The People of the Interior always came to the Post two or three weeks later than those whose hunting grounds were around the lake. Some of the families from the interior came six hundred miles, driving dogs which dragged their laden sleds, the canoes forming part of the loads, until, coming south to where the snow was giving way to the advance of the spring, they left the sleds and loaded the canoes, finishing their journey by drifting in them with the swollen current down to the great lake. The trading completed, the People of the Interior returned as they had come, by canoe and sled, leaving the Post two or three weeks sooner than the People of the Lake. This had been the procedure for innumerable generations.