Until the middle of the nineteenth century, this wonderful lake and its immense tributaries were scarcely known to white men, yet upon its shores stood Notre Dame de Roberval and St. Louis Chambord, two of the oldest Jesuit Indian missions in America. For more than two centuries, until the angler and lumberman began going to this remote wilderness, it was a buried paradise in the distant woods, without inhabitants, excepting a few Montaignais and their priests, and a scattered post or two of the Hudson Bay Company, whose occasional expeditions over to Quebec for supplies were the only communication with the outer world. The solid graystone church and convent stand in bold relief among the neat little white French cottages at Roberval, there are an immense sawmill and a modern hotel, while in front is the grand sweep of the lake, like a vast inland sea, its opposite shore almost beyond vision, excepting where a far-away mountain spur may loom just above the horizon. Here lives the famous ouananiche of the salmon family, called "land-locked," because it is believed he is unable to get out to other waters. He is a gamey and magnificent fish, with dark-blue back and silvery sides, mottled with olive spots, thus literally clothed in purple and fine silver. He has enormous strength, making him the champion finny warrior of the Canadian waters. The chief fishery ground for him is in the swirling rapids of the Grand Discharge. The native Montaignais, or "mountaineer" Indian of this region, is a most expert angler, seducing the royal fish with an inartistic lump of fat pork on the end of a line from his frail canoe among the rapids, and hooking the game more effectively than the costliest rod and reel in the hands of a "tenderfoot." These dusky, consumptive-looking, copper-colored Indians spend the winters in the unexplored wilds of the Mistassini, and wander through all the wilderness as far as Hudson Bay. When the snows are gone, they bring in the pelts of the beaver, otter, fox and bear, to trade at the Company posts, and living in rude birch-bark huts on the bank of the lake, spend the summer in fishing, and pick up a few dollars as boatmen and guides. THE ST. LAWRENCE ESTUARY.