190 LABRADOR 



obstacles, these movements, involving the young and the 

 feeble, could .not be undertaken but for the intimate local 

 knowledge of the people. Most of the Indians are actually 

 born upon hunting-lands handed down from their ancestors, 

 and at an early age each knows his own ground as the 

 farmer boy knows his father's farm. He has made the yearly 

 passage of his river, down and back, from infancy. High 

 water or low, he knows its every eddy and turn. As to 

 an inn ahead, he plans his day's travel to some fishing pool 

 or lake ; or to the blueberry lands, where will be berries 

 surely, and bears perhaps. He camps in no chance place, 

 but where the beach is clean, the bank not too high or steep, 

 where wood and boughs and water are to hand, and always, 

 when may be, where the view is sightly and wide. Thus 

 he continues his way, every resource of the barren land 

 made his. Illness and death sometimes befall, want and 

 misfortune tax too often the fortitude of this ever disci- 

 plined race, but sooner or later the plateau level is gained, 

 the lake region begins, and the portages along the narrow- 

 ing streams become short and easy. The great falls are 

 behind, their jarring thunder fades in time from the ear; 

 the roar of the long rapids is over ; the shut-in river valley 

 has given place to the broad sunshine of the table-land. 

 Well content are they who have safely come. The long 

 toil is over; they are glad to be away from the reserve; 

 above all, they are once more upon the blue lakes of their 

 own hunting-ground. 



The journeys inland have become increasingly hard as 

 the game resources have diminished. The carrying in of 

 supplies involves great labour on the long portages. A crew 

 of picked voyageurs moves slowly, even though taking no 



