“There is much good land about Sandy lake. Indeed the greater part of the land around these lakes would make good farms.”
A short distance above Severn lake, according to Mr. Low, there is a considerable area of country “almost flat, with good timber and soil.”
Mr. Low describes Trout lake (east of Severn lake) as being forty miles long by twenty miles wide. He states in his report that Mr. Tait, the officer in charge of the Hudson’s Bay Company’s post at that point, “says that good crops of peas, potatoes and other roots are raised here yearly, and are very rarely injured by summer frosts. This being the case, the country to the westward, between Severn and Sandy lakes, which is more favourably situated, having all the appearance of a better climate and a richer soil, must undoubtedly be well suited for agriculture, and will at some future time prove valuable land for settlement.”
Mr. Low reports the soil around Fort Severn as a heavy clay and very swampy. Nothing but a few small turnips are with difficulty grown there. On August 8, strawberries, then beginning to ripen, were picked by Mr. Low on clearings around the post.
Mr. Low was examined at length before the Senate committee of 1907 (See p. 27), and stated in his evidence that the country between Norway House and Hudson bay is not very elevated. The highest points in it are probably somewhere in the neighbourhood of one thousand feet above sea level. For about half the distance to Hudson bay it is practically a rolling plain, and the rocks are ancient rocks of the Laurentian and Huronian ages. Beyond that there was an ancient deposit of limestone and sandstone, extending in a wide line around the northern part about half way across. These are large limestones, and they are lying almost flat. The country for about half way down from Norway House to Churchill slopes very gently towards the bay, so that the grade is not more than eight or ten feet to the mile, if it is that. The northeastern part is practically a plain.
There are considerable areas of low swampy lands. The surface going down into Hudson bay after reaching the Wolstenholme country is fairly swampy. The rivers have thrown up banks, and it is only at an occasional place that a break through those banks occurred to let out the drainage. In many places the river banks are from five to ten feet higher than the surrounding country, and in consequence the land beyond is drowned more or less, very often extending back for a distance as far as one can walk in a day.