112 
even to the Queen Charlotte islands.^ JMost tribes had access to 
tiint, chert, quartz, or quartzite within their own territories. There 
were several sources of obsidian, which was extensively used in 
Ih'itish Columbia for knives, spear-points, and arrow-points; but the 
deposits of this mineral near mount Anahim furnished the southern 
Carriers with a valuable commodity to exchange with the northern 
branches of their tribe along the line of the presen L transcontinental 
railway. Obsidian derived from the Yellowstone Park region appears 
at scattered places on the plains, and may have been traded from 
tribe to tribe; but the Blackfoot, whose wanderings extended not 
only over the Canadian prairies, but far south of the International 
Boundary, may well have gathered the mineral themselves. It is 
probable, too, that they visited the “sacred quarry” in Minnesota to 
secure catlinite for the manufacture of pipes, since Catlin says that 
“all the tribes in these regions, and also of the Mississippi and the 
Lakes, have been in the habit of going to that place, and meeting 
their enemies there, whom they are obliged to treat as friends, under 
an injunction of the Great Spirit.”- Nevertheless, in historical times 
at least, there was a brisk bartering of the finished pipes, probably 
also of the raw catlinite. The tribes of eastern Canada seem to have 
traded soapstone for the same pur]mse. This rock, however, was of 
greatest value to the Eskimo, who manufactured from it their cook- 
ing pots and lamps. Not only did they trade these articles from 
district to district along the Arctic and sub-Arctic coasts, but families 
often journeyed several hundred iniles to fasliion their own soap- 
stone vessels and to carry home a surplus stock to barter with their 
kinsmen. Even wood was an important article of trade to the 
Eskimo between Coronation gulf and Baffin island, who lived so 
far beyond the limit of trees that their rivers deposited very little 
driftwood on their shores. Natives from the Coronation Gulf area 
visited the forests near Great Bear lake and Thelon river to obtain 
wood for their own use and for barter with neighbouring tribes to 
the westward, to whom a plank large enough to make a sled-runner 
1 Some Eskimo ruins in the Hudson Bay area and in Newfoundland contain sniall implements of 
nephrite whose source has not yet been discovered. 
“Catlin, G, : Letters and Note.s on tile .Manners, Customs, and Conditions of the North American 
Indians"; vol. i, p. 31 (London, 1842). 
