NORTHERN OCEAN 247 



hunter can kill six hundred beaver in one season, and can only 1771. 

 carry one hundred to market. If that was really the case in "^™ ^^' 

 Lefranc's time, the canoes must have been much smaller than 

 they are at present ; for it is well known that the generality 

 of the canoes which have visited the Company's Factories for 

 the last forty or fifty years, are capable of carrying three 

 hundred beaver-skins with great ease, exclusive of the Indians 

 luggage, provisions, &c.^ 



[240] If ever a particular Indian killed six hundred beaver 

 in one Winter, (which is rather to be doubted), it is more than 

 probable that many in his company did not kill twenty, and 

 perhaps some none at all, so that by distributing them among 

 those who had bad success, and others who had no abilities 

 for that kind of hunting, there would be no necessity of leaving 

 them to rot, or for singing them in the fire, as related by that 

 Author. During my residence among the Indians I have 

 known some individuals kill more beaver, and other heavy 

 furrs, in the course of a Winter, than their wives could manage ; 

 but the overplus was never wantonly destroyed, but always 

 given to their relations, or to those who had been less success- 

 ful ; so that the whole of the great hunters' labours were 

 always brought to the Factory. It is indeed too frequently 



white, tho' most valued in Canada, giving i8 Shillings, when others gave 5 or 6 

 Shillings, is blown upon by the Company's Factors at the Bay, they not allow- 

 ing so much for these as for the others ; and therefore the Indians use them at 

 home, or burn off the Hair, when they roast the Beavers like Pigs, at an Enter- 

 tainment when they feast together ; he says these Skins are extremely white, 

 and have a fine Lustre, no Snow being whiter, and have a fine long Fur or 

 Hair; he has seen 15 taken of that Colour out of one Lodge or Pond." (Ibid., 

 pp. 39-40.) 



White Beavers are not often caught. One skin which I obtained from 

 the vicinity of the Winnipeg River, in Eastern Manitoba, had a decidedly 

 pinkish tint.] 



[} As dried Beaver skins weigh on an average from one and a half to two 

 pounds, 300 skins would weigh on an average from 450 to 600 lbs., which is a 

 heavier load than most of the birch-bark canoes made by the Chipewyans will 

 carry in addition to the Indians and their necessary baggage and provisions. 

 Dobbs's statement that 100 Beaver skins is a load for an Indian canoe is more 

 nearly correct.] 



