30 TOURING QUEBEC AND THE MARITIMES

body of water, which runs through a more beautiful coun- try. Among the Micmac Indians the St. John River was known as the “Oolastook,” and the Malacete Indians called it the “Wigoudi” or highway, as it had been used for cen- turies as a means of navigation for warlike expeditions. The Indian village of Auxpaque, where the Malacetes held their councils of war, was located on the river bank six miles above Fredericton. Just opposite is Currie’s Moun- tain, an extinct volcano, which stands sentinel-like at the head of the tide. It was on Sugar Island, almost opposite Auxpaque, that the Indians gave the white settlers the first lesson in the art of making sugar from the sap of the maple trees.’ '

When the world was young, Glooscap, a mighty war- rior, endowed with supernatural powers, whom the Indians talk about until this day, brought about some important changes in the St. John River. When he visited St. John with his mother and Martin, his little servant, the red men complained that the beaver, then an enormous animal, had made navigation difficult on the St. John, by building dams at several points. Glooscap got busy at once. He found a dam at the head of the harbour, and he promptly pushed it out into the bay, and it is still there, and is known as Partridge Island. On being told of another dam, at what is now known as Grand Falls, late in the winter he journeyed up river on snowshoes and tore it to pieces. On the return trip, his snowshoes became burdensome, and at what is now known as Central Kingsclear, twelve miles above Fredericton, he threw them off and converted them into islands. These islands, a right and a left, are still there and are known among the Indians as “Snowshoe Islands.” _

The St. John River rises in the State of Maine and the Province of Quebec, and is 450 miles in length. It is the