276 PREHISTORIC FISHING. 



" They have also a notion that fish of the same species inhabiting different 

 parts of the country, are fond -of different things ; so that almost every lake and 

 river they ai-rive at, obliges them to alter the composition of the charm. The 

 same rule is observed on broiling the first fruits of a new hook that is used for a 

 new net ; an old hook that has already been successful in catching large fish is 

 esteemed of more value than a handful of new ones which have never been tried." 

 (Page 326, etc.). 



Mackenzie (Alexander): Voyages from Montreal, etc., to tlie Frozen and 

 Pacific Oceans ; in the years 1789 and 1793 ; London, 1801. [Slave and Dogrib 

 Indians]. "They always keep a large quantity of the fibres of willow bark, 

 which they work into thread on their thighs. Their nets are from three to forty 

 fathoms in length, and from thirteen to thirty-six meshes in depth. The short 

 deep ones they set in the eddy current of rivers, and the long ones in the lakes. 

 They likewise make lines of the sinews of the rein-deer, and manufacture their 



hooks from wood, horn, or bone. Their canoes are small, pointed at 



both ends, flat-bottomed and covered in the fore part. They are made of the 

 bark of the birch-tree and fir-wood, but of so slight a construction, that the man 

 whom one of these light vessels bears on the water, can, in return, carry it over 

 land without any difficulty. It is very seldom that more than one person em- 

 barks in them, nor are they capable of receiving more than two. The paddles 

 are six feet long, one half of which is occupied by a blade, of about eight inches 

 wide." (Pages 37, 39). 



[Indians of Peace River District]. "Their nets and fishing-lines are made 

 of willow-bark and nettles ; those made of the latter are finer and smoother than 

 if made with hempen thread. Their hooks are small bones, fixed in pieces of 



wood split for that purpose, and tied round with fine watape.* They 



have spruce bark in great plenty, with which they make their canoes, an opera- 

 tion that does not require any great portion of skill or ingenuity, and is managed 

 in the following manner : The bark is taken off the tree the whole length of 

 the intended canoe, which is commonly about eighteen feet, and is sewed with 

 watape at both ends ; two laths are then laid, and fixed along the edge of the 

 bark which forms the gunwale ; in these are fixed the bars, and against them 

 bear the ribs or timbers, that are cut to the length to which the bark can be 

 stretched ; and, to give additional strength, strips of wood are laid between them ; 

 to make the whole water-tight, gum is abundantly employed. These vessels 

 carry from two to five people." (Page 206, etc.).f 



* Wattap : a kind of thread made of the small roots of the spruce-tree. 



j- In the course of his narrative, Mackenzie describes other appliances for fishing (weirs, fish-traps); but he 

 fails to state by what tribes they were constructed. 



