Finlay Forks, B.C.
Sept. 14, 1918.

My dearest Mother:

I will start out for Prince George in a few days. The journey out will occupy about three weeks, 200 miles up stream by canoe. We have had a very good season here. I went up to Fort Graham on Finlay River.

Fort Graham is a post of the celebrated Company of Gentlemen Adventurers of England trading into the Hudson's Bay.

This Finlay River (really the start of the Peace River) was used as a pathway for those who essayed the Overland route from Edmonton, Alta to Dawson City and the Yukon Gold fields in the '98 excitement - those days when geography itself seemed to have gone mad. A more forbidding route to Dawson could not have been conceived.

Perhaps you have heard of the Omenica Well, to show you the ephemeral character of a mining town we will regard Manson Creek. It is the headquarters of the Omenica district Forty years ago this town had a population of four or five thousand, which must have included all the usual trash of gamblers, tricksters bootleggers (sheebeeners) et al. The town was equipped with all the accessories of a mining town saw mill, flour mill bank and all. Now the place has a biblical aspect of desolation complete. Nor is this an exception. Many such places as deserted as Manson Creek are dotted over this wilderness. Although natural enough may be in Ireland a Deserted Village seems incongruous in a new country. Yet the explanation is simple: Long before the country was even charted the early gold seekers came, cleaned up the auriferous gravels and stream beds and departed to new stampeding grounds. The ancient Phonecians pursued the same game four thousand years ago. Perhaps some old hooked-nosed gold-craze from Tyre on Sidon landed on the East Coast of Ireland and enthused over the possibilities of the streams from the Wicklow mountains!

The surrounding country is mountainous cut by swift flowing rivers into deep and narrow valleys. The main Range of the Rockies stands up like a wall on the East and other mountain ranges be Westward These hills are covered with timber. Fish and game are plentiful. I do not look for any considerable development of this part of the country for many years yet.

I understand that the Canadian Government is to send an Expeditionary force to Siberia