UP THK ESQUIMAUX RIVER. 73 



J uly were stormy and wet. The clear fair-weather winds 

 were from the southwest ; the southeast winds brought 

 in the fog and rain, while the northerly winds brought 

 a few curlew, the advance-guard of the hosts which were 

 to arrive early in August. 



The 3d of August was a fine day. A party of us 

 went up the Esquimaux River to Mrs. Chevalier's, whose 

 husband, now dead, entertained Audubon when visiting 

 this coast. The sail up the river was a pleasant one. 

 It was about three miles from its mouth to an expansion 

 of the river on whose shores were four or five winter 

 houses. Although most of thei settlers live on the coast 

 through the year, some have their winter and summer 

 houses. Those who live up the interior, sometimes a 

 distance of seventy miles from the coast, where there is 

 wood and game, move from the shore about the 20th of 

 October. They spend a month in cutting wood, a fam- 

 ily burning through the winter about thirty cords. 

 Then succeeds a month of hunting and trapping. The 

 snow does not come, we were told, until the last of De- 

 cember, although we should judge this to be an extreme 

 statement, and the snow is not usually more than three 

 feet deep. The people profess to like the winter better 

 than the summer. They shoot deer, foxes, etc., black 

 fox being sometimes secured, whose skin is worth be- 

 tween two and three hundred dollars. Grouse are 

 abundant, a good hunter securing from sixty to seventy 

 a day in favorable seasons. At any rate fresh meat is 

 obtained for each family two or three times a week. 



The houses are small, built of wood, boarded and 

 shingled, seldom constructed of logs, and are heated by 

 peculiar stoves, great square structures resembling Dutch 



