Red River Valley

“ It has had its forts within the Arctic Circle; it has successfully exploited a country larger than the United States. The Red River Valley, the Saskatchewan Valley, and British Columbia, are now belted by a great railway, and given to the plough; but in the far north life is much the same as it was a hundred years ago. ”

“ The Red River Road, from Ute Park, west over the divide, and down Red River to Questa, thence to Taos, has now been finished.
Good roads recently built by the Government and state into portions of the Sacramento Range and into the White Mountains have opened up areas for recreation. Among these is the beautiful Ruidoso Creek, now reached over an excellent road from the Pecos Valley and through the Mescalero-Apache Indian Reservation, and the area at the north end of the Capitans recently chosen by Roswell for a municipal camp. ”

“ The winter had been one of great blessing to the newly-founded church. There had, however, been a great fall of snow and the swamps and streams had been filled with water in the autumn. The Red and Assiniboine rivers run through flat prairie lands, and an overflow in time of high water is very possible. In 1826 the valley of the Red River had been flooded, the water reaching in a [Pg 72] great lake for miles across the country. The fathers of Kildonan remembered that former date when in 130 tents they had dwelt on Stony Mountain and the higher lands back from the river. ”

“ And travellers, now, within that valley, Through the red-litten windows see Vast forms, that move fantastically To a discordant melody, While, like a ghastly rapid river, Through the pale door A hideous throng rush out forever And laugh—but smile no more. ”

“ The Red River settlement extends beyond Fort Garry for about twenty miles to the northward along the banks of Red River, and about fifty to the westward along its tributary, the Assiniboine. The wealthier inhabitants live in large, well-built wooden houses, and the poorer half-breeds in rough log huts, or even Indian “lodges.” There are several Protestant churches, a Romish cathedral and nunnery, and schools of various denominations. The neighbouring country is principally open, level prairie, the timber being confined, with a few exceptions, to the banks of the streams. ”

“ The two men were slowly pacing the terrace in front of Dr. Raymond’s house. The sun still hung above the western mountain-line, but it shone with a dull red glow that cast no shadows, and all the air was quiet; a sweet breath came from the great wood on the hillside above, and with it, at intervals, the soft murmuring call of the wild doves. Below, in the long lovely valley, the river wound in and out between the lonely hills, and, as the sun hovered and vanished into the west, a faint mist, pure white, began to rise from the hills. Dr. Raymond turned sharply to his friend.
“Safe? ”

“ Cedar, fir, pine, and oak abound in the embracing mountains; but the valley itself is as bare of timber, as an Illinois prairie. Numberless springs burst out of the mountain sides, and coalescing into streams gridiron the valley—uniting at last in Grande Ronde River, which flows thence to the Snake. In places, we were told, there are hot mineral springs also, but we saw none of these. The edges of the valley—seemingly like the rim of a plate—were already sprinkled well with ranches, while horses, cattle, and sheep by the thousand were grazing off in the bottoms. ”

“ Near this point, a little distance to the right of the road and some two thousand feet33 beneath, lies Bear Valley, one of the loveliest vales of the Sierras—in early summer an emerald green meadow—lying between Yuba River and Bear Creek, shut in on every hand by tree-clad slopes. From Emigrant Gap to the summit of the divide, a distance of twenty-seven miles, the road mounts steadily through the pines, winding around abrupt turns and climbing heavy grades—the last pitch rising to thirty per cent, according to our road book, though we doubt if it is really so steep. ”

“ Twenty years before, this had been a highway going through The Village, on its long way to Richmond. Then the railroad was built. It wanted to come through The Village, between court-house and church, but the people rose up in arms. They did not want shrieking, grinding trains, to scare horses and bring in outsiders, nor an iron track parting their homes from their graves in the churchyard. So the railroad went by Redville that was six miles from The Village in summer and three or four times as far in the winter season of ruts and red mud. ”

“ All the upper branches of the rivers are fairly laden with lakes, like orchard trees with fruit. They lie embosomed in the deep woods, down in the grovy bottoms of cañons, high on bald tablelands, and around the feet of the icy peaks, mirroring back their wild beauty over and over again. Some conception of their lavish abundance may be made from the fact that, from one standpoint on the summit of Red Mountain, a day’s journey to the east of Yosemite Valley, no fewer than forty-two are displayed within a radius of ten miles. ”

“ Wheat grown at Fort Vermilion is harder than grain of the same variety grown in Ontario. He explained that the river bottom proper only consists of points or flats in the bottom of the bed of the river, which “bottom” is practically about two miles in width, whereas, what is properly called Peace river valley, is in reality a broad tract of country. When you once get on to the height of land, this so-called “valley” covers three hundred miles in width, and extends from Rocky mountains on to Lake Athabaska. ”

“ Brutusville, the county seat where they were posted, was a pretty little straggling country village of old-fashioned houses amid groves of fine old trees, lying along the main road of the county, where it wound among shady slopes, with the blue mountain range in the distance. Most of the houses were hip-roofed and gray with age. The river—the same stream that divided Red Rock from Birdwood—passed near the village, broadening as it reached the more level country and received the waters of one or two other streams. ”

“ The hills by the great Valley River are a quiet country, sodded deep, with here and there an open grove like those in which the dreamers wandered with a garland of meadowsweet, or the fauns piped when the world was young. Through them, now and then, a little stream goes laughing, fringed with bulrushes and beds of calamus and fragrant mint, a narrow stream that runs chuckling through the stiff sod and spreads dimpling over the road on a bed of white sand, for all the world like a dodging sprite of the wood who laughs suddenly in some sunlit corner. ”

“ Idle rumours prevail that the Sioux Indians will attack the Settlement; which unhappily unsettle the minds, and interrupt the industry of the colonists. But none of these things move me, in carrying on my plans, and making arrangements to erect a substantial building, sixty feet by twenty. The Red River appears to me, a most desirable spot for a Missionary establishment, and the formation of schools; from whence Christianity may arise, and be propagated among the numerous tribes of the north. ”

“ It has many solid brick edifices and many pretty cottages on its gentle slopes and rounded hills, overlooked by the great mountains. The view from any point of vantage of orchards and vineyards and semi-tropical gardens, with the wide sky-line of noble and snow-clad hills, is exceedingly attractive. The region is watered by the Santa Ana River and Mill Creek, but the main irrigating streams, which make every hill-top to bloom with vegetation, come from the Bear Valley Reservoir. ”

“ Those dour and doughty pioneers of peoples had planted on the Red River their homes upon their little "strip" farms—a rampart of civilization against the wide, wild prairie, the home of the buffalo, and camp ground of the hunters of the plain. ”

“ For Green Valley is a joyous, sweetly human old town to those who love and understand it.
Take an early spring day when the winter's wreck and rust and deadness seem to be everywhere. Yet here in the Green Valley roads and streets little warm winds are straying, looking for tulip beds and spring borders. The sunshine that elsewhere looks thin and pale drops warmly here into back yards and ripples ever so brightly up and down Rabbit's Hill, where the hedges are turning green and David Allan is plowing. ”

“ When Reeth is left behind, there is no more of the fine ‘new’ road which makes travelling so easy for the eleven miles from Richmond. The surface is, however, by no means rough along the nine miles to Muker, although the scenery becomes far wilder and more mountainous with every mile. The dale narrows most perceptibly; the woods become widely separated, and almost entirely disappear on the southern side; and the gaunt moors, creeping down the sides of the valley, seem to threaten the narrow belt of cultivation, that becomes increasingly restricted to the river margins. ”

“ Red River, flowing almost entirely through prairie land, has hollowed out for itself a deep channel in the level plains, the sloping sides of which are covered with timber almost to the water’s edge. The unvarying sameness of the river, and the limited prospect shut in by rising banks on either side, gave a monotony to our daily journey; and the routine of cooking, chopping, loading and unloading canoes, paddling, and shooting, amusing enough at first, began to grow rather tiresome. ”

“ Wonder what looked like a low, sandy ridge separates the main sink of Death Valley from a similar though smaller and less striking basin called the Mesquite Valley. The high Panamints end in a stern red mass near the sand-ridge, beyond which a long slope like the one we had come down leads to more distant mountains which, however, are a continuation of the range. Emigrant Pass through the mountains over to Ballarat starts from the slope and winds around behind the stern, red mass. ”

“ The formation of the whole country is a succession of basins and divides. Ensued another twelve miles' descent, which placed us in sight of Ruby Valley, and a mile beyond carried us to the station.
Ruby Valley is a half-way house, about 300 miles from Great Salt Lake City, and at the same distance from Carson Valley. It derives its name from the small precious stones which are found like nuggets of gold in the crevices of primitive rock. The length of the valley is about 100 miles, by three or four broad, and springs are scattered in numbers along the base of the western mountains. ”

“ The California mining camp was ephemeral. Often it was founded, built up, flourished, decayed, and had weeds and herbage growing over its site and hiding all of man’s work inside of ten years. Yet to one witnessing these changes it seemed the life of a whole generation. Of such settlements, Red Mountain Bar was one. Red Mountain lay three miles above Swett’s Bar, “up river.” ”

“ About a mile from Tintagel, along the hilly road leading to Boscastle, and passing the wonderful little Bossiney cove with its elephant-shaped rock, there is a small rapid stream which winds through the Rocky Valley and falls like a torrent at low tide into the sea. The Rocky Valley, with its three huge boulders, its narrow walk now leading to the side of the stream and now mounting far above it, and ending only where the iron cliffs beetle above the roughest of bays, is one of the most sublime spectacles that Nature has to display in that enchanted region. ”

“ From Panguitch to Orderville, fifty miles, the scenery opens with the dreary hills that had become so miserably familiar, alternating with level pasture-lands, among which the serpentine Sevier winds a curiously fantastic course. But gradually there grows upon the mind a sense of coming change. Verdure creeps over the plains, and vegetation steals on to the hill-sides, and then suddenly as if for a surprise, the complete beauty of Long Valley bursts upon the traveller. ”

“ But men like the Colonel and Joshua Stillman and the Reverend Alexander Campbell are representatives of Green Valley's leisure class. They give Green Valley its high peace, its aristocratic flavor. But they are a little remote from the town's workday life, being given to dreams and memories and scholarly pursuits. They know little of the doings and talks that go on in Billy Evans' livery barn, or the hotel. They do, of course, go to the barber shop, the bank and the postoffice, and always when abroad give courteous greeting to every townsman. ”

“ On a branch of Red river, which comes in about one hundred and thirty miles below the Panis towns, it is said, silver mines have been lately discovered; and just below the first village, the Ra-ha-cha-ha, or the Missouri branch of Red river, enters from the north; which is a large stream, and the water so brackish, that it cannot be drank. At its head waters, the Indians collect large lumps of rock salt. From the Panis villages to the head of Red river the land is broken and mountainous, and wholly destitute of wood, excepting willows and small cotton wood trees on the borders of the streams. ”

“ The willows are entirely trampled and torn to pieces; even the bark of the smaller trees is rubbed off in many places. The grass on the first bank of the river is entirely worn away. Numerous paths, some of which are a foot deep in the hard turf, come from the plains to the brink of the river, and vast quantities of dung gives this place the appearance of a cattle yard. We have reached the commencement of the great plains of Red River, where the eye is lost in one continuous level westward. Not a tree or a rising ground interrupts the view. ”