156 LABRADOR 
channel leads through Lobstick Lake, where a long bay 
passes northward and connects the spring at high water 
with Lake Michikamau on the head waters of the Northwest 
River. The south channel is the ordinary canoe route 
between Flour and Sandgirt lakes. 
Sandgirt Lake is an irregular, shallow body of water, with 
many islands of drift. It is twelve miles long from the 
southern outlet to the mouth of the Ashuanipi branch. 
Owing to the number of canoe routes which centre here, the 
lake is an important gathering place for the Indians of the 
interior. The Hamilton River divides into two branches, 
the larger, or Ashuanipi, flowing from the northwest and 
the Attikonak from the south. The principal route from 
Hamilton River to Michikamau Lake and northward also 
ends here. The Indians who pass the winter hunting in 
this region congregate at Sandgirt Lake shortly after the 
ice leaves the river, and thence proceed in company south- 
ward to the Hudson’s Bay Company posts situated on the 
north shore of the Gulf of St. Lawrence. 
The Attikonak branch of the Hamilton flows into the 
southern part of Sandgirt Lake, where it has about half 
the volume of the other branch. It takes its rise in 
Attikonak Lake, close to the southern watershed; thence 
a portage leads to the upper waters of the Romaine River 
flowing into the Gulf of St. Lawrence. From Sandgirt 
Lake to the south end of Attikonak, the distance by river 
is about one hundred and fifty miles, and the stream is 
practically a succession of long, narrow lakes connected by 
stretches of rapids. The country through which it flows 
is broken by low hills of rock and ridges of drift, with much 
low, swampy land between. The lowlands are covered 
