82 LAKE SUPERIOR. 



to make them open their doors. In those days a grand annual coun- 

 cil of the company was held here, and we hear traditions of banquets, 

 and crowds of clerks, and armies of hangers-on of all kinds. But all 

 this has now disappeared. The trade has fallen off, the gross re- 

 ceipts being now, they say, only about <600 per annum ; and more- 

 over the Northwest is merged in its old rival, and all those troubles at 

 an end, so that although the court-yard is surrounded with a palisade, 

 and there is a barbican gate- way, as at the Pic, yet these fortifications 

 are not very formidable at present ; the old blockhouse behind is 

 falling to pieces, and the banqueting hall has probably been burnt up 

 for firewood, at least, we saw nothing there that looked like it. 

 Even the little flower-garden opening out of the stone-paved court- 

 yard was overgrown with weeds. 



The general arrangement here is much the same as at the other 

 posts, only the soil (a yellowish sandy loam) being better, and the 

 climate less severe, the cultivated ground is more extensive, and 

 they have a herd of some thirty cows. Sheep also are kept here, 

 and several of the dogs were in disgrace, with heavy clogs fastened 

 to their necks, for sheep-stealing. As the pasturage on the other 

 side of the river is much better than about the Fort, these cows swim 

 across regularly every morning and back in the evening, a distance 

 of two or three hundred yards. I was much surprised, the morning 

 after our arrival, when the cattle were let out of the yard, to see a 

 cow walk down and deliberately take to the water, of her own accord, 

 the whole drove following her, swimming with only their noses, horns 

 and tails showing above water. An evolution so out of the usual 

 habits of the animal, that I could account for it only by supposing it 

 to be an ancient custom, established with difficulty at first, on the 

 strong compulsion of necessity, and subsequently yielded to from 

 force of example by each cow that successively entered the herd. 



The land about the post is low and flat, mostly a larch swamp ; 

 a wide gap being broken in the rocky rim of the lake by the 

 valley of the Kaministiquia. To the northward the hills retreat to 

 the distance of eight or ten miles. Southerly the line is resumed by 

 McKay's Mountain, a ridge of greenstone gradually ascending to- 

 wards the north-west, to the height of one thousand feet, and there 

 broken into an abrupt precipice. 



