dred and fifty fisher, thirty-eight hundred wolf, seven hundred 

 elk, and nineteen hundred deer skins. 



The trading commodities were made up into ninety-pound 

 bundles, securely wrapped to withstand the many portages 

 and rough usage they would be subject to before arriving at 

 their destination. When the time came for the crews to de- 

 part, navigation being open, each canoe was loaded with sixty- 

 five packages of goods, six hundred pounds of biscuit, two 

 hundred-weight of pork, three bushels of peas, the last three 

 being provisions for the-men, two oil cloths to cover the goods, 

 a sail and its fixings, an axe, a towing line, a kettle and a 

 sponge for baling water, also a quantity of gum and bark for 

 repairing the canoe. The foremen and steersmen were re- 

 sponsible for the canoe, in regard to repairing it and trans- 

 porting it over portages, while the six middlemen were re- 

 quired to carry their canoe load across, five or six canoe crews 

 being under the supervision of a higher officer, paid propor- 

 tionately and supposed to be a man of superior experience 

 and intelligence. 



On reaching Grand Portage about the first of July, each 

 man was required to carry across eight packages of goods, 

 and if after the allotted amount had been transported, some 

 were left, the men were allowed a Spanish dollar for each 

 bundle carried over. Sir Alexander McKenzie tells in his 

 "Voyages" of seeing a number of men take two of the ninety- 

 pound packages and start across, returning with two equally 

 as heavy, covering the eighteen miles in six or seven hours. 

 Having transported the goods over and the furs back, crews 

 were picked from the men who had been hired for three years' 

 service at Montreal to take the former to Rainy lake. The canoes 

 used on this leg of the journey were smaller, holding thirty- 

 five packages, twenty-three being for trade and the remainder 

 for provisions, baggage and stores, and manned by six men. 

 After a grand carousal and feast, the "North Men," as the 

 long service men were called, departed westward over the 

 Pigeon river, Mountain lake, Rove Lake, "Lac de pierres a' 

 fusil" or Gunflint, Saganaga, Lac la Croix, "Lac de Bois Blanc" 

 or Basswood lake, Namekan and "Lac de la Pluie" or Rainy 



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