The country around Cumberland House is flat and swampy and is much intersected by small lakes.  Limestone is found everywhere under a thin stratum of soil and it not unfrequently shows itself above the surface.  It lies in strata generally horizontal but in one spot near the fort dipping to the northward at an angle of 40 degrees.  Some portions of this rock contain very perfect shells.  With respect to the vegetable productions of the district the Populus trepida, or aspen, which thrives in moist situations, is perhaps the most abundant tree on the banks of the Saskatchewan and is much prized as firewood, burning well when cut green.  The Populus balsamifera or taccamahac, called by the Crees matheh meteos, or ugly poplar, in allusion to its rough bark and naked stem, crowned in an aged state with a few distorted branches, is scarcely less plentiful.  It is an inferior firewood and does not been well unless when cut in the spring and dried during the summer; but it affords a great quantity of potash.  A decoction of its resinous buds has been sometimes used by the Indians with success in cases of snow-blindness, but its application to the inflamed eye produces much pain.  Of pines the white spruce is the most common here:  the red and black spruce, the balsam of Gilead fir, and Banksian pine also occur frequently.  The larch is found only in swampy spots and is stunted and unhealthy.  The canoe birch attains a considerable size in this latitude but from the great demand for its wood to make sledges it has become rare.  The alder abounds on the margin of the little grassy lakes so common in the neighbourhood.  A decoction of its inner bark is used as an emetic by the Indians who also extract from it a yellow dye.  A great variety of willows occur on the banks of the streams and the hazel is met with sparingly in the woods.  The sugar maple, elm, ash, and the arbor vitae,* termed by the Canadian voyagers cedar, grow on various parts of the Saskatchewan but that river seems to form their northern boundary.  Two kinds of prunus also grow here, one of which,** a handsome small tree, produces a black fruit having a very astringent taste whence the term choke-cherry applied to it.  The Crees call it tawquoymeena, and esteemed it to be when dried and bruised a good addition to pemmican.  The other species*** is a less elegant shrub but is said to bear a bright red cherry of a pleasant sweet taste.  Its Cree name is passeeaweymeenan, and it is known to occur as far north as Great Slave Lake.

(Footnote.  Thuya occidentalis.)

(**Footnote.  Prunus virginiana.)

(***Footnote.  Prunus pensylvanica.)