As early as 1746 a portage path was projected along this route where now runs the highway road. A document of 1746 (Quebec MS. IV., 311) reads, "Nous donnons les ordres nécessaires pour faire pratiquer un chemin ou sentier d'environ 3 pieds dans le portage depuis la Rivière du Loup à 40 lieues audessous de Québec jusques au Lac Témisquata d'ou l'on va en canot par la rivière St. Jean jusqu'à Beaubassin, et ce pour faciliter la communication avec l'Escadre et pour y faire passer quelques détachement de françois et sauvages s'il est nécessaire." Whether or not this path was made we do not know. In 1761 this route was examined by Captain Peach (as a map in the Public Record Office shows), and about 1785, a road was cut along it as a part of the post route from Quebec to Nova Scotia. From that time to the present it has been much travelled, and is often referred to in documents and books. ST. FRANCIS--RIVIÈRE DU LOUP PORTAGE The exact course of this portage I have not been able to locate, but it probably ran from Lake Pohenegamook to some of the lakes on the La Fourche branch of the Rivière du Loup. The Indian name of the St. Francis, _Peech-un-ee-gan-uk_ means the Long Portage (_Peech_, long, _oo-ne-gun_, a portage, _uk_, locative). The first recorded use of this portage is in Le Clercq in his "Établissement de la Foi." He states that about 1624, Rècollet missionaries came to Acadia from Acquitaine, and thence went to Quebec in canoes by the River Loup with two Frenchmen and five Indians. It is first shown roughly on a manuscript map of 1688, very clearly on Bellin, of 1744, and on several others following him, and on Bouchette of 1815. It is mentioned in a document of 1700 (Quebec MS. V. 348) as four leagues in length. It was by this route St. Valier came from Quebec to Acadia in 1686 or 1687, and a very detailed account of the difficulties of the voyage is given in his narrative. He states that he travelled a short distance on the Rivière du Loup and Rivière des Branches and a long distance on the St. Francis. This route he describes as shorter but harder than that ordinarily used. On the unpublished DeRozier map of 1699 two portages are shown in this region, one from some branch of what is apparently the St. Francis to the Trois Pistoles, and one from another river to the westward of the St. Francis, perhaps from Lac de l'Est, to the Rivière du Loup, but they are given too inaccurately to admit of identification. Between the Temiscouata and St. Francis basins are several portages; one from Long Lake at the head of the Cabano to the St. Francis, and another from Long Lake to Baker Lake; and there are other minor ones, all marked on the Geological Survey map. BLACK RIVER--OUELLE PORTAGE