272 EXPLORATIONS IN THE FAR NORTH 



as soon as the water is on the point of boiling, the kettle is 

 taken off, shook by a semi-circular motion of the hand back- 

 wards and forwards, and replaced on the fire a short time. If 

 the shaking be not attended to exactly at the proper moment, 

 or be unskilfully performed, the fish coagulating too suddenly 

 becomes comparatively dry to the taste, and the soup is poor.'' 

 I was told that the reason for this shaking was " to keep it from 

 sticking to the kettle." Usually no attention is paid to the 

 soup which is, as may be imagined, without salt, not very 

 palatable, though we greatly relished it during our starvation 

 trip across the Great Slave Lake in September, 1893. 



The stomach is said to be a " favorite morsel with the voy- 

 ageurs;" it is not "cleaned and boiled with the rest of the fish" 

 by the Dog Ribs, who usually roast it directly upon the coals, 

 while the kettle is boiling; after scraping the ashes from this 

 blackened morsel they appear to relish it very much and fre- 

 quently give it to the children. Of the two methods of cooking 

 in vogue, roasting is much the better; the fish is opened along 

 the back, cleaned, scraped, a skewer run through to spread it 

 laterally, and then fixed on the end of a stick which may be 

 set in the ground or snow before the fire. It is opened along 

 the back because the thick flesh at the edges of the cut does 

 not curl and cause it to cook unevenly when subjected to heat. 



The inhabitants of the country, especially those in charge of 

 the "pret" become expert in judging the condition of whitefish. 

 The^fat fish has a "scooped head," that is, the shoulders are 

 raised and plump with fat; they are, also, deeper posteriorly. 



The lake whitefish arrive at Grand Rapids about the 10th of 

 May, and move out about twenty miles off shore early in July. 

 After that date the four fishing companies, which annually ex- 

 port several thousand pounds of frozen whitefish from Lake 

 Winnepeg, set their nets on the Saskatchewan Grounds. They 

 have freezing stations at Swampy, Reindeer, and Selkirk 

 Islands and at the mouth of the Saskatchewan and Little Sas- 

 katchewan Rivers. Several miles of gill nets are maintained, 

 and the catch in 1892 exceeded that of any preceding year. 



The most of the Company's posts have been established near 

 fisheries or points where the whitefish come during the spawn- 

 ing season. They are then taken in large numbers and " hung" 

 for consumption during the long winter. 



