After talking some time an invitation was extended to the writer to visit his home and prospect the canyon.

Accordingly in the fall of 1909 a preliminary trip was made to the locality.
From Didsbury, a little town north of Calgary, the writer drove eastward ninety miles to the Red Deer River through a portion of the newly opened grain belt of Alberta, destined in the near future to produce a large part of the world's bread.

Near the railroad the land is mostly under cultivation and comfortable homes and bountiful grain fields testify to the rich nature of the soil.

A few miles eastward the brushland gives way to a level expanse of grass-covered prairie dotted here and there by large and small lakes probably of glacial origin.

Mile after mile the road follows section lines and one is rarely out of sight of the house of some "homesteader." It is through this level farm land that the Red Deer River wends its way flowing through a canyon far below the surface.