234 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



another for lliut and other reasons, in t'acililios for such travel our 

 Indians were exceptionally fortunate, for the Province is everywhere 

 intersected l)y rivers readily navigable by their light canoes. Indeed, I 

 doubt if anywhere else in the world is an equal extent of territory so 

 completely watered by navigable streams, or whether in any other 

 country canoe navigation was ever brought to such a pitch of perfection, 

 or 60 exclusively relied upon for locomotion. The principal streams of 

 the Province head together curiously in pairs, the country is almost in- 

 variably easy to travel between their sources, and a route may be found 

 in almost any desired direction, features which come out well in the 

 accompanj-ing map of New Brunswick, showing the Indian routes of 

 travel. (Map No. 12.) But it was not only this fortunate arrangement 

 of the rivers which made travel easy, but also the way in which the 

 Indian adapted himself to it by the construction of his exquisite birch 

 canoe, a craft which has excited the admiration of all writers from Cham- 

 plain to our own day, and which is a constant delight to all of us who 

 know it well. A Maliseet canoe, which will carry four persons, weighs 

 less than a hundred pounds, and draws but a few inches of water. On 

 the shallow rivers it is used but partly loaded, and then it draws not over 

 three or four inches, and needs a channel of less than two feet in breadth. 

 A skilled canoe man, with a light pole of nine feet in length, can force 

 Buch a craft up the swiftest of rivers, surmounting rapids and even low 

 falls, guiding it with the greatest nicety among rocks and with exactness 

 into the deepest places. If the water is too shallow in places for even it 

 to float, the Indian covers its bottom with "shoes" or splints of cedar, and 

 thus drags it unharmed over the wet stones. Finally, when the head of 

 the river is reached, he turns it upside down over his head, allowing the 

 middle bar, on which it exactly balances, to rest across his shoulders, and 

 then trots off over the portage path. 



The rate at which the Indians could travel upon the rivers depended 

 upon the character of the river channel, its amount of descent, and 

 whether smooth or broken by falls, upon the height of the water, and 

 especially upon whether they went with or against the current. Up 

 such a river as the Tobique they can go but twenty miles a day, though 

 more on a spurt, but the}- can descend it at the rate of sixty or more 

 miles a day. When the St. John is at freshet height, they could descend 

 a hundred or more miles a day, but could ascend only a fraction of 

 that distance against it. The Indian couriers employed to carry 

 despatches between Quebec and Nova Scotia in the last century often 

 made remarkable speed. Tlius Morris, on his map of 1749, states that they 

 passed from Chignecto to Quebec by the St. John and Quelle in seven 

 days, a statement almost incredible. Ddnonville ' states that they went by 



' See later page, under Portages, 15 F. 



