CANOES 29 



different tribal hunting grounds, each one of 

 which was watered by a hundred streams and 

 marked by the ' carrying places ' where the 

 canoes had to be ' portaged.' There lived the 

 ' Nation of the Bear ' and the ' Nation of the 

 Snake,' whose special totems of course were 

 worked in coloured quills on every war canoe ; 

 and there flowed many a river " the course of 

 which is uncertain.' Along the great Assini- 

 boine lay the ' Warrior's track from the River 

 of the West,' and just where the prairies ran 

 out into the complete unknown there was the 

 vista of a second Eldorado in the hopeful sug- 

 gestion that ' Hereabouts are supposed to be 

 the Mountains of Bright Stones mentioned in 

 the Map of y e Indian Ochagach.' 



After the Conquest the tide of trade and 

 settlement flowed faster and faster west ; and 

 with the white man's trade and settlement came 

 the white man's boats. At last, in 1823, Sir 

 George Simpson, the resident governor of the 

 Hudson's Bay Company, finding that canoe 

 transport was half as dear again as that done 

 with boats, ordered that boats should supersede 

 canoes all over the main trade routes of the 

 Company's vast domain. This was the death- 

 blow to the canoe as a real factor in Canadian 

 life. From that time on it has been receding 



