Extract of McConnell's Journal in Dawson's Report 1887

185 EXTRACTS FROM REPORT ON AN EXPLORATION IN THE YUKON AND MACKENZIE BASINS BY R. G. McCONNELL, B. A., 1887-1888. Note.—The following pages include parts of the Report of Mr. McConnell on his exploration of 1887-88, relating to the Yukon District and adjacent northern portion of British Columbia. The description of the routes followed begins at the confluence of the Dease and Liard rivers (See p. 94) and includes all that part of the Liard River which flows through northern British Columbia, observations made in the Mackenzie valley proper are omitted and the description is resumed at Fort MacPherson, on Peel River, near the head of the Mackenzie Delta, whence the northern extension of the Rocky Mountains was crossed to Lapierre House. The Porcupine River was then descended to its confluence with the Yukon, which latter river is described as far as the site of old Fort Selkirk; Mr. McConnell’s work of 1888 connecting this place with that of Dr. Dawson in the previous year. The geological notes extracted from the report are likewise limited to the region covered by the above description.

186 DESCRIPTION OF ROUTES. LIARD RIVER. Mouth of the Dease River to the Devil’s Portage The Liard River is one of the three principal tributaries of Mackenzie, the other two being the Athabasca and the Peace. It has its sources west of the Rocky Mountains, one of its branches reaching to within one hundred and fifty miles of the sea, and drains the eastern part of the broken country lying between that range and the Coast Mountains. Its branches spread through four degrees of latitude from 58° N. to 62° N., and interlock with those of the Yukon, Stikine, Skeena, and Peace rivers. In its upper part it divides at intervals into four nearly equal streams, the Mud or Black River, Dease River, Francis [Frances] River, and the branch which retains the common name. Of these the latter and the Francis River were examined by Dr. Dawson in 18878, and the following account treats of the main river from the junction with the Dease to its mouth, a distance of about 470 miles. Rising in the elevated country west of the Rocky Mountains, the Liard falls rapidly towards the east, the difference in elevation between the mouth of the Dease and the Mackenzie amounting to nearly 1650 feet, and is characterized nearly everywhere by impetuous currents, by dangerous rapids and narrow whirlpool-filled cañons. The descent of the river is greatest and its rapids most numerous, while passing through, and for some distance on either side of the Rocky Mountains. After leaving the foothills it is free from interruptions until near its junction with the Mackenzie, where a series of strong riffles occurs. The Liard River was used for a number of years by the H. B. Co., as a trading route to the Yukon, and a line of posts extending from Fort Simpson on the Mackenzie, to Fort Selkirk at the junction of the Lewes and Pelly was established by the company, but the expense incurred in overcoming the great length of difficult navigation made the trade unprofitable, and most of the posts have been long since abandoned. At the present time a trading post exists at the mouth of the Dease, but it is supplied from the Pacific by way of the Stikine and Dease River. The Liard has also been used to some extent by prospectors and miners, the discoverers of the Cassier goldfields, Messrs. McCullough and Thibert having ascended it from Fort Simpson to the mouth of the Dease in 1871-72

187 Information in regard to the Liard previous to the present exploration was exceedingly limited, as notwithstanding the use which had been made of it by fur traders and miners, no survey of the river had ever been made, and its course as laid down on existing maps was found naturally to be extremely incorrect, in some places being fully one hundred miles out of position. The best sketch of the river I could obtain was one drawn by Mr. Thibert who had ascended the river eighteen years before. The published descriptions also were of the vaguest hearsay character. Sir J. Richardson gives a few notes in regard to the lower part in his “Journal of a Boat Voyage through Rupert’s Land,” and Abbé E. Petitot writes of it in the following manner:-- I only went up the Liard river a few miles, but all the voyageurs who had navigated it agree on a terrifying description of its peaked mountains, its chasms and the eddies caused by a fast current squeezed between rocks. To go down this dizzying river with safety, the Métis helmsmen lash themselves to the deck ['pont'] of their boat so as not to be thrown into the white water. To find another such scene one would have to confront the perils of Charybdis or the gyrations of the Maelstrom. The present survey is only intended as a provisional one, and was made by estimating the rate according to measurements made at intervals along the shore and taking the bearings with a prismatic compass. Observations for latitude were also taken whenever practicable, and serve as a useful check on the traverse. We left the mouth of the Dease River on the 26th of June, in a small wooden boat which was built by ourselves at Dease Lake. The party consisted besides myself of two white men, Louis Trépanier and John McLeod. Besides these, I also engaged a couple of Indians to accompany us as far as the Devil’s Portage, but they deserted at the first difficulty which presented itself. The natives along this part of the Liard are very inferior canoemen, and are afraid to venture onto the river except in its smoothest portions. The seldom ascend the river with canoes, as they prefer carrying their outfit along the shore to tracking a boat against the rapid current, and in descending use small spruce bark canoes, which they can build in a couple of hours and abandon without much loss. They belong to the Kas-ka branch of the great Tinnéh [Dene] family, and are commonly referred to as the Grand Lake Indians. __________________________________________ ¹ Bulletin de la Société de Géographie, Paris, 1875.

188 The Liard River below the mouth of the Dease has a general; width of from two hundred and fifty to four hundred yards, but widens out in places to over a half a mile, and a current of four miles and one-half an hour. It separates in places into a number of channels inclosing low alluvial islands usually well wooded. Its valley is from two to three miles wide, and is shallow with rolling banks sloping easily up to the general level. The country is everywhere well wooded, but the trees are usually small, seldom exceeding a foot in diameter. The principal varieties observed were the black pine (Pinus Murrayana), the White spruce (Picea alba), and the smooth and roughbarked poplars (Populus tremuloides and balsamifera.) Besides these, groves of larch were occasionally seen, and some varieties of willow and alder. Twelve miles below the mouth of the Dease the Liard receives a large tributary from the north. This stream is over a hundred yards wide, and is called the Highland [Hyland] River, after a prospector who ascended it for some distance. On the older maps it is named the McPherson River. In the direction from which it comes are some low hills at a distance of four to five miles, behind which appear snowy mountains. From the mouth of the Dease River, the Liard runs in a general E.S.E direction for eighteen miles, and then making a sharp bend to the north, runs for about the same distance in a direction nearly at right angles to its former course. Below the bend the river, for twelve miles is wide and filled with islands, after which it gradually decreases in width, and this, with the steeper slopes of the valley and the increasing strength of the current, which occasionally breaking into occasional riffles now hurries along at a rate of seven miles an hour, all afford signs of out approach to the Little Cañon, of the dangerous character of which we had been previously warned, and which soon comes into view. The Little Cañon is about half a mile long, and in its narrowest place about two hundred feet wide. It is easily navigated in low water, but is dangerous for small boats during flood, as the channel is very crooked, and the current striking with great violence against the right hand bank is thrown forcibly back, with the production of a number of breakers running nearly lengthwise with the direction of the channel, and large enough to swamp any ordinary river-boat which is drawn among them. A number of Chinamen were drowned at this point some years ago. The canon can be run with safety by entering it nearly in the middle of the stream, which is as close to the left hand bank as the lines of reefs and isolated rocks running out from that side will allow, and once past these making all haste to the left so as to

189 clear the breakers below. In high water the rapid can be avoided by making a portage of about a half a mile along the right bank. Rock-exposures are infrequent in the valley of the Liard between the mouth of the Dease and the Little Cañon, but those observed will be described in order. Three miles below the mouth of the Dease is a small exposure of somewhat soft dark shales associated with friable sandstones and conglomerates. A second exposure of the same beds was observed about a mile farther down the river, where they dip N. 60° W.<20°, beyond which they disappear. These rocks are unfossiliferous, but from their lithological characters, and the fact that they overlie unconformably the hard quartzites, slates and limestones, of the neighborhood, were referred to the Tertiary. At the mouth of Highland River, on a small island, is an exposure of hard whitish sandstone, passing into quartzite. This rock weathers yellow, and dips N. 50° E.< 50°. Six miles farther down, at a bend which the river makes to the north, is a cut-bank showing unconsolidated sands, sandy clays and gravels, and holding some small beds of impure lignite. Below this, with the exception of rolled river gravels, no further exposures were seen until near the Little Cañon, when black shales appear in a couple of places. The rocks in the Little Cañon consist of dark and sometimes cleaved shales, holding large flattened ironstone nodules, hard sandstones and quartzites, and some beds of fine-grained, hard siliceous conglomerate. They are closely folded together and strike N. 35° W. No fossils were found in any of these beds, nor any definite evidence of their age obtained, beyond the fact that the shales have a close lithological resemblance, both in appearance and composition, with those of the Dease River, from which Dr. Dawson obtained graptolites of Utica-Trenton age. Below the Little Cañon the river widens out to over half a mile, and the steep, rocky banks are replaced with easier slopes of gravel and sand. These continue for three miles, after which shales and sandstones reappear in the bank, and their confining influence is immediately seen in the rapid contraction of the stream and the formation of a second narrows. These sudden dilatations and contractions constitute one of the most characteristic features of the Liard, and are an indication of the heterogeneity of the formations through which it cuts. Through the defile just mentioned the stream rushes with great velocity, but with an even current until near its foot, where it is forced between two points of rock scarcely a hundred feet apart, which project into the stream from either bank and determine the formation of two rapidly gyrating and dangerous-looking whirlpools. These can be avoided, if necessary, by

190 making a portage of a few feet across one of the points. In ordinary stages of the water, however, they can be run without difficulty. At this point the shales, sandstones and conglomerates which have been exposed at intervals all the way from the mouth of the Dease, are replaced by shaly limestone and soon afterwards by more massive varieties of the same rock. Beyond the narrows, the river at once resumes its ordinary dimensions, and rushing rapidly around a short bend, enters one of the most picturesque portions of the valley of the Liard. The river here averages about three hundred yards in width, and glides along with a strong even current of about five miles an hour. It is narrowly confined by sloping banks, which follow closely all the bendings of the stream, without any intervening flats, or, except at low water, any disfiguring bars and beaches. The valley is everywhere densely wooded with evergreens, aspens, birch and alder, the changing greens of which are agreeably relieved at intervals by gray limestone cliffs, which rise steeply from the water’s edge, and ruffle the surface of the otherwise glassy stream. Eight miles below the entrance to this portion of the river is situated Porcupine Bar, once the scene of active mining operations, but now worked out and abandoned. Opposite to it is a range of low hills, at the base of which I camped somewhat early on the afternoon of the 28th, for the purpose of ascending them and so obtaining a view of the surrounding country. These hills extend in an irregular manner for some miles along the left bank of the river, but appear to have no definite trend. They have the rounded outlines that characterize all glaciated districts, but no striae were anywhere observed. They are composed of limestone and have an altitude of 1550 feet above the river, or one thousand feet above the general plateau-level. From their base stretches, in all directions, an irregular rolling plateau, broken here and there by ranges of low hills and dotted with innumerable small lakes and marshes. To the south the horizon is broken by the serrated crests and jagged summits of the Cassiar Range, one prominent peak bearing S. 20º W. In a direction N. 25º W., at a distance of twelve to fifteen miles, are some low hills still covered with streaks of snow, while a range of partially snow-clad hills was also seen at S. 26º E. The plateau is everywhere densely wooded, the principal trees observed being the white spruce, the black pine, the larch, the rough and smooth barked poplars, the birch, and species of alder and willow. Of the spruce, which attains here a diameter of fifteen to twenty inches, is by far the most abundant and valuable.

191 Then limestone of which the hills are formed is usually grayish in colour and rather compact, but passes in many places into a whitish highly crystalline vasriety without distinct bedding. It has a general strike of N. 15° W. It is destitute of determinable fossils, but holds fragments of crinoid stems, and traces of brachiopods and trilobites. From Porcupine Bar, the river runs S. S. E. for some miles and then bending more to the south, preserves a general southerly direction for ten or twelve miles, when it is closed in by a nameless cañon. In this reach it presents the same features as those noted above, but its valley is somewhat wider, and is now bottomed by long narrow well wooded flats. Also the bed of the river becomes considerably enlarged in places and divides around a number of islands. The banks of the valley have an average height of five hundred feet and show frequent exposures of whitish coarsely crystalline, grayish, fine-grained limestone, striking a few degrees west of north and dipping at all angles. Four miles and a-half below Porcupine Bar, is Bed-rock Bar, now like the former deserted. Eight miles farther down is another abandoned miner’s camp now represented by a single log hut. Passing this, the river bends more to the north and divides around a rock island, on either side of which is a short riffle, then runs with an even current of about four miles an hour to the cañon mentioned above. This cañon is scarcely a hundred yards in length, and is bounded by precipitous limestone cliffs about one hundred fifty feet apart. It presents no obstacle to navigation. Immediately below the cañon the river dilates for some distance into a large island-filled basin, beyond which it contracts again to its ordinary width of three or four hundred yards, and runs with a swift even current in an easterly direction for five miles, when its course is interrupted by the Cranberry Rapids. The limestones seen along this part of the river are often coarsely crystalline and cut up by white calc-spar veins. Other varieties show wavy lines projecting from weathered surfaces, due to alternating magnesian and calcerous layers, and closely resemble in this respect the limestones of the Castle Mountain group as developed along the Bow River Pass. In some places the limestone becomes shaly and impure, and is altered into an imperfectly developed schist. Two miles above Cranberry Rapids, the limestones are replaced by shales, sandstones and conglomerates, and a change is immediately noticeable in the character of the stream. The declivity is greatly increased, and for the next fifty miles rapids are of constant occurrence. The rough water at Cranberry portage has a total length of a mile and a-half, but there is a reach of comparatively undisturbed water

192 about half way down. The upper part of the rapid is exceedingly wild, as the bed of the river is filled with huge angular masses of rocks against which the current breaks with frightful violence. No part of the channel is clear, and a glance at the forbidding array of foaming breakers and whirling eddied showed at once the utter hopelessness of any attempt to run it with our small, heavily laden boat. We passed it by portaging our outfit about a half a mile along the right bank, then dropping the empty boat with a rope, and at the worst places dragging it across points of rock. The lower part of the rapid is not so rough, and we managed to work our boat through this without unloading. The rocks at the Cranberry Rapids, consist of shales, limestones and conglomerates, closely resembling those observed at the Little Cañon and evidently of the same age. The shales are dark, finely laminated, and occasionally show well marked cleavage lines. There are interstratified in places with the sandstones, lighter coloured than the shales, are hard and often pass into quartzites. The conglomerates are very fine-grained, and consist principally of white, well rounded quartz pebbled imbedded in a siliceous matrix. The shales and accompanying beds are broken through and altered to some extent by a series of dykes. They have a general easterly strike, and lie at all angles from horizontal to vertical. On the opposite side of the river, an exposure of soft shales and conglomerates, resting uncomformably on the beds just described, and evidently of Tertiary age, was observed, but was not closely examined, owing to the impossibility of getting across to it. Below the rapids the river hurries on with a smoother surface but with scarcely diminished velocity, its strength being shown by the way it foams around occasional rocky obstructions in its course. It is bordered for some distance by large eddies, between which and the downward current are dangerous looking whirlpools. Farther down is a long but easily navigable riffle, beyond which, with the exception of an occasional rock, the channel remains comparatively clear until the stream variously known as Black, Mud, or Turnagain River is reached. This stream, although one of the principal affluents of the Liard, is at present almost unknown. It originates near the Finlay Branch of the Peace River, and joins the Liard after a course of about two hundred and fifty miles. At its mouth is over one hundred and twenty yards wide. Eighty miles above its mouth is situated a small trading post, built some years ago by Mr. Rufus Sylvester, but now

193 in the possession of the Hudson’s Bay Co. This post is connected with the central post at the mouth of McDame Creek on Dease River by a pack trail almost seventy miles long. From Mud River the Liard bends more to the north, and, still running with great rapidity and breaking into occasional riffles, reaches, in a couple of miles, the Mountain Portage Rapids, one of the worst rapids met with on the trip. The river here falls over a band of shales irregularly hardened by a system of dykes and worn into a succession of ridges and hollows, and the roughened surface thus produced throws the hurrying waters into an indescribable turmoil. We landed at the head of the rapids on the right bank, and we were forced to spend a day in making a difficult portage of about a half a mile with both boat and outfit. I afterwards learned from W. Lépine, an old Hudson’s Bay voyageur, that we might have avoided this portage if we had landed on the left hand side, as what we supposed was mainland was really an island, behind which a small channel existed which can be run with comparative safety. [Scout this channel before you believe it! It can be scouted from the road.] Half a mile below Mountain Portage, Rabbit River comes in from the south. This stream is about two hundred feet wide, and brings in a large volume of clear water. At its mouth is a large auriferous bar, which has evidently been worked by placer miners to a considerable extent. I was, however, unable to obtain any information in regard to it. Below Rabbit River the channel is clear for a couple of miles, and then dancing whitecaps on ahead indicate the presence of another rapid. In the next mile the river the river alternately narrows in and expands three times, and falls over short but strong riffles at each constriction, all of which can be avoided, if necessary, by making portages a few yards in length. The behavior of the water in the dilated basins is somewhat peculiar, as it seems, viewed from the bank, to be running in all directions and to be split into a network of cross currents. At the lower narrows three ugly looking whirlpools are formed by the rapidly contracting stream endeavoring to crowd its way through the narrow channel, while the water sucked down by the whirlpools is thrown up a little farther down in huge boils and with a sound resembling the rumbling of distant thunder. The whirlpools occur near the left side, and can be passed in safety by keeping to the right bank. From Cranberry Portage to Whirlpool Cañon, the point now reached in the description of the river, numerous exposures of the same shale, sandstone and conglomerate series previously described are everywhere present, and to the heterogeneity of this formation are mostly due the numerous rapids which occur on this portion of the river, the

194 harder bands narrowing in and damming back the stream, while the softer and more easily eroded parts have acquired a more uniform slope. The shales and associated beds are everywhere greatly disturbed and usually dip at high angles. They have a general south-easterly strike. At Whirlpool Cañon the shales disappear and are replaced by a shaly variety of limestone. From Whirlpool Cañon the river flows swiftly around a sharp bend at the extremity of which it receives Coal River, and after a clear course of four miles, plunges over the rapids at Portage Brûlé. Coal River is a small, clear stream about a hundred feet wide, and is interesting on account of the quantity of lignite which it brings down. At the time of our visit a bar at its mouth was thickly strewn with large angular and apparently little-traveled blocks of this mineral. The fresh appearance of the lignite induced me to spend part of a day, while the men were packing across Portage Brûlé, in exploring for the bed from which it originated, but a walk of several miles up the stream failed to reveal its preence in situ, although an abundance of drift fragments was everywhere noticed. The lignite is of inferior quality, It is soft and shows a well-marked woody structure. The banks of Coal River, as far as my examination extended, are low, and consist of uncemented sands, clays and gravel, like those holding the lignite beds above the Little Cañon. This formation is of irregular thickness, but of wide distribution, as it was observed filling depressions of the older rocks all the way from the mouth of the Dease to the passage of the Rockies. Portage Brûlé is nearly two miles long, and leads across a nearly level, wooded flat, which, at the upper end of the portage, is only elevated a few feet above the surface of the river, but at the lower end is terminated by a sharp descent of over two hundred feet. A good track was cut across this portage when mining was being prosecuted on the Liard, and a windlass built at the east end for the purpose of hoisting boats up the steep bank, both of which are still in good condition. It was at the lower end of this portage, in the year 1836, that a party of Hudson’s Bay voyageurs, bound on a trading expedition to the Stikine, after carrying their packs up the hill, were seized with a panic caused by the supposed approach of a band of hostile Indians, and, abandoning their outfit, fled for safety down the river. In the succeeding year Mr. Robert Campbell found the goods in the same position in which they had been left. The rapids at Portage Brûlé do not look so formidable as those at Mountain Portage, and if I had examined them before making the

195 portage I would have been strongly tempted to try and run them with the empty boat. They are about two miles long, and are caused by numerous limestone blocks and small islands obstructing the channel. At the lower end the river is narrowly confined by high vertical cliffs. The rocks observed along the river from Whirlpool Cañon to the lower end of Portage Brûlé consist altogether of different varieties of limestone. This occurs in some places in massive beds, ranging in texture from compact to moderately crystalline. In other places it becomes very impure and shaly, and often passes into imperfectly developed calc-shists. No fossils were obtained from it, but it has a close lithological resemblance to the limestone occurring above Cranberry Rapids, and to the Castle Mountain group of the Bow River section, and is probably of Cambro-Silurian age. After freeing ourselves from the rapids at Portage Brûlé, no farther obstacles to navigation were encountered until the Devil’s Portage was reached. The river is wide and filled with low islands and bars, some of which are auriferous, McCullough’s Bar, on which gold in paying quantities was first discovered on the Liard, occurs in this vicinity, but I was unable to identify it. The river valley is now lined with rows of terraces rising up to a height of several hundred feet, and clothed in unwooded portions by as luxuriant a growth of grasses and vetches I have ever seen in any part of the country. Behind the terraces is a gently undulating region, occasionally swelling into elevations of from 1200 to 1500 feet in height, and everywhere densely forested, chiefly with white spruce. To the eastward the elevations increase in height and frequency until they merge into the range of the Rocky Mountains, the dim outline of which can now be seen along the eastern horizon. This part of the country, judging from the luxuriance of the vegetation and the character of the soil, seems well adapted for agricultural purposes, but the complete absence of climatic statistics render any positive statements in this connection premature. On the present trip at the Little Cañon, large snow banks were observed in sheltered places along the banks of the river as late as the 28th of June. It must be borne in mind, however, that the spring of 1887 in this part of the country was an exceptionally late one. Ten miles below Portage Brûlé, Smith River comes in from the north. This is a small stream about one hundred feet wide, and appears to originate in a north-westerly spur from the Rocky Mountains, visible in the distance. At its mouth was situated Fort Halkett, a Hudson’s Bay trading post which has been abandoned since 1865. I found no traces of the post.

196 Near the mouth of the Smith River, a number of exposures of dark shales were observed. These shales are much softer than those seen farther up the river, and are probably of Mesozoic age. They were traced down the river for several miles, and are then replaced by limestones. No fossils were found in them. From Fort Halkett, the mountains appear quite close and the river runs swiftly in an E. S. E. direction straight towards a narrow gap which now appears in their ranks. Before entering this, we pass, on the right hand side, the mouth of the Rivière des Vents. This river comes from a large lake a few miles south of Fort Halkett, from which the fish supply of the post was obtained. It cuts off from the main range a steep sided, massive looking mountain, which I named Mt. Read in honor of Mr. Reid[sic], the Hudson’s Bay officer at present in charge of Fort Providence and an old traveller in these regions. From Rivière des Vents we approached the gap cautiously, on the lookout for the Devil’s portage and rapids, but, much to our surprise, passed through without hindrance, and in a few minutes found ourselves among the rolling foothills on the eastern side of the range. The mountains here are narrowed to a single range, and even this, a few miles north of the river seems to skirt the northern extremity of what may be considered the main division of the Rocky Mountain system. The Rocky Mountains, regarded as forming the eastern mountain system of the Cordillera, are consequently interrupted in this part of their length. The range of which the northern extremity is here found has a length of over 1000 miles. It extends uninterruptedly southward to the International Boundary, and is further continued into Montana to about lat. 46°. The width of this persistent mountain range probably averages throughout about fifty miles; and its main physical and geological features are almost identical in all parts of its length. Where the particular line of crumpling and upheaval of the earth’s crust to which this range is due dies away at the Liard, another similar line begins, nearly at the same latitude, but about eighty miles farther to the east. The mountain range produced by this new line of disturbance extends northward nearly parallel to the general course of the Mackenzie to the Arctic Ocean. South of the Liard, the bare limestone ridges are ranged in parallel lines, and are surmounted by large zigzag knife-edges, or jagged serrated crests. The ridges have a general strike of N. 30° W. The spur of the mountains which crosses the river consists of a grayish and

197 moderately compact limestone. The beds are at first nearly horizontal, but are soon thrown into almost vertical attitudes, and have the appearance of a sharp anticline. Several of the exposures were examined unsuccessfully for fossils, and the only specimens collected here consist of some fragments of corals which were found loose at the mouth of Rivière des Vents, and resemble those occurring in the Intermediate limestone of the Bow River section. The limestones are exposed along the river for six miles, and are then covered with dark shales similar to those from which the Triassic fossils were afterward obtained. It is noteworthy that in the Liard section dark shales of Mesozoic age are found resting on both flanks of the mountain, and are not confined to the eastern slope, as is the case farther south. East of the passage of the Rockies, the mountains gradually recede from the river towards the south, and are replaced by high rounded and well wooded hills and ridges built of dark shales, numerous exposures of which occur all along the banks of the river. The shales undulate at all angles, and do not appear to have any predominating dip in toward the mountains such as characterizes them in other localities. They are interstratified in places with beds of quartzite, and are, so far as I could learn, completely unfossiliferous. Since leaving Portage Brûlé the river had remained wonderfully sm ooth, and we had the pleasure of passing one night away from the roar of a rapid, and without the usual prospect of having the next morning either to run a rapid or make a portage. The river here has an average width of four hundred yards, and a steady current of about four and a-half miles an hour. It is bordered in places by long gravel and sand beaches, and incloses occasionally wooded islands. Ten miles east of the gap, Trout River joins the Liard from the south. This is a swift, clear mountain stream about a hundred and fifty feet wide, which seems to cut back into and drain the central range. Below Trout River the Liard bends abruptly to the north for some distance, and then, turning to the east, continues on with an ever increasing current, between banks which gradually become steeper and higher until they develop into a wide cañon. We had been on the lookout for the Devil’s Rapids ever since leaving the Rivière des Vents, and the threatening appearance of the river and valley indicated that we were approaching them at last, we dropped down cautiously along the right bank, watching carefully all the time for signs of the old portage. We failed to discover any, but landed at what seemed to be the last break in the almost vertical cliffs, with which the river was now bordered, and just at the head of a long easy riffle. Looking down the river ominous streaks of white could be seen in a couple

198 of places, stretching from bank to bank, while the familiar roar of the clashing water was plainly audible. On landing we found, after a short search, traces of the old portage-track, and the next few days were spent carrying our outfit across. The river at this point makes a great bend to the north-east, all around which is a succession of rapids and cañons. At the elbow of the bend a large fall is reported. At the lower end of the bend the river is reduced to a mere thread, as it is scarcely a hundred and fifty wide, and as fully a third of this is occupied by the shore eddies, its bed must be eroded to an enormous depth. Immediately below the contracted part is a large eddy, and the river expands at once to a half a mile in width. THE DEVIL'S PORTAGE TO HELL GAET [sic]. The portage across the bend proved, greatly to our satisfaction, to be less than four miles instead of twelve, as we had been informed and expected. It is, however, very difficult, as it passes over a ridge fully a thousand feet high, on both sides of which the slopes are exceedingly steep. The old portage-track was easily followed among the heavy timber for some distance after leaving the upper end, but going east, it became gradually overgrown with brushwood and at last disappeared, and we were obliged to cut a new one for ourselves. This track was cleared by Messrs. McCullough and Thibert in 1871 for the purpose of hauling their boat across, and it speaks somewhat favourably for the activity of forest growth in this region that it should now be covered with shrubs and small trees several inches in diameter. In crossing the portage, we started several moose, and it may be mentioned here that the country we have been passing through and as far as Hell Gate is probably the best moose country in North America. Everywhere we landed, fresh tracks in abundance were observed. We killed one at the mouth of Rivière des Vents and another farther down near Crow River, and could have shot a number of others if so desired. At the “Rapids of the Drowned” we scared three into the river, but these unfortunately attempted to swim the rapids and were drowned. They were found afterwards some distance below lodged in a drift-pile. Their abundance is due to the fact that the country is practically uninhabited. After leaving the Little Cañon we saw no Indians nor any traces of them, such as old camps, abandoned canoes, old cuttings, etc., anywhere along the river. The country in question forms a kind of neutral ground between the

199 Indians trading east and west of the mountains, and is also difficult of access on account of the danger in navigating the river. The absence of Indians and the consequent immunity from hunting enjoyed by the moose since the abandonment of old Fort Halkett, has resulted in a great natural increase in their numbers. Besides, as they are persistently hunted in the adjoining country on either side of the mountains, by the bands of Indians trading at Fort Liard and at the mouth of the Dease River respectively, many of them must escape into this district as a "city of refuge." The beaver is also abundant, and, like the moose, appears to have thriven in the absence of their hereditary enemies. Grizzly bears were reported to be especially common on the Devil's Portage, but we did not meet with any. We spent altogether six days on the Devil's Portage crossing our outfit and framing a boat. We found that it would be impossible to cut out a track and haul our heavy wooden boat up the steep hills on the portage without wasting more time than we could well spare, and decided, somewhat reluctantly, to abandon it. To meet such an emergency I had provided myself, before leaving Ottawa, with a roll of stout canvas sewn up in the shape of a boat, and this we at once proceeded to put into shape. It was stretched on a stout plank hewn out of a small pine tree. Spruce poles, to which the canvas was firmly sewn, were used as gunwales, and willow withes for ribs, while slips to lay between the ribs and the canvas were easily cut. We painted the canvas with a half gallon of oil, which had been brought along for the purpose, but this did not prevent it from leaking badly, and we were obliged to give it a second coat, made up of everything oleaginous which we still possessed. This mixture consisted of sperm candles, gun oil and bacon grease stirred up with spruce gum, and proved effective in keeping out the water. Our new boat was not well suited to running heavy rapids, especially where heavy turns had to be made to avoid rocks, but was quite serviceable in ordinary water and on easy riffles. Below the Devil's Portage for thirty or forty miles the river flows through what is called the Grand Cañon, but it is more correctly a succession of short cañons with expanded basins between, filled with eddying currents. In low water the whole of this reach can be easily run in any kind of a boat, but in the season of high floods such as it was when we passed through, the water forcing its way through the throat-like constrictions is thrown into a commotion too violent for any but the staunchest boats to stand. The cañon is reported to have been run in two hours, which would be at the rate of about eighteen miles an hour, an astonishing velocity, but the time was probably underesti-

200 mated. It took us several days to get through, but we were obliged to make a number of short portages and one of over three miles in length. We launched our canvas boat and commenced the descent of the Grand Cañon on the 16th July. I had previously explored the river for some distance and knew that we had nothing serious to encounter for several miles. The river is at first wide and incloses a number of islands. As we proceed the bordering banks close in, become higher and steeper, while the current runs with increasing impetuosity, until, rounding a bend, it breaks into foam against a barrier of rocks which intercepts its course. We passed this by a small portage and then continued our headlong course down the river, but were soon stopped again by a succession of bad riffles. In the next couple of miles we ran through a number of wild places, the canvas boat riding the waves gallantly, but were forced to make one or two short portages and then enter a deep gloomy defile, walled in by black vertical cliffs. The river here, is however, less boisterous and flows with a steadier current. Part way down the cañon a couple of small islets with steep rocky banks divide the stream into several channels. These were soon left behind, and then hurrying through a second narrow pass we came out on a wider portion of the river. In the next twelve miles the river is generally wide and shallow and filled with gravel bars. The current is swift, running at the rate of seven miles an hour, but the navigation is easy. At the end of this reach it bends to the north, and striking violently against some somber cliffs which line the left hand bank, is deflected again to the east with the formation of what are known as the “Rapid of the Drowned.” Here, one of the most dangerous spots on the river is formed by water plunging with its whole force, over a ledge of rock which curves outwards and downwards from the left hand bank, into a boiling chaudière [boiler] behind. The name of the rapid originated from the drowning at this point of a Hudson’s Bay clerk named Brown, and a boat load of voyageurs. As the story goes, Brown, disregarding the advice of his steersman, insisted on running close to the northern bank, and the canoe plunging into the hole mentioned above was drawn under. We passed the rapid by letting our boat down cautiously with a rope to the chaudière, and then making a short portage. With a proper boat, however, no difficulty would be experienced in crossing the river above the rapid, and running down close to the right bank. Below the “Rapid of the Drowned” is a long riffle, down which we ran at an exciting pace, and then the river is closed in by a hard sand-

201 stone bank, through a narrow gap in which it forces with difficulty a stormy passage. An examination of this convinced me of the impossibility of running it at the present high stage of the water with a boat such as we possessed, and also disclosed the unwelcome fact that a number of similar obstructions existed ahead. In the next four miles the river is closely cañoned in, five times, and falls over a number of riffles. Only some of these are dangerous, but we were forced to portage around the whole reach, owing to the steepness of the banks and the impossibility of getting down to the bottom of the valley except at a few points. Three miles of rapid current followed, and then we reached Hell Gate, so named because it is the entrance from below, to the wild portion of the river we have been descending. At this point there is an abandoned channel on the left hand side, which is navigable in high water, and affords an easy passage through. From the Devil’s Portage to Hell Gate, the rocks noticed on the banks of the river consist mainly of shales, with bands of sandstone at intervals, and occasionally some limestone. Exposures of the latter occur at the east end of the Devil’s Portage, where they are brought up by an antic line from below the shales. They are grayish in colour, are moderately crystalline, and hold fragments of crinoids and other fossils, and evidently belong to the upper part of the Paleozoic series of the mountains. This series was not observed farther east. The shales are usually rather hard and weather into high bold cliffs, which often border the river on either side for miles without a break. They are dark in colour, and as a rule are rather coarsely laminated, but vary greatly in this respect and also in their texture. The shales undulate at all angles, and are continuously exposed all the way down the cañon. They are interstratified with hard grayish and yellowish sandstone, and dark compact limestone. The sandstone occurs in bands, which form constrictions where they cross the river, and in the adjoining country rise into high hills and ridges. The limestones associated with the shales are usually impure and as a rule occur in thin shaly beds, but heavily bedded varieties were also observed at Hell Gate and at other places. No fossils were obtained in descending the cañon until the “Rapids of the Drowned” were reached, where the following species, since described by Mr. Whiteaves and referred by him to the Trias, were obtained.* ----------------------------------------------------------------------- *Contributions to Canadian Paleontology, vol. I, Part II, pages 127-149.

202 Spiriferina borealis, Whiteaves. Terebratula Liardensis, “ Monotis ovalis , “ Halobia (Daonella) Lommelli, Wissman. Halobia occidentalis, Whiteaves Nautilus Liardensis, “ Popanoceras McConnelli, “ Trachyceras Canadense, “ Some miles farther down, at the end of the last cañon before coming to Hell Gate, a second fossil locality was discovered which yielded the followiug species> Terebratula Liardensis, Whiteaves. Trigonodus ? productus, “ Margarita Triassica, “ Popanoceras McConnelli, “ At Hell Gate, three miles below the last, specimens were obtained of -- Trachyceras Canadense, Whiteaves. Terebratula Liardensis, “ The localities from which Triassic fossils were obtained, extend along the river for ten miles, but it is highly probable that the rocks of this age have a much wider distribution than this and include the greater part of the barren shales above the “Rapids of the Drowned,” as well as those below Hell Gate. It will require, however, more time than could be spared on a rapid reconnaissance, to separate precisely the shales which cap the Palæzoic from those of the Trias, and the latter from the Cretaceous. The three terranes are closely allied lithologically and will have to be defined largely from fossil evidence.

203 limestones cease, and at the same time the ridgy and hilly foot-hill district we have been passing through is replaced by a region of high irregular plateaux. The foot-hills along the Liard have a width of 38 miles; and are characterized by a much greater irregularity in altitude than is usually the case. South of the Devil’s Portage, Mount Prudence, a steep-sided, reddish looking mountain, rises abruptly from a surrounding of round topped hills to an estimated height of over 4000 feet. Going east from Mount Prudence, lower elevations prevail until near the “Rapids of the Drowned” where the ridges again commence to increase in elevation, and in a few miles culminate in peaks over 4000 feet high. Still going east they gradually diminish in importance and at last die away and are replaced by flat topped plateaux. This region with the exception of the higher peaks, is everywhere densely forested, chiefly with the white spruce, the Banksian pine and the aspen. After leaving the foot-hill country the river runs in a general direction of N. 30° E. for thirty miles. In this reach it has a steady current of about four and a-half miles an hour, and varies in width from five hundred yards to over a mile. In the wider portions the river is usually divided into several channels by islands and bars. The valley is narrow and trough-like, with steep sides rising up in places to a height of fully a thousand feet. The bottoms are usually small, and are here chiefly wooded by members of the poplar family. Some important tributaries are received by the Liard in this portion of its course, among which is Crow River, which joins it from the north after entering the plateau country, and Toad River, which comes in from a deep gloomy valley four miles farther down. Two miles below Toad River, on the opposite side, is situated Toad River post, which was abandoned when the post on the Nelson established. The buildings are still standing. The geology of the plateau belt is exceedingly simple. The banks of the valley are usually scarped, and show everywhere extensive sections of flat-lying shales. These shales are dark in color, are soft and finely laminated, and are interstratified with small beds of sandstone and ironstone, and layers of ironstone nodules. They are of Cretaceous age, but their mode of junction with the Triassic shales of the foot-hills was not clearly ascertained. Some fossils were collected from this formation about four miles below Toad River, among which are specimens of Placenticeras Perezianum, a species of Camptonectes, and fragments of an Inoceramus. Towards the eastern part of the plateau belt, the shales along the river are overlain by massive beds of soft sand-

204 stone and conglomerate, which form a steep escarpment running parallel with the river. At the end of the northerly reach just described, the river, here over a mile wide and filled with islands, bends slightly at right angles to its former course, and after passing through a narrow gap, enters a much lower country. The steep scarped banks of the plateau district disappear, and are replaced by gently inclined hillsides covered with forest, while the river spreads out and flows for some miles in a multitude of channels through a bewildering maze of islands. The eastern edge of the plateau district faces eastward with a steep slope, and has a height of over a thousand feet. It runs nearly due north-and-south and forms an important feature in the general topography of the country. Where it crosses the river it shows exposures of soft conglomerates dipping lightly in an easterly direction. East of this escarpment Beaver River joins the Liard from the north. This is reported to be a fair sized stream and to be navigable for canoes for a long distance. It empties into the Liard behind a group of islands and we passed it without seeing it. Near the mouth we saw Indians for the first time since leaving the mouth of the Dease. They belonged to Fort Liard, and were on their way up the Beaver to hunt. We endeavored to buy some meat from them, but found that they were totally unacquainted with the use of money, and as we were not supplied with trading goods, or, in fact, with anything except what we wore, it was found impossible to strike a bargain. East of the Beaver the Liard runs in a south-easterly direction for a few miles and makes a couple of sharp bends before joning the Nelson. In the first of these bends, we met a crew of Hudson’s Bay voyageurs in charge of W. Lépine, who were endeavoring to make their way up the river to the mouth of the Dease. Lépine had been employed on the river as a guide, in the old days when goods were taken by this route to the Yukon, and was well acquainted with it. He brought news of a scarcity of provisions in the Mackenzie River District, and this decided me to send my two men back up the river with him, and to depend on the services of natives as canoemen in the future. Lépine had become disheartened by the continued high water and the difficulties of upstream navigation, and when we met him he talked of returning, but we induced him to persevere. A small spruce-bark canoe which an Indian and his wife built in the afternoon, in addition to the large birch canoe which he already possessed, furnished sufficient accommodation for his increased party, and on the 28th July, after a day’s delay, he proceeded up the river. I afterwards learned that with the exception of one upset, caused by the unskilfulness of

205 Trépanier, one of my men, the journey was successfully accomplished and Dease River reached in safety. After separating from Lépine I continued down the river to Fort Liard in the canvas boat, at first in company with an Indian, but for the greater part of the distance entirely alone. After starting we rounded a large bend and then continued in a northerly direction to the mouth of the Nelson, or east branch of the Liard. Nothing has been published concerning the Nelson [1888], but it is reported to be a somewhat sluggish river of about one hundred and fifty or two hundred yards in width. A hundred miles above its mouth is situated Fort Nelson, a Hudson’s Bay trading post. Above the Fort the river divides into two branches, one of which, named Buffalo River, turns west to the mountains, while the other continues on and interlocks with tributaries of Hay River. *In 1872-73 a party of miners crossed from Peace River to the Liard by way of the Nelson on a prospecting trip. They descended Peace River to Half-way River, so called because it is half way between Rocky Mountain Portage and Fort St. John, and ascended the latter partly in canoes and partly on the ice for a hundred miles. They made a portage of twenty-five miles, and reached the Nelson, down which they sledded for sixty miles, and then built boats and came the rest of the way by water. They only mention one portage of half a mile, but describe the river as flowing for a long distance above Fort Nelson, between lofty banks of sandstone and shale. “Colours” of gold were obtained on the Liard at the mouth of the Nelson. At Fort Nelson some farming is annually done, and potatoes and other vegetables are grown without difficulty. The surrounding country is everywhere well forested, and is reported to produce a better grade of timber that any other part of the Mackenzie district. Below the Nelson, the Liard has a generally northerly direction for thirty miles, and then, bending more to the east, follows a N. E. course as far as Fort Liard, fifteen miles farther down, where I arrived on July 29th. In this reach it has undulating shore-lines, but is generally wide and filled with sandbars and wooded islands. It is bordered in many places with wide alluvial flats, covered with tall, straight cottonwood, large spruce, and canoe birch. Its valley is wide and shallow and lines with gently sloping, spruce-clad banks. On some of the flats the Indians have built houses, and fenced in small plots for farming purposes, for which the greater part of this section of the -------------------------------------------------------------------------- * Extracted from a letter by Fred. W. Harte.

206 district seems well adapted. We passed one small Indian farm about thirteen miles below the mouth of the Nelson, and another at the mouth of Fishing Creek, a few miles above Fort Liard, while others were noticed in the lower part of the river. The two principal tributaries of the Liard between the Nelson and Fort Liard are Riviére la Biche and Black River. The former enters it from the N. W., about twenty miles below the Nelson, and the latter from the S. E. at Fort Liard. Black River is the outlet of Lake Bis-tchô, a large lake situated about 120 miles S.S.W. of Fort Providence, and is reported to be navigable with difficulty throughout its entire course in high water. It will afford, with the Nelson and Hay rivers, a ready means of entering and exploring the vast block of unknown country lying between the Liard and Peace River, the Mackenzie and the Rocky Mountains. Since leaving the plateau district the rock exposures observed along the river have been few and small, and consist of dark shales, alternating with sandy shales and sandstones, all of Cretaceous age. Twelve miles below the Nelson an exposure of sandy shales and sandstone yielded an Ostrea like Ostrea subtrigonalis, and at the mouth of the Black River, near Fort Liard, in a hard, crumbly shale, specimens of an Inoceramus were obtained, while the surface of the shale in some places is covered with well marked impressions of gigantic palm leaves, probably belonging to the genus Sabal, which occurs in Vancouver Island in rocks of a similar age. The quaternary deposits in this part of the river are represented by stratified sands and gravels, immediately overlying the shales, and by gneissic erratics, which are distributed everywhere over the surface of the country, and in some places, as at the mouth of the Black River, are present in great profusion. The western limit of the eastern drift along the Liard, judging from the river section, appears to be nearly coincident with the eastern edge of the plateau district, although gneissic fragments were found in the mountains opposite Fort Liard at a somewhat higher elevation. Thirty miles below the Nelson, the Liard approaches, and for the next seventy-five miles hugs closely a chain of mountains which may be considered as a northern division of the Rocky Mountain system, and as the complement of the chain around the northern of which the Liard passes west of the Devil’s Portage. The mountains are not fringed with a belt of foot-hills, such as usually accompany them in other places, but rise abruptly from an almost level plain, and attain at once the full height of about 4000 feet. The folds and fracture to which the mountains are due also seem to die away with startling

207 rapidity. The Liard for fifteen miles above Black River, cuts at a distance of two to five miles directly across the strike of the ranges, and yet the beds along its valley wherever seen are practically undisturbed. While waiting at Fort Liard I climbed one of the ranges to a height of 3000 feet, but obtained little geological information. The rocks were only exposed in a few places, and where seen consisted of western-dipping unfossiliferous chert and cherty limestone. Gneissic fragments apparently belonging to the eastern drift were found up to a height of over 1500 feet. I obtained, however, an extensive view from the summit, over the plains to the eastward. The country in that direction rises gradually from the river in easy undulations, and appears to culminate at a distance of twenty-five or thirty miles in a low plateau through which Black River has cut a wide gap. A dense forest, relieved in places by gleaming lakes and light green marshes, stretches to the horizon. To the north and north-west the eye is met by a succession of bare topped and nearly parallel limestone ridges striking about N. 20° W. and reaching elevations of from 4000 to 5000 feet. Fort Liard is at present the only fort on the Liard below the mouth of the Dease, and is resorted to for trading purposes by about two hundred Indians, most of whom are known as Nahanni or Mountain Indians. Under this term are included a number of tribal divisions of the Tinneh family, but the names of these I was unable to obtain. They are reported to be fast dying off. The fort is situated on a fertile flat, part of which has been cultivated for years with unfailing success. Wheat and barley are grown here year after year, while potatoes, cabbages, turnips and other vegetables are raised without the least difficulty. At the time of my visit, 1st August, all crops were well advanced and in good condition; the barley was just turning colour, and the potatoes were almost large enough to eat. There is no reason, either climatic or otherwise, why the whole country bordering the Liard, from the Beaver River near its mouth, should not, when needed, support an agricultural community. [Near Fort Liard the Liard River crosses the Eastern boundary of British Columbia. All that part of Mr. McConnell’s report as originally printed, that relates to the Mackenzie Valley proper is here omitted.] RAT RIVER Fort Macpherson ws reached on the 25th of June, and as the Mackenzie steamer from which I expected to obtain supplies was not expected down until the 10th of July, a short trip was made up Rat

208 River while awaiting its arrival. At the fort I was informed that neither boats nor canoes could be obtained west of the mountains, but that the boat I had used on the Mackenzie might be portaged across by taking it up Rat River and then through the MacDougal pass to Bell River on the other side. This plan was adopted, and five Indians were sent to try and take it across. They made the portage in seven days. Rat River is represented in Isbister’s map of Peel River, published in 1845, in the journal of the Royal Geographical Society, as rising on the western side of the Rocky Mountains and flowing directly across them. This error was probably caused by the same name being used by the Indians to designate the two stream flowing east and west from the summit of the range. Rat River (east) discharges its waters by two mouths. The north branch empties into one of the delta streams of the Mackenzie, and has not yet been explored, while the south branch joins Peel River about nine miles below Fort Macpherson. When Peel River is in flood the current in the south branch is reversed. Rat River for some miles above its mouth, winds directly through a flat alluvial plain, forming part of the Peel-Mackenzie delta. Its width is about fifty yards, and the current is uniform and easy. Above this reach it enters a lake region, and for several miles connects by short channels a number of small irregular-shaped willow-fringed lakes lying in shallow depressions in the delta. West of the lake region the declivity of the stream rapidly increases, and a few hours hard paddling brought us to the foot of a series of strong rapids which marks the beginning of the ascent towards the mountains. Leaving our canoe here we tramped eight miles across a marshy plain to the foot of the first range, our objective point. For part of the way we traveled along the top of a low narrow ridge, which is probably of morainic origin and is composed, so far as I could learn from the surface, of quartzite pebbles and boulders carried eastward from the mountains. The eastern range of the Rockies where broken through by Rat River, has a nearly north-and-south trend, and rises to an elevation of about 2800 feet. It is built throughout of evenly bedded hard sandstones and quartzites, dipping to the east at an angle of about 30°. No fossils were found in rocks in situ, but in the wash of Long-stick Creek, a tributary of Rat River, which descends from the same range and was crossed on the way, Ammonites and other fossils of Cretaceous age were found. These occur in angular sandstone blocks, evidently derived from the neighbouring mountains, and I have little doubt

209 characterize the formation of which the latter are composed. No limestones, gneisses or granites, were observed. A sub-angular gneissic boulder, representing the eastern drift, was found on the eastern slope of the mountains at a height of 1500 feet. PEEL RIVER PORTAGE On July 10th I decided not to waste any more time waiting for the steamer, as it was impossible to tell how long it might be delayed, and to trust to the chance of finding supplies at Rampart House. I had sent part of my outfit across by some Indians who were returning to Lapierre House, and Mr. Hodgson, after some trouble, succeeded in engaging five others to accompany me and the carry the remainder. The ordinary load for an Indian on this portage is 40 pounds, exclusive of blankets and supplies for the trip, and the tariff for this load is fifteen skins, or seven dollars and a-half, paid in goods. The portage is about sixty miles long, and from four to five days are occupied in the trip. We left the fort late in the afternoon, and ascending the river for a mile and a-half landed on the opposite side and strapped on our packs, while some dogs owned by the Indians were loaded so heavily that they were unable to climb the bank of the river and had to be assisted up. After leaving the river we marched for three miles through a thick spruce forest, and then reached the steep edge of a terrace about one hundred and fifty feet high, up which we climbed. From the top of the terrace, a swampy plain destitute of trees, but covered with willows chiefly of the species Salix arctica and S. glauca, stretches west for nearly four miles, and then a second slope, longer and higher than the first, has to be ascended, at the summit of which the barometer registered a height of twelve hundred feet above the river at the fort. At this elevation the forest has ceased and the shrubs which occur so abundantly on the first terrace have almost disappeared, and are only represented by an occasional stunted specimen of the arctic willow (S. arctica). A small larch (Larix Americana) still survives, but barely attains a height of six or eight feet and a diameter of one to two inches. From the second slope a wide plain reaches westwards to the mountains. The walking here is exceedingly difficult, as the surface is covered with the rounded grassy sods which go in the country by the name of Têtes des femmes. These project a foot or more above the clayey soil, and are the cause of constant stumbling, which becomes somewhat exasperating when one is weighted down with a pack. An attempt to walk on the top of the mounds soon becomes excessively fatiguing, on account of the irregular length of the strides, and a

210 slight miscalculation as to distance precipitates the unlucky traveler down into the muddy depths between. When down, the resolve is usually made, and adhered to for awhile, to keep to the lower levels, but the effort required to step over the intervening hillocks presents obvious disadvantages of a different kind. A walk of five hours, at the rate of about a mile and a-half an hour, brought us to a deep valley occupied by a swift mountain stream, which we forded, and then camped on the opposite bank. This stream, half a mile below camp, joins a small river which falls into Peel River three or four miles above the fort. Its channel is filled with sandstone, and quartzite slabs derived from its banks and from the neighbouring mountains. On the 11th we climbed out of the valley, and, following up the main stream, soon reached the “Gap” from which it emerges from the mountains. A halt of a couple of hours was called here for the purpose of allowing the Indians to add to their store of provisions by killing a mountain sheep which one of them observed on a ledge above. The hunt was successful, and the victim proved to be the interesting Ovis Montani, var. Dalli. This animal resembles the bighorn of the Rocky Mountains to the south in form but is much smaller, weighing scarcely a hundred pounds, and its hair, instead of being tawny, is almost a pure white. The change in colour and size towards the north is evidently a gradual one, as the saddle-backed sheep of the upper Yukon presents characters intermediate between the two extreme varieties. At the “Gap” the pass through the mountains is eight to ten miles in width, but gradually contracts as we advance, and at our second camp, six miles from the mouth, was reduced to about two miles. The inclosing mountains are regular in outline and somewhat tame in appearance, and rise to elevations above the valley from one thousand to two thousand five hundred feet. The bottom of the valley and the lower slopes of the mountains are clothed with coarse grasses and mosses, above which project naked and often precipitous quartzite cliffs. The stream which occupies the valley at the present time is insignificant in size, and is doing little or no erosive work, and this great cleft through the hard quartzite strata is evidently the product of an earlier age, marked by much greater precipitation than the present one. From our second camp a walk of two miles brought us through the first range and out on a wide longitudinal valley which traverses the mountains in a nearly north-and-south direction. The stream we had been following up divides here into two branches, and the prin-

211 cipal one, reduced now to a large sized brook, bends away to the south. After leaving it the trail leads up a long slope covered with Têtes des femmes, and then directly across the valley to an opening in the range ahead. On the farther side of the valley we reached and followed up for a couple of miles a small stream which runs north to the Rat River, and directly afterwards crossed the watershed between the Mackenzie and the Yukon and commenced our descent to the latter. The watershed has an elevation measured by the barometer of 2600 feet above the starting point on Peel River, or about 2650 above the sea, while the neighbouring mountains rise about a thousand feet higher. Two miles west of the watershed the mountains turn suddenly to the north, and the westward-flowing stream which we were following plunges down a steep decline of fully 1200 feet. At the base of this declivity it is joined by a large tributary from the south, which swells it to a small river. At the confluence of the two streams is a large flat covered with small groves of the white spruce (Picea alba). The elevation here is over a thousand feet higher than the point at which this tree disappeared on the eastern side of the range. From the foot of the mountains a high table-land, swelling occasionally into considerable eminences, stretches to the westward. Through this plateau the branch of Bell River down which the trail leads has cut a wild and gloomy chasm fully a thousand feet deep. The walls of the cañon are formed of flat-lying sandstones and hard quartzites, and are naked and precipitous above, but fall away in easier slopes below. The bottom of the valley is generally soft and marshy, but hard gravelly terraces, affording good walking, are occasionally crossed. Seven miles from the head of the cañon a large stream comes in from the right, and two miles and a-half farther on a second and more impetuous one pours into the main stream from the same direction. After crossing the latter we camped on some firm ground on the farther side. On the 13th we continued our way down the cañon. Three miles from camp the river washes up against the walls on the right hand side, and the trail, which has hitherto followed the right bank, crosses over to the left. The ford is a difficult one, as the stream is here deep and rapid, and its channel is paved with treacherous quartzite boulders. The greatest caution is necessary in crossing, as a stumble or false step would almost certainly be fatal to one encumbered with a heavy pack. In fording these swift mountain torrents, it is customary to adopt a communistic plan. The party line up behind a long pole, and keeping a firm hold of it advance into the stream abreast. In this case the

212 person above sustains the full brunt of the current, but is held up by those below, and a stumbler receives the support of those who have kept their footing. Two miles and a-half below the ford the flanking plateau drops suddenly several hundred feet in elevation, and the cañon disappears. A second crossing is necessary here, as the river after escaping from the confining walls of the cañon bends away to the south. At this point the river is wide and shallow, and the crossing was made without difficulty. The stony banks were gay with the yellow flowers of Senecio lugens. Four miles farther on the river is again encountered returning from its southern bend, and is crossed for the last time. The river is bordered here by a marshy flat, about two miles in width, through which we waded. Beyond the marsh the trail winds up the steep edge of a high terrace, and then a four mile tramp across a succession of muskegs, brought us to the end of this stage of our journey, and we thankfully threw down our packs on the banks of Bell River. The Rocky Mountains, along the Peel River portage, present features which differ greatly from those which characterize them farther to the south. They consist here essentially of two ranges, separated by a wide longitudinal valley, and flanked on either side by high plateaux. The eastern range has a width of seven miles, and its higher peaks were estimated to reach an altitude of 2500 feet above the level of the pass, or about 4000 feet above the sea. The western range is much narrower, and north of the pass does not exceed four miles in width, but spreads out somewhat more towards the south. The valley of Peel River, which skirts the eastern base of the range, is fully 1200 feet lower than the valley of Rat River on the western side, and the drainage of the mountains is mostly towards the former. The geological section obtained is somewhat imperfect, as our scanty supplies allowed of no delay, but sufficient was learnt to show that the range has on the whole an anticlinal structure, although the general anticline is observed in places by subordinate folds, and is probably broken by faults. In the eastern plateau the beds are nearly horizontal, but approaching the mountains they incline gently to the eastwards, and in the centre of the eastern range have dips of from 30° to 70° in the same direction. In the western range the same dip prevails, but the inclination is much less, and the beds flatten out when the mountains are replaced by the elevated western plateau. The horizontal attitude is maintained for some miles, but before reaching the western edge of the plateau the beds bend down and dip gently to the west.

213 No limestones were observed along this section, and the rocks consist of sandstones, quartzites and shales, all of which are probably referable to the Cretaceous. At the starting point on Peel River the banks are formed of shales, interbedded with some hard sandstones holding carbonized fragments of wood and leaves. In the first fourteen miles the beds are concealed, but shales and sandstones are again exposed on the banks of the valley in which we made our first camp. Some fossils were collected here, among which is a Discina, like D. pileolus, Whiteaves, a Mactra and a Yoldia, both of which are probably new, but the specimens are too imperfectly preserved to admit of specific determination. Six miles farther west, at the entrance to the “Gap,” the trail passes over beds of a bluish, rather compact calcareous sandstone. The beds are coated in places with cale-spar, are highly ferruginous, and weather to a rusty yellow. A Cardium and some other poorly preserved fossils were obtained here. In the valley of the river the sandstones are underlain by dark shales. After entering the mountains, only alternating sandstones and quartzites were seen. The beds of this series are grayish in colour, are evenly stratified and are very uniform in appearance all across the range. They have an estimated minimum thickness of 5000 feet, and may possibly greatly exceed this. The western plateau is built of compact grayish sandstones, passing in places into quartzites, similar to those found in the mountains and evidently belonging to the same formation. Both Isbister and Petitot mention limestone, schists, and granites, as being found in this section of the mountains, but these rocks were not seen in the section examined by me, nor were pebbles derived from them found in the wash of any of the streams which we crossed. In the valley of the Mackenzie, however, the Devonian limestones immediately underlie the sandstones and shales of the Cretaceous, and it is highly probably that in parts of the range the disturbance has been sufficient to bring these to the surface. On arriving at Bell River, we crossed over to Lapierre House, which is situated on a flat on the western side, but found the post deserted by all but Indians, the officers in charge having left some time before for Fort Macpherson. Lapierre House is simply an outpost of Fort Macpherson, and is kept up principally to facilitate the transit of goods and furs across the mountains, although some trading is also done both with the Loucheux and the Eskimo. It has been in existence about thirty-five years. No farming of any kind is attempted either here or at Fort Macpherson. The boat which I had sent across the mountain by the McDougal Pass, I was glad to find had reached its destination in good order, and

214 no time was lost in preparing for the descent of Bell River and the Porcupine. My crew down these rivers consisted, beside myself, of one man, an Orkneyman and ex-employé of the Hudson’s Bay Company named Skee, whom I met at Fort Macpherson on his way out of the country, and was fortunately able to induce to come with me and go out by way of the Yukon. The upper part of Bell River has not been explored. At the fort it is a small sluggish stream of forty or fifty yards in width, and a current of less than two miles an hour. The banks are low and alluvial, and the bordering region is covered with willows, birch, aspen and spruce belonging to the same species as those noticed east of the mountains. Below Lapierre House, Bell River runs a few degrees east of south for seven or eight miles, and then bending to the south-west flows by Sinclair’s Rock with a somewhat accelerated current, and continues on in the same direction to Stony River, a stream nearly equal in size to itself. From Stony River its course is north-west, or nearly opposite to its direction in the first reach, for seven or eight miles, and then it bends gradually around to the south-west and keeps this courses until it empties into the Porcupine. Its length from Lapierre House to its mouth is about thirty miles. Besides Stony River, which comes in from the left, it receives a short distance farther down, from the same side, the waters of Eagle River, a stream of about a hundred feet in width. Below its junction with these two streams Bell River becomes considerably enlarged, and in its lower part expands to about a hundred yards in width. No rapids were met with below Lapierre House, and the current seldom exceeds three miles an hour, and is usually much slower. The valley of Bell River is shallow, and no rock-sections occur in the banks below Lapierre House until the cliff at Sinclair’s Rock is reached. At this point the river cuts through a range of hills, and coarse arenaceous shales are uncovered, which probably represent an extension of the same beds that in the mountains are hardened into quartzites. The shales are unevenly bedded, and under the influence of the weather crumble into a talus of sharp, angular fragments. For some miles below Sinclair’s Rock the banks are formed of alluvial clays and sands, but shales are again exposed about half a-mile below Eagle River. The beds here are softer and darker in colour than those found in Sinclair’s Rock, and are better stratified and separated into thinner laminae. They alternate with some beds of sandstone and ironstone. The dip is S. 65° W. <20°. Beds of a similar character are exposed again four miles farther down. Here they are horizontal when first seen, but in a short distance bend down and assume a verti-

215 cal attitude. Below this point dark fissile shales, alternating occasionally with beds of sandstone and ironstone, undulate at all angles in the bank of the river, and are almost continuously expesed [sic] until within a few miles of the mouth of the river, when they are overlain and concealed by recent clays and sands. The rocks exposed along Bell River are unfossiliferous, but are closely related lithologically to the Cretaceous shales and sandstones of the Lower Mackenzie and the mountains, and I have little hesitation in referring them to the same horizon. PORCUPINE RIVER BELL RIVER TO DRIFTWOOD RIVER Very little information was available in regard to the Porcupine before the present exploration was undertaken. Short accounts derived from hearsay evidence, are given by Richardson and others, but it was not personally visited by any of the numerous travellers who have written of the Mackenzie and the Yukon, although it has been used by the Hudson’s Bay Company as a trade route since 1847, and its navigation presents no special difficulty. The Porcupine heads within thirty miles of the Pelly-Yukon, approximately in latitude 65° 30’ N., and after describing a great semicircular curve to the north-east, falls into the same river a hundred and fifty miles farther down. At its most easterly point it approaches within eighty miles of the Mackenzie, but it is separated from it by the main range of the Rocky Mountains. Its total length approximates to five hundred miles. The upper part of the Porcupine was explored by Mr. Ogilvie in the early part of the present summer. Ogilvie reached the head of the river by a winter traverse from the Pelly-Yukon, and descended it as far as the mouth of Bell River. An account of this part of the river will be found in his report. The present description treats of the part below Bell River. From Bell River to Driftwood River, a distance of about thirty miles in a straight line, but over forty by the course of the river, the Porcupine has a general north-westerly trend, but makes a couple of minor bends to the north-east. Its width varies from one hundred and fifty to two hundred yards, and its current barely averages two miles an hour. The valley is generally rather wide and shallow, but at one point about ten miles below Bell River, becomes somewhat contracted, and for some miles has the appearance of a wide cañon. The banks

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