vehicles with any Degree of safety ion such dangerous Navigation.

The Post of Mistassini, a word which means a large stone, is reckoned at the distance of ninety leagues from that of Assuapmousoin. The Canoe route is by the Sagunay to her source the course N.W. and distance thirty leagues – then down the stream sixty leagues N.E. till they fall into the Great Lake Mistassini. The number of carry^g Places are thirty two the longest of which are three miles. The longest portage from Chicoutimy to Assuapⁿ is about the same length and we meet with it immediately on leaving the first of these Places. The road in all the Portages we passed was as good, being commonly over rocks, as in River Unopie. But the carrying places to Mistassini we were informed were dreadfully rough[.] The Country to the height of Land is low swampy & mossy with small spruce trees thinly scattered after which it becomes again mountainous & woody for most of the way to Hudsons Bay.

Lake Mistassini is so extensive that the natives do not know the Dimensions of it – they however say that there are Bays in it as large as Lake S^t John. It abounds with such fish as are found with the other Lakes throughout the Country and from the Country bordering upon it we get the finest of our

furs

[70]