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-^vAV 
 
 PART E. ANNUAL'REPORT, 1887. 
 
 ^r. 
 
 GEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY SURVEY OF CANADA 
 ALFRED E. 0. SELWYN, C.M.G., LL.D., F.R.S., Dirkotoe. 
 
 ':(fco 
 
 NOTES 
 
 TO ACCOMPANY A PRELIMINARY MAP 
 
 OF T^(*« 
 
 -• % i » b 
 
 DUCK AND RIDING MOUNTAINS 
 
 > J 1 1 » 
 
 ' J 3 1 • 
 
 NORTH-WESTERK MANITOBi^. 
 
 BY 
 
 J. B TYRRELL, B.A., P.G.S. 
 
 Field Geologist of the Geological and Natural History Survey of Canada. 
 
 PUBLISHED BY AUTHORITy OF PARLIAMENT. 
 
 Montreal t 
 
 DAWSON BROXHH5RS 
 
 1888. 
 
 Price Ten Cents. 
 
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 PuWc Archives Archive- puWiques 
 Canada Canada 
 
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GEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY SURVEY OF CANADA 
 ^ALFRED R. C. SELWYN, C.M.G., LL.D., F.R.S, Dibkotob. 
 
 ]S"OTES 
 
 TO ACCOMPANY A PRELIMINAEY MAP 
 
 OF THB 
 
 DUCK AND RIDING MOUNTAINS 
 
 IN • . - . I 
 
 NORTH-WESTERN. MANITOBA. 
 
 BY 
 
 J. B. TYEEELL, B.A., F.G.S. 
 
 Meld GeologiBt of the Geological and Natural History Survey of Canada. 
 
 V 
 
 PUBLISHED BY AUTHORITY OF PARLIAMENT. 
 
 MONTREAL: 
 DAWSON BROTHERS. 
 
 1888. 
 
• • • 
 
 • « 1 • 
 
 
 im 
 
To Alfred R. 0. Sklwyn, C.M.G., LL.D., P.R.S., 
 
 Director of the Geological and Natural History Survey of Cavada. 
 
 Sir :— I beg herewith to submit a preliminary Contour Map with 
 explanatory notes, of the Duck and Eiding Mountains and the adjacent 
 valley of the Assiniboine. The country depicted and briefly described 
 lies chiefly within the province of Manitoba, but a strip of the eastern 
 portion of the district of Assiniboia is also included. 
 
 1 have the honor to be, Sir, 
 
 Tour most obedient servant, 
 
 J. B. TYERELL. 
 
t 
 
 NOTES 
 
 TO 
 
 ACCOMPANY A PEELIMINARY MAP 
 
 OF TIlB 
 
 DUCK AND RIDING MOUNTAINS 
 
 IN 
 
 NORTH-WESTERN MANITOBA. 
 
 The present map embraces the a-ea travelled ovcv, examined and North-western 
 surveyed during the summer of ISS'J. -In it are incorporated all the ^^""""'"^ 
 Dominion Lands, Indian Reserve, Timber and Eailway Surveys up to 
 the present date. It forms the soutli-wost corner of a larger .sheet em- 
 bracing also the whole of Lake Winnipogosis and part of Lake Mani- 
 toba. This sheet it was hoped would Jiave been eady for publication 
 during the present winter, but during the early part of the summer 
 of 1888 the writer was seized with a -severe attack of fever while ir 
 the .vicinity of Fairford House on the Little Saskatchewan Kiver. 
 Two weeks were occupied in cai'i-yin^ him to Winnipeg, where he lay 
 in the hospital for seven weeks, and was unable to resume field work 
 before the winter set in. This checkeu<the progress of the explora- 
 tion to such an extent that another season must necessarily be spent 
 before the whole map can be ready for publication. 
 
 In view of the utterly unknown character of a large part of this Hg importance, 
 region, of its great importance as a source of timber supply for Mani^ 
 toba, and of the luxuriant fertility of the soil over considerable areas 
 such as those drained into Lake Dauphin and the Assiniboine River, 
 this map is now submitted for publication in advance of the larger 
 sheet. 
 
 It has been compiled and drawn by Mr. D. B. Dowling, B. Ap. Sc, surveys. 
 who alsq acted as my assistant in tho field. In its preparation I have 
 received every possible assistance from Capt. Deville and the gentle- 
 men associated with him in the Dominion Lar.ds Branch of the Depart- 
 ment of the Interior, and also from Mr. Collingwood Schreiber and 
 
6x 
 
 NCATH-WESTERN MANITOBA. 
 
 Extent of ooun- 
 tiy mainpea. 
 
 I>"ainage 
 
 General physi- 
 cal features. 
 
 Others in the Department of Bailways and Canals. Wherever surveys 
 of townships or Indian Reserves have been made by the Dominion 
 Lands Branci., these surveys are marked by full lines. The old loca- 
 tions of the Canadian Pacific Eailway, both north of the Dack Moun- 
 tain and south of the Eidiug Mountain, have furnished valuable lines 
 through the country. For tho rest, the topography is laid down from 
 odometer and track-survej's made by ourselves, frequently checked by 
 latitudes taken with a braes sextant of eight-inch arc reading to 10". 
 The contour lines are laid down from the heights given on the two 
 railway-surveys just mentioned, as well as from numerous heights 
 obtained from observations n_iade with a mercurial barometer and two 
 aneroidsj com~>pved with the readings taken thrice daily from the 
 standard barometer at Minnedosa. The height of the standard baro- 
 meter at Minnedosa is 1G89 feet, a height twenty-four feet higher than 
 that given by the railway profiles, an error of this amount having 
 been found by Mr. Warren Upham to have been made in connecting 
 the surveys east of the Eed River with those to the west of it. 
 
 The map as now published embi-aces an area of 12,000 squa. e miles, 
 but of this, Lake Winnepegosis is merely sketcht-d in from former sur- 
 veys to show the discharges of the various streams, and the Porcupine 
 Mountain, in the north-west corner of the map is as yet unexplored. 
 This leaves an area of 8,500 6'quare miles, or 5,440,000 acres, a tract 
 larger than that of the State of Massachusetts, whif-h has been more or 
 less carefully examined. It embraces Duck and purt of Eiding Mouu- 
 tainfc, with the included and surrounding valleys and the more level 
 country east of these mountaina. lying between them and lakes Wit/.ni- 
 pegosis and Dauphin. It is drained on the north by Swan Ei-ve^v 
 which liows north-eastward through Swan Lake into Lake Winui- 
 pegosia, its main tilbutanes being the Bear's Head, Favell, Rolling 
 and Sinclair rjvers, flowing northward from the noi h face of the Duck 
 Mountain. On the west, it is di-ained by the Assiniboine, with its 
 tributaries Little-Boggy and Big-Boggy creeks and Shell River. On 
 the south, come of the small upper tributaries of Bird-.;ail Creek drain 
 a limited area in the Riding Mountains. On the east. Turtle. Ochre 
 Yermilion, Wilson and Valley rivere pour their waters into Lake 
 Dauphin, flowing across the fertile plain south and west of this lake. 
 Fork, Pine and Duck rivers flow from the face of Duck Mountain, the 
 former into Mossy River and thv^ latter into Lake Winnipego us. 
 
 In its general physical features ic presents very great diversity of 
 character. The mountains, or rather the one mountain cut in twain 
 by the great depression of Valley River, cioss the country in a north- 
 north-westerly direction, forming a high, rugged ridge rising in differ- 
 fint places from thirteen to nineteen hundred feet above Lake Win.ii. 
 
 t 
 
 r 
 
TYRHELL.] 
 
 DUCK AND RIDING MOUNTAINS. 
 
 tE 
 
 r 
 
 pegosis. To the eastward these mountains deecend in a steop, wooded 
 slope to an even, almost unbroken, alluvial plain, which inclines gently 
 to the lake shore. Westward it descends much more gradually, and, 
 except ill the vicinity of lat. 51° 30', without any abrupt escarpment, 
 towards the Plains. 
 
 Over a great portion of the higher lands, the surface is dotted with Many small 
 ben.utiful little lakes of clear, fresh water, those in the more open 
 country being encircled with green wreaths of small poplar and wil- 
 low, while in the moi'o thickly wooded tracts in the higher parts of 
 the mountains, tall spruces are growing to the edge of the water- 
 Many of these lakes ar-j drained by permanent brooks, but most of the 
 smaller ones are isolated during the greater part of the time, and over- 
 flow only in rainy seasons or when the water is at its highest stages. 
 They are all of glacial origin, lying in the depressions of the irregulai* 
 surface o .he till or unstratified glacial deposits. 
 
 The wiiole land surface is more or less thickly timbered, the woods Timber, 
 varying, however, *i'om a few scattered clumps of willows in the town- 
 ships in the south-west corner of the map, through groves of poplar 
 severed by op3n glades in the country bordering the Assiniboine, to 
 coniferous forest on the summit and northern and eastern flanks of 
 the mountains. In the valley of Swan Eiver, and in the tract of 
 country south-west of Lake Dauphin, the forest again gives place to a 
 partly wooded country, the open areas of which are often covered with 
 a luxuriant growth of rose bushes and other small shrubs. 
 
 Lake Dauphin I^ a shallow body of water twenty-eight miles long Lake Dauphin, 
 and ten to twelve miles wide, with an approximate elevation above 
 the sea of eight hundred and forty feet. Mossy Eiver flows from its 
 northern end into the south-west angle of Lake Winnipegosis. Its 
 shores, where seen along its southern boundary, were either low and 
 marshy, or bordered by beach-ridges of well-rounded limestone gravel, 
 behind which stretched extensive meadows of rich, tall grass. In high 
 water these meadows are doubtless flooded, but at present they are quite 
 dry, and will be so in all ordinary seasons. Behind these meadows, a riqi, aiiuviai 
 wide and apparently flat plain stretches back to the foot of the EidiugP'*'"* 
 Mountain. Instead of being level, however, it rises gradually and regu- 
 larly, being i- -nerally well drained by the numerous small clear streams 
 that flpw through it in narrow, winding channels. These streams are 
 skirted with rows or narrow belts of timber consisting of elm, oak, 
 birch, and cottonwood. Between these wooded belts, the plain is 
 dotted with groves of poplar and willow. The soil is a rich alluvial 
 clay loam, on which abundant crops of wheat, oats, bailey, maize, 
 as well as all the ordinary garden produce grown in eastern Canada 
 and the central and eastern United States, can bo raised. On the 
 
8b 
 
 NORTH-WESTERN MANITOBA. 
 
 Absence of 
 «ummer froLtf 
 
 Reasons. 
 
 Laxuriauoe of 
 herbage. 
 
 Sheltered 
 position. 
 
 Presence of 
 trees. 
 
 third of August, 1887, barley was ripe and being cut, and the fields of 
 wheat were quite tinged with yellow. On the 11th of August the 
 settlers were reaping the dead ripe wheat, which gave promise of a 
 very heavy yield. 
 
 The summer frosts, too, which have occasionally proved prejudicial 
 to the crops in some parts of Manitoba and the North-West Territory, 
 appear to avoid this favoured district. This is, no doubt, in part 
 due to the slope of the surface, the cold air sinking down the 
 gentle incline till it reaches the lake, where it is warmed by radiation 
 from the surface of the large body of water which has been warmed 
 by the hot sun of the day before, and which, on account of its shallow- 
 ness, gives out its heat rapidly to the overlying air. The gi-eat luxu- 
 riance of the grasses and herbage in this district has also much offect 
 in hindering the occurrence of summer frosts. By increasing the 
 amount of water evaporated in the day time it - enders latent a lar^e 
 amount of heat which again becomes sensible when this moisture is 
 deposited in the evening in the form of dew. Growing grain would 
 also have precisely the same effect. Its sheltered position is also very 
 much in its favour. A wind blowing from the east across the great 
 lakes of the Winnipeg basin will be loaded with moisture, which, if it 
 does not fall as rain, will form into clouds or be deposited as a heavy 
 dew, and will avert a frost either by hindering the radiation of the 
 heat from the lower stratum of air, or by raising its temperature. 
 If the wind is blowing from the drier plains to the west it will be 
 partly diverted to the south-west aiong the Duck and Eiding moun- 
 tains, and what crosses the mountains, though very dry, will be so 
 much warmed by condensation in descending thirteen to eighteen 
 hundred feet that little danger of frost need bo feared from it« 
 In this connection, it may be remarked that it appears very prob- 
 able that the planting of trees around the fields on the plains of 
 Manitoba and the North-West Territory Avould have considerable 
 influence \n preventing the occurrence of summer frosts by breaking 
 the winds and hindering the free circulation of air. The moisture that 
 was evaporated from a field of growing or ripening grain or other 
 crop would then, to a considerable extent, remain over the field, 
 whereas now it is often replaced by tiry air from the plains, which offers 
 no ob.<truction to the rapid loss* of heat from the earth by radiation. 
 The circumstances under which frost occurs are often as follows: — 
 During the day a stiff wind is blowing from a westeily direction, car- 
 rying off the moisture as fast as it is evaporated. In the evening the 
 weather becomes very calm, and on account of the absence of any 
 moisture in the atmosphere the stars thine with exceptional bril- 
 liancy, ""he earth is warm from the heat of the day, but radiation 
 
 i 
 
TYRRELL.] 
 
 DUCK AND RIDING MOUNTAINS. 
 
 9x 
 
 i 
 
 proceeds so f' t that by one or two o'clock in the morning its imme- 
 diately available supply of heat is exhausted and the overlying aii' falls 
 below the freezing point. The presence of a greater amount of mois- 
 ture in the air will prevent this rapid dissipation of heat, and one of . 
 the means of insuring the presence of this moisture is by constructing 
 wind-breaks in the form of rows of trees in order to retain the damp 
 atmosphere over the fields rather than to allow it to be replaced by 
 the drier air of the plain^i. 
 
 Smudges, the smoke from which on those quiot, bright nights will 
 settle down over the land, would doubtless also have a very beneficial 
 effect in hindering the occurrence of frosts. 
 
 The breaking up and tilling of thosoil will cilso havea great effect iu Breaking of the 
 reducing the diurnal variations of temperature. The diiect rays of the ^"^'" 
 sun during the day do not raise the temperature of ploughed land as 
 high as that of Ihe unbi-oken. plains, but they warm it to a greater 
 depth, a fact which may readily be observed in walking across the drier 
 plains on a hot day in summer. The dry sod, covered with short 
 withered grass, will be felt to be very hot, but if ploughed l?nd is ' 
 reached, the ground will at once be found to be much cooler. By taking 
 a ppadeful of eai th from the two places the lowei- part below the sod 
 will bo found to be very much cooler than that under the ploughed 
 land. The effect that this will have on the night temperature of the air 
 will be that the radiation of boat from the ploughed land will bo much 
 slower than from that which is unbroken, but which is practically bare 
 on account of the withering of the short grass. The temperature will 
 be lowered comparatively slowly, and while in the latter case a frost 
 might have set in at four or five o'clock in the moi-ning, in the former 
 the air will be kept above freezing point till the sun rit-es again. 
 
 But to return to the alluvial Lake Dauphin plain, the surface is so 
 level or evenly sloping that lakes or ponds are very scarce, but plenty 
 of good water can easUy be obtained in wells ten to fourteen feet deep. 
 In ascending from the lake to Eiding Mountain, the surface rises by 
 low steps to the foot of the more abrupt escarpment. The steps are 
 occasionally replaced by ridges of rounded gravel, both the steps 
 and ridges representing old shore lines of the ancient lake which for- Old shore lines 
 merly occupied the v*hole of the basin of Lake Winnipeg and the val- Agasaiz. 
 ley of the jRed Eiver, a lake the former existence of which was first 
 clearly pointed out by Prof. H. Y. Hind in 1850 and which was after- 
 wards named by the late General Warren, Lake Agassiz, in honour of 
 Louis A^^assiz, the first great exponent on this continent of the ferce 
 of glacial erosion and of the former distribution over the northern 
 portion of America of u great ice-sheet in glacial times. The full com- 
 paiison of these ancient shore lines with the shores of the present ad- 
 joining lakes must be left to the final report on this area. 
 
10 E 
 
 NORTH-WESTERN MANITOBA. 
 
 Most of the steps are low, seldom reaching a greater height than 
 ten or twelve feet, but one of the higher ones, which is crossed on the 
 Vermilion Eiver trail, and the bottom of which maybe considered the 
 foot of the mountain, rises to the height of one hundred feet. Its face 
 Ancient eoaat- J^ "^w a steop slopo woocod with poplar and small bushes, but when 
 *" • the waves of the ancient lake beat against it, it rose above the water as 
 
 a naked cliff of white Cretaceous chalk-marl. Following the shore- 
 lines northward to beyond the Valley Kiver, the low coast-cliifs almost 
 entirely disappear, and the ancient shores are represented entirely by 
 gravel beach-ridges. This change of conditions is caused by the fact 
 that the base of the escarpment of Duck Mountain is much higher than 
 the foot of Riding Mountain, and- higher than the highest level to 
 which Lake Agassiz appears to have risen. Fiom this escarpment the 
 land slopes gently down a long easy grade to the level of Lake Winni- 
 pegosis. 
 Gravel beaches, ^ho beaches consist of more or less rounded gravel, the pebbles, 
 which are chiefly of limestone though a few are of granite, varying 
 from the size of pigeons' eggs down to that of No. 6 shtit, but however 
 fine, they are still distinct pebbles, mixed with little or no quartz sand. 
 The ridges foUoAV in a long sweeping curve the general direction of 
 the face of the escarpment. The highest of these ridges seen on Shanty 
 Creek has an elevation of 1,365 feet above the sea, and as far as one 
 could judge is about two hundred feet below the level of the base of 
 the mountain escarpment. The pebbles in it have their angles worn 
 off by water action, but are not at all well rounded, and between it and 
 the next lower ridge there is very little alluvial deposit, showing that 
 the water stood at this height for a, comparatively, very short time. 
 Above the ridge the surface is lightly undulating and composed en- 
 tirely of unsti-atitied glacial till scattered over with irregular pebbles 
 and boulders, it having never been buried under the waters of this 
 great post-glacial lake. 
 Natural rf ads. '^^^ north w:ird extensions of these ridges form remarkably straight 
 natural roads thi-ough the otherwise level and often swampy or marshy 
 country. One, having an elevation of 1,084 feet at Valley Eiver, was 
 followed northward with buckboard and carts for twenty-three miles, 
 to beyond Shanty Creek, while another, about seventy feet above the 
 last, was followed from a little south of Wilson River northward for 
 twelve miles to a branch of Valley River, where the extension of the 
 forest across the i-idge obliged us to descend to its lower neighbor. 
 At Shanty Creek we returned to the higher beach, and continued to 
 follow it northward for nineteen miles, at which point it was still quite 
 well marked. Half a mile to the eastward the lower beach was 
 also typically developed. Thus these two ridges were found to extend, 
 the lower one at least forty, and the upper one forty-four miles. 
 
 I. 
 
 4 
 
4 
 
 TYRHEll.. 3 
 
 DUCK AND RJDINQ MOUNTAINS. 
 
 He 
 
 I pine- 
 
 A few miles fiu-thor north, near Duck River, similar gravel ridges Beaches i 
 are found to obtain, though here, instead of being generally open and ''"^'®''*''*' 
 grassy, they are covered in part wich a scattered growth of small Bank- 
 Bian pines. Looking southward from Duck River along a ridge, the 
 height of which is given on the profile of the old location of the Cana- 
 dian Pacific as 1,201 feet, a high knoll is seen to rise above and just to 
 the westward of it. This knoll, when leached, was found to be the ^"^ "^ *'**<'''• 
 northern end of a gravel ridge lunning off to the southward, and 
 rising sixty feet above the ridge immediately to the east of it. Its 
 face is steep, the slope being apparently as great as that at which the 
 gravel would stand. The point is bent around to the westward in the 
 form of a knob or hook, the whole appearing as if it had projected out 
 into the lake as a gravel spit or hook, as the land behind as well as in 
 front of it is from fifty to sixty feet below its summit. 
 
 This point was somewhat peculiar in being scattered over with a Gneiss boulders 
 great number of lai-ge gneissoid boulders, lying on a surface of sand 
 filled with rounded, waterworn pebbles of gneiss. limestone, ironstone, 
 etc. As a rule, the ancient beaches are composed entirely of small 
 rounded pebbles, in this particulai- differing very materially from the 
 beaches of the lakes which now occupy the lower levels of the Winni- 
 peg basin. On the existing lakes the shores are very thickly strewn with 
 gneissoid boulders, which in winter have been, and are still being, frozen 
 into the ice, and then shoved outwards by its expansion till they are 
 placed up beyond its reach, or packed into a veiy regular wall. Many 
 of the boulders on the above mentioned ancient gravel bar or spit have 
 probably been placed there in a similar way, the bay to the westward 
 ha^'ing doubtless been frozen over daring the winter, while the general 
 absence of boulders on the long straight beaches would seem to indi- 
 cate that the whole lake was never covered with ice. 
 
 North of Duck River the higher ridges, which alone have been fol- Abrupt change 
 lowed here, bend sharply round the north-east corner of the Duck''^*''''^""""- 
 Mountain into the valley of Swan River. 
 
 The presence of these ridges-influences in a very marked degree the Ridges serve as 
 character of the country they traverse. Although they furnish niag.°a*«™'<la"»B. 
 nificent natural highways they also act as datios in preventing the 
 ready drainage of the country down its easy natural slope, except in 
 a few places where these dams are broken through by streams such as 
 the Duck and Fork rivers. There is very commonly a marsh or 
 marshy lake just above or west of the ridge, or a little sluggish 
 stream may flow northward or southward beside it. The country 
 in the latter case is somewhat better drained and generally supports 
 a close growth of small black spruce and tamarac. The lower side 
 of the ridge is drier and sometimes supports a growth of poplar, but 
 
12 E 
 
 NORTH-WESTERN MANITOBA. 
 
 Valley river, 
 
 Swan river. 
 
 Old Indian 
 settlement. 
 
 generally is thickly oovoicd with ^mnll black spruce. Some fiiie 
 groves of large white spruce are met with close to tho banks of the 
 lai-ger streams. Stunted oaks on the ridges in the more open parts 
 and some beautiful groves of tall, stately elms woe seen, a very notice- 
 able one of the latter being a grove near the foot of the Duck Mountain 
 afew miles south of Duck River. A fe^y pleasant prairies here .nd 
 tuore occur, but they are not numerous, and the country may be said 
 to be generally thickly wooded. Forest fires in recent years have 
 however, destroyed the greater part of the timber that could have been 
 converted into lumber, and instead there is now a close growth of small 
 sticks as yet comparatively valueless. As was stated above, large 
 areas are now covered with swamp or ranrsh, but this wet land could 
 be drained with very' little difficulty, since the surf.ce everywhere 
 slopes gently towards the east, except where the incliue is broken by 
 gravel ridges from fifty to one hundred and fifty yards in breadth. 
 Drains could be readily cut through these at intervals sufficiently close 
 to allow the water to flow off freely to the lake. 
 
 Of the two largest streams that flow eastward within the district 
 the Valley liiver winds in a beautiful sloping valley which doubtless 
 represents an ancient drainage channel in pre-glacial times. Above or 
 west of the gravel ridges that cross this valley is a wide sandy plain 
 representing an old delta deposit when Lake Agassiz was at its highest 
 stages and when a stream flowed into it through the valley of Short 
 Creek from the west side of the Duck Mountain. The Swan River 
 valley is much wider and is cut down to a much greater extent The 
 lower part, below what is locally known as tho "Coast Ridge" is 
 covered with alluvialdeposits of sand or sandy clay, while further west 
 are some rough morainic tracts, among which lie extensive flood plain 
 deposits. In both of these valleys, Indians and Metis have at different 
 times had thriving little villages, the soil being very rich and fertile. 
 L n the latter thero is now a Metis settlement about a mile or two beyond 
 the northern limit of the present map. Two Indian reserves were for- 
 merly occupied on the banks of this river and on them the Indians 
 raised gram and the ordinary root crops. Lately, these Indians have 
 been removed to tho vicinity of Fort Pelly for the greater convenience 
 ot communication and trade. 
 
 On Valley River there was formerly an Indian settlement in township 
 -5, range 24, west, and now there is a thriving village at the mouth 
 of Short Ci-eek, at tho point where the River leaves the Duck Mountain 
 A good cart-trail runs from Russell on the Manitoba and North- West- 
 ern Railway to this village, and carts can also pass eastward from it 
 to the Lake Dauphin settlement. Here in tho summer of 1887 some 
 good crops of the ordinary grains and roots were being raised 
 
TYRRELl ] 
 
 DUCK AND RIDING MOUMTAINS. 
 
 13 b 
 
 t 
 
 J. 
 
 West and south-west of the alluvial plain of the ancient Lake Du^k and 
 Agassiz, the Duck and Ridinu; mountains rise to from two thou-and to S|,'|,Xing 
 two thousana seven hundred feet above the sea, in most places faced by 
 a steep escai-pment, but between Vermilion and Valley rivers the ^'opo 
 is gradual, no appreciable escarpment being seen during the ascent. 
 This slope is generally well drained and in places supports a strong 
 growth of poplar and spruce, but unfortunately much of it is Hrc-killed 
 and useless. 
 
 The higher parts of the mountains are very rough and uneven, being Rough 
 composed of drift hills and ridges from ono to th-eo or foui- hundred 3t°yf 
 feet high, among which nestle beautiful bikes of pure clear water, or 
 sparklin- b: ooks flow to the main watei courte-, m< st of which have 
 a general north or south direction. Many of the hills are thickly 
 clothed with spiuce and balsam fir (A. balsamia) mixed with birch and 
 poplar, and in the more southern portions with maple (Acer spicatum) 
 and more northerly with an occasional tree of mountain ash. Some 
 of the knolls in the northern and north-eastern areas are so thickly 
 strewn with large gneissoid boulders, that the land is almost barren, 
 supporting but <- hort stunted growth of Banksian pines, and where 
 these have been .urned, as they have been over considerable areas, the 
 ground is almost entirely uncovered by either grass or hei-bage of any 
 kind. Between these rough hills sti-etch considerable areas of level 
 swampy country covered with a close growth of black spruce, in most 
 cases too small to be of any general economic importance. 
 
 The northern face of the Duck Mountain has formerly supported 
 much excellent forest, but most of this urea has now been burnt over, Some spruce- 
 and is being overgrown with poplar. A fine grove of white spruce 
 however yet remains near the head of Favell River and between Favell 
 and Rolling rivers. 
 
 The thickly wooded areas of th'^se mountains are the favourite hunt- 
 ing grounds of Indians who have their reserve.! by the lakes or along Good hunting 
 the Assiuiboino. One of these latter bands, under Chief Cot^, has sf"""*""- 
 cut a good cart ti-ail from its reserve north of Little-Boggy Creek to 
 Angling Lake, where it has built a number of substantial log houses. 
 These houses are deserted during the summer, but in the autumn, when 
 the season for hunting and trapping returns, a portion, if not the whole, 
 of the band moves here from the village and farms on the Reserve 
 and supports itself during the winter on the proceeds of the chase. 
 
 West of Duck Mountain stretches away to the westward the rich 
 alluvial plain through which the Assiniboine River flows in a direction Awiniboine 
 25° oast of south. The eastern side of this plain between Lac la Course ''*"'''• 
 and Little-Boggy Creek is a steep slope or escarpment from two to five 
 
Urn 
 
 NORTH-WESTERN MANrTOBA. 
 
 Its peculiar 
 character. 
 
 Lake 
 
 Aasiniboine. 
 
 Conditions 
 during glacial 
 
 penoi 
 
 'I' 
 a. 
 
 hundred feet high, but south of Little-Boggy Creek this escarpment 
 soon disappears, and the plain rises through a gradual though gener- 
 ally undulating or rolling, incline to the sumrait of the mountains. 
 The soil in this plain or valley bottom is exceedingly fertile, being 
 composed of a rich alluvial dark sandy loam, which produces abundant 
 crops of grain. 
 
 Thv. course of the river i I self is a very peculiar one. Just above 
 Fort Pelly it flows in an almost northerly direction, making straight 
 for the wide valley at the bottom of which at present a small stream, 
 Shake Creek, rises in a quagmire just north of the Fort and flows into 
 Swan Eivor. Instead of following this valley northward, however, the 
 Assiniboine turns abruptly and flows a little east of South in the bot- 
 tom of a shallow and indefinite valley. This valley, however, gradu- 
 ally becomes better defined and increases in depth lower down, and 
 though the country on either hand becomes higher, the river maintains 
 its direction, at length cutting a valley about four hundred feet deep. 
 The land on either side of the valley north of the mouth of Shell 
 Eiver consists of alluvial deposits which appear -to have boon laid down 
 in the bottom of an ancient lake which stretched westward from the 
 western base of the Duck Mountains. Its further shore has not yet 
 been determined. 
 
 This lake, as well as Lake Af^assiz, is closely associated with the 
 former glacial condi*^'ons of the country, and a brief statement of the 
 conditions then prol.tbly existing may be hero given. ' 
 
 During the continuance of the glacial period, a huge glacier moved 
 in a s th-south-easterly direction in the great valley east of the Duck, 
 Hiding and Pembina escarpment, while another flowed parallel to it 
 dov/n the valley of the Assiniboine on the western side of these moun- 
 tains. At times these glaciers doubtless coalesced into one vast 
 ice sheet, while at other times they were separated by the mountains 
 either in part or entirely and along the tops of the mountains threw 
 up a m.edian, or rather what has been called by Professor Chamber- 
 lin an "interlobate " moraine consisting almost entirely of boulders and 
 debris of the Archajan rocks to the noi-th. This is what has given the 
 mountains their rough, rugged and broken character, a character which 
 Id most pronounced in the more northern portions. Where the Indian 
 trail crosses the north-eastern corner of the Duck Mountains much of 
 the country is so completely a mass of bouldei-s that it supports but a 
 few small stunted Banksian pines. At length a rise of the land took 
 place in the southern or central portion of the continent, which rise is 
 doubtless accountable in part for the high elevation of some of the 
 plateaux of the Westrm states and of the Eocky Mountains. 
 
 "r 
 
TyRRILL.] 
 
 DUCK AND RIDING JIOUNTAINS. 
 
 15 E 
 
 ^r 
 
 The glaciers now rapidly rocodcd down the valleys, leaving large Rooouion of 
 bodies of fresh water occupying the depressions along their fronts. It "^ ' ""*'' 
 was apparently in this way that Lake Agassiz, the ancient lake of the 
 Eed River valley, and the lake which occupied the upper part of the 
 Assiniboine valley, wei-o originated. The ice front at last receded 
 to a point where it again became relatively stationary, the flow 
 of ice from the higher lands making up for the portions that were 
 being molted oti' and carried away. 
 
 Whether this ice front formed the northern or north-eastern shore Orodualinoline 
 of the above-named lakes it is impo.ssible as yet to say, but the fact 
 that the old shore lines of Lake Agassiz lise by a \'Ovy gradual and 
 even incline to the north as far as they have as yet been traced, show- 
 ing a northern elevation of the land since the lake stood at its higher 
 level, rather than a very considerable northern depression or southern 
 elevation of the land, whi(!h must have occurred if the northern bor- 
 der of the lake was any of the land lying tr the northward, lends great 
 8ti-ength to this theory. However, for tho complete determination of 
 this question, further systematic investigation is necessary, but the 
 existence of the lakes themselves admits of no doubt whatever. The 
 relation of the two lakes to each other is somewhat diflUcult to make 
 out completely, having doubtless been quite difl'eront at different times. 
 At one time Lake Assiniboine was possibly only a bay of Ijake Agassiz, 
 being perhaps connected with it tlirough tho valley of Swan Eiver, but 
 if this was the case the alluvial deposits in the upper part of the Swan 
 Eiver have been covered by succeeding glacial deposits. At all events at 
 one time a glacial dam appears to have stretched across the north end of 
 this portion of the Assiniboine valley, and the superfluous waters of Lake 
 Assiniboine flowed into Lake Agassiz through the deep valley which is 
 now in part dry, and in part drained by Short Creek into Valley Eiver. Valley of Short 
 It was at this period that the delta plains of the Yalley Eiver were 
 formed. When Lake Assiniboine receded towards the north a con- 
 siderable stream still flowed through the valley of Shell Eiver, fed in 
 all probability by local glaciers on Jao Duck Mountain, while other 
 streams flowed in from the south in the lower part of the some valley, 
 and in a deep valley to the east of it now abandoned. After this 
 time the valley of Snake Creek was formed and Lake Assiniboine was 
 doubtless drained. The glaciers on the mountains, however, now gradu- Recedenoe of 
 ally extended, closing all these valleys and the water from the ice*'""'*^"" 
 front was obliged to find some other outlet, which it did down the val- 
 ley of the Assiniboine below tho mouth of Shell Eiver, this valley 
 having in all pi'obability been first marked out, in part at least, by a 
 stream flowing from the foot of Eiding Mountain northward into Lake 
 Assiniboine. These glaciers have left marks of their presence in 
 
16 E 
 
 N0RTH-WE8TBRN MANITOBA. 
 
 Morainei. iTorainic (lams stretched across the valleys of Short Creek, Shell 
 Eivor and Snake Creek, &c. Tlie flow of water was thus eslalv 
 lished towards the south, and a valley was worn out through which 
 the Assiniboino River continues to flow up to the present time, 
 though it is probable that now the amount of sediment carried 
 away by the river exceeds by very little, if it exceeds at all, the 
 amount of sediment brought down into it by small affluent streams, 
 and consequently it has ceased to deepen its valle3^ 
 
 The geological structure of the country will be discussed in the 
 final report, but it may be hero stated that the floor underlying the 
 whole country is a white or cream-colored Devonian limestone. Its 
 surface is somewhat undulating, but on the whole it exhibits a slight 
 slope towards the west or south-west. On this floor are heaped up suc- 
 cessive beds of sands, marls and shales of Cretaceous age, constituting 
 all the older rocks seen in this area west of the lakes. The^e form, 
 under the glacial deposits, the entire mass of fhe Duck and Hiding 
 Mountains, and extend from them westward across the Assiniboino 
 and under the Great Plains to the foot of the Rocky Mountains. 
 
'i 
 
^^ 
 
 GEOLOGICALa NATURAL HISTORY SURVEY 
 Alfred M.C.S«.|wvii.C.M.(;..LLl)..KU.S.,l)irr 
 
 lulno' 
 
 MOUNTAIMa 
 
\L HISTORY SURVEY OFCANADA 
 .('.M.(;..I,Ln.,KH.SJ)ir..Hor. 
 
ii[ \ \ \ 111 
 
 C'otrY>iled euid tlrcuun ii/I?.J3.DowhTiff, Ji.A.Sc. 
 
 Tlw Burijiiuj Liilui([rapliic Conipmn-.Muiili-uul. 
 
 TOPOGRAPHICAL MAP OF DUCK AND RIDING MOUNTAINS 
 
 CempiUd from plana of Dotnitnion. lands, 
 I'tdian.Jitttrvw,l\kti0'liimta andMtulways 
 and from Surveys made hy Ae Gtthgi/tU Cbr/Ht 
 
 in 1887. 
 
 Heavy lines rqiresmt Gnurd Ridges. 
 
 BY J.B.TYRRELL , B.A.,F.G. 
 
 assisted by 
 
 D . B . Dowling. B.A.Sc. 
 1888. 
 
flrMpliic Conipunv, Muuttvul 
 
 To illmtraU Ihrl E Annual Report JSfZ 
 
 JG MOUNTAINS IN NORTH WESTERN MANITOBA. 
 
 IRELL , B.A.,F.G.S. 
 
 sisted by 
 
 Dwiing . B.A.Sc. 
 1888. 
 
 f- I . f , y 
 
 SCALES. 
 
 Staiute Miles. 
 
 Natural Scale : KST^no. 
 Miiyhtg in fett aimve *ta Ui*l. 
 GuUaur inttrvaU tOO fmt . 
 
 HI 
 
 Geographical MUea .