CANOES 33 



the head of ocean navigation, where every- 

 thing was, of course, trans-shipped for Europe. 

 The same sort of trade was carried on, in a 

 slightly different way, in the Maritime Pro- 

 vinces. There are survivals of it still in 

 Labrador. At the end of July, Nascaupees, 

 some of whom take months to reach their hunt- 

 ing grounds by paddle and portage, may be seen 

 at Seven Islands, on the north shore of the 

 Gulf of St Lawrence, where huge modern pulp 

 mills make paper for the New York press, and 

 where the offing is alive with transatlantic 

 shipping all season through. 



These inland voyages are as strange to the 

 average Canadian of to-day as to contem- 

 porary Englishmen and Frenchmen. So it is 

 perhaps worth while to record the ordinary 

 features of what must soon become altogether 

 a thing of the past. The incidents would be 

 much the same with every kind of small craft 

 that has served its turn along the interlock- 

 ing network of Canadian waterways, whether 

 an old-fashioned bateau or a Durham boat, a 

 sharp-end dug-out, or a bark canoe. But the 

 immemorial birch-bark is the best to choose for 

 example, as it preceded and outlasted every 

 other kind and is the most typically Canadian of 

 them all. 



A.A. C 



