198 ASSIOTIBOINE AND SASKATCHEWAN EXPEDITION. 



nearly all of which I have visited*, have assumed the form 

 of convictions, which I briefly introduce here merely as a 

 traveler's record. 



While it is evident that the progress of evangelizing 

 the heathen Indians is decidedly encouraging on the whole, 

 much, very much, under Providence, depends upon the 

 personal character and individual exertions of the mis- 

 sionary. Failure, or rather the want of that degree of 

 success which circumstances have appeared to promise, 

 may generally be traced to an injudicious selection of the 

 site for a missionary station, whence arose insuperable 

 difficulties in providing the Indians with fixed abodes, 

 and the ultimate prospect of maintaining themselves by 

 cultivating the soil. The Bishop of Eupert's Land refers 

 pointedly to the problem which Eupert's Land now pre- 

 sents, in his journal of I859.f "Difficulties at the two 

 stations remain, nor would I conceal them ; but they are 

 the universal Indian difficulties — the want of food, and 

 the consequent inability to maintain the families around a 

 central point. This is the Indian problem, the same through- 

 out the land, which has still to be worked out, and re- 

 quires much patient thought." 



Disappointment in receiving the necessary supplies for 

 keeping up the station, and the competitive opposition of 

 the fur-trade, are formidable difficulties of constant occur- 

 rence. Most of all, however, is the absence of success due 

 to a natural incapacity or indisposition to fulfil the duties 



* The Roman Catholic Mission of the Immaculate Conception on the 

 Kaministiquia, Lake Superior ; the Church of England Mission at Isling- 

 ton, Winnipeg River ; the Indian Missionary Village at Red River ; Prairie 

 Portage on the Assinnibome ; the Qu'appelle Lake Mission ; the Nepowe- 

 win on the Main Saskatchewan ; Fairford on Partridge Crop River ; the 

 churches at Selkirk Settlement, St. John's, St. Paul's, St. Andrew's, the 

 Roman Catholic Cathedral, the Pesbyterian Mission, and the Roman 

 Catholic Red Lake Mission. 



f The Church Missionary Record, March, 1860. 



