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ing, that for the convenience of carrying across 

 the portages is made up in packages of about 

 three-quarters of a hundred weight each, and 

 amounts altogether to five tons, or a little more, 

 inchiding provisions and other necessaries for 

 the men, of whom from eight to ten are em- 

 ployed to each canoe : they usually set out in 

 brigades like the bateaux, and in the course of 

 a summer upwards of fifty of these vessels are 

 thus dispatched. They proceed up the Grand 

 or Ottawa River as far as the south-west branch, 

 by which, and a chain of small lakes, they reach 

 Lake Nipissing ; through it, and down the 

 French River into Lake Huron ; along its 

 northern coast up the narrows of St. Mary 

 into Lake Superior, and then by its northern 

 side to the Grand Portage, a distance of about 

 1100 miles from the place of departure. The 

 difficulties encountered in this voyage are not 

 easily conceived ; the great number of rapids 

 in the rivers, the different portages from lake to 

 lake, which vary from a few yards to three 

 miles or more in length, where the canoes must 

 be unladen, and with their contents carried to 

 the next water, occasion a succession of labours 

 and fatigues of which but a poor estimation 

 can be formed by judging it from the ordinary 

 occupations of other labouring classes. From 

 the Grand Portage, that is nine miles across, a 



