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Updated: June 8, 2025
That evening we reached a little group of three or four islands, where the Nascaupee was wide and shallow, but just above the islands it narrowed down again and a low fall occurred. Not far from the fall a small river tumbled down over the rocks a sheer thirty feet, and emptied into the Nascaupee.
"Nenenot" they call themselves, which means perfect, true men. "Nascaupee" means false or untrue men and is a word of opprobrium applied to them by the Mountaineers in the early days, because of their failure to keep a compact to join forces with the latter at the time of the wars for supremacy between the Indians and Eskimos.
Wallace and a half-breed Indian, barely escaping a similar fate. There are six streams flowing into Grand Lake, instead of only one. It is the Nascaupee River that flows from Lake Michikamau to Grand Lake; and Seal Lake instead of being the source of the Nascaupee River is merely an expansion of it.
Long points reaching out from either shore cut off the view and seemed to change the course; but in reality they did not, for it was always northward. To right and left there were the hills, now barren altogether, or again with a narrow belt of "greenwoods" spruce, balsam, tamarack along the shore. In many places skeleton wigwams marked the site of old Nascaupee camps.
If by chance any one ever should find the body which seemed a quite improbable happening Bob's death would no doubt be laid at the door of the Nascaupee Indians.
As we paddled on at a rather brisk rate I sat thinking how beautiful the river, the mountains, and the morning were. I had not settled myself to watch seriously for the Nascaupee camp, when suddenly George exclaimed, "There it is."
"There's no doubtin' 'tis a thirty-eight fifty-five," he admitted. "'Tis true Injun Jake gets a pair of nailed boots like the lumber folk wears. But Injun Jake'll tell me whether 'twere he shot Lem. Injun Jake'll be fair about un with me whatever. 'Tis hard for me to believe he did un. If he did, he'll be gone from the Nascaupee when I gets there. If he didn't, I'll find he waitin'!"
Nascaupee is the name by which they are known now, outside of their own lodges, and the one which we shall use in referring to them. In like manner I have chosen to use the English Mountaineer, rather than the French Montagnais, in speaking of the southern Indians.
When was our climbing to end? When were we really going to find the headwaters of the Nascaupee, and stand at the summit of the plateau? It was thoroughly exciting work this climbing to the top of things.
The spruce was small and scant, increasing in size and quantity as we descended from the highest levels, but nowhere on the northern slope attaining the size reached in the valley of the Nascaupee. Gradually low, barren ridges began to appear, their white mossy sides marked by caribou trails which formed a network over the country we were passing through, and all were freshly cut with hoof marks.
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