THE INDIANS 201 
wholly on the country. Few deer are taken there, and 
while fish are generally plenty, the margin of subsistence is 
uncomfortably narrow. All the able-bodied men go to 
Rupert House in summer with the brigade, while the women 
keep the nets out in lakes near the post. The return jour- 
ney from Rupert takes about sixty days. Sometimes the 
start downward is made before the ice has left the lakes, 
but although the stay at Rupert is only a few days, the 
upper lakes are sometimes frozen again before their arrival 
at Nichicun. - 
For some years Nichicun has been the only inland post 
in the whole peninsula, unless Mistassini, in the extreme 
southwest, be reckoned. The up voyage of the Mistassini 
brigade takes about fifty days. The lower part of its route, 
in common with that to Nichicun, follows Rupert River. 
There are seventy-five portages between Rupert and Mis- 
tassini. 
The thirty families who trade at Mistassini are also 
counted as Nascaupees. All the Indians known by this 
name are properly Swampy Crees. Those at Chimo say 
that they came originally from southwest of Hudson Bay 
to get away from the Iroquois. 
The brigade canoes are now of canvas, twenty-eight feet 
by five and one-half, by two and one-half deep, and carry 
five thousand pounds each of cargo. In 1898 thirty-five 
thousand pounds of freight went to Mistassini. The port- 
aging is arduous. Every man takes two “pieces,” each of 
ninety to one hundred pounds’ weight. There is compe- 
tition among the men for the bags of shot, which balance 
uncommonly well at the top of the load close to the neck. 
Such a load, of about two hundred pounds, is no trifle 
