The favourite drink of the Ojibwe Indians in the wintertime was hot broth poured over a dishful of pure snow.

The Amerindians of the Nipigon country (north of Lake Superior) and the Ojibwes and Kris often relapsed into cannibalism when hard up for food.  Indeed some of them became so addicted to this practice that they simply went about stalking their fellow Indians with as much industry as if they were hunting animals.  “These prowling ogres caused such terror that to sight the track of one of them was sufficient to make twenty families decamp in all the speed of their terror” (Alexander Henry).  It was deemed useless to attempt any resistance when these monsters were coming to kill and eat.  The people would even make them presents of clothes and provisions to allow them and their children to live.  There were women cannibals as well as men (see p. 171).

As the greater part of their food came from the chase, and their only articles of commerce likewise, they devoted themselves more entirely to hunting and fishing than to any other pursuit.  The women did most of the fishing (and all the skin-curing for the fur market and for their own dress), while the men pursued with weapons the beasts of the chase, trapped them in pitfalls or snares, or drove them into “pounds” (excavated enclosures).

Illustrating the wonderful sagacity of the Amerindians as game trackers, Alexander Henry the Elder tells the following story in the autumn of 1799:—­

“We had not gone far from the house before we fell upon the fresh tracks of some red deer (wapiti), and soon after discovered the herd in a thicket of willows and poplars; we both fired, and the deer disappeared in different directions.  We pursued them, but to no purpose, as the country was unfavourable.  We then returned to the spot where we had fired, as the Indian suspected that we had wounded some of them.  We searched to see if we could find any blood; on my part, I could find tracks, but no blood.  The Indian soon called out, and I went to him, but could see no blood, nor any sign that an animal had been wounded.  However, he pointed out the track of a large buck among the many others, and told me that from the manner in which this buck had started off he was certain the animal had been wounded.  As the ground was beaten in every direction by animals, it was only after a tedious search that we found where the buck had struck off.  But no blood was seen until, passing through a thicket of willows, he observed a drop upon a leaf, and next a little more.  He then began to examine more strictly, to find out in what part of the body the animal had been wounded; and, judging by the height and other signs, he told me the wound must have been somewhere between the shoulder and neck.  We advanced about a mile, but saw nothing of the deer, and no more blood.  I was for giving up the chase; but he assured me the wound was mortal, and that if the animal should lie down he could not