MISSIONARY 39

Babine Lake, almost ten miles to the north and
slightly to the west, is much longer and very deep,
at least one hundred miles in length, but never very
broad, and less peopled, counting only two regular,
but rather large, villages, both of which are situated
on its northern half. Both of these lakes are famous
for the excellent trout they contain.

Then there are lakes Tatla, a fork-like piece of
water to the north-east, on the shores of which there
are no settled or permanent groups of natives; Trem-
blay, south of it, with one unimportant place, and,
south of Stuart Lake, Fraser Lake with two villages,
Natléh and Stella, one at each end of it: St. Mary’s
Lake (Tsistlatha), with one, as well as lakes Loring,
Dawson, Emerald and Morice, to mention only the
principal, all of which are important bodies of water
discovered by our missionary, and the last of which is
probably the finest in British Columbia.

Lying quite out of the beaten tracks, none of these
last contains any centre of population; but in Father
Morice’s time there was an important village at
Fort George (to-day Prince George), as well as two
at Stony Creek and the lake of which it is the outlet,
which have since coalesced into one. Furthermore,
within the Catholic territory, if we may so speak, there
were, sixty miles west of the northern end of Babine
Lake, the picturesque village of Rocher Déboulé
(Akwilgate), and what was in course of time to become
Moricetown, a little over thirty miles up the same
river, the Bulkley, a tributary of the Skeena.

Finally, we should not forget to mention the
nomadic hordes of Sékanais, or Rocky Mountain
Indians,’ a tribe absolutely devoid of all houses, let
alone villages. They yearly rendezvous, and are

15 More properly Tsé-’kéh-né, lit. Stones-on-People.
F.M.—4