Wichita eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1886-1890, 1889-04-16
ENRoUTE
From the Falls Of St. Anthony to the
Great Falls Of Missouri

ri river in Montana, is by way Of tn
Manitoba railway 1862 miles, rout
seldom travelled by a citizen of Kansas
so few notes by the way may interes
your readers.
The Manitoba railroad, starting from
st. Paul. runs northwest into the Rec
: River Valley which it follows north t.
} Winnipeg, the principal central city O
| British America.
The valley of Red river is claimed
and justly think, to be the largest body
of agricultural land in America, anC
produces the finest wheat, oats, barley
and potatoes: it is as level as if the eartf
had been turned in lathe, and in ex
tent is bounded only by the horizon
There are large bodies of oak timber or
the river and its tributaries. Leaving
St Paul in the evening you arrive al
Grand Forks in the morning
here one main line of the road turns
west and runs across North Dakota and
eastern Montana. Fifty or seventy-five
miles south of the Canadian line, and
about one hundred miles north of the
northern Pacific railroad from Grand
Forks west to Devils Lake, eighty-fve
miles is very good country, gradually
rising into gently rolling prairie, with
occasional small lakes. Devils Lake is a
sprangly body of water some twenty
miles long, on which phys a steamboat
for commerce and pleasure. This lake
is included in the reservation of one
band of the Dakota or Souix Indians
numbering two or three Thousand who
are doing some farming. Fort Totten
is located here ON the south side of the
lake near large bodies of hard wood tim
Der, which seems to flourish ON the
northern plains wherever it can find
protection from fire. In the Red river
valley and along the line of the road to
this DON'T. The farmers had
done their ploughing in
the fall, apd one half
of the vast fields were already sown
while hundreds of teams were busy at
work with drills and hartows. Some of
the latter, thirty-two feet wide, drawn
by six horses or mules. In the Red River
valley most of the land is in cultivation,
no waste land except the rivers, and not
stone largs enough to throw at bird
in a township: fences are discarded and
fruit trees unknown. Comfortable
houses, barns, farm machinery and
elevators in the frequent little towns,
with the river timber, alone break the
monotony of the boundiess black ocean
of earth. The towns along this region
except Grand Forkes, do not present
thrifty appearance. The wheat crop was
poor last season, and when this one great
staple fails, they are in bad way. The
people have no cattle or hogs or fruit,
nor the sorce of other resources of the
Kansas farmer to help them out, and the
winters are long, cold and bleak.
West of Devils lake the country is
sparsely settled. The soil gravelly and
light rolling plains, until the valley of
Mouse river is reached a beautiful
heavily timbered stream. This remark
able river rises in British America,
crosses the line into Dakota, flows south
for seventy-five miles, swings around in
shape of an OK bow, again crosses the
line and empties into Red River at
Winnipeg. Across this bow the railroad
runs. At the second crossing of the river
is the town of Minot, for a long time the
end OF the road and a town of some i'm
portance. Here we set our watches
back one hour, to correspond with
time. In getting out of the deep |
valley in which Minot is situated we !
cross a trestle SAID to be one hundred |
and fifty feet high and nearly one-fourth |
of mile long and enter the White Earth |
Indian reservation, high broken |
table land extending to the Mis- |
souri, river, a country utterly desolate
and uninhabited, SO far as we could see.
Scattered all over We're glacial drift |
stones and bOulders from the size of an
orange to Kansas watermelon. which |
look as if they had rained down in a
shower all over the country. In no
place on this line, from the Red river to
the Missouri river does rock in place
show itself, all is buried deep in glacial |
drifts. Over this boundleSs prairie coun-
try grass grows abundantly. and
evidence of the former presence of vast
herds of buffalos, elk, antelope and
other game was seen on every sue, but
of them all not one Is left, but astonish-
ing to Us who are accustomed TO read of
Dakota billiards. and Artic cold, on the
9th day of April a. d, 1899. the prairies
of n. ". Dakota within fifty miles of
the British line, were dotted with many
varieties of flowers in bloom, and where
not recently burned over there was
abundant new grass 10 support domestic
The same was true along the Upper
Missouri and Milk river, and as | write
the grass is green on my right while on
the left are mountains whose tops are
covered with snow.
At dark last evening we reached the
Missouri river at Fort Buford, six COM
pany post with 500 men Daylight
found us in the bread, beautiful valley
Of Milk river, with groups of Indian
lodges along the stream, their ponies
grazing on the green meadows and near
BY hochs of sage hens strutting about
ike turkeys and nearly as large. Fur
-her along we came to a portion of the
valley containing squatters cabins and
embryo towns, with piles of buffalo,
ELK and other bones at the siding. The
bone pilgrims" are at work in the
mountains.
AT s o'clock we reached Fort Asthma
0oine, large post with ten companies
md 500 men. The men were well
dressed, clean, and pictures of rosy
health, as are most of the people have
'een in this northern country.
A little later we reached Fort Benton on
he Missouri river, now abandoned, but
he town of Benton at the head of navi-
cation survives.
And little later on as I write. the
conductor calls out Great Falls, and here
We are at the junction of the beautiful
Sun river with the Missouri, at the Great
falls of the Missouri river. many times
greater than the falls of st. Anthony.
md at the future great city of Great
Falls. J. +. NJ.
THE JOYS OF SPRING.
" l
rom the Boston Courier.
IT.. -: : a., =,