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.

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