veyed in two of these sledges; the third, drawn by four dogs, was reserved for me. I found this mode of traveling quite a novelty; and on the glittering ice of the rivers and lakes, it was particularly convenient and agreeable. The third day we encamped near Black Eagle lake, which abounds in white-fish; on the 6th, we arrived at Fort Assiniboin, built in a meadow on the river Athabasca, where it is 233 fathoms broad, which breadth it seen-is to preserve more or less until it leaves the Rocky Mountains; its current is extremely rapid. In the spring it can be descended in three days from Fort jasper to Fort Assiniboin, a distance of
more than 300 miles. With our sledges we were nine days accomplishing the journey. The bed of the river is studded with islands, which, by their various positions and features, render the prospect very agreeable. Its shores are covered with thick forests of pine intersecting rocks and high hills which embellish and give a touch of the picturesque to the general monotony of the desert.
The principal branches are the Pembina, which measures 464 feet across - the river des Avirons, 128 feet; the river des Gens Libres, McLeod's Fork, and Baptist Berland river, are about eighty fathoms wide at their mouth. The rivers du Vieux, du Milieu, des Prairies and des Roches form beautiful currents. Lake jasper, eight miles in length, is situated at the base of the first great mountain chain. The fort of the same name, and the second lake, are twenty miles higher, and in the heart of the mountains. The rivers Violin and Medicine on the southern side, and the Assiniboin on the northern, must be crossed to arrive there, and to reach the height of land at the Committee's Punch Bowl, we cross the rivers Maline, Gens de Colets, Miette and Trou, which we ascended to its source. The river Medicine mingles its waters with those of the north branch of the Saskatchewan; the Assiniboin and Gens de Colets with those of the Boucane, a tributary of Peace river. The waters of the Miette have their source upon the same height with some branches of the river Frazer, which crosses New Caledonia.