2-982-409 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Canadian Red River Exploring Expedition - Kakabika (or Grand Falls), Kaminitiquia River, Lake Superior, 1858. 'Mr. Dawson...ascertained their actual altitude to be 119 feet 6 inches...Kakabika, or Cleft Rock, is thirty miles from Lake Superior, and the portage or carrying-place it involves is called by the voyageurs the Mountain Portage. The talus, on the left in the Sketch, was covered with wild mint in August last; and some humming-birds appear to have established themselves in the neighbourhood, as they were seen hovering over the beautiful wild flowers which luxuriated in the fine spray occasionally directed by gusts of wind over the green but treacherous bank. Numerous springs of cool water issued from its base, and showed a difference in temperature slightly exceeding 20 degrees from that of the turbid torrent of the Kaminitiquia rushing past it. The forest trees consist of white cedar, Banksian pine, black and balsam spruce, with aspen and balsam poplar in the valley below...When viewed from the foot of the talus the play of rainbow colours at noon, about the summit of the falls and on the bright green vegetation which clothes the surrounding rocks, is truly wonderful'. From "Illustrated London News", 1858.