extreme
narrowness and the wet weather, closely bordered, as much of it was,
by dense forests. It revealed a good farming country, however, free
from stones, and the soil a rich, loamy clay throughout. It was well
timbered, in some places, with the finest white poplar I had yet
seen. The grass was luxuriant, and the region teemed with
tiger-lilies, yarrow, and the wild rose.

The Little Prairie, as it is called, is really a lovely region,
in appearance resembling the Saskatchewan country. There was an
old Hudson's Bay cattle station here, at that time deserted, and
here, too, we were charmed with a mirage of indescribable beauty,
an enchanting portal to the mighty Peace, which we reached about
mid-day on the 15th of July.

The view up the Peace River from the high prairie level is
singularly beautiful, the river disclosing a series of reaches,
like inland lakes, far to the west, whilst from the south comes
the immense valley of the Heart, and, farther up, the Smoky River,
a great tributary which drains a large extent of prairie country
mixed with timber.

To the north spreads upward, and backward to its summit, the vast
bank of the river, varied as to surface by rounded bare hills and
valleys and flats sprinkled with aspens, cherries, and saskatoons,
the latter loaded with ripe fruit.

The banks of the Peace River are a country in themselves, in
which, particularly on the north side, numerous homesteads might
be, and indeed have been, carved out. Descending to the river,
we found a Hudson's Bay Company and Police post. The river here
is about a third of a mile wide, and was in freshet, with a
current, we thought, of about six miles an hour.

At Smoky River we met a couple of prospectors, Mr. Tryon, a nephew
of the ill-fated Admiral, and Mr. Cooper Blachford, down from the
Poker Flat mining-camp, this side the Finlay Rapids, in the Selwyn
Mountains. They reached that camp by way of Ashcroft, B.C., in
twenty-two days, the Peace River route being very much longer and
more difficult. They described the camp there