﻿34 ROUTES THROUGH THE INTERIOR. 1847. 



send them by the shorter and cheaper way of 

 Hudson's Bay ; though they still employ two or 

 three canoes on the Lake Superior route, to accom- 

 modate the Governor in his annual journeys from 

 his residence at La Chine to Norway House, and 

 for the transport of newly-hired servants to the 

 interior, or for bringing down officers coming out 

 on furlough, and men whose period of service has 

 expired. No repairs having of late years been 

 made on the portage roads, they have very much 

 deteriorated, and are truly execrable. 



The distance between York Factory in Hudson's 

 Bay and Norway House, situated near the north- 

 east corner of Lake Winipeg, does not much exceed 

 three hundred miles ; and as the navigation, though 

 much interrupted by rapids and cascades, admits, 

 in the majority of seasons, of boats carrying a cargo 

 of between fifty and sixty hundred- weight, it offers 

 a much more economical approach to the interior 

 of the fur countries than the other ; since one of 

 these boats may be managed by the same crew 

 that is required for a canoe carrying only twenty 

 hundred-weight. The Hudson's Bay ships are 

 generally two in number ; one of them being em- 

 ployed in taking supplies to Moose Factory, at the 

 bottom of James's Bay, and the other to York 

 Factory, in latitude 57° N., longitude 92^° W., 

 on the west coast of Hudson's Bay. They sail 



