96 



RED RIVER EXPLORING EXPEDITION. 



vations showed the temperature to be 77^°. At one, p.m. 

 the temperature two feet below the surface was 71°, and 

 at the surface 78°. The depth of water was here thirty- 

 six feet, and the green confervas uniformly abundant, so 

 that it was impossible to obtain a tablespoonful of liquid 

 free from their minute forms. The presence of this 

 "weed," as the voyageurs termed it, was the probable 

 cause of the unusual temperature of the lake. Occasion- 

 ally grasshoppers were seen resting on its calm glistening 

 surface, and as we approached Keating Island they 

 increased in number, all of them preserving, with 

 singular uniformity, a direction towards the south- 

 east. The Indians think the " weed " proves destruc- 

 tive to fish ; they had seen it on Lake Winnipeg, where 

 also we recognised it in September of the following 

 year. 



After passing the south point of Keating Island we 

 steered for Garden Island, distant from us about nine 

 miles. On the west side of Keating Island the Indian 

 guide pointed out one of their fishing grounds, where he 

 stated the water was thirty fathoms deep, and illustrated 

 the manner in which he arrived at that estimate of the 

 depth by explaining, through the interpreter, the mode 

 of fishing during the winter months, showing the length 

 of a fathom and the number of these in the fines his 

 people employed to reach with their nets the feeding 

 grounds of the white fish at that period of the year. 

 He also described the thickness of the ice through which 

 they had to break before they arrived at the water as 

 sometimes exceeding five feet. 



Wild rice {Zizania aquatica) grows very abundantly in 

 the marshes bordering the Lake of the Woods. It is an 

 important article of food to the Indians. They gather it 

 about the end of August and beginning of September, and 

 lay up a store for winter consumption. A soup made of 



