Carlton House (which our observations place in latitude 52 degrees 50 minutes 47 seconds North, longitude 106 degrees 12 minutes 42 seconds West, variation 20 degrees 44 minutes 47 seconds East) is pleasantly situated about a quarter of a mile from the river’s side on the flat ground under the shelter of the high banks that bound the plains.  The land is fertile and produces with little trouble ample returns of wheat, barley, oats, and potatoes.  The ground is prepared for the reception of these vegetables about the middle of April and when Dr. Richardson visited this place on May 10th the blade of wheat looked strong and healthy.  There were only five acres in cultivation at the period of my visit.  The prospect from the fort must be pretty in summer owing to the luxuriant verdure of this fertile soil; but in the uniform and cheerless garb of winter it has little to gratify the eye.

Beyond the steep bank behind the house commences the vast plain whose boundaries are but imperfectly known; it extends along the south branch of the Saskatchewan and towards the sources of the Missouri and Asseenaboine Rivers, being scarcely interrupted through the whole of this great space by hills or even rising grounds.  The excellent pasturage furnishes food in abundance to a variety of grazing animals of which the buffalo, red-deer, and a species of antelope are the most important.  Their presence naturally attracts great hordes of wolves which are of two kinds, the large, and the small.  Many bears prowl about the banks of this river in summer; of these the grizzly bear is the most ferocious and is held in dread both by Indians and Europeans.  The traveller in crossing these plains not only suffers from the want of food and water but is also exposed to hazard from his horse stumbling in the numerous badger-holes.  In many large districts the only fuel is the dried dung of the buffalo; and when a thirsty traveller reaches a spring he has not unfrequently the mortification to find the water salt.

Carlton House and La Montee are provision-posts, only an inconsiderable quantity of furs being obtained at either of them.  The provisions are procured in the winter season from the Indians in the form of dried meat and fat and, when converted by mixture into pemmican, furnish the principal support of the voyagers in their passages to and from the depots in summer.  A considerable quantity of it is also kept for winter use at most of the fur-posts as the least bulky article that can be taken on a winter journey.  The mode of making pemmican is very simple, the meat is dried by the Indians in the sun or over a fire, and pounded by beating it with stones when spread on a skin.  In this state it is brought to the forts where the admixture of hair is partially sifted out and a third part of melted fat incorporated with it, partly by turning the two over with a wooden shovel, partly by kneading them together with the hands.  The pemmican is then firmly pressed into leathern bags, each capable of containing eighty-five pounds and, being placed in an airy place to cool, is fit for use.  It keeps in this state if not allowed to get wet very well for one year and with great care it may be preserved good for two.  Between three and four hundred bags were made here by each of the Companies this year.