Continuing his evidence, Mr. Conroy explained that from Fort Vermilion northeasterly the limit of the agricultural country is reached, but below that it could be made an agricultural country. There were no settlers there at all then (1907). At Fort Vermilion there had been a settlement for many years. Mr. Conroy said he had been there many times, and knew all the settlers in that section. Some of the finest wheat he ever saw, he saw growing in that settlement. He saw it only after it was harvested; it was threshed. They had a roller mill there, an up-to-date mill. The Hudson’s Bay Company manufactured flour at Fort Vermilion to send north.
While at Peace River Landing with the Indian Treaty Expedition in 1899, Mr. Charles Mair (“Through the Mackenzie Basin,” p. 89) made enquiries as to the fertile areas of the upper Peace from the Indians, half-breed hunters, and the few prosperous farmers and stockmen of the district. The nearest farmer and rancher to Dunvegan, at that date, Mr. C. Brymner, who had lived for ten years on Spirit river, told Mr. Mair that during seven of these, though frost had touched his grain, particularly in June, it had done little serious harm. Mr. Brymner informed Mr. Mair that it was a fine hay country, even the ridge hay being good. Mr. Brymner, himself, had at the time over a hundred head of cattle, which, thanks to the Chinook winds, fed out late in the autumn and early in the spring. Mr. Mair states that southeast of Fort St. John there is a considerable area known as Pouce Coupé prairie, which was well spoken of. The “Grande prairie,” to the southwest of Peace River Landing, which connects with Spirit river country and is drained by Smoky river and its branches, is a much more extensive open country. This is an extensive district suitable for immediate cultivation, and containing valuable timber for lumber, fencing and building.
Mr. Mair states that Rev. Father Busson told him in 1899 that at the Dunvegan and St. Augustine mission farms White Russian and Red Fife wheat had been raised since 1881, and during all these years it had never been seriously injured whilst the yield had reached as high as thirty-five bushels to the acre. Seeding began about the middle of April and harvesting about the middle of August.