A Sioui is still the central figure in the making of snowshoe frames. Siouis and Vincents are still keen on the chase. ’Tis they who in season guide the sportsman from over the border to the haunts of the moose and truite rouge, ensuring plenty of sport.
But at this season of the year the Huron of Indian Lorette is off on his homemade snowshoes far in the silences of the great fur country and the timber lands of Northern Quebec working for a living—“hunting the fur and the big log, m’sieu”.
CHAPTER XX.
THE ABENAKI BASKET-MAKERS.
T is the proud boast of the people of Pierreville on the St. Francois river, on the south side of the St. Lawrence, that there is no bridge other than the railroad bridges over any river between Pierreville and Montreal, and that if you desire to cross any of these rivers you must do so on the picturesque ferry-scow which m’sieu the ferryman, guides over the calm water, mirroring reflections on every hand, on a wire-cable cleverly seized by him in the snapping jaw of a sort of a wooden monkey-wrench.
We “called the ferry” at this Twickenham of Canada for the first time in August and set up house-keeping in a cottage on the main street of the village of Odanak just at the point where the street comes out on the high bank overlooking the river St. Francois. So that to watch the upper ferry from our front porch became a daily amusement.
Pierreville and Odanak adjoin each other but enjoy separate post-offices. Pierreville is the French-Canadian town and Odanak the village of the Abenakis. Our “maison” was a sort of boundary line, I believe. Odanak when translated, we were told by the Episcopal clergyman, means “Our Village”, so what with the picturesque ferry and literary suggestions of Miss Mitford in “Our Village” name, our August camping-ground became atmospheric at once.
But wherever there are Indians they take the centre of the stage and hold it. Odanak is “Our Village” to the Abenakis. And as far as I know it is the only home-village in the possession of what is left of these people.
The Abenakis were the “original Yankees”. They came to the banks of the St. Francois from Maine, Vermont and Massachusetts. If you wish to know more about their interesting past read “Histoire d’Abenakis, depuis 1605 jusqu’a nos jours, par L’Abbe J. A. Maurault”. It is a thick volume and makes a pleasant tale to read by a roaring fireside of a winter evening. But this present sketch deals with the living present—the Abenakis of “our day” from the human interest angle.