Beauty of Aird’s Bay
The Missasagua (i. e. the river with two mouths) gives its name to a tribe of the Chippewa nation, once numerous and powerful, now scattered and degraded. This is the river called by Henry the Missasaki, where he found a horde of Indians who had never seen a white man before, and who, in the excess of their hospitality, crammed him with “a porridge of sturgeons’ roe,” which I apprehend, from his description, would be likely to prove “caviare to the general.” There is a remnant of these Indians here still. We found a log-hut with a half-breed family, in the service of the fur company; and two or three bark wigwams. The rest of the village (dwellings and inhabitants together) had gone down to the Manitoolin. A number of little Red-skins were running about, half, or rather indeed wholly, naked—happy, healthy, active, dirty little urchins, resembling, except in colour, those you may see swarming in an Irish cabin. Poor Ireland! The worst Indian wigwam is not worse than some of her dwellings; and the most miserable of these Indians would spurn the destiny of an Irish poor-slave—for he is at least Lord o’er himself. As the river is still famous for sturgeon, we endeavoured to procure some for supper, and had just prepared a large piece to roast, (suspended by a cord to three sticks,) when one of those horrid curs so rife about the Indian dwellings ran off with it. We were asked to take up our night’s lodging in the log-hut, but it was so abominably dirty and close, we all preferred the shore. While they pitched the marquee, I stood for some time looking at a little Indian boy, who, in a canoe about eight feet in length, was playing the most extraordinary gambols in the water; the buoyant thing seemed alive beneath him, and to obey every movement of his paddle. He shot backwards and forwards, described circles, whirled himself round and round, made pirouettes, exhibited, in short, as many tricks as I have seen played by a spirited English boy on a thorough-bred pony.