On the twenty-seventh of the same month of January a Savage came to acquaint me with a secret well known among the Algonquains, but not among the Montagnais; neither is it known in this part of the country, but farther into the interior. He told me that, if some one of our Frenchmen would accompany him, he would go and fish under the ice of a great pond, located some five thousand paces beyond the great River, opposite our Settlement. One of them did, in fact, go there, and brought back some fish, which greatly comforted our French people, for they can now, in the thickest [84] ice, stretch their nets in this pond. I have seen them fish in this way; now see how they do it. With great blows of the axe they make a tolerably large hole in the ice of the pond; then at intervals they make other smaller ones, and by the use of poles they pass a cord from hole to hole under the ice; this cord, which is as long as the nets they wish to stretch, stops at the last hole, through which it is drawn, and they spread out in the water the whole net which is attached to it. This is the way they spread the nets the first time. When they wish to examine them, it is very easily done, for they draw them out through the largest opening, to collect the fish from them; then it is only necessary to draw back the cord to respread the nets, the poles serving only to put the cord through the first time. When God has blessed these countries with a colony of French, [85] there will result a thousand benefits and a thousand conveniences for the country, of which these Barbarians are ignorant. Le sixiesme de Feurier la grande Riuiere fut gelée tout à fait, en sorte qu'on passoit dessus en asseurance; elle gela mesme deuant Kebec, ce qui est fort extraordinaire, à raison que les marées sont là fort violentes. Il me semble que la rigueur de l'hyuer s'est fait sentir particulièrement en ce mois cy. On the sixth of February, the great River was completely frozen over, so that one could walk over it in safety; it even froze opposite Kebec, which is very extraordinary, as the tides there are very strong. It seems to me that the severity of the winter makes itself especially felt during this month.