Volume 1

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36 DIFFERENT DOWN-RIVER POSTS.
o'clock they returned with two, the others having been
burned last spring for the purpose of collecting the nails
to make new ones the ensuing season. This day we passed
in repairing the boats and canoes, making setting-poles,
and examining the different baggages ; found small packages
much damaged, and kegs of wine not more than half
full, having been cracked by falling upon the rocks and
the liquor leaked out. The Canadians are certainly smart,
active men as voyageurs, but very careless of property
committed to their charge.
The H. B. Co. have an establishment at this place near
the N, W. Co. They have a clerk and two men who pass
the summer here, but talk about throwing it up this fall,
as a post will not pay expenses. Their object in settling
was to make packages, but, from the scarcity of beavers,
they have been disappointed ; and
have no occasion for a
depot of provisions, as they bring their fall stock from
Martin's
falls.
A7(g: ij//i. Fine clear weather; dried our bales and
other articles ; repaired boat and canoes. I also arranged
the men and their loadings, taking from each canoe one
man and five packages to put on board the boat ;
gave
each craft a bag of provisions, with grease, gum, bark, and
wattap." At 3 p. m. they were ready, when I sent them
off down to the entrance of the lake."'
'"'
Of these articles, the grease was a part of the provisions. The gum was the
resinous substance of spruce or other conifers, as prepared for stopping leaks in
canoes by a process like calking. The bark was that of the birch, of which the
canoes were themselves made, in pieces to be used for patching broken or weakened
places. Wattap was the fine fibrous roots of spruce or fir, used for lacing
the canoes : see Pike, ed. i8g5, p. loi. We also see from the above paragraph
a distinction drawn between the large " boat" and the ordinary canoe.
*'
Mouth of Winnipeg r., at the head of Traverse bay, an arm of Lake Winnipeg.
The Point de Sable, which Henry next mentions, was on the S. side,
marking the outlet of the river. Thompson says that he went N. lo" W. J/^m.,
N. 28° W. 2^ m., and N. 28° W. )4 m., from the N. W. Co. House to this
Point of Sand, and that the river was there ^ m. wide. Traverse bay is marked
off on the N. by present Point Metasse, about 6 m. N. N. W. of Sandy pt.
and is better marked on the S. and W. by a large projection of land which ends