RESOUECES LESSER SLAVE LAKE REGION 77 



Yet the reader must not be too severe upon the Indian foi 

 his treatment of the Weeghteko. He attributes the disease 

 to the evil spirit, acts accordingly, and slays the victim. But 

 an old author, Mrs. Jameson, tells us that in her day in 

 Upper Canada lunatics were allovred to stray into the forest 

 to roam uncared for, and perish there, or were thrust into 

 common jails. One at N^iagara, she says, was chained up 

 for four years. 



Aside from such cases of madness, which have often 

 resulted in the killing and eating of children, etc., and 

 which arouse the most superstitious horror in the minds of 

 all Indians, the " savages " of this region are the most 

 inoffensive imaginable. They have always made a good liv- 

 ing by hunting and trapping and fishing, and I believe when 

 the time comes they will adapt themselves much more readily 

 and intelligently to farming and stock-raising than did the 

 Indians to the south. The region is well siiited to both 

 industries, and will undoubtedly attract white settlers in 

 due time. 



The fisheries in Lesser Slave Lake have always been 

 coimted the best in all Athabasca. The whitefish, to be 

 sure, are diminishing towards the head of the lake, but it is 

 possible that this is owing to some deficiency in their usual 

 supply of food in that quarter. Just as birds and wild-fowl 

 return, if not disturbed, to their accustomed breeding-places, 

 so, it is said, the fishes, year by year, drop and impregnate 

 their spawn upon the same gravelly shallows. The food of 

 the whitefish in the lake is partly the worms bred from the 

 eggs of a large fly resembling the May-fly of the East. This 

 worm has probably decreased in the upper part of the lake, 

 and therefore the fish go farther down for food. There they 

 are exceedingly numerous, an evidence of which is the fact 

 that the Roman Catholic Mission alone secured 17,000 fine 

 whitefish the previous fall. Properly protected this lake 

 will be a permanent source of supply to natives and incomers 

 for many years to come. 



