lO JOHN EP]ADE ON 



that occurred between the whites and the Indian, pointed to the people of the vilhige, 

 and drew his attention to the evident fact that few of them had not some trace of Indian 

 blood in their veins. Subsequent investigation led Dr. "Wilson to believe that what he 

 had seen at the Sault was a fair illustration of what might be observed at any frontier set- 

 tlement. Nor was it at such localities alone that he noticed the signs of twofold descent. 

 " I have recognized," he says, " the semi-Indian features in the gay assemblies at a Canadian 

 Governor-Grcnerars reception, in the halls of the Legislature, among the undergraduates of 

 Canadian universities and mingling in selectest social circles. And this is what has been 

 going on in every new American settlement for upwards of three centuries.'" Dr. Wilson's 

 statements as to the extent to which traces of Indian blood are discoA-erable, especially in 

 the Province of Quebec, are, perhaps, more sweeping than some of our French Canadian 

 fellow countrymen would deem justifiable,- but we may be sure that an ethnologist like 

 Dr. Wilson would not make assertions which he had not carefully sought the means of 

 svibstantiating. When he tells us, therefore, that " in Lower Canada half-breeds and men 

 and women of partial Indian blood, are constantly met with in all ranks of life," and cites 

 with approval the opinion that " in the neighbourhood of Quebec, in the Ottawa valley, and 

 to a great extent about Montreal, there is hardly among the original settlers a family in the 

 lower ranks, and not many in the higher, who have not some traces of Indian blood," we 

 should hesitate to reject, on that point, authority which we accept on so many others. By 

 way of illustrating the relations that prevail between the native tribes and the settlers in 

 a new colony, the same author cites the case of British Columbia, as it was some years ago. 

 Of two hundred and six immigrants — British and Spanish, French and Italian, Chinese and 

 negroid — from northern and central Europe and the United States, resident on Vancouver 

 Island, only two were found to be women. Under such circumstances an increase to the 

 population, through association with the scjuaws that hang round the settlement, becomes 

 inevitable. "And yet," he adds, "long before the proA'ince is so old as New England, the 

 descendants of this varied admixture of nationalities will, doubtless, talk as freely of 

 'Anglo-Saxon' rights and duties as any of the older settlements." A little volume entitled 

 " The Wonderland Eoute to the Pacific Coast," gives similar evidence as to the multiplicity 

 of human type to be met with in a western border town. In Miles City, a village of 3,000 

 inhabitants, at the confluence of Tongue and Yellowstone Rivers, there is scarcely an 

 important race, we are told, that is not represented ; while the few ladies that keep 

 chivalry alive in the small community are mostly of the aboriginal stock. But it is on Eed 

 River that the intermixture indicated has been pecviliarly fruitful. The growth of the 

 half-breed population there has probably extended over nearly two centuries, dating from 

 the first intercourse between Europeans and the natives to the present time.'' In the early 

 years of the seventeenth century the unfortunate Henry Hudson (in the employ of " some 

 worshipful merchants of London ") penetrated the great bay that bears his name, but it 

 was not till 16*70 that the company called after it received its charter. The rivalry between 



' Prehistoric Man, ii. 252, 3. 



- Suite denies with indignation tlio assertion that the early Canadians intermarried (except in very rare instan- 

 ces) with the Indian tribes. See his Histoire des Canadiens-Français, i. 154. Abbé Tanguay also holds such 

 marriages to be of rare occurrence. 



■' Arthur Dobhs, whose account of the countries adjoining Hudson Bay was imblislicd in 1744, obtained his infor- 

 mation almost wliolly from a half-breed trader called La France — a proof that the Métis was on the spot at least a 

 century and a half ago. 



