it with a flail. Mrs Young sewed several sheets together, and
one day, when there was a steady, gentle breeze blowing, we winnowed the
chaff from the wheat in the wind. There were no mills within hundreds
of miles of us; so we merely cracked the wheat in a hand coffee-mill,
and used some of it for porridge, and gave the rest to the Indians, who
made use of it in their soups.

Thus we laboured with them and for them, and were more and more
encouraged, as the years rolled on, at seeing how resolved they were to
improve their temporal circumstances, which at the best were not to be
envied.

The principal article of food was fish. The nets were in the water from
the time the ice disappeared in May until it returned in October; and
often were holes cut in the ice, and nets placed under it, for this
staple article of food.

The great fall fisheries were times of activity and anxiety, as the
winter's supply of food depended very much upon the numbers caught. So
steady and severe is the frost at Norway House, and at all the Missions
north of it, that the fish caught in October and the early part of
November, keep frozen solid until April. The principal fish is the
white fish, although many other varieties abound.

Each Indian family endeavoured to secure from three to five thousand
fish, each fall, for the winter's supply. For my own family use, and
more especially for my numerous dogs, which were required for my long
winter trips to the out Mission appointments, I used to endeavour to
secure not less than ten thousand fish. It is fortunate that those
lakes and rivers so abound in splendid varieties of fish. If it were
not so, the Indians could not exist. But, providentially,--

"The teeming sea supplies
The food the niggard soil denies."

Deer of several varieties abound, and also other animals, the flesh of
which furnishes nutritious food. But all supplies of food thus obtained
are insignificant in comparison with the fish, which the Indians are
able to obtain except in the severest weather.

As with the natives, so it was with the Missionaries; the principal
article of food upon their tables was fish. During the first Riel
Rebellion, when all communication with the interior was cut off, and our
supplies could not as usual be sent out to us from Red River, my good
wife and I lived on fish twenty-one times a week, for nearly six months.
Of course there were times when we had on the table, in addition to