

OJIBWAY TOKENS—CARIBOU SHOULDER BLADES. 
crossbill has the timbre of the canary with the 
blitheness of the bobolink, and I will defy a man 
with music in his soul to think of business or to 
commit any other sort of crime while the red 
crossbill is singing to him. Singing to him it is, 
and so directly and personally that one could not 
if he would escape the inspiration of the sweet. 
sweet carol. Ever and anon caine the call and 
response in hearty’ camaraderie of the white- 
throated sparrows. First one would begin a bar 
of the “Lohengrin Wedding March” (for. it was 
their mating season), and then another would 
answer almost a full octave lower. That was a 
morning ever to be remembered, and we were 
only just at the beginning of a series of about 
seventy miles of lakes and river that had never 
been described, and that are not upon any map. 
Some. of the lakes were narrow and some were 
broad. The longest one—some fifteen miles in 
length—was really no lake at all, for one could 
touch the bright yellow sand at any point with 
the paddle, and the robust but graceful bulrushes 
bent over the middle of the lake as well as in the 
bays. It is a Jake for children to practice in 
with canoes, for if they are wrecked half a mile 
from land they will simply have to rub their eyes, 
get the points of compass and walk ashore. We 
named it Lake No Lake. All of the lakes of the 
series were shallow, and the greatest depth that 
we found was twenty-eight feet in one that we 
named Lake Curtis. 
On the fourth day we added the white pine to 
our list of trees. Families of ravens were about, 
and their hoarse croaks were in keeping with the 
desolate burned areas that we passed from time 
to time. We noted the fox sparrow and warb- 
ling vireo. Black duck, whistlers and red-breasted 
mergansers scuttled ahead of the canoes with 
their broods of downy little youngsters, the moth- 
ers in great alarm and the fathers apparently less 
concerned, but I imagine that down in the depths 
of their natures they carried a respectable degree 
of solicitude. The little ones were in no danger, 
for we would as soon have shot a baby in the 
cradle. Herring gulls circled about overhead, 
and the querulous calls of the loon were weirdly 
appropriate to the scenery. In auiet places we 
found a big clumsy snail (Cardium) and another 
species of fresh-water mussel (Anodonta). In 
the stiller stretches of the stream the sandy bot- 
tom was so covered with a_ small mollusc 
(Spherium) that it seemed in places to occupy 
quite as much space as the sand itself, and moose 
tracks in the bottom were filled with handfuls of 
the tiny shelis that had been carried in by the cur- 
rent. It was evident that we were in the hunt- 
ing grounds of the Ojibways, for here and there 
we passed their tokens of Agoujinung monsu- 
FOREST: AND’ STREAM. 

ashek, or literally “things hung up.” The Ojib- 
ways hang the perforated shoulder blades of deer, 
caribou and moose upon branches of trees, and 
they erect the skulls of bears and various antlers 
upon poles. The skull of a bear is always per- 
forated with a hatchet before being hung up, in 
order to let out the bad spirit. My idea was that 
the bullet let it out pretty thoroughly, but the 
Indians want to make sure. 
Every now and then we came to an Indian 
grave, and noted what we had observed else- 
where, that an Indian grave is situated at a point 
from which one can obtain the most beautiful 
view of the surrounding country. Some years 
ago I had noticed that whenever we went to ex- 
amine a grave, we were always stopping to ad- 
mire the scenery from that point, but it did. not 
occur to me until later that there was something 
more than coincidence in the fact. There is ap- 
parently a demonstration of nice sentiment in the 
selection of sites, and there are many touching 
evidences of tender regard for the memory of 
lost ones. The fencing about a grave is labori- 
ously carved in wood in the most artistic way of 
which the Indians are capable, and bits of finery 
are placed round about. In Manitoba I remember 
two graves, probably of mother and child. side by 
side. The coffins were elevated upon stakes, and 
from the little coffin, steps had been made, so that 
the spirit of the baby could descend without tumb- 
ling. The playthings of the little one were placed 
where they would be within easy reach. Near the 
grave of an adult snowshoes are usually hung 
upon a tree, and it suggests the belief that the 
Indians believe that their future land is one that 
will not be without snow. 
On July 5 we entered an area of much higher 
hills, and the geology changed. We were now in 
the clay belt, and soon came to diabase rocks 
with fine cliffs of trap rock rising high above a 
large lake that we later learned was Lake Mata- 
gaming, more than twenty miles in length, and 
figured on the Government maps. The dominant 
tree had now become the white pine, and stately 
and sombre pines arose to a height. of 120 feet, 
according to our pole triangulation estimate. Fire 
had run through much of the white pine, but on 
the -cliffs it had been spared. To the grandeur 
of the white pines was added the cheery glow of 
the warm colored trunks of the straight red pines, 
as though the- forest had been touched by the 
brush of a Gifford. The river takes a running 
leap over a precipice into Lake Matagaming, mak- 
ing a grand plunge with clouds of spray, -rain- 
bows, and whirling, seething foam covered cur- 
rents and eddies below the fall. There was a 
A JACKFISH. 


SKULLS. 
TOKENS—BEAR 
OJIBWAY 
clean, cold spring at the foot of the portage near 
the fall, and we found it just the right spot for 
luncheon. In a few minutes we discovered that 
we had come to the habitat of another fish, the 
pike perch (Stigostedion), and Wake caught half 
a dozen of them before the Indians had the camp- 
fire well under way. They were so fat and deli- 
cious that after: we had eaten a whole one apiece 
Wake went out to the tail of an eddy and cap- 
tured enough to make sure of our dinner later. 
That was an unnecessary precaution, however, 
for we found the lake full of fish of many kinds. 
Late in the afternoon we entered a narrow 
channel, which appeared to be the outlet of the 
lake, but after paddling ten miles through an- 
other and more beautiful lake we stopped to 
camp on a pretty dry knoll above a sand beach, 
and sent two of the Indians ahead to find out 
whether we were going up stream or down 
stream, They returned at night and reported that 
the lake was about eight miles longer yet. and 
that we were out of our course. It may seem 
strange that two explorers and three Indians 
could not tell for the life of them whether they 
were going up stream or down stream, for a 
whole afternoon, but this lake received only a 
few small streams which emptied through the 
outlet into Lake Matagaming with such a gentle 
current that the high wind blowing when we en- 
tered the channel had pointed the water weeds 
all backward and deceived us about the direction 
of the flow. .The lake was such a charming one 
that I claimed it for myself, with the approval of 
Wake, and named some of the beautiful islands 
after friends at home. 
We camped for six days on this lake, for rea- 
sons to be stated presently. The greatest depth 
that we found was 134 feet, with a bottom tem- 
perature of 62 degrees Fahrenheit and a surface 
temperature of 71 degrees Fahrenheit at 11 A. M. 
The bottom in deep water consisted of a very fine 
silt, but we did not have a glass for determining 
its exact character, or the presence or absence 
of diatoms. On the banks of the lake ridges cov- 
ered with pines and spruces arose to a height of 
about 300 feet, and the flat faces of cliffs over- 
hanging the water were marked with Ojibway 
symbols and characters in reddish paint. Many 
rocky islands and peninsulas and bays with sunny 
sand beaches made the lake a most attractive one, 
Fish were so abundant in the lake that it was 
like digging potatoes to go out and get all that 
we wanted. The principal species were pike 
perch, jackfish, whitefish, lake trout (S. namay- 
cush), and ling. Fresh-water smelts were found 
in the stomachs of many of the fish that we 
