Montagnais

Montagnais, a term applied by the Franco-Canadians to two distinct North American peoples: (1) A Hudson Bay tribe, who are a branch of the Athabascan family, and whose proper name is Dene (" Men") ; they roam a vast region of some 200,000 square miles between the Churchill river and the Great Slave Lake, but number at present (1892) not more than 5,000, mostly in the service of the Hudson Bay Company. (2) A Canadian tribe, who are a branch of the Algonquian family, and who represent the Tadussians, Shicutimians, Pikwagamians, the Great and Little Mistassins and others mentioned by the early French writers. They occupied a territory of about 120,000 square miles in the Saguenay basin and the interior of Labrador, and since the time of Champlain w-ere always steadfast allies of the French in their yvars with the Iroquois. At present they are reduced to about 1,920, chiefly in the Betsiamits district, and grouped round the Catholic mission of the Pointe-Bleue Reserve on the west side of Lake St. John.