The New Student's Reference Work/Peace River

Peace River, a great river in Alberta, is formed by the junction of the Findlay and Parsnip in the center of northern British Columbia 1,000 miles to the west. It flows into Lake Athabasca. Peace River practically passes through the center of a vast district, and in the development of this will play an important part, since navigation is practically without a dangerous rapid or obstacle of any kind throughout its whole course, with the exception of that at Vermillion Chutes (five miles above where the Little Red River joins the Peace). It runs through a country of vast natural resources, as timber, asphalt, copper, salt and fish. The agricultural possibilities are unsurpassed in the northwest. The Hudson Bay Company has a large and excellently equipped flour-mill at Fort Vermillion, 670 miles north of the United States boundary and where there is a settlement of 500 people. Considerable wheat, oats and barley were grown there in 1906. Wheat has been successfully raised for over twenty years. Peace River Valley is a tract 75 miles in width on each side of the river and seven or eight hundred miles long. The soil is claimed to be as good as that on the Saskatchewan.