I Have Also Gone From Crow Wing, Beyond The Head Waters Of The Mississippi, To The Waters Of The Hudson's Bay, On Foot And Without Snow-Shoes.

I spent one entire winter travelling through that region, and never found the snow over eighteen inches deep, and seldom over nine inches.

"For several years I had trading-posts extending from Lake Superior to the Red River of the North, from 46 degrees to 49 degrees north latitude, and never found the snow so deep as to prevent supplies being transported from one post to another with horses. One winter, north of Crow Wing, say 47 degrees north latitude, I wintered about sixty head of horses and cattle without giving them food of any kind except such as they could procure themselves under the snow. Between the 45th and 49th degrees north latitude, the snow does not fall so deep as it does between the 40th and 45th degrees; this is easily accounted for upon the same principle that in the fall they have frosts much earlier near the 40th than they do near the 45th degree. I say this in reference to the country watered by the Mississippi River. Owing to its altitude the atmosphere is dry beyond belief, which accounts for the absence of frosts in the fall, and for the small quantity of snow that falls in a country so far north. Voyageurs traverse the territory from Lake Superior to the Missouri the entire winter with horses and sleds, having to make their own roads, and yet with heavy loads are not detained by snow.

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