89 
is warmer; and they fill the hut with a supply of dry wood to burn 
at that season. A space is left at one end of the cabin for storing 
their maize, which they place in large bark barrels in the middle of 
the floor; and boards suspended overhead preserve their clothing, 
food, and other things from the numerous mice. There will be a 
dozen fires to each cabin, making two dozen families. The smoke 
circulates at will, causing much eye trouble, to which the natives 
are so subject that many become blind in their old age. For there 
is no window- in the cabin, and no opening except a place in the roof 
where the smoke finds an outlet. ’’i 
The Ojibwa and the Cree had still a third form of lodge, one 
shaped like a dome or beehive, for the willow' poles that formed its 
frame wei’e arched over until both ends entered the ground. The 
largest of these lodges w^re ten or tw'elve feet in diameter by eight 
or ten feet high. The Kutchin Indians of the Yukon River basin 
lived in skin tents of exactly the same form. Elsewdiere in Canada 
the dome-shaped lodge w'as not a dwelling, but a surlatory or sw^eat- 
house, for which purpose the Indians employ it even today from the 
Atlantic to British Columbia.- 
All the three types of lodges described above w'cre essentially 
portable; the natives could strike camp and move away wdthin a few 
minutes.'^ Naturally, they transported only the covei’ings of the 
dwellings — w'hether bark, skin, or rush mats — since they could pro- 
cure new^ poles at every halting- place. Each kind of covering had its 
advantages and disadvantages. Skin was wund-proof, non-inflam- 
mable, and easily rolled into a bundle; but wdien soaked wdth rain it 
could not be dried under twenty-four hours. Bark was rain-proof, 
but it became brittle in cold weather and required warming before 
it could 1)6 either rolled or unrolled. Rush-mats, if skilfully made, 
also shed the rain, and marie w'arm lodges in winter, but they w'ere 
heavier and bulkier to transport than rolls of bark."^ Then there w'ere 
various kinds of bark from which to choose. Most of the tribes in 
eastern Canada used birch-bark, which they could strip from the 
tree in large rolls. The fro(|uoians, whose territory contained few 
1 "Ocux i'cs df ('htiiiiidaiii.” pivr C. II. J.a\ <‘rdi(‘rc ; 4. p, 74 (.562) 1S70). 
2 Tiiese s\vont-l louses, however, nre sinall, rarely exceeding 6 fer-t in diameter. 
3 Cf. The Works of Samuel de Champlain, idilrd l>y 11. P. Biggar, vo!. i, p. 104, Tlie Cliamplain 
Society (Toronto, 
“4 C/. Henry and Thompson: Op. cit., vol. i, p, 1,33. Thompson: Op. cit., pp. 117, 247. "Jesuit 
Relations,” vol. viii, p. 105. 
‘iO'l.ifl— 
