Native northerners required transportation for collecting food, operating
traplines and personal travel - as individuals, families and groups of
families. The northwestern bush land is full of lakes rivers, and it was
natural for the bush land people to use the waterways for travel. In the
summer the water was open for travel by boat, and in the winter the frozen
surfaces made good highways for travel by toboggan.
People living in northern forests traditionally had their principal
residences near the shores of lakes or rivers. Lakes and rivers have
always been the trappers' main "highways" and these local routes
connected with major overland transportation routes to more outlying
areas. Summer travel by water transport was always a connecting link in
the social and economic life of bush land people.
Reprinted from Bush Land People
with the permission of the author. Copyright Terry Garvin, 1992-2002.
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