the Grey Nuns.

Mr. Weaver, the missionary at Wahpooskow, is an Englishman, his
wife being a Canadian from London, Ontario. By untiring labour
he had got his mission into very creditable shape. When it is
remembered that everything had to be brought in by bark canoes or
dog-train, and that all lumber had to be cut by hand, it seemed to
be a monument of industry. Before qualifying himself for missionary
work he had studied farming in Ontario, and the results of his
knowledge were manifest in his poultry, pigs and cows; in his
garden, full of all the most useful vegetables, including Indian
corn, and his wheat, which was then in stock, perfectly ripe and
untouched by frost. This he fed, of course, to his pigs and poultry,
as it could not be ground; but it ripened, he told me, as surely
as in Manitoba. Some of the natives roundabout had begun raising
stock and doing a little grain growing, and it was pleasant to
hear the lowing of cattle and the music of the cow-bells, recalling
home and the kindly neighbourhood of husbandry and farm.

The settlement was then some twenty years old, and numbered about
sixty souls. The total number of Indians and half-breeds in the
locality was unknown, but nearly two hundred Indians received
head-money, and all were not paid, and the half-breeds seemed
quite as numerous. About a quarter of the whole number of Indians
were said to be pagans, and the remainder Protestants and Roman
Catholics in fair proportion. In the latter denomination, Father
Giroux told me, the proportion of Indians and half-breeds,
including those of the first lake, was about equal. The latter,
he said, raised potatoes, but little else, and lived like the
Indians, by fishing and hunting, especially by the former, as
they had to go far now for fur and large game.

The Hudson's Bay Company had built a post near Mr. Weaver's
Mission, and there was a free-trader also close by, named
Johnston, whose brother, a fine-looking native missionary,
assisted at an interesting service we attended in the Mission
church, conducted in Cree and English, the voices in the Cree
hymns being very soft and sweet. Mr. Ladoucere was also near
with his trading-stock, so that business, it was feared, would
be overdone. But we issued an unexpectedly large number of scrip
certificates here, and the price being run up by competition,
a great deal of trade followed.

Wahpooskow is certainly a wonderful region for fish, particularly
the whitef