The Fish Caught In The Net Are The Attihhawmegh, Trout, Carp, Methye, And Pike.*

(*Footnote. See above.)

The traders also get supplied by the hunters with buffalo and moose-deer meat (which animals are found at some distance from the forts) but the greater part of it is either in a dried state or pounded ready for making pemmican and is required for the men whom they keep travelling during the winter to collect the furs from the Indians, and for the crews of the canoes on their outward passage to the depots in spring. There was a great want of provision this season, and both the Companies had much difficulty to provide a bare sufficiency for their different brigades of canoes. Mr. Smith assured me that after the canoes had been despatched he had only five hundred pounds of meat remaining for the use of the men who might travel from the post during the summer and that, five years preceding, there had been thirty thousand pounds in store under similar circumstances. He ascribed this amazing difference more to the indolent habits which the Indians had acquired since the commercial struggle commenced than to their recent sickness, mentioning in confirmation of his opinion that they could now, by the produce of little exertion, obtain whatever they demanded from either establishment.

At the opening of the water in spring the Indians resort to the establishments to settle their accounts with the traders and to procure the necessaries they require for the summer. This meeting is generally a scene of much riot and confusion as the hunters receive such quantities of spirits as to keep them in a state of intoxication for several days. This spring however, owing to the great deficiency of spirits, we had the gratification of seeing them generally sober. They belong to the great family of the Chipewyan or Northern Indians, dialects of their language being spoken in the Peace and Mackenzie's Rivers and by the populous tribes in New Caledonia, as ascertained by Sir Alexander Mackenzie in his journey to the Pacific. They style themselves generally Dinneh men or Indians, but each tribe or horde adds some distinctive epithet taken from the name of the river or lake on which they hunt, or the district from which they last migrated. Those who come to Fort Chipewyan term themselves Saweessawdinneh (Indians from the rising sun or Eastern Indians) their original hunting grounds being between the Athabasca and Great Slave Lakes and Churchill River. This district, more particularly termed the Chipewyan lands or barren country, is frequented by numerous herds of reindeer which furnish easy subsistence and clothing to the Indians, but the traders endeavour to keep them in the parts to the westward where the beavers resort. There are about one hundred and sixty hunters who carry their furs to the Great Slave Lake, forty to Hay River, and two hundred and forty to Fort Chipewyan. A few Northern Indians also resort to the posts at the bottom of the Lake of the Hills, on Red Deer Lake, and to Churchill.

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