THE INDIANS 201 



wholly on the country. Few deer are taken there, and 

 while fish are generally plenty, the margin of subsistence is 

 uncomfortably narrow. All the able-bodied men go to 

 Rupert House in summer with the brigade, while the women 

 keep the nets out in lakes near the post. The return jour- 

 ney from Rupert takes about sixty days. Sometimes the 

 start downward is made before the ice has left the lakes, 

 but although the stay at Rupert is only a few days, the 

 upper lakes are sometimes frozen again before their arrival 

 at Nichicun. 



For some years Nichicun has been the only inland post 

 in the whole peninsula, unless Mistassini, in the extreme 

 southwest, be reckoned. The up voyage of the Mistassini 

 brigade takes about fifty days. The lower part of its route, 

 in common with that to Nichicun, follows Rupert River. 

 There are seventy-five portages between Rupert and Mis- 

 tassini. 



The thirty families who trade at Mistassini are also 

 counted as Nascaupees. All the Indians known by this 

 name are properly Swampy Crees. Those at Chimo say 

 that they came originally from southwest of Hudson Bay 

 to get away from the Iroquois. 



The brigade canoes are now of canvas, twenty-eight feet 

 by five and one-half, by two and one-half deep, and carry 

 five thousand pounds each of cargo. In 1898 thirty-five 

 thousand pounds of freight went to Mistassini. The port- 

 aging is arduous. Every man takes two " pieces," each of 

 ninety to one hundred pounds' weight. There is compe- 

 tition among the men for the bags of shot, which balance 

 uncommonly well at the top of the load close to the neck. 

 Such a load, of about two hundred pounds, is no trifle 



