CHAP, xxviii. INDIAN METHODS OF FISHING. 1-23 



but even this practice is strongly censured by the officer 

 charged with the duty of reporting upon the sahnon 

 rivers of Canada. The Montagnais say, in theii' petition, 

 ' Through your will we can only now look on the waters 

 of the rivers passing, without permission to catch a fish.' 

 The officer says : ' That the Indians must suffer starvation 

 by being deprived of tlie "native liberty" to ruin our 

 salmon fisheries, is a very fiimsy apology on the part of 

 those wdio still -desire to perpetuate so flagrant an abuse.' 



With the exception of some families of Nasquapees, who 

 have imprudently left their upland hunting-grounds, and 

 wandered towards the rocky coasts, where sickness soon debili- 

 tates and cuts off whole encampments, the Lower St. Lawrence 

 Lidians do not endure privations similar to many of the tribes 

 in Western Canada. This comparative immunity is certainly 

 due in great measure to the paternal solicitude exercised by the 

 exemplary missionaries of the Roman Catholic Church Al most 

 total abstinence from 'fire-water' is not the least of a bene- 

 ficent improvement resulting from those self-denying missions. 

 Were there not another salmon to be caught between Quebec 

 and Labrador, the extinction could not occasion to Indians one 

 tithe of the misery depicted by persons whose interest or pre- 

 judice it is to excite a sympathetic feeling favourable to the con- 

 tinuance of facilities for spearing.* 



There are also other features in this practice contributing to 

 the waste and injustice which it so entails. The salmon taken 

 by spear are, comparatively speaking, worthless as a marketable 

 commodity. But, being easily taken, the captors willingly dis- 

 pose of them at miserable prices, and in barter for the cheapest 



' The receipt, gift, purchase, sale, aud possession by any person or persons 

 other than Indians of any sahnon or trout which may have been speared or 

 taken as aforesaid, shall be punishable according- to law ; and every fish so 

 found or had in violation of this rule, shall become forfeited and disposable 

 as the law directs.' 



' Keport of W. 8. A\hitcher, E^ij^. 



