"On the north-side of the lake, opposite the River Exploits, are the extremities of two deer fences, about half a mile apart, where they lead to the water. It is understood that they diverge many miles in north-westerly directions. The Red Indian makes these fences to lead and scare the deer to the lake, during the periodical migration of these animals; the Indians being stationed looking out, when the deer get into the water to swim across, the lake being narrow at this end, they attack and kill the animals with spears out of their canoes. In this way they secure their winter provisions before the severity of that season sets in."
"There were other old remains of different kinds peculiar to these people met with about the lake."
"One night we encamped on the foundation of an old Red Indian wigwam, on the extremity of a point of land which juts out into the lake, and exposed to the view of the whole country around. A large fire at night is the life and soul of such a party as ours, and when it blazed up at times, I could not help observing that two of my Indians evinced uneasiness and want of confidence in things around, as if they thought themselves usurpers on the Red Indian territory. From time immemorial none of the Indians of the other tribes had ever encamped near this lake fearlessly, and, as we had now done, in the very centre of such a country; the lake and territory adjacent having been always considered to belong exclusively to the Red Indians, and to have been occupied by them. It had been our invariable practice hitherto, to encamp near the hills, and be on their summits by the dawn of day, to try to discover the morning smoke ascending from the Red Indians' camps; and to prevent the discovery of ourselves, we extinguished our own fire always some length of time before daylight."
"Our only and frail hope now left of seeing the Red Indians, lay on the banks of the River Exploits, on our return to the sea-coast."
"The Red Indians' Lake discharges itself about three or four miles from its north-east end, and its waters form the River Exploits. From the lake to the sea-coast is considered about seventy miles; and down this noble river the steady perseverance and intrepidity of my Indians carried me on rafts in four days, to accomplish which otherwise, would have required, probably, two weeks. We landed at various places on both banks of the river on our way down, but found no traces of the Red Indians so recent as those seen at the portage at Badger Bay-Great Lake, towards the beginning of our excursion. During our descent, we had to construct new rafts at the different waterfalls. Sometimes we were carried down the rapids at the rate of ten miles an hour, or more, with considerable risk of destruction to the whole party, for we were always together on one raft."
"What arrests the attention most, while gliding down the stream, is the extent of the Indian fences to entrap the deer. They extend from the lake downwards, continuous, on the banks of the river, at least thirty miles. There are openings left here and there in them, for the animals to go through and swim across the river, and at these places the Indians are stationed, and kill them in the water with spears, out of their canoes, as at the lake. Here, then, connecting these fences with those on the north-west side of the lake, is at least forty miles of country, easterly and westerly, prepared to intercept all the deer that pass that way in their periodical migrations. It was melancholy to contemplate the gigantic, yet feeble, efforts of a whole primitive nation, in their anxiety to provide subsistence, forsaken and going to decay."
"There must have been hundreds of the Red Indians, and that not many years ago, to have kept up these fences and pounds. As their numbers were lessened so was their ability to keep them up for the purposes intended; and now the deer pass the whole line unmolested."
"We infer, that the few of these people who yet survive have taken refuge in some sequestered spot, still in the northern part of the island, and where they can procure deer to subsist on."
"On the 29th of November we had again returned to the mouth of the River Exploits, in thirty days after our departure from thence, after having made a complete circuit of about 200 miles in the Red Indian territory."
"In conclusion, I congratulate the institution on the acquisition of several ingenious articles, the manufacture of the Boeothicks, or Red Indians, some of which we had the good fortune to discover on our recent excursion;—models of their canoes, bows and arrows, spears of different kinds, &c.; and also a complete dress worn by that people. Their mode of kindling fire is not only original, but, as far as we at present know, is peculiar to the tribe. These articles, together with a short vocabulary of their language, consisting of 200 or 300 words, which I have been enabled to collect, prove the Boeothicks to be a distinct tribe from any hitherto discovered in North America. One remarkable characteristic of their language, and in which it resembles those of Europe more than any other Indian languages do, with which we have had an opportunity of comparing it,—is its abounding in diphthongs."