5 
The Cree name for their habitat up there is Lake Wah-wee-ah-ka-mik. 
These Indians dress in skins — sealskin, wolfskin, bearskin — and they trade 
at the Hudson’s Bay post at Round lake for things such as needles, traps, 
axes, tea, sugar, knives, and tobacco.” 
This account is of much significance, for no one knowing Mr. Halpin, 
the writer, could very well disregard his statement. He, moreover, sup- 
plements this account in telling me that in his day “York boats,” manned 
by crews of eight, made the complete journey from Island lake to York 
Factory and back; and that Mossy portage was in no sense an impassable 
barrier then. 
Today, as this report shows, the men at Island lake are not bearded; 
and they certainly do carry almost unimaginably heavy loads on their 
backs. These accounts are probably not in complete discord; they deal 
with periods that are separated by half a century in time. Out of all this 
emerge three fairly substantial probabilities: 
(1) The Indians at Oxford House are Crees who have had great oppor- 
tunities of becoming amalgamated with the white population. 
(2) The Island Lake people are Saulteaux with an admixture of Cree 
to whom such opportunities of amalgamating with the Europeans 
have not to any great extent been granted. 
(3) Approximately one-half of the Gods Lake population is directly 
or indirectly of York Factory extraction, and the other half 
comes largely from farther east. 
Regard must also be paid to the tradition that was in vogue fifty years 
ago, concerning the Eskimos and Crees, though it is not current today. 
Acknowledgments, Dr. C. H. Goulden, Senior Cereal Specialist, 
Dominion Rust Laboratory, Winnipeg, was invaluable to me, for without 
his guidance in statistical methods it would not have been possible for me 
to have compiled this report. 
To my secretary, Miss Wilma F. Service, who has spent many hours 
arranging and checking figures, in making calculations, and in assisting me 
generally in the work; to the School of Comptometry, Winnipeg, for the 
loan of a comptometer, and to Mrs. B. Pearson who operated the machine, 
I am much indebted. 
For information, assistance, and many kindnesses, I wish to thank 
Father Du Beau, Messrs. Fred Disbrow and Chapin (of Island lake) ; 
Karl Bayly and Lake (of Gods lake); J. N. C. Kell (Oxford House); 
Gordon (Norway House); S. J. C. Gumming of the Hudson’s Bay Com- 
pany, Winnipeg, and Robert Watson, editor of the Beaver. 
METHODS 
The material was collected without selection and totally at random; 
every one who presented himself for examination was measured, and no 
one who was approached refused to be measured, except the women at 
Oxford House. Some investigations (as yet, I believe, unpublished)^ had 
* Miss Beatrice Blackwood, I am informed, visited this neighbourhood in 1926. 
