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The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 47

East Cascade Region

East Cascade Region.

I have described the West Cascade region of the province.

The emigrant, if he choose the West Cascade region, may either settle in Vancouver Island, or in the New Westminster district, or he may become a pioneer in the more northern Nasse-Skena district.

The East Cascade region now demands attention.

This great region, lying between the Cascade Range and the Rocky Range (see Map) is about 800 miles long from corner to corner. A straight line, north and south, would give about 420 miles in length—the breadth varying from 200 to 225 miles.

This region is not level, as might be inferred from the Emigration Map. In fact, its surface is a series of continuous upheavals, among which (to speak of the best known portion of the region), we may distinguish three generally parallel ranges, or masses, of mountains lying between the valley of the lower portion of the Fraser River and the Rocky Mountains. These ranges are—first, the Cascade, immediately east of the Fraser (at this part 3000 to 4000 feet high, and 40 to 50 miles broad); secondly, the Gold Range, east of the Columbia River (2000 to 5000 feet high); and thirdly, the Selkirk Range (7000 to 9000 feet high), lying east from the Arrow Lakes and enclosed within the "Big Bend" of the Columbia—so called because the river has to make a great bend to get round the Selkirk Range. (See Map.)

The Selkirk and Gold mountains may perhaps, broadly, be considered as flanking ridges of the Rocky Range. The Gold Range presents generally, west of the Lower Arrow Lake, a rolling hilly surface, and descends irregularly, and rather rapidly, to a sea-level of about 1100 feet round Okanagan Lake; 1000 feet round Nicola Lake; 800 to 1100 feet at Kamloops Lake.

Going towards the north, the country tends again to become higher, and the surface is marked by extensive tablelands of considerable altitude; for instance, the Bridge Creek plateau, or "divide," between the Rivers Fraser and North Thompson, is 3500 feet high.

If we cross the Fraser and advance in a north-westerly direction (see Map), we enter the extensive region watered by the Chilcotin and its tributaries—a region surfaced like the last-mentioned, and having much the same general elevation, with of course considerable depressions. The highest part of the page 55 trail from the coast, crossing the plateau, north-west of Tatla Lake, is 4360 feet above the sea-level.

Retracing our steps across the Fraser, say to about the line of the Horsefly district, and proceeding thence north and east (see Map), we find that the country quickly rises into the irregular mass of mountains (2500 to 6300 feet high) known as the Cariboo Mountains, and does not again lose its general elevation in that direction, but is merged soon in the mass of the Rocky Range.

The Fraser River has to make a great bend to get round the Cariboo Mountains, just as the Columbia River (see above) has to bend to get round the Selkirk Range.

I will not attempt to describe the immense area north and west from the headwaters of the Chilcotin, further than to say that it is believed to be somewhat less elevated than the highest Chilcotin plateau, abounding in large and small lakes, surrounded by mountains, not however without prairies and wide, park-like grassy plains (possibly somewhat swampy).