LAKE MISTASSINI 209 



son, of the Geological Survey, reached the great lake 

 in 1870 by way of the Ashuapmouchouan, and in the 

 following year Mr. Walter McOuat, of the same de- 

 partment, ascended to Mistassini by way of the Mis- 

 tassini River. Nothing further was done until the 

 date of the Low-Bignell expedition of 1884:, when Mr. 

 Low surveyed the lake, reporting it to be a hundred 

 miles or thereabouts in length, with an average width 

 of twelve miles. In one place a sounding gave a 

 depth of three hundred and seventy-four feet. 



Like all the neighboring large lakes, the waters of 

 Mistassini are full of fish. The principal varieties are 

 lake trout, river trout, whitefish, pike, pickerel, and 

 sucker, all of large size and fine quality. Excellent 

 sport can therefore be had there with either spoon 

 or minnow. 



The Hudson Bay Company has a small station or 

 "fort" upon the edge of the lake, the supplies for 

 which, with the exception of fish, which forms a large 

 part of the diet of the inhabitants, are brought from 

 James's Bay. There are some twenty-five families of 

 Indians about one hundred and twenty people in all 

 living around the lake and trading with the Hudson 

 Bay Company. They live by hunting, and in seasons 

 when game is scarce cases of death by starvation are 

 by no means uncommon. They profess Christianity, 

 but mingle with it many of their old beliefs, and still 

 have their sorcerers, who profess to be able by super- 

 natural means to do much of what is professed by 

 modern spiritualists. A Church of England mission- 

 ary from the diocese of Moosonee, at Hudson Bay, 

 visits them once in two or three years, and per- 



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