OF THE POLAR SEA. 



85 



Island Lake ; and towards the spring a considerable quantity of 

 moose meat was procured from the Basquian Hill, sixty or seventy 

 miles distant. The rest of our winter's provision consisted of geese, 

 salted in the autumn, and of dried meats and pemmican, obtained 

 from the provision posts on the plains of the Saskatchawan. A good 

 many potatoes are also raised at this post, and a small supply of tea 

 and sugar is brought from the depdt at York Factory. The provi- 

 sions obtained from these various sources were amply sufficient in the 

 winter of 1819-20; but through improvidence this post has in former 

 seasons been reduced to great straits. 



Many of the labourers, and a great majority of the agents and 

 clerks employed by the two Companies, have Indian or half-breed 

 wives, and the mixed offspring thus produced has become extremely 



numerous. 



These metifs, or as the Canadians term them, bois-brul6s 9 are 

 upon the whole a good looking people, and where the experiment 

 has been made, have shewn much aptness in learning, and willing- 

 ness to be taught ; they have, however, been sadly neglected. The 

 example of their fathers has released them from the restraint im- 

 posed by the Indian opinions of good and bad behaviour; and, 

 generally speaking, no pains have been taken to fill the void with 

 better principles. Hence it is not surprising that the males, trained 

 up in a high opinion of the authority and rights of the Company to 

 which their fathers belonged, and unacquainted with the laws of 

 the civilized world, should be ready to engage in any measure what- 

 ever, that they are prompted to believe will forward the interests 

 of the cause they espouse. Nor that the girls, taught a certain 

 degree of refinement by the acquisition of an European language, 

 should be inflamed by the unrestrained discourse of their Indian 

 relations, and very early give up all pretensions to chastity. It is, 

 however, but justice to remark, that there is a very decided dif- 

 ference in the conduct of the children of the Orkney men employed 



