Some years since, the valleys and high forests of Athabasca were exclusively appropriated to the chase by the Assiniboins of the Forest: the scarcity of game forced them to quit their land - since their departure the animals have increased in an astonishing manner. In various places on the river, we saw ravages of the beavers which I should have taken for recent encampments of savages, so great a quantity of felled trees was there. Many wandering families of the Carrier tribe and Ashiganes or Sock Indians of New Caledonia, compelled by hunger, have quitted their country, traversed the east of the mountains, and now range the valleys of this region in quest of food. They nourish themselves with roots, and whatever they can catch; many of them have their teeth worn to the gums by the earth and sand they swallow with their nourishment. In winter they fare well: for then the moose, elk and reindeer are plentiful. The reindeer feed on a kind of white moss, and the paunch is considered delicious when the food is half digested. By way of a dainty morsel, the Indians pluck out the eyes of fish with the end of the fingers and swallow them raw, likewise the tripes with their whole contents, without further ceremony than placing them an instant on the coals, from thence into the omnibus or general reservoir, without even undergoing the operation of the jaws.
The Montagnes Indians inhabit the lower part of Athabasca, also the great lake of that name. The elk is very common, and the reindeer are found in large bands; the chase of the latter is both easy and singular. They regularly bend their course northward in autumn, and return toward the south in the spring. The Indians know their usual crossing-places over the lakes and rivers-and when the herd (often many hundreds in number) are in the water, and approach the opposite shore, the huntsmen leave their concealment, jump into their light canoes, and yell with all their strength to make them return to the centre; there they harass them, continually driving them from the shore, until the poor animals become exhausted; then begins the work