THE CHIPEWYANS 153 



While some of the Chipewyans show fine physique, 

 and many do great feats of strength and endurance, 

 they seem on the whole inferior to whites. 



Thus the strongest portager on the river is said to be 

 Billy Loutit's brother George. At Athabaska Land- 

 ing I was shown a house on a hill, half a mile away, to 

 which he had carried on his back 450 pounds of flour 

 without stopping. Some said it was only 350 pounds, 

 but none made it less. As George is only three-quar- 

 ters white, this is perhaps not a case in point. But dur- 

 ing our stay at Fort Smith we had several athletic 

 meets of Indians and whites, the latter represented by 

 Preble and the police boys, and no matter whether 

 in running, walking, high jumping, broad jumping, 

 wrestling, or boxing, the whites were ahead. 



As rifle-shots, also, the natives seem far inferior. 

 In the matter of moose-hunting only, as already noted, 

 the red-man was master. This, of course, is a matter 

 of life-long training. A white man brought up to it 

 would probably do as well as an Indian even in this 

 very Indian department. 



These tribes are still in the hunting and fishing stage; 

 they make no pretence of agriculture or stock-raising. 

 Except that they wear white man's clothes and are 

 most of them nominally Roman Catholics, they live 

 as their fathers did 100 years ago. But there is one 

 remarkable circumstance that impressed me more and 

 more practically every Chipewyan reads and writes 

 his own language. 



This miracle was inborn on me slowly. On the first 

 Buffalo hunt we had found a smoothened pole stuck in 



