MONT AGNAIS — INDIAN STATIONS. 263 



this purpose. In 1871 a census of the Montagnais Indians along 

 the north shore of the St. Lawrence resulted in 1,685 > there being 

 190 at Seven Islands, 552 at Bersamis, and 560 at Mingan alone. 

 For the Labrador division exclusively there were 1,309. In 1877 

 the Nascopies of the lower St. Lawrence numbered 2,860, though 

 doubtless through error, 1,860 would have probably reached nearer 

 the truth if indeed there were so many as that. In that same year 

 (1871) there were estimated in Labrador and Quebec to be 2,500 

 Nascopies, and 1,745 Montagnais. Since that time the number of 

 families have constantly diminished. Some have renounced their 

 trading and trapping voyages and settled in comfortable cabins and 

 are turning their attention to farming and the raising of such crops 

 as potatoes, turnips, oats, etc., and secure about enough hay to 

 feed a few head of cattle during the winter, but the traders are 

 fast undoing what has been done, and sell them goods as well as 

 liquor largely on the credit principle so that, so to speak, they are 

 demoralized almost as fast as, if not faster than, they are moralized. 

 Godbout river was formerly a great Indian station and gathering 

 place ; not more than a dozen families now reside there, and they 

 only in the summer time. Farther down the river, at Seven Islands, 

 about five times that number gather in the summer, descending by 

 the Moisie river, and strive to recuperate from the half famished 

 condition in which scarcity, of provisions in the winter time has 

 left them. Moisie itself, at one time quite a rendezvous for these 

 families, is now almost deserted for this place (Seven Islands). 

 Mingan, now the favorite resort of this tribe, is a good location for 

 their wants. It has been previously described. The Indians meet 

 here in the summer, and have a general resting time. Many of 

 them, if the season's " catch " has been good, buy them boats and 

 barges for $80 to ^150 and make hunting excursions both up and 

 down the coast, or to the island of Anticosti thirty miles distant 

 across the channel. In the year 1878 there were about 80 families 

 and 375 people, young and old, stationed here for the summer. 

 The year I was at Mingan there were about the same number. 

 Natashquan is another station of these Indians during the summer 



