28 Mackenzie’s Voyages

while the rest of the people and merchandise remain here,
to carry on trade with the Chipewyans, about 800 of whom
trade here. |

‘Here have I arrived with ninety or an hundred men
without any provision for their sustenance, for whatever
quantity may have been obtained from the natives during
the summer, it could not be more than sufficient for the
people dispatched to their different posts. The whole
dependence, therefore, of those who remained was on the
lake and fishing implements for the means of our support.
The white fish are the principal object of pursuit: they
spawn in the fall of the year, and about the setting in of the
hard frost crowd in shoals to the shallow water, when as
many as possible are taken, in order that a portion of them
may be laid by in the frost to provide against the scarcity
of winter; as during that season the fish of every description
decrease in the lakes if they do not altogether disappear.
In this state they remain until the beginning of April, when
they have been found as sweet as when they were caught.

“This fishery requires the most unremitting attention,
as the voyaging Canadians are equally indolent, extravagant,
and improvident, when left to themselves, and rival the
savages in a neglect of the morrow. ‘Thus do these voyageurs
live, year after year, entirely upon fish, without even the
quickening flavor of salt, or the variety of any farinaceous
root or vegetable. During a short period of the spring and
fall, great numbers of wild fowl frequent this country,
which prove a very gratifying food after such a long privation
of flesh-meat.

“In the fall of the year the natives meet the traders at
the forts, where they barter the furs or the provisions which
they may have procured; they then obtain credit, and proceed
to hunt the beavers, and do not return till the beginning of