Whatever may be said of other parts of the route, the Winnipeg was at least a well-known and long travelled highway, presenting remarkable facilities for boats. As a case in point, I may draw attention to the fact that, at the very time the Expeditionary Force was passing, two frail and poorly manned canoes, the one occupied by a very fat newspaper editor, and the other by a gentleman who had his wife with him, passed over all the rapids, portages and whirlpools of the Winnipeg without its occurring to their occupants that they were doing anything extraordinary.

— Simon Dawson, Report of the Red River Expedition of 1870