RESUME OF LITERATURE. 59 



crowned by others of a still greater altitude, is the fort, picketed in with cedar 

 pallisadoes and inclosing houses built with wood and covered with shingles. They 

 are calculated for every convenience of trade, as well as to accommodate the pro- 

 prietors and clerks during their short residence there. The North men live under 

 tents; but the more frugal pork eater lodges beneath his canoe. The soil immediately 

 bordering on the lake has not proved ver}^ propitious. . . . There are meadows in 

 the vicinity that yield abundance of haj' for the cattle; but, as to agriculture, it has 

 not hitherto been an object of serious consideration. 



I .shall now leave these geographical notices to give some further account of the 

 people from Montreal. When thej' are arrived at the Grande Portage, which is 

 near 9 miles over, each of them has to carrj' eight packages of such goods and 

 provisions as are necessary for the interior country. This is a labor which cattle 

 can not convenienth' perform in summer, as both horses and oxen -were tried by 

 the compan}^ without success. . . . 



Having finished this toilsome part of their dut}-, if more goods are necessary to 

 be transported, they are allowed a Spanish dollar for each package; and so inured 

 are they to this kind of labor, that I have known some of them set off with two 

 packages of 90 pounds each, and return with two others of the same weight, in 

 the course of six hours, being a distance of 18 miles over hills and mountains.'' 

 This necessary part of the business being over, if the season -be early they have 

 some respite, but this depends upon the time the North men begin to arrive from 

 their winter quarters, which they commonly do earh' in July. At this period it is 

 necessarjr to select from the pork eaters a number of men, among whom are the 

 recruits, or winterers, sufficient to man the North canoes necessary to carrj- to the 

 river of the rainy lake the goods and provisions requisite for the Athabasca country, 

 as the people of that country (owing to the shortness of the season and length of 

 the road can come no farther) are equipped there, and exchange ladings with the 

 people of whom we are speaking, and both return from whence they came.* This 

 voyage is performed in the course of a month, and they are allowed proportionable 

 wages for their services [pp. xliii-xlv]. . . . 



******** 



The trade from the Grande Portage is, in some particulars, carried on in a dif- 

 ferent manner with that from Montreal. The canoes used in the latter transport are 



« Further on in his narrative, Mackenzie cites examples of men who have taken seven packages 

 each, and carried them without stopping across a poi-tage one-half league in length [p. Ixi.] — J. M. C. 



b The system of living at Grande Portage was decidedly feudal^ and is described by Mackenzie 

 as follows: " The proprietors, clerks, guides, and interpreters mess together, to the number of some- 

 times a hundred, at several tables, in one large hall, the provision consisting of bread, salt pork, 

 beef, hams, fish, and venison, butter, pease, Indian corn, potatoes, tea, spirits, wine, etc., and plenty 

 of milk, for which purpose several milch cows are constantly kept. The mechanics have rations of 

 such provision, but the canoemen both from the North and Montreal have no other allowance here, 

 or in the voyage, than Indian corn and melted fat" [p. slvi]. The Indian corn mentioned is hominy 

 prepared at Detroit. — J. M. C. 



