Twenty-third Day's Instruction.
NORTH WESTERN TERRITORY.
The Route, from Montreal to Fort Chepewyan, pursued by a company of traders,
called the North-west Company.
The requisite number of canoes being purchased, the goods being formed into packages, and the lakes and rivers being free from ice, which they usually are in the beginning of May, the persons employed by the North-west Company set out from La Chine, eight miles above Montreal.
Each canoe carries eight or ten men, and a luggage consisting of sixty-five packages of goods, about six hundred weight of biscuit, two hundred weight of pork, and three bushels of peas, for the men's provisions: two oil-cloths to cover the goods, a sail, and an axe, a towing-line, a kettle, and a sponge to bail out the water; together with a quantity of gum, bark, and watape, to repair the canoe. An European, on seeing these slender vessels, thus laden, heaped up, and their sides not more than six inches out of the water, would imagine it impossible that they should perform a long and perilous voyage; but the Canadians are so expert in the management of them, that few accidents happen.
Leaving La Chine, they proceed to St. Ann's, within two miles of the western extremity of the island of Montreal. At the rapid of St. Ann, the navigators are obliged to take out part, if not the whole of the lading; and to replace it when they have passed the cataract. The Lake of the two Mountains, which they next reach, is about twenty miles long, but not more than three miles wide, and is, nearly surrounded by cultivated fields.
At the end of the lake, the water contracts into the Utawas river; which, after a course of fifteen miles, is interrupted by a succession of rapids and cascades for upwards of ten miles: at the foot of these the Canadian Seignories terminate. Here the voyagers are frequently obliged to unload their canoes, and carry the goods upon their backs, or rather suspended in slings from their heads. Each man's ordinary load is two packages, though some of the men carry three. In some places, the ground will not admit of their carrying the whole at once: in this case, they make two trips; that is, the men leave half their lading, land it at the distance required, and then return for that which was left. There are three carrying places; and, near the last of them, the river is a mile and a half wide, and has a regular current, for about sixty miles, to the first portage de Chaudiere. The whole body of water is here precipitated, twenty-five feet, down, craggy and excavated rocks, and in a most wild and romantic manner.
Over this portage, it is requisite to carry the canoe and all its lading; but the rock is so steep, that the canoe cannot be taken out of the water by fewer than twelve men, and it is carried by six men.
The next remarkable object which the traders approach, is a lake called Nepisingui, about twelve leagues long, and fifteen miles wide, in the widest part. The inhabitants of the country adjacent to this lake, consist of the remainder of a numerous tribe called Nepisinguis, of the Algonquin nation.
Out of the lake flows the Riviere de François, over rocks of considerable height. This river is very irregular, both as to its breadth and form; and it is so interspersed with islands, that, in its whole course, its banks are seldom visible. Of its various channels, that which is generally followed by the canoes is obstructed by five portages. The distance hence to Lake Huron is about twenty-five leagues. There is scarcely a foot of soil to be seen from one end of the river to the other; for its banks consist entirely of rock.