20 A General History of the Fur Trade. 



who are a very useful set of men, acted also in the additional 

 capacity of interpreters, and had a stated quantity of goods, 

 considered as sufficient for their wants, their wages being 

 from one to three thousand livres. The canoe men are of 

 two descriptions, foremen and steersmen, and middlemen. 

 The two first were allowed annually one thousand two hun- 

 dred, and the latter four hundred, livres each. The first 

 class had what is called an equipment, consisting of two 

 blankets, two shirts, two pair of trowsers, two handkerchiefs, 

 fourteen pounds of carrot tobacco, and some trifling articles,, 

 The latter had ten pounds of tobacco, and all the other arti- 

 cles : those are called North Men, or Winterers ; and to the 

 last class of people were attached upwards of seven hundred 

 Indian women aiid children, victualled at the expense of 

 the company* 



This first class of people are hired in Montreal five months 

 before they set out, and receive their equipment, and one 

 third of their wages in advance ; and an adequate idea of the 

 labour they undergo may be formed from the following ac- 

 count of the country through which they pass, and their man- 

 ner of proceeding- 



The necessary number of canoes being purchased, at about 

 three hundred livres each, the goods formed into packages, 

 and the lakes and rivers free of ice, which they usually are in 

 the beginning of May, they are then dispatched from La 

 Chine, eight miles above Montreal, with eight or ten men 

 in each canoe, and their baggage ; and sixty- five packages 

 of goods, six hundred weight of biscuit, two hundred 

 weight of pork, three bushels of pease, for the men's pro- 

 vision ; two oil cloths to cover the goods, a sail, &c. an axe, 

 a towing line, a kettle, and a sponge to bail out the water, 

 with a quantity of gum, bark, and watape, to repair the 

 vessel. An European, on seeing one of these slender ves- 

 sels thus laden, heaped up, and sunk with her gunwale within 

 six inches of the water, would think his fate inevitable in 

 such a boat, when he reflected on the nature of her voyage ; 

 but the Canadians are so expert, that few accidents happen. 



Leaving La Chine, they proceed to St. Ann's, within two 

 miles of the Western extremity of the island of Montreal, 

 the lake of the two mountains being in sight, which may be 

 termed the commencement of the Utawas River. At the 

 rapid of St. Ann they are c biiged to take out part, if not the 

 whole of their lading. It is from this spot that the Cana- 

 dians consider they take their departure, as it possesses the 



