handsome, birch-rind canoe, about twenty-two feet in length, comparatively
new, and certainly very little used, lay thrown up among the bushes at the
beach. We supposed that the violence of a storm had rent it in the way it
was found, and that the people who were in it had perished; for the iron
nails, of which there was no want, all remained in it. Had there been any
survivors, nails being much prized by these people, they never having held
intercourse with Europeans, such an article would most likely have been
taken out for use again. All the birch trees in the vicinity of the lake
had been rinded, and many of them, and of the spruce fir, or var, had the
bark taken off, to use the inner part of it for food, as noticed before."

"Their wooden repositories for the dead are what are in the most perfect
state of preservation. These are of different constructions, it would
appear, according to the character or rank of the persons entombed. In one
of them, which resembled a hut ten feet by eight or nine, and four or five
feet high in the centre, floored with squared poles, the roof covered with
rinds of trees, and in every way well secured against the weather inside,
and the intrusion of wild beasts, there were two grown persons laid out at
full length, on the floor, the bodies wrapped round with deerskins. One of
these bodies appeared to have been placed here not longer ago than five or
six years. We thought there were children laid in here also. On first
opening this building, by removing the posts which formed the ends, our
curiosity was raised to the highest pitch; but what added to our surprise,
was the discovery of a white deal coffin, containing a skeleton neatly
shrouded in white muslin. After a long pause of conjecture how such a thing
existed here, the idea of _Mary March_ occurred to one of the party, and
the whole mystery was at once explained.[3]"

[3] It should be remarked here, that Mary March, so called from the
name of the month in which she was taken, was the Red Indian