Evening Republican, Volume 18, Number 164, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 July 1914 — Indian Ingenuity. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Indian Ingenuity.

In his preface to “Antarctic Days,” Sir Ernest Shackleton' tells an amusing little story of northern Canada. A government geologist, with infinite labor, had collected some very interesting geological specimens in a region far beyond civilisation. Most of the collecting was done on the barren ground 280 miles northeast of the Great Bear lake. Thb scientific man and the porters of the party carried the rocks on their backs to the Great Bear lake, paddled 300 miles across the lake, and alternately paddled and portaged 1,500 miles up the Mackenzie, Slave and Athabasca river*. The last portage was half a mile long at the Grand Rapids of the Athabasca, and it was done by Indian employes of the Hudson’s Bay company. The Indians were ingenious men, and they still tell with pride how they saved much labor by emptying all the heavy bags and boxes at the lower end

of ths rapids, and filling them again at the upper end with rocks of similar weight. By this means theysaved half « mile of difficult carrying. The Substitution was found out a year later to Ottawa.

A Greenhead Fly.