and consequently covered by a thick deposit of sphagnum moss from two feet to ten feet deep, the surface layer still growing, and even the bottom only bleached a little, but not at all oxidized. The short cool summer season, and consequent low temperature of the water that saturates the moss, is probably the principal reason for the absence of any of the visible effects of decay. The rivers flowing through this region have no real valleys, that is to say, they occupy trenches but little wider than the immediate channels in which they flow, cut down through the stiff, tough till, which stands up in nearly vertical walls that rise from the freshet mark on either side. At low stages of the water a slanting beach, often paved with boulders, slopes gradually from the foot of the bank to the edge of the diminished channel. A more or less continuous layer of marine clay, rich in fossil shells, overlies the boulder clay, ensuring, wherever it is present, a soil of good quality. The absence of other than swamp vegetation must be ascribed, then, to the almost total absence of drainage, and to the generally unfavorable climatic conditions.
“In the matter of the actual cultivation of these northern areas we have little to go upon. At the Hudson’s Bay Company’s posts at Fort Hope and Osnaburgh potatoes have been grown and small gardens maintained from the time of the establishment of the posts, and little difficulty has been experienced in maturing the common garden vegetables of Ontario, though occasionally the frosts of late summer have cut off all but the hardier kinds. As the posts were located with a view to their favourable situation for the purposes of the fur trade with the Indians, neither one is situated on ground well suited for cultivation, and much better results might reasonably be expected were trials made on more favorably situated tracts. An Indian cultivating a small garden plot at the head of the Pineimuta branch of Attawapiskat river succeeds in raising good crops of potatoes and turnips.”
As to this part of the country drained by Winisk and Attawapiskat rivers, Mr. McInnes in his report says:—“The climate, as would be expected in these latitudes, and in a wilderness country approximately a thousand feet above sea-level, is somewhat severe. The summer temperature, though on occasional days rising as high as 85° Fahr., averages very much lower, and the nights are practically always cool. Frosty nights often continue into the early summer, and recur again in the autumn before most grain-crops would be ready for harvesting. Temperatures were taken with the thermometer during two seasons, and these, averaged, gave the following results for the months of July and August on lower Winisk river, and for July, August and part of September on upper Winisk and upper Attawapiskat rivers:—