NARRATIVE OF THE EXPEDITION. 69 



tinned, and leave the seventy-six thousand smaller furred ani- 

 mals to be put on the profit side. No wonder that acts of perfidy 

 arose between rivals, such as the shooting of Mr. Waden at his 

 own dinner-table, where he was entertaining an opponent or 

 copartner in the trade ; or the foul assassination of Owen Keveny 

 on the Eainy Lakes.* Indeed, the fur trade has for a long period 

 been more productive, if we are to rely on statements, than the 

 richest silver mines of Mexico or Peru. 



Society at Michilimackinac consists of so many diverse ele- 

 ments, which impart their hue to it, that it is not easy for a pass- 

 ing traveller to form any just estimate of it. The Indian, with his 

 plumes, and gay and easy costume, always imparts an oriental 

 air to it. To this, the Canadian, gay, thoughtless, ever bent on 

 the present, and caring nothing for to-morrow, adds another 

 phase. The trader, or interior clerk, who takes his outfit of 

 goods to the Indians, and spends eleven months of the year in 

 toil, and want, and petty traffic, appears to dissipate his means with 

 a sailor-like improvidence in a few weeks, and then returns to his 

 forest wanderings; and boiled corn, pork, and wild rice again sup- 

 ply his wants. There is in these periodical resorts to the central 

 quarters of the Fur Company, much to remind one of the old 

 feudal manners, in which there is proud hospitality and a show 

 of lordliness on the one side, and gay obsequiousness and cring- 

 ing dependence on the other, at least till the annual bargains 

 for the trade are closed. 



We were informed that there is neither school, preaching, a 

 physician (other than at the garrison), nor an attorney, in the place. 

 There are, however, courts of law, a post-office, and a jail, and 

 one or more justices of the peace. 



There is a fish market every morning, where may be had the 

 trout — two species — and the white fish, the former of which are 

 caught with hooks in deep water, and the latter in gill nets- 

 Occasionally, other species appear, but the trout and white fish, 

 which is highly esteemed, are staples, and may be relied on in 

 the shore market daily ; whole canoe-loads of them are brought in. 



The name of this island is said to signify a great turtle, to which 

 it has a fancied resemblance, when viewed from a distance. Mike- 



-:^ Report of the Trials of De Reinhard, &c. Montreal, 1818. 



