n conclusion, that the Upper
Peace River country is a very fine one, drained by a vast and
navigable river, compared with which the Saskatchewan must yield
the palm, and, beyond doubt, this will be the first region to
attract settlement and railway development.

Aside from settlers and a railway, the chief needs of the country
are a good waggon-road to Edmonton and mail facilities, which
were almost non-existent when we were there, but which have
recently been to some extent supplied. Nearly three months had
elapsed since we entered the country, and not a letter or paper
had reached us from the outer world at any point. The imports
into the country were increasing very fast, and, through
competition and fashion, its principal furs were immensely
more valuable than in the past.

As for the natives of the region, we found them a very worthy
people, whose progress in the forms of civilized life, and to a
certain extent in its elegances, was a constant surprise to us.
As for the country, it was plain that all we met were making a good
living in it, not by fur alone, but by successful farming, and that
its settlement was but a question of time.

Chapter VII

Down The Peace River.

We had now to descend the river, and our first night in the boats
was a bad one. A small but exceedingly diligent variety of mosquito
attacked us unprepared; but no ordinary net could have kept them
out, anyway. It was a case of heroic endurance, for Beelzebub
reigned. The immediate bank of the river was now somewhat low
in places, and along it ran a continuous wall, or layer, of
sandstone of a uniform height. The stream was vast, with many
islands in its course, and whole forests of burnt timber were
passed before we reached Battle River, 170 miles down, and which,
on the 25th, we left behind us towards evening. Next morning we
reached Wolverine Point, a dismal hamlet of six or seven cabins,
with a graveyard in their midst. The majority of the half-breeds
of the locality had collected here, the others being out hunting.
This is a good farming country. Eighteen miles north-west of
Paddle River there is a prairie, we were told, of rich black
soil, twenty-five miles long and from one to five miles wide,
and another south-west of Wolverine, about nine miles in
diameter and thirty-six in circumference--clean prairie and
good soil, and covered with luxuriant grass and pea-vine. The
latter, I think, is watered by a stream called "The Keg,"