CROSSING THE LAKE 183 



ning westerly. This is the place which Back says is a 

 famous fishing ground and never freezes over, even in 

 the hardest winters. Here, as at all points, I noted 

 the Indian names, not only because they were appro- 

 priate, but in hopes of serving the next traveller. I 

 found an unexpected difficulty in writing them down, 

 viz. : no matter how I pronounced them, old Weeso 

 and Freesay, my informants, would say, "Yes, that 

 is right." This, I learned, was out of politeness; no 

 matter how you mispronounce their words it is good 

 form to say, "That's it; now you have it exactly." 



The Indians were anxious to put out a net overnight 

 here, as they could count on getting a few Whitefish; 

 so we camped at 5.15. It is difficult to convey to 

 an outsider the charm of the word "whitefish." Any 

 northerner will tell you that it is the only fish that is 

 perfect human food, the only food that man or dog 

 never wearies of, the only lake food that conveys no 

 disorder no matter how long or freely it is used. It 

 is so delicious and nourishing that there is no fish in 

 the world that can even come second to it. It is as 

 far superior in all food qualities to the finest Salmon or 

 Trout as a first-prize, gold-medalled, nut-fed thorough- 

 bred Sussex bacon-hog is to the roughest, toughest, 

 boniest .old razor-backed land-pike that ever ranged 

 the woods of Arkansas. 



That night the net yielded 3 Whitefish and 3 Trout. 

 The latter, being 4 to 8 pounds each, would have been 

 reckoned great prizes in any other country, but now 

 all attention was on the Whitefish. They certainly 

 were radiantly white, celestial in color; their backs 



