retire to the depths of the lake. In the early part of winter, and afterwards in the spring, we took a very few trout of various sizes up to fifty pounds'[1] weight, with lines set under ice latterly seven feet thick. Back's grayling, methy, small sucking-carp, and a casual pike, completed the list of finny captures; and a single fine inconnu was caught in a net, June 1839. Throughout the winter there is a current running outwards, in the straits on either side of Fishing Island. This current is reversed by strong westerly winds, (which usually send a few fish into the nets,) though in what manner the waters of the lake are affected under such a covering of ice, it is difficult to conceive. Several currents were also spoken of by the Indians as existing in the narrow arms of M'Tavish Bay. These must be independent of the tributary streams, which, like Dease River,—the principal feeder,—are all frozen to the bottom.[2]
On Christmas and New-Year's days we entertained our assembled people with a dance, fol-
- ↑ One of the largest, taken at Fort Confidence 2d May, weighed forty-seven pounds, length four and a half feet, mid-girth twenty-seven inches (Salmo namaycush).
- ↑ I had the curiosity, when the thermometer stood at -49°, to cast a pistol-bullet of quicksilver, which at ten paces passed through an inch plank, but flattened and broke against the wall three or four paces beyond it.
