EARLY NOTICES Ot THE BEAVER. 363 



inblfested for four or five years, while they pursued the chase in other 

 localities* 



In addition to this, however, the imperfect weapons of the Indian 

 hunter^ formed no slight protection to the Beaver ; and so long as it 

 Was pursued alone by the native, unaided by the traps and guns of the 

 European, its numbers suffered no Very material diminution. Its set- 

 tlements formed accordingly a singularly characteristic feature of the 

 New World, which could not fail to impress the observant traveller. 

 1 find it, indeed, assigned as the rival of the Indian in the occupation 

 of the soil, in the manuscript journals of the late Mr. David Thomp- 

 son,* who Upwards of silty years ago explored the Great North 

 West, and was the first discoverer of the passes in the Rocky Moun- 

 tains, the importance of which is only now being recognised. Writing 

 in 1794, he thus observes in reference to the beaver, and its native 

 hunter i — 



" Previous to the discovery of Canada, about 320 years ago, this Continent 

 from the latitude of forty degrees north to the Arctic Circle, and from the Atlantic 

 to the Pacific Ocean, may be said to have been iii the possession of tWo distinct 

 races of beings, — man and the beaver. Man "Was naked and had to procure cloth* 

 irig from the skin of animals ; his only arras were : a stake, pointed and hardened 

 m the fire ; a boW with arrows, the points hardened with fire, or headed with 

 fetone or bone of the legs of the deer; a spear, headed in the same manner, and a 

 club of heavy wood, or made of a round stone of four or five pounds weight, in- 

 closed in raw hide, and by the same wound round a handle of wood of about two 

 feet in length, bound firm to the stone. Such were the weapons man had for 

 Self-defence, and with which to procure his food and clothing. Against the bones 

 of an animal his arrows and spear had little effect, but the flank of every animal 

 is open, and thither into the bowels the Indian directed his fatal and unerring 

 Arrows. 



•• Besides his Weapons, the snare was much in use, and the spear to assist it for 

 large animals ; and by all accounts the deer and fur-bearing animals Were very 

 numeroiis, and thus man Was lord of theory land and all that wag on it. The 

 Other race was the beaVer, they Were safe from every animal but man and 

 Wolvereens. Every year each pair having from five to seven young, which they 

 tearefully reared, they became innumerable ; and, except the great lakes, the 

 Waves of which are too turbulent, occupied all the waters of the northern part of 

 the Contiuent. Every river where the current was moderate and sufiiciently deep, 

 the banks at the Water edge was occupied by their houses. To every small lake 



* By the courteous permission of the son of the author, I have been favoured with acaess 

 to Mr. Thompson's vahiable journals, through the intervention of the Deputy Commissioner 

 of Crown Lands, Andrew Russell, Esq. The journals embrace the results of observations 

 eStending over a period of 35 years t and are comprised in 67 volumes, full of information 

 alike curious and valuable. 



