A fisherman's summer in Canada

THE LIBRARY

OF

THE UNIVERSITY

OF CALIFORNIA

PRESENTED BY

PROF. CHARLES A. KOFOID AND

MRS. PRUDENCE W. KOFOID

Digitized by the Internet Archive

in 2007. with funding from

IVIicrosoft Corporation

http://www.archive.org/details/fishermanssummerOOaflarich

iSmii-

A FISHEEMAN'S

SUMMEK m

CANADA

BY

F. G. AFLALO

LLX7STRATED FEOM PHOTOGRAPHS

WITHERBY & CO.

326 HIGH HOLBOBN, LONDON
1911

L' I J

r

PREFACE.

" . . . I do not ask to see
The distant scene ; one step enough for me . . . "*

was Newman's more rhythmic setting of the
rebuke administered by St. Thomas a Kempis to
all who hanker after a sight of foreign parts.
The deeply religious mind, no doubt, finds content-
ment with home surroundings the more admirable
attitude, and with this I have no quarrel, so long
as I am free to indulge a different taste. There
are good men who order their summer holiday
with the same routine that rules their affairs,
returning year after year to a favourite watering-
place and there leading a negative existence
which seems to the uninitiated infinitely more
tedious than work. Yet there must always be
some of us to whom contrast is the salt of life.
These, if they be humble followers of Walton,
will conceive that, since God has made a big
world, with leagues of water, fresh and salt, deep
and shallow, still and running, it is their part to
fish over as much as possible of its surface before
they join the things that were.

M31gja89

IV PREFACE

Therefore, lured by sunny memories of an
earlier pilgrimage in which fishing had received
less than its due share of attention, I found myself
hankering for another glimpse of Canada's rushing
rivers and gleaming lakes, which, with a million
acres of untrodden forest, make it the finest
playground in all the world. How long it will
remain so, how long its moose and caribou wiU
tempt the still-hunter over virgin snow, how long
its salmon will bend the rods of privileged anglers
on the E/Cstigouche and Matapedia, or on some
less exclusive waters of the Maritime Provinces,
or its trout give sport in a thousand brooks and
lakes, or its mighty tuna attract the more
adventurous to the bays of Cape Breton and
Nova Scotia, it would be futile to forecast. Yet
it is as certain as anything in this guesswork
future of ours that the sporting attractions of
that glorious land will last the lifetime of those
now in the cradle, and beyond the span allotted
to a generation even a clairvoyant would not wish
to see.

Apart, moreover, from the intrinsic value of
such hunting grounds, they promised striking
contrast from the scenes of last year's wanderings.
The Lands of To-morrow may lack the picturesque-
ness of the Lands of Yesterday. The homes of a

PREFACE V

future civilization have nothing in common with
the hills that shadowed the cradle of the race,
with their hallowed memories of fierce paynim
and inspired crusaders, of the lost Temple, of
Jason and his argonauts, memories sacred and
profane, enduring in such architecture as the
Church of the Sepulchre, the splendid fane of
San Sophia, or the storied ruins of Baalbek.
None of these landmarks of antiquity should I
find in Canada, for the poor Indian, passing,
leaves no monument, and traditions, like those of
Quebec and Louisburg, which hark back to the
conflict between French and English, are of too
recent date to command the reverence inspired
by the sites of Bible story.

Yet if I might not fish in waters like Jordan
and Galilee, endeared by the glamour of such
associations, I could at least throw my ponderous
fly on others with more promise of game fish and
amid scenes as far from the turmoil of civilization.

The tour originally planned, with the assistance
of C. F. Lane, Esq. (of the Sportsman's Agency of
Canada, 118, McGill College Avenue, Montreal),
embraced the following : —

1. Canoe trip down the S.W. Miramichi, from
the Forks to Boiestown, with salmon and grilse
fishing.

VI PREFACE

2. A few days on the Restigouche and Mata-
pedia, planned with the assistance of Edward
Hickson, Esq., of Moncton.

3. A month on Cape Breton Island, to attempt
to land one of the big tuna, which had hitherto
baffled all attempts at capture.

4. Three days' muskallonge and black bass
fishing in Georgian Bay.

This may seem an ambitious programme for
an absence of less than three months, but experi-
ence had taught me that arrangements are apt
to fall through, and that it is, in consequence,
the wise course to plan more than is likely to
materialize, a precaution justified in this case
by the failure of the Restigouche trip, which
was stopped by the disastrous Campbelltown fire.

Having decided on an itinerary and obtained
a stateroom on the Empress of Ireland, fastest
and most comfortable of Canadian greyhounds,
there remained the mustering of an outfit, always
one of the most fascinating occupations to those
bitten by the Wanderlust, An immense equip-
ment of salmon, trout and tuna tackle, in the
selection of which I owe a debt of gratitude to
Mr. W. D. Hunter, Manager of the West-End
branch of Messrs. Farlow's business ; first-aid

PREFACE v^

and photographic cases from Messrs. Burroughs,
Wellcome and Company, who (unlike some authors
of sporting books) cultivate the art of getting
much into little space ; bottles and sprays of
" Muscatol," admirable against mosquitoes, though
useless against the Canadian midge and blackfly,
which were repelled only by an extra strong
decoction with which the maker provided me ;
one of Tucker's head-nets, to which I owe many
hours of immunity from these bloodthirsty curses
of the Canadian summer ; a new camera, one of
Messrs. Newman and Guardia's reflex pattern;
the materials for collecting and preserving such
biting flies as I could muster for a gentleman
in the British Museum interested in their study ;
and half a dozen books, my modest equivalent
of Mr. Roosevelt's elaborate " Pigskin Library " ;
these were but a few of the miscellaneous belong-
ings, necessary and otherwise, which crammed
my bulging trunks.

The end and aim of the trip was primarily the
tuna. Three previous raids on the haunts of that
gigantic mackerel — to Madeira, to Santa Catalina,
and to the Bosphorus — proved dismal failures.
Well, this one fared Ukewise, since but half a
dozen of the monsters were hooked on the shores
of Cape Breton Island the whole summer, and they

vra PREFACE

all got away. The honour of catching one has
therefore still to be earned, and anyone ambitious
to wear the laurels will find in Chapter III. all
the necessary information. I wish him luck, and
it is certainly an experiment worth trying. To
Georgian Bay I returned by a roundabout route
by way of Annapolis Valley, visiting the scenes of
Longfellow's " Evangeline," and then, after
camping alone with an intelligent Chippewa,
and catching some good bass, returned home on
the steamer that had taken me west. Thus ended
my second Canadian summer; and I hope that
some of my readers may be inspired to spend their
next long vacation on those enchanting water-
ways, as romantic a playground for the summer
sportsman as any left on this old earth.

F. G. A.

Devonshire, Christmas, 1910.

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I.~Introductory.

PAGE

Pacific Salmon — Rainbow Trout — A Wonderful Lake — Expecting
Too Much — The Canadian Climate — Fishing Along the Rail-
road—A Well-Stocked Lake— Of Flies— The Canadian Sum-
mer— The G^lides . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

CHAPTER II.

A River of New Brunswick.

Gaelic Farmers — The Land of Many Waters — Pleasures of
Camping Out — Memories of the Tent Life — The Real and
the Imaginary — Poling the Canoe — Trials of Canoeing — The
Parmachene Belle — Reasons for Small Bag — Seeing Big
Game — Stalking Moose — A Careless Mother — Distribution of
Deer — Treeing a Porcupine — The Lost Man's Friend — Insects,
Offensive and Otherwise — Idiosyncracies of the Guides — A
Capable Backwoodsman — On Woodcraft — Pools of the
Miramichi — The Best Salmon Flies — Back to Civilization —
Good-bye to the River . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

CHAPTER III.
Tuna Fishing in the North Atlantic

Previous Failures with Tuna — Mr. J. K. L. Ross — Reasons of
Failure — A Fight of Nineteen Hours — Fish Lost Last Season
— Mira and St. Ann's — Seafowl and Squid — Sangaree Island —
Communications by Land and Sea — Preparations for the
Fishing — Reels and Lines — Mr. Conn's Theory — The Best
Bait — Manner of Baiting — Fitting up a Tuna Boat — Other
Fishing at St. Ann's — Pollock and Trout — The Fisherman's
Equipment — Stalking the Tuna — We Sight Tuna — ^Mr. Conn's
Adventure — Old Louisburg — Adventure with a Tuna — Ross
Fights Another Fish — Tuna too Shy — Last of the Mohicans —
Found in the Bait Net — The Last Blow — Anticipating
Queries — Hints for Next Season — Hiring Boats — On Guides —
A Studious Cape Bretoner — Trout for the Table — The Bait
Difficulty — Counting the Cost — Chances of the Future — Who
Will Catch the First ? — The Right Way and the Wrong —
Necessary Precautions . . . . . . . . . . . . 36

X CONTENTS.

CHAPTEK IV.

The Edge of The Gbeat Lakes.

PAGE

Fishing near the Railway — " Roads " — A Good Fishing Camp —
Season and Bait — Bass and Muskallonge — Chippewa Indians
— Their Language — A Selfish Policy — Paddling the Canoe . . 77

CHAPTER V.

New Scotland.

The American Farmer — Decay of the Redskin — His True Char-
acter— Ob jibe ways and Micmacs — An Exchange that is
Robbery — Prohibition — The Bay of Fundy — Photographing a
Bore — A Good Sportsman — Sydney, Cape Breton — Two Syd-
neys — Sydney's Former Prosperity — A Wind-swept Coast — A
Contrast — The Settlers — Micmac Indians — The Ravages of
Time — Descendants of Loyalists — The Deserted Village — Old
Cannon — Celt, Saxon and Gael — An Explanation — Prizes of
Trapping — The Englishtown Giant — Future of Cape Breton
Island— A Riddle 87

CHAPTER VI.
The Land of Evangeline.

The Respectability of Halifax — The Hustle of St. John — A
Singer's Triumph — The Reversible Falls — Windsor's River —
Poetic License — The Vanished Acadians — Forest Fires and
Vegetation — Annapolis Apples — Scenery and Romance — A
Suggestion for the C.P.R. — The Prince Rupert — Ruined
Campbelltown — Old Quebec — Romance of the Golden Dog —
The Chateau Frontenac — A Last Impression — The Canadian
Winter — " Sea Scouts " — A Calm Passage — The North Route
— Life on a Liner — A Last Chance — The Wrong Sort —
The Right Sort — Canada for Women — The End of the
Holidays — Retrospect — The Perfect Playground .. ..114

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

FACING

Frontispiece — A Mid -day Halt page

Steady with the Ga£E !------ 7

Giving him the Butt ------ 10

A Pretty Trout-Pool ------ 12

Letting the Canoe down Gently - - - - 14

Off Again! --------17

Evening on the Miramichi ----- 17

Gently Through the Rocks - - - - - 18

Fishing from a New Brunswick Ganoe - - - 21

A Cast for a Grilse ------ 21

Mrs. Mackenzie Lands a Trout - - - - 28

A Stiff Job on the Miramichi ----- 32

Miramichi Falls -------34

The Railway Viaduct at Mira Gut - - - - 44

Messrs. Farlow's Patent Reel and Rod for Big Game

Fishing --------47

J. K. L. Ross's Yacht Adene //---- 51

Ready to Start ------- 53

xn LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

FACING
PAGE

Buying Gaspereaux from the Nets ----- 57

Monument at Louis burg - - _ _ _ go

The " Bait " in the Net - ----- 62

The Last Morning's " Bait " - - - - - 64

The Rush of the Bay of Fundy (Moncton, N.B.) - 94

Old Cannon at Louisburg Station - - - - 106

Ruined " Bomb-proof " Shelters, Louisburg - - 106

The Reversible Falls at St. John - - - - 119

Apple-blossom in the Land of Evangeline - - 122

Canadians of the Future (British Emigrants on the

Empress) ------- i38

CHAPTER I.

INTRODUCTORY.

y

As the following chapters deal onh^ with some
aspects of fishing in eastern Canada, a few general
remarks on the angler's outlook further west,
based on memories of an earlier trip through the
Rockies, may perhaps be of use to the tourist
unable to decide on the particular section of the
country to which he shall devote his holiday.
As a playground for fishermen in river, lake and
sea, the Pacific Slope is without its equal in
either hemisphere. A well-known mountaineer
recently compared it, from the special standpoint
of the alpine climber, with the great playground
of Europe.

" Switzerland," he said, " may be called the
playground of Europe, but the Rockies will be
the playground of the world ! "

He might have extended his remarks to sport
generally. The angler in the Alps must content
himself with a cast for a salmon below the falls
of the Rhine at Schaffhausen, or with the tedium
of bait-fishing for lake trout or pike. As for

A

2 PACIFIC SALMON

shooting, it is, save in preserved cantons like
Argovie, restricted to an occasional day after
chamois or red deer in September, chiefly in the
Orisons. In British Columbia, on the other hand,
the hunter of big game has a paradise for his
autumn holiday among mountain sheep and
grizzlies, and the angler has extraordinary oppor-
tunities of beating all his earlier records with big
trout. On the far Pacific Slope he may catch
salmon on the rod, either on a spoon, trolling in
the sea itself, or on a sunk fly in the tidal waters
of the Campbell River, but principally in the bay
into which it empties. The biggest run to 70 lb.,
and in the tidal waters fish of smaller size rise
freely to fly and prawn. It has often been
asserted that these Pacific salmon in no case rise
to the fly, but that they do so has been proved
repeatedly. It is all boat fishing, trolling back-
wards and forwards in the bay for the largest
fish; and in the estuary of the Campbell River
one angler landed fifty fish in less than twenty
days, six of them over 50 lb. apiece. Indeed,
anything in those waters under 30 lb. is con-
temptuously called a grilse !

Another favourite game fish of British Columbia
is the steelhead, or sea-trout, numbers of which
are taken on the fly in the Cowichan River. They

RAINBOW TROUT 3

are also caught in the park at Victoria, close to
the bridge. These steelhead run to 10 or 15 lb.,
and, as elsewhere, they give splendid sport. It
is the steelhead, and not the salmon, of the Pacific
Slope that takes the fly in the upper reaches of
rivers. The salmon do so only in the tidal waters
near the estuaries.

As for rainbow trout, they swarm in almost
every lake, and they grow to an immense weight,
fish of over 10 lb. having been taken on the fly,
though none of over 5 lb. are recorded in rivers,
and even such a capture is exceedingly unusual.
But of smaller rainbows, of 1 or 2 lb., there are
millions, and some of the lakes in the Rockies
seem to be all but solid with them. There is one,
appropriately known as Fish Lake, in the Long
Lake Forest Reserve, a little over 20 miles out
of Kamloops, with a good road between, in which
these rainbows rise at every cast and leap the
livelong day. Nowhere in all my travels have
I come across another unpreserved water so
amazingly stocked with trout, and only its remote-
ness from cities can explain the wonderful quality
of its fishing. The Parmachene Belle, or Silver
Doctor, or any large and gaudy fly cast close to
the reeds, is taken greedily, though not, as a rule,
before the sun has warmed the air, so that lazy

a2

4 A WONDERFUL LAKE

sportsmen find additional attraction in the fact
that early rising is a superfluous trial that adds
nothing to the bag. When I was last there. Fish
Lake was free to all, and the ranger, Mr. Cowan,
was able to accommodate a limited number of
sportsmen from Vancouver at his cottage, where
his wife made them very comfortable at a moderate
charge, while Cowan had a number of good boats
and would, if required, go out himself to row over
the likely grounds. The daily catch was limited
to twenty-five. No fish might be retained of less
than 8 ins., and, as a matter of fact, few were
kept of less than 10 ins. The abundance of
rainbow trout in that lake passes belief. One
shirks telling the whole truth for fear of being
doubted. But if I mention that a couple of greedy
pothunters once took out of it over 1,300 trout
in one week, and that, even after such butchery,
it showed no signs of exhaustion, some idea may
be formed of its wonderful recuperative powers.

There are a thousand little streams of the Rockies
in which brook trout, or sometimes the rainbow
called by that name, may be caught by the cart-
load. There is bigger water for the more ambitious
fisherman in the Thompson and Bow Rivers, the
former of which, more particularly, yields splendid
trout to the fly-fisher who fishes it from Sicamous

EXPECTING TOO MUCH 6

or some other convenient centre on the C.P.R.
Some of the fish taken on the fly have exceeded
5 lb. In Kamloops Lake, rainbows of over 10 lb.
have been taken by the same method.

It may safely be said that the rivers and lakes
of British Columbia alone include hundreds of
miles and thousands of acres of water that is
rarely fished at all, and it is only at a few of the
more crowded fishing camps further east that one
encounters any sign of overfishing. The possi-
bilities of waters remote from the railroad are
fabulous. Not long ago it was announced that a
new lake the size of Superior had been discovered
in the far North-west, and indeed anything seems
possible in that extraordinary country.

At the same time, well stocked as the rivers
and lakes are with fish, it is quite a mistake for
the hoHday angler, with only a day or two to
spare for each resort, to imagine that he is sure
of a record catch. Where in all the world could
he be ? What, with careful enquiry beforehand
and the expert assistance of a local guide, is
generally possible is to be rather more certain of
catching big trout in the rivers and lakes of Canada
than in similar unpreserved waters in any other
country. But whether he is fishing along unknown
streams in the Rockies, or whether he plans his

6 THE CANADIAN CLIMATE

holiday in the more frequented tourist centres
of the Nipigon district of Ontario, the sportsman
should bear in mind that there are, in Canada as
elsewhere, days on which trout simply will not
rise, and the same may be said of that rival
claimant for the Canadian and American angler's
affections, the black bass. If, therefore, the bird
of passage has only a day or two to spare for the
water, he should thank his stars if lucky, and, if
not, he should moderate his grumbHng.

In the matter of weather, a Canadian summer,
and particularly the latter end of it, is ideal.
Fisherman's weather, good or bad, is much the
same on the rivers of the Lower Provinces and
on the lakes of Ontario as at home, but there are
one or two peculiarities of the Canadian climate
with which the fisherman has to reckon.
I remember hearing that the salmon of the
Restigouche, probably the most famous salmon
river for fly-fishing in all Canada, rise freely
during thunder weather, which is contrary to our
experience on the majority of waters at home.
In British Columbia, again, we find a direct
contradiction of the ideal conditions on Enghsh
rivers and Scotch lochs, for the angler does best
on fine, bright, hot days, and worst on dull days
with wind or rain. In Eastern Canada, however.

FISHING ALONG THE RAILROAD 7
I found overcast weather, as at home, to give
the best results.

TravelHng east from the Rockies, the angler
may prefer to spend his leisure amid the great
lakes and the rivers that flow into them. Here
are hundreds of miles in which to camp and fish,
and the man who has time to spare and who does
not mind working for his sport, helping to portage
his canoe and its contents to the less accessible,
and consequently less fished, lakes, ma}^ have
the time of his life with trout, black bass and
muskallonge. Perhaps the best section of the
country at present available for this kind of
fishing is on the C.P.R. line north of Lake Superior
or between Toronto and Sudbury, where there
are a score of little stations round Parry Sound
and beyond, at which the fisherman can stop ofiE
and start away canoeing into the Unknown.
His camps may not have the comfort of the
Frontenac, but there is a magic about these great
silent lakes that he will not soon forget, and the
fishing is often of really remarkable quality.
The Nipigon trout alone are noteworthy for their
great average size. Their numbers must surely
have suffered from the annual attack on their
haunts, but in large average weight they seem
to show no signs of falling ofE.

8 A WELL-STOCKED LAKE

In addition to the great lakes, which lie west of
Toronto, there are others of smaller size within
easy reach of Montreal, though those in the
immediate vicinity of the city, like St. Louis,
necessarily suffer from overfishing. I remember,
however. Lake Magog and Lake Broom, both
with a reputation for black bass and other fish,
the latter, indeed, where some French Canadians
keep boats and bait, containing, as I found, no
fewer than thirteen different kinds of fish, though
the list included, to be sure, trout and muskallonge
which I took on trust. The remaining eleven,
however, I either caught or saw caught, an
amazing variety for so small a sheet of seemingly
isolated water.

The Lower Provinces, including New Brunswick
and Nova Scotia, with Cape Breton Island, are
the subjects of the following chapters. I will here
only recall in passing the wonderful tales I heard
of sport with salmon on the Restigouche and
Matapedia, tales which made my mouth water,
the more so as I had a Pisgah view of this promised
land from the windows of my train a few days
after the close of the season, and only my un-
requited loyalty to the tunas of Cape Breton
prevented me from accepting a long coveted
invitation to fish in those highly preserved waters
of the North Shore.

OF FLIES 9

The best months (except for this salmon fishing,
which closes August 15th) for a fishing holiday in
Canada are August and September. The weather
is then normally beautiful, with now and then
a disturbing spell of rain, and the flies have retired
from business. One of the first questions put to
the angler on his return from Canada is, " How
did you like the flies ? "

Well, as a matter of fact, I did not like them
at all. I held them accursed, as I hold the biting
flies of all lands. But to regard them as a deterrent
from enjoying some of the best fishing in the
world argues a very thin-skinned enthusiasm.
That the Canadian bush would be better if it
were denuded of every black fly and midge, not
Sir Thomas Shaugnessy himseK would, I imagine,
deny, but for the man who wants fishing, better
Canada with its flies than most lands without.
Moreover, a few simple precautions in the way
of prevention and cure, a head-net and a supply
of " Muscatol " (the extra-strong brand only)
and ammonia among the rest, will do much to
mitigate the evil. Towards the end of August,
the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary
are at rest. Those who contemplate a fishing
holiday in Canada should be careful to get all the
information they can before going out. Failing

10 THE CANADIAN SUMMER

this, they should, on arrival at Montreal, put
themselves in the hands of those who know the
ropes. The sporting department of the C.P.R.,
under Mr. Armstrong, has all the latest informa-
tion, and a close personal supervision of the
sportsman's arrangements may be ensured by
appheation to Mr. C. F. Lane, an old Cambridge
man, who worked for some years with Mr. Arm-
strong and is now manager of the Sportsman's
Agency of Canada, 118, McGill College Avenue,
Montreal. A keen sportsman himself, Mr. Lane
knows exactly what can be done to suit a variety
of tastes and pockets. It goes without saying that
such an expedition, be it for fishing or shooting,
can be planned on the grand scale, regardless of
expense, with luxurious camping appointments
and a large following of guides, or it can be
arranged with due regard to economy, the
sportsman travelling with an irreducible minimum
of baggage and taking only a single guide and
canoe.

The summer cUmate, as has been said, is nearly
perfect. It may be a little hot in the middle of
the day, but the mornings and evenings are
delicious, and if there is a snap in the night air,
it makes the camp fire all the more welcome.
Of the winter climate I have no notion. Canadians

THE GUIDES 11

sing its praises, and even Englishmen feel the
damp of English winters on returning home, but,
having no love for ice sports, I have no curiosity
on the subject. The Canadian September, how-
ever, is one long delight, and in Cape Breton,
at any rate, August was little less pleasant.

The guides will be found a study of themselves.
Scotch, French or Indian, they all have their
peculiarities, which repay observation. Their
remuneration varies according to the district and
their qualifications. It may be arranged either
through an agent or by bargaining between the
principals, and it is hypothetically subject to a
gratuity at the end of the trip on a scale propor-
tionate to the satisfaction the man has given.
Making allowance for wasters, who are to be
found all the world over in every walk of life,
they are a frugal, hardworking and willing lot of
men, and their promptness in fixing up the camp,
as well as their quaint stories round the fire of
an evening, are not the least enduring memories
of the fisherman's holidav.

CHAPTER II.

A RIVER OF NEW BRUNSWICK.

Claims of Eastern Canada on the Tourist — The Gaelic Element —
Pleasures of Camping — The Real Thing — Canoes and Guides — Skill
with the Pole — Poor Catch of Fish — ^Trout and Grilse — Causes of Bad
Sport — Beauty of the Miramichi — Opportunities of Photographing
Big Game — Habits of the Moose — Deer — Their Love of Salt — ^Relations
between Moose, Caribou and Deer — Encounter with a Porcupine —
Value of that Animal — Birds of the Miramichi — Its Fishes — Insects of
the Canadian Bush — Prevention and Cure — Character of the Guides —
Fiction Round the Camp Fire — ^The Strenuous Life — Frostbite — ^The
Democratic Ideal — Woodcraft — The Right Perspective — Salmon Pools
and Flies — Licences — Back to the Settlements.

For some reason or other the Maritime Provinces
of Canada lie in a backwater, so far as tourist
traffic is concerned. The few who are privileged
to fish the leased waters of the Restigouche must,
it is true, journey east from Montreal, but the
majority of Canada's summer visitors push on to
the alluring west to spend their time amid the
lovely scenery of the Rocky Mountains, and to
enjoy the quiet beauty of landlocked waters on
the Pacific Slope.

Yet, though I would not beUttle the attractions
of those more distant resorts, where I spent
pleasant weeks on a former occasion, it seems to

GAELIC FARMERS. 13

me that New Brunswick, Cape Breton and Nova
Scotia, lying, as they do, nearest to the Old
Country, both at heart and on the atlas, have
their claims also, and for this reason I planned this
trip for the Near West. Its scenery lacks the
grandeur of the show places two thousand miles
further west, but, on the other hand, the people
are good Scotch, and good Scotch is not always
easy to obtain in Canada. Moreover, it has
historic associations, such as centre round the old
French fortifications at Louisburg, which should
endear this region to all who have a soul for the
romance of other centuries. In these provinces,
where the traveller misses the glamour of new
townships fast expanding into cities on sites
which, a year or two back, were wilderness — ^he
finds, by way of compensation, settlements of
Gaelic farmers which, as time is reckoned in
America, may claim antiquity. I came to farm-
houses where, to this day, the old folk speak only
the GaeUc and take in a newiipaper printed in that
language, though they cannot read it. Every
other farmer is a Mac and, though his notions
of Scotland are hazy, he talks with pride of the
land that his parents or grandparents left for the
greater freedom of the backwoods. The greater
freedom carries with it greater loneliness. Yet

14 THE LAND OF MANY WATERS

I have tramped in some parts of Scotland, not
twenty miles from a city, as lonely as anything in
the Lower Provinces, and those who can survive
the fogs of a Scotch winter should find the climate
of New Brunswick perfection. Personally, I
should be too cold in either. But my attitude
is that of a pampered child of civilization, and for
these hardy adventurers, who, in the second and
third generation, know no other life, even the
longest winter has no terrors.

Of all the summer delights which Canada offers
to her visitors none other can compare with those
of camping and canoeing along her rivers or beside
her lakes. For all who share the Indian's passion
for still or running waters, here are millions of
acres and thousands of miles of navigable waters
teeming with fish, with no obligation to riparian
owners or payment of tolls, and in their own
Province they are even exempt from the Ucences
which non-residents, even those, in some districts,
who are British subjects, have to pay for the
fishing. The pleasures of camping, as a change
from the restraint of the city life, appeal variously
to different temperaments. Yet, even though
this free and easy life lacks novelty for some of us
who have, from necessity as well as from choice,
experienced it in many lands, there is about it

PLEASURES OF CAMPING OUT 15

an indefinable charm that, in retrospect, outlives
its incidental drawbacks. There will always be
days in camp when everything goes wrong, dour
days of wind, rain, or heat ; days of insects ;
days when the photographs are a failure, when the
camp cooking is unattractive, when the fish will
not rise, when all that is worth having seems so
far away. On such days, when everyone is in a
mumpish humour, you feel inclined to go and
steal chickens gipsy-fashion, only in these solitudes
there are no chickens to steal. To enjoy the
camping Ufe, a man must either be, or pretend to be,
very young, indifferent to those creature comforts
which begin to mean so much when the fortieth
milestone is in sight, and ready to scent the spice
of adventure in the most homely episodes. He
must people the surrounding forest with bears
and Redskins. He must conjure up visions of
the old time voyageurs and coureurs des hois
poling their canoes over the singing shallows or
paddling through the silent deeps. So only may
he forget his damp, hard bed of boughs, the rude
fare of irregular meals, the tabloid compression
of all his belongings, the compulsion to shave on
the ground, with the saucepan lid for mirror,
the discomforts of wind and rain and the bites
of black flies, midges and mosquitoes. If he is

16 MEMORIES OF THE TENT LIFE

endowed with sufficient imagination to disregard
its dark side, a fortnight's camping out should
be one long delight. At evening, when the tents
are up and the smoke curHng among the fir-trees,
there is a curious sense of home as one looks across
the river and sees the kindling being brought in,
and the water fetched from the brook, and some-
thing savoury going into the pot. Here to-day
and gone to-morrow, like the Arab in the desert,
all our small world seems centred in that oasis
in the wilderness. So close is the tenting-ground
to the water that we could throw a fly from the
tent door, and it seems impossible that those three
tents, with all the rest of our paraphernalia,
should pack away in the slender canoes tied up
to the rocks below. Yet in a few minutes each
morning the tents are folded round their poles
and the canteen is stowed away, and the heavily
laden dugouts are ready to go on their downward
way. At noon, or thereabouts, we make a halt
to " boil the pot " and perchance throw a fly on
some likely pool, though the chance of reward in
the mid-day glare is remote. Still, the hour's
respite is welcome alike to those who pole and
those who are cramped after sitting for hours in
a position they dare not change for fear of taking
a sudden bath in their clothes.

OFF AGAIN !

EVENING ON THE MIBAMICHI.

l17]

THE REAL AND THE IMAGINARY 17

There is camping and camping. I have tented
with Arabs at the edge of the Great Desert, and
with Portuguese on a little island out in the
Atlantic. I have tented also in Turkey, in
Australia, and in the far Yosemite. All of these
memories are agreeable, but for the real article,
compared with which the rest seem make-believe,
stage-managed for tourists, a man should go to
the Canadian backwoods. Here is the rough and
ready camp life, the hewing of wood and drawing
of water, the houghing of sleeping berths with
aromatic sprays of fir, the blaze of the log fire
and simmering of the pot, then, after the embers
have been trodden out, and the tents well smoked
with a " smudge " of leaves and bark, the majestic
silence of the forest primeval, with, perhaps,
a deer stirring on the bank, or a porcupine nosing
in the underwood. On this occasion my head
guide Mackenzie brought his wife on the trip,
and to her cooking I owe many a welcome meal.

Canoeing, at any rate, was new to me. My
experience of these frail and topheavy craft had
hitherto been restricted to ornamental lakes,
Thames backwaters, and occasional calm days
at the seaside. It is true that the reality proved
totally different from what I had been led to
expect. For weeks I had looked forward to

B

18 POLING THE CANOE

sitting in a curved birchbark canoe, paddled by
a lean and silent Indian, who would answer only
in monosyllables, or perchance by a gay survivor
of the voyageurs, who would tell me stories of
his French forbears. The habitant had been my
companion on an earlier visit, and the Indian
guide came my way at the end of this trip. But
neither of them fell to my lot in New Brunswick.
In place of them, I found three dugouts, each about
thirty feet long, poled by two Canadians and
a citizen of the United States, who, invalided
home from the war in Cuba, married a Canadian
girl and settled in these parts. In deep water,
before the summer sun has robbed the river
of the snow water, these canoes can be
paddled, a method less irksome to the
guides and more comfortable for all concerned ;
but, with stones and boulders awash at every few
yards, poling is the only way. The pole, which is
of peeled spruce and about ten feet long, is unshod,
so that it may not slip off the smooth rocks ; and,
to appreciate the marvellous skill with which
experts use it in steering clear of dangers, the
visitor should try to do likewise, for preference in
shallow water, where an upset means no more
than wet clothes. The adroitness with which
my guides came through nearly sixty miles of

TRIALS OF CANOEING 19

river, most of which was new to them, without a
single accident, was nothing short of amazing,
and if, at the time, the bumping and jolting
made me peevish, these little troubles are forgotten,
and there remains only admiration for the prompt-
ness with which they rushed the rapids, or swung
across the falls, or " snubbed " the canoes just
as they seemed running on the rocks. On this
river there are no long portages round falls, but
now and again the men had to get out and extricate
their craft from the traps that beset them, and
once or twice it was even necessary to use a stern
line and let the heavily laden pirogues down
gently over treacherous ground. It would be
absurd to pretend that there was actual danger
at more than at most two spots on the whole trip.
There is one pitfall, appropriately known to the
guides as " Push and Be Damned," where the
third canoe had a narrow squeak, but the critical
moment passed without a casualty. As a matter
of fact, there should be two polers in each canoe,
one in the bow and the other astern. Motives of
economy, however, prescribed one only, as I had
to have three canoes, owing to the amount of
" dunnage," though in the ordinary way one
should be ample for each sportsman, particularly
if, with previous experience of the district (which

b2

20 THE PARMACHENE BELLE

I lacked), he travels with a minimum of belongings.
Had I not wanted to see a long stretch of this
beautiful river, had I been ambitious only to
catch fish, I should have spent the time round
the Forks and up the North Branch, where
Mackenzie knows all the water.

Indeed, a bag of only three grilse to my own
rod, with a single salmon of twelve pounds, which
Mackenzie caught on a fly-spoon, with a gUmpse
of two salmon and eight grilse more than those
caught, would, under other circumstances, be so
poor a showing for ten days that both the
Miramichi and myself would be ashamed of it.
A couple of score of brook trout may be added
to the catch, and my best sport was at Five
Mile Brook, where, on the way down, I
had fourteen, some of three-quarters of a pound,
in less than half an hour, all on a small
Parmachene Belle, a showy pink-and-white
American fly, very killing on a dull day. I caught
a couple of grilse, each just over three pounds,
in succession on one after several other good
patterns had failed to rise a fish.

The poverty of the bag was explained by several
causes. In the first place, so hurried a trip over
close on sixty miles, and with a chance of only
fishing once or twice over half a dozen pools.

I

FISHING FROM A NEW BRUNSWICK CANOE.

A CAST FOR A GRILSE.

REASONS FOR SMALL BAG 21

passing by the rest in the glare of day, when
fishing is useless, is no criterion of the possibilities
of a river fished under more promising conditions.
It happened also that a party of local sportsmen
had gone down the river a day in advance, with
the inevitable result that every pool had been
well-flogged just before I got to it. There had
not been a freshet for weeks, and the water was
too low for sport. Lastly — I have left it for the
last, but must confess — I throw a fly which, from
the way it Hghts upon the surface, might be the
real and original stone-fly. This helps to account
for my own failure, though it does not explain
why only a single fish was caught by Mackenzie,
who throws a fair line, and who, having conceived
a touching affection for my Farlow two-hander,
lost no opportunity of using it whenever I took
the grilse rod.

The New Brunswick dugout is not an ideal
craft for a fisherman unaccustomed to its ways,
which are as dark as those of the Heathen Chinee.
The least movement will upset it, and even throw-
ing a fly is precarious work, while hooking a salmon
would mean sudden death. It is far better to
be landed on a boulder and to hook and play the
fish from there, the guide standing by in the canoe,
which he can hold up in even the swiftest water.

22 SEEING BIG GAME

Fortunately all the best pools lie just below
suitable rocks, and, with a little practice, the
fisherman, wearing mocassin boots, can find
secure foothold on even the most slippery. The
guide holds the canoe up alongside the rock,
and in that position he can generally hold the
landing net close enough for the angler's purpose.
If, however, the South West Miramichi must
take second place among angling waters, it may
be confidently recommended for its beautiful
scenery, and no better trip than that from the
Forks to Boiestown could be made by the photo-
grapher anxious to secure pictures of moose and
deer. It would, however, be necessary to devote
himself to that art. Yet even on a casual trip
up to Miramichi Lake, by way of the beautiful
winding brook which runs out of it into the river,
I came within twenty yards of a deer and within
forty of two cow moose, one of which, coming
swiftly round a sudden bend, we even disturbed
when her head was still down among the lily
pads. It was a delightful sensation, this silent
progress between banks so close that the pole
could touch the moose tracks on either, with, now
and then, a great heron rising from the reeds and
sailing over the tops of the firs, or a startled wild
duck dashing out from its hiding place, or, as

STALKING MOOSE 23

we returned in the dusk, the muskrats paddling
out of danger under the overhanging bushes.
The '' snipe " were past counting. Thirty or forty-
couple probably rose from their nests and, with
all the antics they know so well, strove to lure us
from the precious eggs or young. Little squirrels
peered at us from floating logs, and now and then
one dropped into the water and swam across the
brook, steering with its bushy tail and scuttling
up the further bank. The moose loomed so
suddenly that my camera was unprepared, and
the results were disappointing. Mackenzie's
practised ear heard them crunching the lilies
long before we reached them, but he was unable
to warn me without disturbing them, and I found
myself on each occasion suddenly confronted by
the most massive of the deer tribe, the great
Roman nose giving grotesque force to an unpre-
possessing face, and the liquid eyes looking into
mine with an expression in which fear mingled
with resentment. For perhaps twenty seconds
the cows stood staring ; then of a sudden wheeled
about and went crashing through the timber,
turning on a hilltop to utter a snort of defiance,
or, it may be, of warning to their lords that the
enemy was in sight. Only once on the trip did
I see moose under better conditions, and then, of

24 A CARELESS MOTHER

course, the camera was in the tent and I dared not
send for it. It was one evening, just after the
sun was down behind the trees, that a cow, closely
followed by twin calves, came out of the forest
on the other bank, right opposite the camp,
stared fixedty at the tents, with myself sitting on
a rock at the water's edge, and then, apparently
seeing nothing, stepped into the stream and waded
obliquely across, landing on our side about fifty
yards higher up. Then she stood again, and this
time she caught sight of the tents, with the result
that, giving no thought to her young ones (whose
retreat, in books, she would have covered devotedly
with her own person), she went dashing off into
the trees, and snapping branches marked the
course of her retreat for several moments. Mean-
while, the little calves, left to their own resources,
plunged wildly about in the water, until they also
followed the lead of their dam. It was a sauve
qui pent for which, drawing my ideas of maternal
devotion among these deer only from current
natural histories, I was altogether unprepared.
Thus does wild nature correct the romance in-
vented by her interpreters. Of deer, hinds in
every case, we saw one or more every evening, as
they came down to drink at the edge of the river,
and I watched one for a long time through my

DISTRIBUTION OF DEER 25

binoculars as it stood, perhaps three hundred
yards away, licking an old pork barrel, doubtless
for the sake of its salt. The need which these
forest animals have of that mineral is turned to
account by sportsmen, who stalk them at their
salt-licks, yet, curiously enough, Mackenzie told
me that a tame deer of his, which he had captured
as a calf in the woods, would never touch salt on
any account. Possibly its artificial diet provided
sufficient.

The moose, for aU its forbidding appearance,
is a splendid creature, and, though we did not on
this occasion see a bull, the great spread of antlers
in the male makes a coveted trophy. I under-
stand that moose are increasing in New Brunswick,
whereas, on the other hand, caribou are becoming
scarcer every year, and must now be sought, by
those at any rate mth limited time at their
disposal, in Newfoundland. It is said that caribou
retreat before the moose, and also (which is less
easy to believe) that neither will stay in a country
overrun by deer. That the wild deer is a
formidable antagonist, inflicting terrible wounds
with both head and feet, is well substantiated,
but that it should be able to drive before it animals
so much heavier seems incomprehensible.
Another curious fact, which I give only on the

26 TREEING A PORCUPINE

authority of the guides, is that porcupines cannot
live on Cape Breton Island. Attempts have from
time to time been made to introduce them, but,
like snakes in Ireland, they die out. In the forests
of New Brunswick, on the other hand, porcupines
are common enough. More than once we heard
them in the underwood, and on the evening of
our encounter with the moose and her calves, the
guides found one curled up in a deserted shack
in which they intended passing the night. As
soon as it became aware that its quarters were
required, the animal shambled off, with that
slow gait characteristic of its /kind all the world
over, and clambered up a tree, from an upper
branch of which it looked down on Mackenzie's
spaniel " Sagua," which had been with difficulty
kept in hand. Five minutes with a porcupine
will ruin a good dog for life, yet, however
intelligent — and " Sagua " was as clever a dog
as I have met for many a day — they never seem
to realise the danger of those quills. The porcupine
need not have been in such fear of its life, for I
would on no account have had it killed, even apart
from the fact that to do so, unless in need of meat,
is an offence punishable by law. Many a starving
man, lost in the wilderness, has been saved by
falling in with one of these animals, which, besides

THE "LOST MAN'S FRIEND" 27

being slow to make their escape, are easily killed
by a blow on the snout, and make a savoury roast
in the log fire. On this account the porcupine
is well called the " Lost Man's Friend," and is
very properly protected by law.

Should the photographer of wild life include bird
studies among his efforts, he will find innumerable
opportunities along a river like the Miramichi,
over sixty miles of which we met no more than
half a dozen human beings, of whom two were
fish wardens. Great " cranes," which are
herons, wild duck, " snipe " innumerable,
horned owls, white-headed eagles and fish
hawks, black-and-white kingfishers, night-jars,
" robins " (the American " robin " is as big
as our thrush), and many smaller fowl, are
all as tame as the heart of even Mr. Kearton
could desire. Pictures of summer snipe in their
breeding plumage could be obtained in few parts
of the Old Country, for on these rivers they
stand on every boulder until the canoe all but
touches it, so anxious are they to entice the
intruder away from their nests. Kingfishers, too,
could easily be taken as they hover over likely
pools, and one old horned owl sat blinking on a
charred stump within twenty feet of me. But
plates were precious, and such temptations had
to be sternly resisted.

28 INSECTS, OFFENSIVE AND OTHERWISE

For the naturalist there are attractions which
would hardly appeal to the photographer. Of
fishes, in addition to its salmon and trout, the
Miramichi has eels and suckers of large size, perch
and chub. The first two do not take a fly, and
the perch are rare, but the chub unfortunately
rise at times more readily than the game fish, and
are in consequence a nuisance. More than once
my little trout rod bent with the promise of
something for the pot, which proved to be a
large chub, a fish that only a mink would eat with
relish. There are crayfish, too, and leeches.

Of insect life there is a variety and abundance
which should delight anyone enthusiastic over
these lower walks of life, though for me the
Canadian backwoods would be more delectable
if the insects were less plentiful. Blackflies, midges
and mosquitoes are a trial in early summer, though,
by the use of a headnet, I protected my eyes and
neck, and a too generous use of extra strong
" Muscatol " secured immunity from even the
midges while the supply lasted. Then, however,
their turn came, and I was punished, the bites
remaining for a fortnight after I had left the river
behind me, though ammonia and witch-hazel
afforded relief at the moment. There were, how-
ever, less offensive and more beautiful insects.

MRS. MACKENZIE LANDS A TROUT.

[28]

IDIOSYNCRACIES OF THE GUIDES 29

Gorgeous butterflies sailed amid the ferns, and
lovely dragonflies vibrated along the brooks,
preying on mosquitoes with an appetite that made
them welcome allies against those scourges, which,
however, do not carry malaria or any other
disease in their Canadian haunts.

Perhaps, however, the most interesting study
on that trip was the character of the guides.
Most of them are sprung from a mixture of High-
land and Lowland Scotch. In New Brunswick
they have acquired an American accent and,
with it, a good deal of American slang, but further
east, in Cape Breton, the pure Scots has been
preserved, and is music to ears that love not the
intonation of the great Republic. Round the
camp fire, of an evening, these men would tell
their tales of winter trapping and logging, and,
though there may have been a little tendency to
put in the high lights for the benefit of the tender-
foot, the picture was, even with allowance for
such art, sufficiently appalling. The worst enemy
in the backwoods is frostbite. Few of the guides
are quite free from the marks of it, and one went
lame from the effects of a great frost thirty years
back. Another had left four fingers of his right
hand in a sawmill, but the loss did not seem to
impair his activity with axe or pole.

30 A CAPABLE BACKWOODSMAN

The life which these men lead makes men
indeed of them. It also, as is inevitable, blunts
them to the refinements of poUte usage, and it
gives them an exaggerated contempt for their more
civilized fellows. Mackenzie, if I may take him
for a type, is a wonderfully resourceful and hardy
backwoodsman, but he is also very remarkably
imbued with the spirit of independence, a bequest
perhaps of his residence in the States. He had a
passion for the brotherhood of man, which was more
amusing than irritating, because he took himself so
seriously. One of the younger guides, however,
interested me particularly, chiefly, perhaps, because
of his superb disregard of the aforementioned
handicap of having left most of his right hand in
a sawmill. He was always the first ashore, felling
logs and fetching water with a cheerful alacrity
very comforting in camp. On one occasion, when
I hesitated to ford a little channel up to my waist,
he suddenly produced a young tree, which, with
splendid unconcern, he threw across the water that
I might walk dryshod to the rock from which
I wished to cast. All through the long Canadian
winter Bill Hugget is busy in the lumber camps,
and also earns a little by trapping. He is extra-
ordinarily cheery, and about the best example of
a Canadian backwoodsman that I ever struck on the

ON WOODCRAFT 31

trail. Generations must go to the making of such a
type, which is more interesting, with the possible
exception of the vanishing Indian, than any other
in all the Dominion of Canada.

As a matter of fact, any undue ultra-
democratic ideals are not shared by the majority,
who are able to give you *' Sir " or " Mr. " without
feehng that they have lost caste. They are all
handy men, getting up the tents, swinging the
axe across logs, lighting the fire and boiling the
pot in the time it would take most Englishmen
to crawl ashore. Their woodcraft is what one
would expect of men born and bred in the forest,
where they know the spoor of every beast and the
voice of every bird. A bear cannot scratch a tree,
a deer cannot lick a pork barrel without their
noting it. They all throw a good fly, and, since
opportunity makes the angler, as well as the thief,
every urchin at the settlements, who at home
would be dangling a worm, can do as much.
Outside of the sphere to which they have been
called their accomplishments amount to nothing,
and they are childishly impressed by such common-
place objects as a typewriter, a reflex camera,
or a medicine chest.

Something remains to be said of the South-
West Miramichi as a salmon river for the guidance

32 POOLS OF THE MIRAMICHI

of others who may be minded either to fish it in
detail, or to take their chance with a morning and
evening cast at such pools as may be handy to
the camps on the downward trip. There is no
good reason why, with a little better luck than
mine, they should not enjoy moderate sport.

The official list of salmon pools, from the Forks
to Boiestown, which I transcribed from the Fish
Wardens, is as follows, and tenting ground of
various merit is to be found close to those marked
with an asterisk. Of the rest, in this connection,
I know nothing : —

Forks Camp.

The Salmon Hole

(about half a mile

down).
Crooked Rapids.
Black Rapids.
Half Moon Cove (in

sight of a railroad

bridge).
Mouth of Lake

Brook.
Little Louis.
Big Louis.
The Dungeon.

Mouth of McKeel.
Peter.
Company Line

Rapids
The Rangers.
Slate Island.
Push.
Two-and-a-half

Pound.
Little Burnt Hill
Spider Rock.
Burnt Hill.
Black Pond.
Kives Pond.

A STIFF JOB ON THE MIRAMICHI.

[32]

THE BEST SALMON FLIES 33

McKeel Farm. Souter's Pond.

Mouth of Clear Tug Pond.

Water. Hayes Pond (at the
Rocky Bend. Settlement).

The Rapids. Adams' Pond.

Sisters Brook. Norrid's Pond.

Rocky Brook. Price's Bend.

* Fall Brook.f Portage Pond.
Trout Brook.

The pools below Burnt Hill are of less account
than they might otherwise be owing to the near-
ness of the Settlement, the population of which
has its own ideas as to legitimate methods of
sport. Burnt Hill itself, where there is a con-
venient bungalow for the use of campers, has
some of the finest water on the river. It was
here that I got one of my grilse, and Mackenzie
his salmon.

Most salmon flies, for preference tied on a

double 4, answer well on their day, the rule of

a bright fly for a dull day, and vice versa, being

followed here as elsewhere. Jock Scott, Silver

Doctor, Butcher, Dusty Miller, Black Dose, Brown

Fairy and Parmachene Belle are all killers, and

t As there was no sign of a salmon pool, either up or down
the river, in the immediate vicinity of Fall Brook, where the
tenting ground is also inferior, I give this list with all reserve.

C

34 BACK TO CIVILIZATION

the best fish invariably lie in the rips below the
rocks. It is best to fish with a short line at first,
so as not to miss any water close under the rock,
and one of my grilse I caught only just beyond
my own boot. The visiting angler, who will
already have had to deposit 30 per cent, ad
valorem before leaving the ship at Quebec (return-
able on leaving the country, with the number of
rods named on the certificate) will also, in all
probability, be mulcted in a licence of five dollars.
The Dominion Government does not impose this
on British subjects, but the province of New
Brunswick draws no such distinction, and all non-
residents are made to pay it alike. Seeing that
it applies only to fishing off crown lands, and that
it is not demanded of those who use spoon or bait,
but only of the fly-fisherman, it is an irritating
impost ; but, after all, Canadians visiting England
would be similarly taxed in respect of every
salmon river they fished, so it is not inequitable.

The contrast between the splendid isolation of
the last fifty miles and the remaining reach of the
river below the Settlement is abrupt and remark-
able. After camping, on the eighth night, close to
the Miramichi Falls, which are said to drop a
hundred feet sheer, but look more like eighty,
we ran past Hayes Bar, and then came cottages,

MIRAMICHI FALLS.

[34]

GOOD-BYE TO THE RIVER 35

haymakers, horses, women and children, and all the
other evidences of the semi-civilization last seen at
Foreston. Finally, after a spell of the roughest
water we had yet experienced, the canoes made
Boiestown, a station on the Intercolonial Railroad,
before dark and in good time for the evening
train to Moncton. Here I paid off the camp and
took leave of the guides, as well as of the wife and
dog belonging to one of them. And so faded from
sight, though not from memory, the darkening
waters of the tuneful Miramichi, not perhaps the
finest salmon river of my travels, but fearing
comparison with few for quiet scenery and freedom
from the trouble of ants that dwell in the cities
of the plain.

c2

CHAPTER III.

TUNA FISHING IN THE NORTH ATLANTIC.

Previous Failures with Tuna — Experiences of J. L. K. Ross at Cape
Breton — ^Appreciation of Pioneer Work — ^History of His Failures — A
Nineteen Hours' Fight — Movements of the Tuna in Northern Waters —
St. Ann's and Mira Bays — Bird Life of St. Ann's — ^Trout Brooks —
Terns and Squid — Pollack and Other Fish in the Bay — ^The Bird Islands
— Cibou or Hibou — Mira Gut and River — Sangaree Island — Communica-
tion with Sydney — A Popular Train — Equipment for Tuna Fishing —
Various Theories of Tackle — Comparison between Tuna of Canada
and California — Baits and Method of Baiting — Difficulty of Getting
Fresh Bait — Fitting Out a Tuna Boat — Other Necessaries — Method of
Fishing — Diary Kept at St. Ann's and Mira : August 4th-25th — In-
formation for Those Who Follow — Season and Communications — How
to Hire Small Boats — Guides at St. Ann's — ^Trout Streams — The Bait
Problem — Cost of the Trip — An Honour to be Won — Hints on the
Fishing.

The Tuna, otherwise Tunny, is amongst the
greatest prizes sought by those who hunt the big
game of the sea. Yet greater quarry, such as the
giant rays of Mexican waters, may be slain with
the harpoon, but the tuna is considered legitimate
game for the rod, and has been killed in con-
siderable numbers at Santa Catalina Island in
California, whither I journeyed in its pursuit
during the summer of 1908, only to find to my
chagrin that there were none there that season.

PREVIOUS FAILURES WITH TUNA 37
Nor was that my first essay to catch this splendid
mackerel. Three years earlier, at Madeira, I had
to contend not only with the excessive depth of
water, and with other adverse natural conditions,
which might alone have proved too much for me,
but also Avith the covert hostility of the native
fishermen, who feared that my success might be
the signal for an invasion by English fishing
boats ! A year after my disappointment at
Santa Catalina, I made another futile attempt to
kill a tunny in deep blue waters on the Asiatic
side of the Sea of Marmora.

Having failed in three continents, I might
perhaps have given the tuna best, when, into the
peace of my resignation, there was launched a
thunderbolt from the unexpected quarter of
Montreal. The presence of these fish — known to
Newfoundlanders as albacore, or horse-mackerel —
in those colder waters of the North Atlantic had
long ago been communicated to me by Commander
Webster, R.N., who, when stationed at Halifax,
assisted at the harpooning of several, but at that
time no one had attempted to kill one on rod and
line. Nor would the idea perhaps have occurred
to me but for a letter from J. K. L. Ross, Esq., of
Montreal, in which he detailed his own failure
with no fewer than thirty-four, during the summers

38 Mr. J. K. L. ROSS

of 1908-9, and cordially invited me to come out
and try whether I might have better luck. Here
was a suggestion not to be lightly put aside, and,
within a month of getting his letter, I had made
all arrangements for a campaign in those waters
during the first half of August, which he mentioned
as the most likely time for both fish and calm
weather.

As the pioneer of this splendid sport in a new
field, Mr. Ross deserves the greatest credit, and
sea anglers from both the Old Country and
California have not been slow to acknowledge their
indebtedness to him for opening up new ground.
Not a few, who call themselves sportsmen, would
have kept the secret close until, at any rate, they
had landed one of the fish, but Mr. Ross, above
such petty jealousy, lost no opportunity of making
his find known to his fellow sportsmen, with the
result that St. Ann's Bay, the scene of his
encounters, was visited last summer by a number
of enthusiasts, including the veteran Mr. Conn,
famous in the annals of Catalina, and several
other English and American anglers who had
served their apprenticeship at big-game fishing
in other seas.

As this tuna fishing in Cape Breton waters is
likely to become popular henceforth, a brief

REASONS OF FAILURE 39

account of the earlier experiences and failures of
Mr. Ross may be of historic interest. It was
not until the summer of 1908 that he made his
first attempt, and in that season he hooked his
first fish at St. Ann's on August 8th, the total
number hooked being twenty-one out of twenty-
eight rises. It must be remembered that he had
no previous experience of big-game fishing to go
upon. He had corresponded with no other sports-
men used to such Titanic frolic ; he had read none
of their books ; he had to learn everything for
himself. There can be no doubt that a large
proportion of these earlier fish were lost by his
omission to provide against a danger of which
all who have caught tuna or tarpon are aware,
and that is the cutting of the line by other fish
that dash at the bait which runs up it when the
fish on the hook snatches a hundred yards or more
in its first rush. This is easily prevented by
fixing a piece of stiff wire to the swivel at the upper
end of the wire leader, thus keeping the bait on
the wire, where there is no danger of disaster
should other fish snap at it. Anyone accustomed
to fishing of this kind knows this as an elementary
precaution, but he learns it from others, and Mr.
Ross had to profit by experience — a dear school
at the best of times.

40 A FIGHT OF NINETEEN HOURS

In the summer of 1909, with a coal strike on his
hands, Mr. Ross was only able to be out five days,
and on these he hooked thirteen fish (four of them
on the same day in Mira Bay) out of sixteen rises.
Two of these thirteen fish were of uncommon
interest. During the first week of September
he hooked one at about 6 p.m., and had it prac-
tically helpless two hours later. It was then
coming dark, and, as the moon should have been
up by ten, he waited so as to have better light for
gaffing it. Unfortunately, the captain of his
launch, which always stands by in case of need,
mistook his orders and came right down on the
line, cutting it with the propeller. It subsequently
transpired that some boys had found a dead tuna
on the beach two days after this catastrophe, and,
though they heaved it back in the water without
any attempt to ascertain how it had come by its
end, there can be little doubt that it was the same
fish. Possibly the propeller struck it on the back
of the head — a pecuHarly vulnerable spot in these
fish. A week after this trying experience Ross
hooked his last fish for the season, and he fought
this one for nineteen hours, from eleven on the
Saturday morning until six on the Sunday, when
he cut the line, leaving the tuna apparently as
fresh as ever. He held on to his fish so long only

FISH LOST LAST SEASON 41

that he might prove his own theory that, if hooked
in the wrong place (i.e., the angle of the mouth,
which it is therefore able to keep closed), a tuna
must always prove too much for the fisherman.
As a corollary, it may safely be added that the
fish must be killed in three or four hours, or it
will not be killed at all.

It is not, of course, easy to account for all of
his failures. Possibly, being unused to such fishing,
he punished some of his tackle too severely. It
is certain that, in many cases, he allowed the tuna
to do too much towing. Such towage merely
tires out the fisherman, but puts very little strain
on the fish. The proper way is to fight it from
start to finish, keeping the boat over it and never
giving it a dull moment.

Mr. Ross hooked his first fish of the present year
during the last week of July, but he had a last
year's line on the reel, and the tuna broke it with
very little effort. His second, which I saw him
fight within a hundred yards of my own boat,
broke the wire leader at the swivel. Seeing that
it was a new one that morning, such an accident
can only be accounted for by some weakness in
the wire. This brings us to recent history, and
before giving some account of the most determined
concerted attack yet made on these fish in their

42 MIRA AND ST. ANN'S

northern stronghold, it may be as well to set down
some details of the scenes and modes of fishing.

The tuna, otherwise (in local parlance) horse-
mackerel, mackerel-shark, or albacore, has from
time immemorial been known to follow the
herring and other small fry round the coast of
Cape Breton Island. It does not always strike
the island at the same point, its travels being
dependent on the movements of its prey, but as
a general rule it should be first sighted off Louis -
burg, and should then put in an appearance
almost simultaneously in Mira Bay and St. Ann's,
the two inlets which are destined to figure pro-
minently in the tuna fishing of future years. As
a matter of fact, St. Ann's, being deeper water,
and having an inner harbour of great extent,
seems to hold the fish longer, their visits to Mira
being less protracted and more in the nature
of casual raids on such shoals of herring as shelter
in that shallower inlet.

St. Ann's and Mira Bays differ in more than
depth. The former, which lies north of Sydney,
is by far the more picturesque, and its hills, imme-
diately behind the pretty bungalow which Ross
has built for his summer quarters during the fishing
season, rise to over a thousand feet. There is a
local tradition of a destructive forest fire here many

SEAFOWL AND SQUID 43

years ago, and it is confirmed by the entire absence
of old timber, the whole of the trees, chiefly birch
and spruce, being of second growth. Small game,
both rabbits and partridges, abounds in these
hills, and I put up three strong coveys of part-
ridges within two hundred yards of the bungalow.
In the hills, too, eagles have their haunts, and
ravens sail over the beaches. The eagles, as I
understand from local farmers, are carrion-eaters
only, finding ample dead food without the trouble
of hunting for a living. Of sea fowl that breed
on the Bird Islands, at the entrance to the bay,
the chief are shags, terns, puffins, " sea-pigeons "
and several kinds of gull. I also saw a few gannets,
but their nesting haunts are probably more
distant. The terns are very plentiful, and are
valuable in indicating the movements of tuna.
They feed greedily on squid, which often, how-
ever, evade their attack by squirting at their
eyes and sounding before the birds have recovered
for another plunge. Many brooks run into St.
Ann's Bay and at least one more considerable
stream, the North River ; and most of them con-
tain sea-trout, with the chance of a salmon at the
lower end. The other fish in the bay appear to
be pollack of large size, which may be caught by
whiffing with a large red fly round the entrance to

44 SANGAREE ISLAND

the inner harbour, also small hake, cod and halibut.
The Bird Islands, Hertford and Cibou, command
the entrance to the harbour, and on the outer stands
a lighthouse. It is interesting to note that,
whereas the name is spelt Cibou in the Admiralty
Chart of 1848, in the Dominion Government
Chart of 1907 it is Hibou, probably the old French
name.

A very brief comparison of St. Ann's and
Mira Bays should serve to illustrate the differ-
ences between the two. Mira is more shallow
and less sheltered. Into the head of it, under two
bridges, runs the Mira River, the upper reaches
of which, with a tributary known as Salmon
River, are not without quiet beauty, though in
the months of July and August it would be difficult
to find elsewhere so low a percentage of fish to the
mile. In this river, nine miles above Mira Gut,
lies Sangaree Island, and on it is an inn where I
made my home for a week or two during the
coming of the tuna. As a retreat in which to
work or muse, Sangaree, when not invaded by
too hilarious day trippers from Glace Bay and
other fashionable centres in the district, is not to
be despised, but it lies too far from the sea to
make a convenient headquarters for the tuna
fishing, as, even with the fastest launch kept in

COMMUNICATIONS BY LAND AND SEA 45

commission by Louis Petrie, the owner, the journey-
takes close on an hour with a favourable tide,
and rather longer without. The cuisine, more-
over, is humble, even for Cape Breton, and the
angler who needs to keep himself fit for grim
tussles with the strongest fish in those waters will
want more robust fare. Still, if cheapness be any
inducement, I doubt whether there are many
hotels in America where a man can live for less
than Petrie charges at Sangaree, and, with the
chance of a basket of trout in Trout Brook, or of
a salmon in Salmon River there might be worse
spots in which to spend a week of August.

The communications between these rival tuna
grounds and Sydney are in favour of Mira, as
there is a daily train either way between Sydney
and Louisburg that stops at the Gut. English-
town, on the other hand, the chief settlement
in St. Ann's Bay, noted as the burial place of the
Scottish giant McAskill, sometime the friend of
Tom Thumb, has to be reached by water — the
Aspy, which is run by the North Shore Steamship
Company, making the trip, in about three hours
and at a charge of one dollar for the single journey,
twice a week, on Mondays and Thursdays, and
returning to Sydney the same evening. The
Sydney and Louisburg Railway is the property

46 PREPARATIONS FOR THE FISHING

of the Dominion Coal Company, and it may be
that the service is restricted to the one daily train
for fear that the miners might be tempted to
shirk their work and disport themselves by the
sea. The result of this limited accommodation is
that, although the Company cares in all probability
less than nothing for its passenger traffic, the
daily train to Mira, a favourite site for camping
parties and picnics, is crowded from floor to roof,
the passengers standing three deep and all but
falling out of the windows. Each bay, then, has
its attraction for the tuna fisherman ; Mira, with
such shallow water and sloping beaches as should
make the killing of a tuna far easier than in the
deep coves, with their sheer cliffs, of St. Ann's ;
but the latter, on the other hand, seemingly
attracting the tuna sooner and holding them
longer than the more southern bay.

An expedition after these great fish can at no
time be undertaken lightly and without suitable
preparation, but, as may easily be imagined,
when the problem of its capture in a particular
sea is still unsolved, the fisherman has to be even
more thorough in his outfit. My own preparations
started at home in the early spring, when I under-
went a course of Sandow treatment with a view
to strengthening my wrists, an object which was

REELS AND LINES 47

most satisfactorily attained. Simultaneously Mr.
Farlow was busy perfecting a new tuna reel and rod
rest, of which a photograph is given in the accom-
panying plate. Both should answer admirably,
the reel being in my opinion infinitely preferable to
the more complicated American pattern, dispensing
with the objectionable thumb-brake (which is
equally injurious to thumb and line) and with
other accessories liable to puzzle the fisherman
at critical moments, and the rest enabling me to
lay the rod down when no fish were around and
thus relieve my arms of the constant strain of
holding it. As both these contrivances can be
seen at Messrs. Farlow's establishments, having
been manufactured for general use since they
were first designed for my own, it is unnecessary
to give any further explanation of a photograph
sufficiently clear in itself. The best line for this
fishing is, as I was convinced after seeing it in the
hands of an expert like Mr. Conn, a thirty-six
thread " Joseph Jefferson " line of American
make. Personally, at first, I used a Vom Hoff
green thirty-nine-thread, which Ross has lately
found sufficient, but I subsequently preferred
only one hundred yards of it as backing for two
hundred yards of a stouter white line supplied
by Messrs. Farlow. Three hundred yards is in any

48 Mr. CONN'S THEORY

case the minimum length advisable and, indeed,
I had one line (from Messrs. Farlow) of twelve
hundred feet in one piece. As, however, it was
only twenty-one thread, I did not give it a trial.
The secret of killing tuna is not to let the fish
tow, but to punish it from the first, and a thirty-
six thread is probably the lightest with which
fish of such size as frequent Canadian waters could
be tackled in this strenuous way. Whether they
fight, weight for weight, harder than the smaller
fish of California is an interesting question that I
can answer only on the authority of Mr. Conn,
who has handled them in both places. He is
most emphatically of opinion that they do not,
and he gave me this view with the surprising
comment that the fish of warmer seas are in-
variably harder fighters than those numbed by
the cold of more northern latitudes. I hesitate
to differ from a fisherman of such world-wide
knowledge as Mr. Conn, but this is certainly not
my own experience, and I believe that trout and
salmon fishermen share the view that cold water,
with some notable exceptions, is more conducive
to sport with fish of any given weight.

The usual six feet leader of piano wire is used,
with the chain above the hook, as for tarpon.
Under the impression that several of his big fish.

THE BEST BAIT 49

which may measure anything up to twelve feet,
had smashed the line, Ross latterly took to using
a double wire leader of that length, a practice
that I regard as highly dangerous, involving as it
does the use of a leader twice the length of the
rod, with a swivel that cannot pass through the
rings. Mr. Conn kindly gave me a special Van
\nieck hook with a forked barb outside instead of
inside, on which he had killed many tuna and other
fish. He had great confidence in its holding power,
and the principle seems a sound one. The bait
used in Cape Breton waters, where there are no
flying fish, is either a gaspereau, a mackerel, or a
herring, and Ross puts them in this order as killers.
The gaspereau (known to American fishermen as
" alewives " and to the Indians as kyacks) is a
cousin of the herring, and makes its way up brooks
and into ponds for the purpose of spawning. It
is a very showy little fish, both more silvery and
harder than the herring. Tunas have been hooked
by Ross on all of these baits, and even on salt
mackerel (which have to be sewn up on the hook)
when the fresh fish could not be procured. It must
be confessed that the bait problem in those waters
is a serious one, the best plan being for the fisher-
man to carry his own nets and catch his bait each
day before fishing. Without some such plan, he

D

50 MANNER OF BAITING

is apt to go short. When I was staying with Mr.
and Mrs. Ross at the Bungalow, there was constant
calling at Englishtown to telegraph and telephone
for bait, either to the fishermen at Indian Brook,
on the north shore of the bay, or to Lemoine, the
fish merchant at North Sydney, and even then
we had to use stale bait more than once. I doubt
whether, in its fierce rush at the hook, the tuna
pauses to ascertain if the gaspereau or mackerel
be fresh. Indeed, the fact of its taking a salt
mackerel is sufficient proof that it exercises no
such discrimination. A stale fish is, however,
undoubtedly more difficult to bait the hook with,
as it becomes soft, even on the ice, and is apt to
tear. The bait difficulty at Mira is somewhat
mitigated by the factor of a daily train from
Sydney and Glace Bay, from which fresh herring
or mackerel can generally be obtained by arrange-
ment, reaching the station at Mira Gut at about
half-past nine each morning. Similar bait can
sometimes be procured from Louisburg, the train
reaching Mira about four in the afternoon. The
only other source of bait at Mira is the nets out
in the bay, and these will often be found broken
reeds, though at times there is no lack. The
American style of baiting differs somewhat from
that adopted by Ross, who passes the hook

FITTING UP A TUNA BOAT 61

through the mouth, with a double turn in the
throat, and then sews the lips with gut, which is less
conspicuous than thread. The Catalina fishermen,
on the other hand, going on the principle that a
tuna strikes at the eyes of the bait, merely pass the
hook through the lips and then sew these up.
They maintain that, baited in this way, the hook
strikes the tuna, in nine cases out of ten, in the
roof of the mouth, and that only by hooking the
fish in this manner is it possible to tire it out within
a reasonable time.

While the Adene II., an ideal motor launch for
the work — she has sleeping accommodation for
four, and carries a steward who can conjure at
meal times — was lying off Mr. Ross's Sydney
residence fitting out for the trip, I had a busy day
getting a suitable small boat rigged up for my own
use. After some looking round, I found just what
I wanted, a rowing boat belonging to Mr. Arthur
Woodill, of Sydney, which I persuaded him to
let me hire for the rest of my stay. She was a
trifle larger than the boat used by Ross, but
otherwise of identical model, very light to handle,
but roomy enough to take three men. This is
desirable, as Mr. Conn has of late rejected the
Catalina power boat in favour of a craft rowed by
two men, one of whom is thus free to use the gaff

d2

52 OTHER FISHING AT ST. ANN'S

or lance at the right moment. A few necessary-
additions had to be made in the shape of an
armchair, which I bought a t Wright's furniture
store for a couple of dollars, and some inch boards
with which to strengthen the thwart, that was to
hold not only myself, but also the chair and rod
rest. This, with a sandbag for the feet, completed
the outfit, and the boat was as near the right thing
as could be procured at such short notice. I may
add that Mr. WoodiU, who is a local inspector of
schools, has a second boat of the same pattern,
which could be fitted up like mine in a couple of
hours, and he will let out either to tuna fishermen
next season for about a sovereign a week, which
is reasonable enough. Should the visitor wish to
try his luck in both St. Ann's and Mira bays, it
is easy to freight the boat to the first on board
the Aspij, which takes it as deck cargo for a dollar
either way, or on the Louisburg train, which
would charge the same.

A word may, in passing, be said on the other
fishing available at these resorts, for there must
always be days on which, from stress of weather
or lack of bait, the tuna must be left to their own
devices. Yet the rod need not be idle. Many
admirable trout streams fall into St. Ann's, and
notably the North River, which empties into the

BEADY TO START.

[5J

POLLACK AND TROUT 53

inner harbour, and which in August has some fine
sea-trout below the church. The lowest pool of all,
to the left of the deep channel, is a splendid sheet
of water, and I have had two-pounders at the
fly even between that and the mouth. There are
also good trout in Indian Brook, down the North
Shore, and in the neighbouring Barasois, and any
large flies, with a dash of red in them, will be found
useful. Of other sea fishing in the bay, there are
large pollack up to 20 lb. and more, round the
lighthouse beach, at the entrance to the inner
harbour. These may be caught from a boat on
any large red fly, or on rubber worms, and played
from the beach. As regards Mira Bay, large
halibut may be caught a few miles outside the
heads by anyone with a fancy for such sport.
The Mira River is useless in August, as the salmon
and trout are then all in the brooks, but there is
trout fishing in Black Brook, a little way above the
third bridge, and also in both the Salmon River
and Gaspereau, some thirteen miles above
Sangaree ; and there are also trout in a lake,
on which Petrie keeps a boat, five miles by road
from the island.

In going after tuna, the fisherman has to take
a number of small but necessary articles over and
above his fishing tackle and bait, gaff, lance and

54 THE FISHERMAN'S EQUIPMENT

knife. The following list has been drawn up
after careful consideration of the requirements
of the case : —

First aid case (for accidents).

Pistol (for signalling).

Flask of brandy (for exhaustion or cold).

Compass (for fog).

Electric lamp (for night).

Panama hat (for sun).

Cap and waterproof (for rain).

Sweater (for cold).

Bottle of water (for heat).

Biscuits (for hunger).

Tobacco (for comfort).

Matches (for tobacco).

Patience (for reverses).

Humility (for success).
The last item, by the way, is less frequently
needed than the rest, but should be taken in case
of emergencies.

The method of fishing for tuna is trolling,
either " blind," «*.e., on the chance of rising an
unseen fish, or, better still, deliberately in front
of a school that has been marked down and headed
off. For the purpose of locating the fish, which
roam over a very wide expanse of the bay, a motor
launch is handy, as it can cruise around, even

STALKING THE TUNA 55

while the fisherman is trying some favourite
ground, and ascertain where the fish are and in
what direction they are moving, and it can then
tow the small boat to the right spot. It is all-
important — I missed a great chance on the second
day out through my boatman failing to remember
this— not to row right down on the fish, but rather
to intercept them and then take the boat in a
sweep, so that the bait is trailed across their path.
They show themselves in different ways. If
actually harrying the shoals of herring, they make
the water boil with their furious rushes at the
surface. If, on the other hand, they are merely
cruising along the shore, where, on the south side
of the bay, there are ten fathoms of water within
a stone's throw of the beach, their fins are seen
cutting the surface like those of sharks.

In order to give an exact idea of the ups and
downs of a fortnight on the tuna grounds, it will
perhaps be best to make such extracts from my
diary as convey information likely to be of use,
though the cutting out of purely personal matters
inevitably gives a disjointed sequence to the

whole.

I. St. Ann's.

Thursday, August 4th. — Went aboard the Adene
at 8 and picked up five gaspereaux (their total

56 WE SIGHT TUNA

catch) from some fishermen off Indian Brook.
On the way down the bay Percy McRitchie, who
is my boatman here, informed me that small tuna
(i.e., of less than 500 lb.) are rarely seen here-
abouts, and the salmon and pollack of these
waters are also large. There seem to be no grilse
at any time in the nets, and the pollack average
16 lb. and often exceed 20 lb. The pollack
are seen jumping at the surface round the light-
house all through July, but, once they go to
the bottom, thsy wiU not take artificial bait,
but must be caught with mussel on the ground.
Otherwise they take a red fly freely, and the best
sport is to row to the beach and play them from
the shore. There are always hake and cod in the
bay, but McRitchie says that they show no fight.

R. and I fished all along the South Shore, past
Monroe Beach (or Big Grappling) to Cape Dauphin,
but without a touch. Then we rejoined the yacht,
and almost immediately the captain (a namesake
of the owner) sighted tuna under some terns that
were making a great commotion out in the bay.
We at once headed for these and trolled for a
couple of hours in their neighbourhood, but without
success.

August 5th. — Slept on board and listened
most of the night to a downpour of rain, which

Mr. CONN'S ADVENTURE 57

had not ceased at 5 a.m., when we turned out to
breakfast. Another boat suddenly appeared down
the bay, which we surmised might be Conn's,
as he was expected yesterday from the States. A
heavy fog lay over the bay, which was oily calm,
and in this we cruised past the other launch,
astern of which was a small boat in which Conn
was trolling. It afterwards transpired that on
this, his first, morning he hooked a tuna and
played it for two hours and twenty minutes, at
the end of which time he had it dead beat and
would in all probability have secured it, but at
the critical moment his rod broke helow the reel,
and the fish got away. He estimated its length
at 12 ft., exactly double the length of his leader.
Seeing no fish in the bay, we cruised round the
Bird Islands, still without sign of a tuna. A
visit to Englishtown for bait (brought in by last
night's mailman) brought a blank day to a close.

August 6th. — Again slept on board and woke
as Adene II. was under weigh for Indian Brook,
where we bought mackerel and gaspereau from
Rory Macdonald and his nephew Dan Alick, and
also from another net. McRitchie told me that
at times, when there is no sign of a tuna in sight, the
great fish make the water boil at the first hauling
of the nets. At 10 we sighted three or four tuna

58 OLD LOUISBURG

off Monroe Beach, their fins making a long ripple
on the inshore water. We were soon in our
boats. Mine headed them off, but ran them too
close, driving them round a cove in the direction
of R., who at once hooked one and had a lively
fight for twenty or thirty minutes, when his wire
leader parted, making his second loss for the
season. Then the weather turned rough, with
both wind and rain, and we saw no more tuna,
and, in fact, nothing but a shark and a couple of
sunfish. These are the only other big fish in these
bays, and there are no small fishes to trouble the
bait, such as I remember in both Florida and
California.

August 8th. — R. and I again slept on board last
night and fished with our stale gaspereaux this
morning, but without sighting a fish. We fell
in with Conn, who told us how nearly he had landed
the first Canadian tuna on Friday. Having work
to finish at Mira, I was obliged to catch the
Aspy back to Sydney, taking my boat with me.

Owing partly to work, partly to stress of
weather and absence of the tuna from Mira Bay,
a defection unparalleled in the memory of the
oldest inhabitant, I did not fish again until the
1 6th. In the meantime I paid a visit to the
interesting old town of Louisburg, seeing the

ADVENTURE WITH A TUNA 59

demolished French fortifications, relics of the
famous siege of 1745, when the loyal American
Colonies took the town for King George II.
Commercially, Louisburg is dead ; its splendid
harbour as empty as its deserted streets, and, with
all the local influence working in favour of the
rival port of Sydney, not even the fact of the
more southern port being open to vessels through-
out the winter, during the months when Sydney
is either frozen over or blocked by the drift ice,
can save Louisburg from the inanition into which
it is fallen. Ichahod ! is written large across its
harbour, and it must rest on the glorious memories
of the past, when, with extraordinary valour, a
slender French force of 2,500 regulars and militia
under General Duchambon held out for months in
an anything but impregnable position against the
British land and sea forces, amounting to 4,000
Provincial troops, and combined British and
Colonial fleets, including 26 armed vessels with
740 guns and 80 transports. Thus did a siege
last for months which, to the untrained eye,
should have been over in a week ! Louisburg
had a more recent interest for myself, for it was
not long ago the scene of an extraordinary battle
with a tuna, in which Dr. O'Neil, who resides in
the town, having hooked one on a rope and barrel.

60 ROSS FIGHTS ANOTHER FISH

got the rope foul of his ankle and was, to the horror
of his friend in the fragile cedar boat they had
embarked in, dragged under water. He managed,
however, as he told me, to get clear of this perilous
entanglement, and, with the assistance of a crew
belonging to a schooner anchored in the bay,
secured the fish, after a long and exciting chase.
It weighed 825 lb. !

August 16th. — Conn and I had no luck, though
I got my bait among a school out by Cape Dauphin,
and I saw one fish that looked 13 ft. long, and had
an eye like a saucer. Then, about 10.15, we caught
sight of Ross in tow of a fish, which was taking him
at a terrific pace across the bay. I afterwards
learnt that he had hooked it at 9.55, and he played
it in all for 7 hours 35 minutes. It seems a brief
fight compared with that of nineteen hours last year,
but this was far more effective than that, which
was mostly towage. I watched him, keeping well
out of the way, for five hours, during which time
he was twice taken half way to the Bird Islands,
the yacht standing by all the time, and the little
power launch taking supplies for him and his men.
He must have covered twenty or thirty miles in
all. Then, it seems, about 3.30, his rod broke
over the gunwale, and he held the tuna for the last
two hours on the broken stump. At the end,

MONUMENT AT LOUISBURG.

[60]

TUNA TOO SHY 61

he had worked his fish to a beach, and was handling
it for the gaff, but the line caught for an instant
on the jagged edge of the broken tip and parted.
Seeing that Ross had two men to row his boat
(one a Cornishman from Port Isaac, and the other
a native of the bay), a yacht standing by
throughout, and a power boat plying between the
two, the difficulties for any sportsman more
normally fitted out look almost insuperable. At
the same time, I am not certain whether a single
rowing boat like my own ought not, with better
luck, to have a greater chance of getting among
these wary fish than one accompanied by a motor.

August 17th-19th. — Weather against fishing.

August 20th.— Out on the Adene at 6.30. We
took a couple of gaspereaux out of my net, and
finding no sign of fish or birds out by the Dauphin,
trolled up the inner harbour, but without result.
Found the tuna at the turn of the tide off Monroe
Beach (Big Grappling), but, though all three of
us were among them for two hours or more, they
would not look at either mackerel or gaspereau.
Seeing that they snapped up some gaspereau
thrown later from the deck of the yacht, it almost
looks as if they were getting educated to the dangers
of the hook and leader. The only other conclusion
admissible was that they were after squid or some

62 LAST OF THE MOHICANS

other kind of bait. At one time I had the monsters
all round my boat, and could have touched their
fins and tails with the end of a salmon rod. This
was exasperating, and Ross never knew them so
reluctant to take a bait in any former year.

August 21st. — Ross and Conn both left to-day,
so I am the last of the Old Brigade, and anything
but hopeful of success.

August 22nd. — Hired the only power boat in
the bay to tow me down to the grounds, but did
not see a fish.

August 23rd. — Was forced to stay ashore for
want of bait. Rory Macdonald is sending me some
to-night by the mailman.

August 24th. — ^Again had Buchanan's power
boat, and was up at 3.30, in the moonlight, and
on the fishing grounds by a little after four, and in
time for the turn of the tide. But it was blowing
hard, and the water was too disturbed to let us
see the fish. We did catch sight of two, going like
steam, off the Dauphin, but could not catch up
with them. Landed on Monroe Beach and boiled
the pot for breakfast, after which trolled " blind "
for two hours up and down the deep water off
" Sure Pop Hole " (a favourite ground of Ross's),
but without a touch. This is disheartening. Spent
the rest of the day catching trout (some of twelve
inches) in a brook near the house.

[62]

FOUND IN THE BAIT NET 63

August 25th-26th. — Blowing half-a-gale, and
fishing out of the question.

August 27th. — At length a day of perfect calm,
with plenty of tuna in the inner harbour, their
fins showing right under my window. At length
I thought my day had dawned. Alas ! Rory
Macdonald had sent no bait the night before,
and when McRitchie and I reached our gaspereau
net, what did we find ? Gaspereau ? De'il a
one, but an eight-feet shark suffocated, and the
net all tangled beyond redemption. So, with
no little danger of capsize, we managed to get the
brute, net and all, into the boat and took it back
to the wharf. It must have weighed all of 400 lb. —
a grisly trouvaille in a bait net on a man's last day !
Here, indeed, was the last blow. I cannot, as a
rule, be accused of favouring the attitude of those
fishermen who vow that the stars in their courses
fight against them. The stars have nothing what-
ever to do with it, and failure is a matter of tackle,
bait, fishing, or weather, or some other purely
physical condition over which the angler may or
may not have control. Luck, of course, goes for
a great deal, and I made myseK unpopular on,
at any rate, one occasion by insisting that it
counted for a little more than skill. Well, on
this trip the luck was all against me, but what of

64 THE LAST BLOW

that ? It has been on my side before, and will,
perhaps, be there again, and I think I may fairly
claim to have taken the philosopher's view of my
failure. This final episode of the shark in the bait
net on the only perfect morning of my last week on
the fishing grounds, with a calm sea and a cloudless
sky, and with tuna showing opposite the room
in which I snatched my hurried breakfast, might
have made some ungodly men of my acquaintance
indulge in language not far removed from pro-
fanity. I vow that I sat athwart my shark,
which looked, in the meshes of the broken net,
like some great spider in its web, with a sense of the
ridiculous figure I must soon cut in the eyes of
those assembled on the wharf in the belief that this
was the first Canadian tuna coming safely to port.
I even sang, as correctly as the Umitations of my
voice allowed, the swan song from " Lohengrin."
It fitted the moment, and I think I cut, at any rate,
as imposing a figure as the human bloodhound,
Sherlock Holmes, when, on his way to the scene
of a murder, he sat back in his cab humming
" that little thing of Chopin." Alas ! I had no
fatuous Watson to sing my praises, so must e'en
sing them myself !

THE LAST MORNING S " BAIT.

[64]

ANTICIPATING QUERIES 65

This, then, concludes my stay at St. Ann's and
Mira, and it must be an almost unique experience
with any fisherman to spend a month in
pursuit of a fish without even getting a bite. In
view, however, of the fact that Ross, with all
his local experience and all his equipment, got only
four runs in the same period, there was apparently
nothing abnormal in such luck, but I am bound
to admit that my feelings, as day after day went
by without even a pull at the line, resembled the
surds of my far-off school-days in that they were
incapable of expression in rational terms.

I shall inevitably (if precedent is anything to
go on) receive letters innumerable asking for
further information as to the chances of killing
a Canadian tuna on rod and line. I shall, just
as inevitably, be either abroad, or busy, or dead
when these inquiries reach my humble abode ; so
let me, at the risk of repetition, summarize
the information, with special reference to St.
Ann's. It is not, of course, the only Nova Scotian
bay in which these mighty fish are to be slain,
for, as has been said, they also put in an appearance
at both Mira and Louisburg, and have been seen
at Ingonish and other inlets along that broken
coast. At St. Ann's, however, for some reason or
other, they appear to stay. For the most part,

E

66 HINTS FOR NEXT SEASON

it must be admitted, they are glued to the bottom,
remaining out of sight on all but the calmest days,
and even when they cruise at the surface they are
singularly reluctant to take a bait. Yet all these
difficulties will but whet the appetites of sportsmen
eager to tackle an unsolved problem of the rod,
and it is to be hoped that one or other of them will
succeed where we have failed. Here, in brief,
if on a text of failure I may preach success, is
what they should do.

The best time of the year is August and, so
they say locally, September, when the tuna are
generally more numerous and the weather often
more settled than in the earUer month. The way
from England, for comfort, is by way of the
Canadian Pacific " Empress " boats to Quebec,
and thence by Canadian Pacific Railway to
Moncton and thence to Sydney. From Sydney,
where they can put up at the Sydney Hotel,
there is a boat, the Aspy, twice weekly, on Mondays
and Thursdays, to Englishtown, where accom-
modation of a sort, cheap though not luxurious,
can be had at one or other of the farmhouses. A
letter addressed sometime previously to Angus
McRitchie, who keeps the post office, will probably
ensure board and lodging. Those who favour the
simple life should find their ideal in these Canadian

HIRING BOATS 67

side tracks, and they will carry back abiding
memories of happy-go-lucky farming, unexciting
fare, matches that refuse to light, windows that
refuse to open, and tuna that refusa to bite.

Before, however, proceeding to Englishtown,
something in the shape of the necessary boats must
be chartered at Sydney. Mr. Arthur Woodill,
a teacher at the Sydney Academy, has a suitable
motor launch and a couple of rowing boats fit
for the work. What he may charge for the launch
I have no idea, but I paid twenty dollars a month
(£4 3s. 4d.) for one of the rowing boats. Mr.
Lowe, the station agent at Sydney, also has a
capital motor launch, which was chartered by
Mr. Conn during his stay. There is a single power
boat at St. Ann's, a one-lunged craft, belonging
to Buchanan, who lives over at the Barasois,
and this I occasionally hired at half-a-sovereign
for the half day, with an understanding that if
I hooked a fish and was kept busy for the rest
of the day, he would stand by for a double fee.
Unfortunately the occasion never arose.

There is some talk of a camp being erected on
the South Shore, near the fishing grounds, and,
if this is done, arrangements will, no doubt, be
made for boats, guides and bait, which will be a
boon for all who come from a long distance and
have only a limited time to spare.

E 2

68 ON GUIDES

After the boat comes the guide, and the title
of " guide " cannot properly be applied to any of
the local boatmen, since it implies skilled know-
ledge of the sport. The nearest to deserving it
is Percy McRitchie, who is, however, employed by
Ross, during his stay. After Ross left I engaged
him at a dollar and a half (6s. 3d.) a day. He is
indefatigable at the oars, and has, from long attend-
ance on Ross, acquired some little acquaintance
with the method of fishing. He lives on the North
Shore, at Jersey Cove, but, being related to half
the families in Englishtown, he has no difficulty
in staying on that side if desired. McRitchie, who
has scarcely been out of the bay in his life, is a
great reader and an admirable woodman. With
a little farming and a little trapping, a little fishing
and a little employment by visitors, he manages
to lead an existence which, by comparison with
some in that section, may almost be called varied.
Moreover, reading miscellaneous literature in the
long winter evenings in his benighted home,
he has picked up a curious collection of information,
and it was certainly a novel sensation, out in an
open boat on the coast of Cape Breton, to be
corrected about the exact height of the Rock of
Gibraltar, to which one of the bluffs in the bay
bears a slight resemblance. Percy's horizon has

A STUDIOUS CAPE BRETONER 69
been bounded all his life by the Bird Islands ; I
have clambered more than once up the face of the
Rock in search of apes, yet he knew the height to
a hundred feet, and I did not. Then out of his
mouth came the truth that stung, even though it
was uttered unwittingly. When I had compli-
mented him on the extent of his reading, he
modestly replied —

" Well, I have nothing else to do in the winter
evenings. Guess you write so many books, you
haven't time to read any ! "

If I add that he also volunteered a suggestion
about fossil sharks in the Devonian, I shall not
be believed, but it is true nevertheless.

When Percy is otherwise engaged, the only other
" guide " in the Bay that I can recommend from
personal knowledge is his brother-in-law, Dan
Montgomery, who has a farm near his own.
Montgomery has also a good team, in which he
drove Lane and myself out to Indian Brook and
the Barasois to try the lower trout pools. They
were not, however, in good trim that afternoon,
and I caught all my best trout in two small brooks
on the South Shore, the better of them only a
short walk from Englishtown. The worst of
these waters is that, though the fish rise readily
enough to almost any fly, the banks are so thickly

70 TROUT FOR THE TABLE

overgrown that it is impossible to cast with any-
thing longer than three or four feet, so that worm-
fishing only is possible in many of the best pools,
from which, by this homely method, I took
several trout of eleven and twelve inches. They
are brook trout (the sea trout are taken in the
month of August only in the gut of the North
River and Indian Brook), and their flavour, as
interpreted by the cuHnary magic of the locality,
is anything but piquant. The chef of the Carlton
could do better out of flannel dipped in sardine
oil.

With all apologies for this brief digression in the
direction of trout, I must get back to the tuna
fishing, the next problem of which is the bait
supply, and a very difficult matter this often is.
I have known even Ross, with all the resources of
the place at his command, handicapped by bait
three days old, which, even when kept in the ice
chest, loses immeasurably in attractiveness. The
three baits in common use are, as has been said
above, the mackerel, gaspereau and herring. Ross
favours the second of these, and on it he hooked
all his four fish this year. Conn, on the other
hand, prefers the mackerel, as a larger and more
showy bait, and he hooks it, in the approved
Catalina fashion, through the lips only, on the

THE BAIT DIFFICULTY 71

assumption that (as with the flying fish used in
Cahfornia) the tuna strike at the eyes of the bait.
Hoss, on the other hand, passes the hook down
the mouth and through the throat. In either
position, it is very conspicuous, and it may be
that, if the tuna are growing more educated, it
will be found necessary to bury it in the body.

There are two main sources of bait supply.
The first, and most reliable, is the net hauled each
morning by Rory Macdonald, who keeps the
telegraph office at Indian Brook, so that he is
within easy telegraphic reach. As a matter of
fact, a telegram is usually unnecessary, as the
mailman, who goes and comes every day between
the two shores, will take a letter and bring back
the bait. The latter is usually paid for at the
rate of a dollar the dozen, large mackerel and small
gaspereaux indiscriminately, and a small gratuity
should be given to the mailman. The other chance
of fresh bait is at North Sydney, where the Asjpy
calls on her way to Englishtown. As a third
stand by, a few salted mackerel should be kept on
hand. They are split, but can be neatly sewn up,
and a little towing through the water will brighten
their appearance considerably. More than one
tuna has been hooked on these makeshifts, which
can, as a rule, be purchased in Sydney.

72 COUNTING THE COST

What is the cost of such an experiment ? This
is always among the first of the questions addressed
to those who have gone before, and it is always
one of the hardest to answer, since men on their
holiday differ in their views of what constitutes
a reasonable outlay. Cutting things down to their
finest, I imagine that, including the fare out and
back, tackle, accommodation, boats, guides and
bait, a month after these tuna (and no shorter
period would be worth while) could not cost much
less than a hundred pounds. This, however, is
not excessive when it is remembered that these
Cape Breton tuna are, in the opinion of so
experienced a tuna fisherman as Mr. Conn, who
knows these fish well in many waters, the largest
in the world that will take a bait. For those
who like not only the big game of the sea, but
the biggest, the elephant and rhinoceros, so to
speak, these North Atlantic tuna have obvious
attractions. That they are difficult to catch has
been shown, but that will not diminish their
attraction for the angler. And the fact of so
many attempts having been made on them in
vain enhances their pursuit in the eye of the
sportsman. We all want what we cannot have.
Mr. Ross has wanted one of these fish to his own
rod for the past four years. He has come very

CHANCES OF THE FUTURE 73

near winning the prize, but, in spite of extra-
ordinary resources and untiring perseverance,
something has always gone wrong at the last
moment. The thing will be done, possibly by the
time these lines are in print, possibly not. A
prophet should always hedge, and I allow for
either contingency. But that it will eventually
be done, there is no shadow of doubt. Each
summer will see a growing company of enthusiasts
at St. Ann's, and, with such competition not only
among the sportsmen themselves, but also among
those who make their tackle, those who provide
their bait, and those who row their boats, the
tuna must, in the long run, be beaten. Well, it
will have made a glorious fight of it. Not in the
whole history of recent angling has a iBsh so long
baffled all effort to capture it, and for a parallel
case it would, I expect, be necessary to delve
back into those prehistoric mists in which the
cave man had his first difficulty in catching fish
for his food. In view of the failure of all previous
attempts on its tuna, Cape Breton is a very
promising playground for the big game angler,
for there is also the proximity of good trout,
and the accessibility of fine salmon fishing, which
could not be found in any other tuna resorts.
There is, to this perverse human nature of ours,

74 WHO WILL CATCH THE FIRST ?

something so irresistible in the prospect of
succeeding where others have failed, of over-
coming difficulties that they found insuperable,
of, in short, being the first to accomplish some
task, however futile, that I would wager that an
ever-increasing number of sportsmen will journey
thither, from both England and the United States,
to try and wear the laurels. To come and spy out
the land and find out for others the best means of
solving the problem was attractive enough, nor
would I swear that an off-chance of winning the
trick was any deterrent. At the same time, with
limited time and means at my disposal, I have
other calls to obey, and, much as I envy the
man who first gets the gaff into one of these
splendid fish, I fear that I may have looked my
last on St. Ann's. There is a rumour of a hand-
some trophy being offered for the first capture
by a railroad interested in the Province, and it
may be that, with the passing of another summer,
we shall be able to exclaim, without a touch of
jealousy, Palmam qui meruit ferat !

As regards the right way to set about landing
one of these big tuna of the Atlantic, it may
perhaps seem out of place for one who did not
even hook a single fish to offer advice, but a few
suggestions, based on observation and on some

THE RIGHT WAY AND THE WRONG 75

experience of big game fishing elsewhere, may
possibly be welcomed. If not, they can be skipped.
In the first place, having hooked a tuna — having
learnt only how not to hook one, I am quite unable
to indicate the best manner of doing this — the
golden rule is to be towed as little as possible.
This was the mistake made by Ross in his earlier
experiences, and, having learnt other tactics, he
is now the first to admit the error of his ways.
Towage of this kind, prolonged indefinitely, can
only lead to a condition of stalemate, with both
parties tired out and neither able to make another
move. It is, of course, impossible to avoid being
towed at intervals, as in the first rush of a heavy
fish and whenever, from time to time, it recovers
its breath and makes another determined effort
to break loose. Any attempt to check its run
when it has its head away from the boat would
smash any tackle of less calibre than a log line.
The moment, however, that it stops in its mad
career, it should be the fisherman's first endeavour
to get right over it, his men backing water until
this is accomplished, and then he must fight every
inch of the way, never giving the tuna a moment's
rest, but doing all he can to scare it. To exhaust
a fish of 600 or 800 lb. in anything under a week
would probably be out of the question, but if only

76 NECESSARY PRECAUTIONS

it can be bewildered, so as hardly to know where
to turn next from the unremitting attack of its
opponent, it may be found possible to work it
inshore to some shallow beach. Then, and then
only, when one of the oarsmen can step out of the
boat in shoal water, is the moment to handline
it to the gaff, and a preliminary dig with a two-
edged lance, which should be kept in the boat for
the purpose, would probably be good medicine
for a too energetic fish. To attempt to gaff a
tuna of such weight from the boat would be sheer
madness, and disaster would surely follow such
disregard of an obvious danger. The dying effort
of such monsters would be more than capable of
capsizing the boat in deep water, and, even if
the sportsman is reckless of his own safety, it
is unfair to risk that of his men. My own boat,
which was a trifle stouter than Ross's, all but
capsized when we hauled the dead shark of only
400 lb. at most over the side. What chance,
then, could there be of recovering a struggling
fish of perhaps twice the weight and half as many
inches more ! Indeed, I fancy that the first tuna
will, unless altogether stronger tackle is used,
be landed by towing it slowly into the inner
harbour and coaxing it to the shallows behind the
lighthouse. Once in that backwater, it could be
gaffed at leisure and with very little risk of escape.

CHAPTER IV.

The Edge of the Great Lakes.

Black Bass and Trout — The Wonderful Muskoka Country — Canadian
Roads — A Fishing Camp on the C.P.R. — Changes — The Parmachene
Belle's Nationality — Baits for Bass — Trolling for Muskallonge — Other
Fish in Georgian Bay — The Local Indians — Camping with a Chippewa
— Words in the Chippewa Language — Americans and their Guides :
A Protest — Paddling my own Canoe,

Anxious to catch a few fish before returning
home, and perhaps a Httle weary of the Q.E.F.,
which, however fascinating a proposition in EucHd,
is apt to pall in fishing, I gladly availed myself
of an opportunity of spending the remainder of
my days in the land three or four hundred miles
further west, revisiting some of the ground covered
in an earlier trip, and renewing acquaintance with
my old friend, the black bass, which, in the opinion
of many who know both better than myself, is the
superior of the trout in fighting powers and en-
durance. Personally, I lack sufficient experience to
compare them with any profit to the reader. And
why, for the matter of that, compare them at all ?

78 FISHING NEAR THE RAILWAY.
Each is best in its proper place, and I am not
among those who deplore the failure to acclima-
tize the black bass at home. In the first place,
one can never be sure of how a fish thus introduced
will behave itself in its new home, of what it will
feed on, or how it wiU get on with its new neigh-
bours. Moreover, if we are to have black bass
and muskallonge (I would as soon introduce the
devil at once into any water of mine as a muskal-
longe) in the Old Country, much of the charm
of Canadian fishing will be lost.

The proper home of both fish is in those lakes,
which are rather freshwater oceans, so valuable
as waterways and so precious as playgrounds,
the summer haunts of thousands of anglers, and
seemingly inexhaustible for all who camp a little
distance from the more frequented holiday resorts.
Here, in Ontario, are hundreds of miles of lake
and river, deep water with precipitous rocky
banks, not, it is true, ideal tenting ground, but
perfectly wild, though much of it lies within a
few hundred yards of the Canadian Pacific track
through the famous Muskoka country. This is
a matter of no small importance to men who
disHke long journeys by road. The roads of
Canada are not, in fact, such as to make driving
attractive. Their effectual upkeep would cost

'* ROADS " 79

more money than can be spared for such luxuries,
and, what with the immense distances they have
to cover, often seeming to lead from nowhere to
nowhere else, and the destructive work of winter
frosts, even those redoubtable road-makers, the
Romans, might well have been baffled by the
conditions in Canada. So-called turnpikes, or
high roads, are often no more than a mere scratch,
deeply rutted during wet weather and baked or
frozen at one season or another to the consistency
of brick, with the result that " rigs " which do not
fit the ruts are a torture to their occupants. Apart
from mere discomfort, long stages by road are
costly and take time, so that really good fishing
close to the railroad is a boon, and this the C.P.R.
provides on the line between Toronto and Sudbury
in a greater degree than any other three hundred
miles of railroad with which I am acquainted. It
must be confessed that a good many thousand
fishermen are perfectly aware of the fact, and in
consequence the visitor should cherish no fond
illusion of having the water to himself. Yet these
great lakes, with their neighbouring rivers, are of
such vast extent that, within five miles of a
crowded fishing camp, I have camped and fished
for days with an Indian, and have not in all that
time seen another human being.

80 A GOOD FISHING CAMP.

The fishing camp that I have in mind is that
kept by Martin Fenton, at Pickerel Landing, where
trains can be flagged for those staying at the camp.
The camp is a comparatively new venture, but is
already extremely popular, and its patrons come
from all parts of Canada and the United States.
The charges are moderate, the commissariat
excellent, and the sport, with luck, may be of
high order. Without luck, I doubt whether
anyone would get fish in the Restigouche itself.
Seeing that Fenton has to pay his Indian guides
two dollars a day, and to get all his provisions
a distance of over two hundred miles, there is
nothing to grumble at in his charges, which
work out at five-and-a-half dollars (or £1 3s.)
a day for each sportsman, and include guide,
tent, canoe, and all found. Two using the same
guide would pay only two guineas a day, while
six, taking four canoes and two guides, would
get through at 1 2s. 6d. a day each. These
are the charges for camping, but those staying
at Wanikew in Camp and dispensing with the
services of a guide would pay only 10s. a day.
Unless, however, they are previously acquainted
with the water and with the best spots for
fishing, such economy is likely to cost them their
sport.

SEASON AND BAIT 81

The season lasts from June to October and it
is advisable for anyone to write beforehand, as
accommodation at the camp itself is limited to
sixteen. Earlier in the summer the bass take the
fly well, but after August they are mostly caught
with worm or minnow, though I rose one large
fish on a Parmachene Belle, which is not, as I have
always thought, a Canadian pattern, but comes
from Maine, having, I understand, been first tied
by Mr. Wells, a well-known American angling
author. Fenton gets his " angle worms " from
Toronto, and retails them at one halfpenny apiece.
They are the finest dew- worms I ever put on a
hook. The minnows may be caught on a small
hook, with a fragment of worm. They abound in
grassy bays, but care should be taken to reject
the small perch that foregather with them, as the
bass will not take these. Another good bait for
black bass is the little crayfish found in most of
these inland waters, and I caught four more fish
in rapid succession with the half -digested remains
of one that I had taken from the first of the day.

The fly for bass must be worked deep, and these
fish are commonly, like trout, found at the edge
of the reeds and lily pads. The bait should be
kept just clear of the bottom, and it is necessary
to strike smartly on getting a bite. Black bass

F

82 BASS AND MUSKALLONGE

have been caught in the Pickerel River up to
6 lb., but my visit was too brief for such luck,
and my best fish went a little over 3 lb.

The muskallonge is taken trolling; more often,
indeed, it is not taken at all, though a fish of 19 lb.,
which I saw killed right opposite the camp, within
ten minutes of my arrival, promised the realization
of my ambition to kill one of these leaping pike,
a dream still unfulfilled. The troll in general
use is a frightful hors d'muvre, which may be
purchased at Boyd's, in Montreal, at prices ranging
between half a dollar and a dollar, according to
size. It consists of an enormous red and silver
spoon (or of two, dressed tandem fashion) revolving
about a brass bar, and, by way of garnishing,
with a huge triangle dressed in red and white
feathers. As if this omelet of imitation food were
not enough, it is usual to hang a frog or a pound
white perch on the triangle, the whole forming
surely the most appalling lure used in fresh water.
This is trolled slowly up and down the rocky
shore, and particularly round the edge of bays
overgrown with reeds, and the muskallonge dashes
out and swallows the whole thing, after which it
heads for the horizon and puts up a wonderful
fight. There can be no doubt about the sporting
qualities of the " lunge," as Americans usually

CHIPPEWA INDIANS 83

oall it, and one of 38 lb. was caught at Pickerel
in 1909, which I saw in the C.P.R. pavilion at the
Toronto Exhibition. One party of six rods took
twenty-five of these monsters in a week's fishing
this summer eight miles above Fenton's Camp.

The other fishes of Georgian Bay appear to
include salmon and great lake trout, which only
the Indians catch with any system, pike, pickerel
(or dore), perch and a few of no moment to the
angler. The Indians in the Reservation at Pickerel
are Chippewas of Algonquin stock. They have
preserved the splendid aquiline features, with eyes
to match, of the " penny dreadful " Indian of our
school-days, but the modern dress, with collars
and cufflinks and their hair cut short, is a change
for the worse, and recurring epidemics of measles,
with one or two less polite ailments that they like-
wise owe to civilization, have undermined their
constitution and made softer men of them than
their forbears. My own Indian, with whom I
stayed on a little island far removed from the
camp, rejoiced in the name of Wellington Mad-
wayosh. The first name was in all probability
self -bestowed, and I understand that some of these
Indian guides change their name from time to
time, for reasons as irreproachable, let us hope,
as those which prompt similar fancies in white

f2

84 THEIR LANGUAGE

men. Madwayosh, however, is, I believe, pukka
Chippewa. I found him a most obliging and
intelligent companion, silent at times, like all his
race, but communicative enough whenever I
sought information, and most painstaking in
teaching me the few words of Chippewa that I
asked for. Just as, a year earlier, I had, in the
intervals of catching fish, taken lessons in Turkish
and modern Greek from my Levantine gillie on
the Marmora, so here, at the edge of the Canadian
lakes, I compiled a brief vocabulary from my
Chippewa. The Indian language must be a
fascinating one, so descriptive are its words. Thus
the word for horse is, as near as I could write it
from his pronunciation, Pahsegogeshee, It cannot
be claimed that this is a very easy word for, let
us say, continual reference on Newmarket Heath,
but it becomes more intelligible when we learn
that it means an animal with a single toe. The
Chippewa child, therefore, learns comparative
anatomy with his first lisping efforts at speech.
Similarly, the word for cow is beshike, which
denotes an animal that can push with its horns.
How much more suggestive are these words than
our own, which, apart from their associations,
convey no meaning whatever to anyone but a
professor of languages.

A SELFISH POLICY 85

I have said that Madwayosh was silent. An
American acquaintance subsequently told me that
I ought to have loosened his tongue with whisky.
He himself had made his Indian " full," and had
had great sport in consequence. Now, I am not
out to reform the world. I leave such trifling
enterprise to Father Bernard Vaughan. But, on
the other hand, I will not pander to these wholly
unnatural tastes in a race corrupted by its white
neighbours. As a matter of fact, I abstained,
while in camp, myself, for which, indeed, I take
very little credit, as the whisky obtainable in
country districts of Canada is hardly up to the
standard of White Horse Cellar ! My Indian
admitted that whisky was the undoing of his
people, making them " mad " to fight. At other
times, he assured me, they are peaceable enough,
but very Httle whisky upsets them. Some men,
even if they do not find pleasure in seeing their
guides drunk, take the selfish view that, if they are
to have a good time and get aU the sport they can,
it is best to give the Indians unlimited Hquor.
This hopelessly demoralizes these grown-up children,
besides spoiling the market for those who come after.

Not only was my Indian silent, but he had a
very pecuUar habit of minding his own business.
Reflecting on this eccentricity during the homeward

86 PADDLING THE CANOE

voyage, where folks usually while away the time
by minding the affairs of their neighbours, I was
inclined to see good in it. At the same time, it
must be confessed that Wellington's absorption
in his own business could, on occasion, be pushed
to extremes. One morning, for instance, I missed
my footing on a loose stepping-stone and measured
my length on a rock, where I lay at the edge of
deep water. Though he looked sympathetic, my
companion neither spoke nor came to my assist-
ance, but sat in the canoe smoking one of my
cigars. Yet the moment I called him to help
me up, he moved with such alacrity as is possible
in those of his race. That he had not intervened
sooner was not from lack of goodwill. The matter
had been none of his business ; that was all.

Here, then, in these vast and silent waters,
was the paddling Indian that I had, two months
earlier, been so disappointed not to find on the
Miramichi. This was the real thing : the portage
round waterfalls, the swift and silent paddle, the
companionship of a brave, disguised, it is true,
in the raiment of Chicago, yet unmistakably the
real thing. I even acquired some little skill with
the paddle, an infinitely easier implement than the
pole, and I found it possible to fish with comfort
and safety out of this kind of canoe.

CHAPTER V.

NEW SCOTLAND.

Early Scotch Settlers — Highlanders and Lowlanders — Presbyterian
and Roman Catholic — The American Farmer — An Indian Jockey —
Passing of the Redskin — His Character and Ethics — A Bad Habit of
Tourists — Prohibition in Nova Scotia — The Bore at Moncton — Photo-
graphy under Difficulties — A Coal Strike — Sydney N.S. and Sydney,
N.S.W. — Climate of Eastern Canada — the Settlers — Trapping — The
Englishtown Giant — The Future.

Nova Scotia, the ultimate goal of my eastward
ramble through the Maritime Provinces, has been
Scotch at heart, with interludes of French occupa-
tion and German settlement, ever since Stirling's
gaunt colonists estabhshed themselves in a land
which curiously reproduces their Lowland home.
True, it was not until the last quarter of the
eighteenth century that the forerunners of the
present population were attracted by the promise
of cheap land and a damp, cold climate that
softened the pangs of nostalgia. It cannot be
denied that much of the land is barren as well as
cheap, which only makes it more amazing that these
thrifty Scotch farmers should have contrived to
wring their living out of such unpromising material.
Yet, though rocks loom forbiddingly in the midst

88 THE AMERICAN FARMER

of arable land, there must be acres enough of
tractable soil to support the descendants of the
pioneers to the tenth generation.

Long, however, before crossing the border of
Nova Scotia and Cape Breton, now an integral
part of the province, the traveller finds himseK
in an environment strangely reminiscent of the
Old Country, and N.B. serves equally for North
Britain and New Brunswick. The Highlanders,
true to their instincts, made for the higher levels,
and the Lowlanders kept to the plains, but inter-
marriages have bridged many of these gaps,
though the very considerable population of Roman
Catholic Scotch keeps strictly to itself and has
little truck with the children of the kirk. The
predominance of the Scottish element in this
region is unmistakable. Isolated towns, like
Chatham, may show a majority of Irishry, while
here and there, as at Rogerville, the old French
element may survive ; but for the most part the
Scotch are immeasurably in the ascendant, and it
is said that Pictou County contains more Presby-
terian ministers than any other in Canada. And
what of the American farmer ? Well, he is
everywhere, turning wheat into dollars, but
troubling httle with local politics. Those who
habitually deplore this accession of Americans

DECAY OF THE REDSKIN 89

to the agricultural districts of Canada should
try to understand the causes. The American is
ever readier than his English rival to take a risk.
He brings both capital and knowledge, whereas
the Englishman is too commonly provided with
only the former. Moreover, he assimilates more
readily with the Canadian, thinking in dollars
instead of in pounds, sharing the same slang,
and generally adopting the same views of both
business and pleasure.

It was at Moncton that I found a group of
Americans the cynosure of all eyes. They were
touring the country with a string of racehorses,
giving a two-days meeting at the chief centres,
an itinerant mode of catering, doubtless dictated
by the strenuous legislation lately enacted against
this form of sport in their own free country.
These gentlemen were attended by the usual
constellation of undesirable satellites which in-
evitably revolve around the promoters of what
should be a splendid sport, and the most interesting
of these was a full-blooded Indian chief, whose
lucrative occupation is that of jockey. Oh, what
a fall was there ! No longer does the brave scour
the prairie, hanging the scalp of the paleface on
his saddle. He rides for a wage and touches the
peak of his cap to his conqueror. The spectacle

90 HIS TRUE CHARACTER

of this fallen chief earning his livelihood by such
means was a grim reminder of the swift disappear-
ance of the North American Indian — I suppose
the term " Amerind " is scientifically preferable,
but it looks pedantic — from the face of the globe
with, seemingly, no effort to keep his own memory
green. He built no dwelling more durable than
the wigwam that crumbled with the rains. Of
written traditions he had none, and his oral
history was at the mercy of every charlatan.
Without remains, architectural or literary, what
hope could the race have of survival in the chronicles
of vanished nations ? As a matter of fact, they
would be the last to regret the oblivion into which
they have passed, for the Indian lived in the
moment, treating his yesterdays as other nations
treat their kings. The day was dead ; long live
the day ! So he is gone to the happy hunting
grounds, and, whether we judge him by the
romantic presentments of Fenimore Cooper or
by the miserable remnant languishing in reserva-
tions under Government protection, it must be
admitted that finer races have been eliminated
in the march of time. Yet it is doubtful whether
the true character of the Indian wiU ever be known.
One of the most readable and informing books
on the traditions and home life of the Indians

OBJIBEWAYS AND MICMACS 91

(Blackfeet Tribe) is "The Old North Trail"
by Walter McClintock, recently published by
Maomillans. In this work, which is profusely
illustrated with plain and coloured photographs,
Mr. McClintock, who was actually adopted by
the tribe, living with them under an Indian name
meaning " White Weasel Moccasin," gives a
detailed account of their rites and customs, their
beliefs and social relations, which, in view of the
paucity of such first-hand descriptions, is of
absorbing interest and great ethnological value.
We are too apt to base our estimate on the equally
misleading verdict of white men ever in deadly
feud with his tribes, or of romancers bent on endow-
ing him with noble qualities that, in all probability,
he never displayed. Not all the tribes were alike
in their ethics, particularly in the distinction
between their own property and that of their
neighbours. The Objibeways, for instance, were
admittedly honest, whereas the Micmacs, who
formerly roamed over New Brunswick and Nova
Scotia, had a weakness for pilfering. Of the
former great tribe it is related that they so
scrupulously respected the belongings of others
that one of their number could safely stow his
winter outfit, consisting of sledges, snowshoes and
other paraphernalia, under a layer of boughs and

92 AN EXCHANGE THAT IS ROBBERY

then mark the spot with a bent sapling, confident
that none who passed that way would touch the
cache that held his worldly goods. Not so
scrupulous, I regret to say, are some of the
American tourists who make holiday in the back-
woods, for these have been known to remove the
interesting " souvenirs," leaving in their place
bills to an amount exceeding their value. In such
manner, no doubt, they set their consciences at
rest, not pausing to reflect how little use their
paper money is to some poor Indian who had a
right to expect that he would find his winter
outfit intact when he came back for it. Yet
when he makes reprisal and steals the white
man's chickens or other portable property, he is
hounded down for a thief. True, he omits the
superfluous compliment of leaving money in
exchange, but for all the good such legal tender
is to a trapper with fifty thousand acres of un-
trodden snow between him and the nearest bank,
the American collector might almost as well
have done the same.

Prohibition law runs in this region of Canada.
Having considered the arguments for and against
this maternal policy in an earlier volume, I gladly
leave the subject for others to discuss. If it
achieves the half of what is claimed for it, emptying

PROHIBITION 93

the prisons and filling the savings banks, then it
is more honoured in the observance than in the
breach. If, on the other hand, it encourages
men to drink in solitude and, at the same time,
facilitates the sale of liquor of dreadful quality,
then more lenient legislation is to be preferred.
Evasion will always be easy, for the police enforce
such restrictions only in a half-hearted way,
and those who can afford to oil a palm here and
there may have all the whisky they want. Some
of it is of such grade as to remind the victim of
the parvenu whose guest very rudely met his
hospitable suggestion to :

" Have another glass of port, my boy ? This is
port, if you like ! " with the rejoinder :

" Thanks. Is it ? "

In vain I sought some label with which
I had been familiar in the Old Country.
Here were only such brews as could, with a
wide margin of profit, be palmed off on
undiscriminating palates whetted by the diffi-
culties put in the way of satisfaction. It is
perhaps in ungrateful memory of such draughts
as wrung my withers that I am unfriendly
to the legislation of which the Province is so
proud.

"ApUTTOV fxtv vS<i)p !

94 THE BAY OF FUNDY

In the warm light of a July moon I went out
on the quay at Moncton to meet the famous bore,
that thriving little city's one celebrity. The
Moncton bore is not dull like other bores, but full
of life and movement. It is, in fact, a tidal bore,
connecting with the Bay of Fundy, which holds
the world record for rise and fall. Moncton is on
the Petitcodiac River, which, thanks to this
inrush of the Atlantic Ocean penned in between
narrow shores, undergoes twice within the twenty-
four hours the most remarkable transformation
from mud to deep water and back again. It is
the correct thing to view this phenomenon by
moonlight, and the effect is certainly impressive.
At first, perhaps ten minutes before the coming
of the wave, all is silence out on the mud flats,
their blackness illumined only by a broad band of
light beneath the moon. Then, far away on our
left, comes a faint hissing, gaining in volume
until, suddenly, a long line of silver foam rolls
through that narrow streak of silver and has
passed on to the right. Five or six feet high
was its crest, and it is followed by tumultuous
waters that swiftly make a mighty river of what,
a minute earlier, was a swamp. It is the most
extraordinary transformation in the time con-
ceivable, one moment a playground for frogs

PHOTOGRAPHING A BORE 95

that go a-wooing, the next a stately stream that
would float Canada's coming navy. Rarely does
Nature display such talent as quick-change artist.
To appreciate the actual significance of this curious
tide, one must witness the bore by daylight also.
The effect may, perhaps, be disappointing, for,
no longer under the witching spell of the moon,
the eye takes a more prosaic view of the scene,
seeing merely a long and curling wave of unclean
water rushing over the mud. Nor is the falling
of the tide accompanied by any corresponding
sensation, for the Petitcodiac finds descent more
difficult than climbing, and the tide goes out more
slowly than it comes in. Yet the daylight view
is at any rate chastening to the photographer who
may have come casually to make a picture of the
bore. Unless he be the veriest bungler that ever
pointed a Kodak, he will see at a glance that here
is no subject for the photographer who is here
to-day and gone to-morrow. I had already
suspected something of the difficulty of standpoint
and perspective on the occasion of my moonlight
visit, and, on a second inspection, next morning's
tide confirmed me in the impression that it was
hopeless. I was therefore obliged to visit Mr.
Northrupp, a local photographer, who, after three
years of disappointments, at length obtained a

96 A GOOD SPORTSMAN

picture of the bore that is a triumph of photo-
graphy under difficulties. To get it in this aspect,
he had to stand, with his tripod in the ooze, and
then, having taken his picture, to bolt like a
rabbit before the angry waters. This sort of
obstacle might be attractive to anyone making
a longer stay in the neighbourhood, but to myself,
with only the clothes I stood up in unpacked, it
held out no inducement, and I am, therefore, glad
to give a reproduction of Mr. Northrupp's picture,
which is admittedly the best ever taken of the
bore.

It was at Moncton that I met one of the keenest
fishermen and most selfless sportsmen in all my
experience. It is years since Mr. Edward Hickson,
an official of the Intercolonial Railway, was
compelled, owing to heart trouble, to lay the rod
on the shelf. Such an embargo might have
soured a nature less sweetened by the open life,
but he, on the contrary, able to fight again only
in memory the battles with the salmon of the
North Shore, which he caught ever since he could
hold a rod, cannot do enough to help fellow sports-
men on their way. I found him in the worst of
health, but, even so, he had gone to endless trouble,
previous to my arrival, to arrange an outing for
me on club water in the Restigouche and Mata-

SYDNEY, CAPE BRETON 97

pedia, a programme upset by the Campbelltown
fire, which, alas, put an end to other schemes of
greater moment, rendering thousands homeless,
and exciting the sympathy of not only all Canada,
but also of her powerful neighbour, who responded
generously to the call on his purse. Mr. Hickson
was a living encyclopaedia on all matters pertaining
to the North Shore salmon rivers, and was eager
to impart his wonderful information to younger
sportsmen ignorant of the district. It is the
experience of most travellers to bring back
to their own hearth some memory of these
ships that pass in the night, hailing them
sympathetically : —

" . . Only a look and a voice, then, darkness again and silence. . "

Indeed, it is a poor journey that does not leave
at least one regret of the kind. Perhaps I have
been unusually lucky, for my gallery of friends
half made and then lost is a very long one, and
Mr. Hickson's portrait hangs on the line.

From Moncton, still on the Intercolonial Rail-
way, I came by way of Canso Strait, across which
the train is conveyed by ferry, into Cape Breton
Island and Sydney, its chief port, a haven strangely
reminiscent of the other Sydney, where the sky,

untouched by those Northern Lights that succeed

G

98 TWO SYDNEYS

the violescent sunsets of the Canadian night,
has its Southern Cross to help the navigator on
his way. Of the two Sydneys, the Canadian is
the senior, but the AustraHan is the more beautiful.
To those, however, who have never sailed around
its bays, past green headlands crowned with villas
and laid out by the arts of the landscape gardener,
the Cape Breton port is attractive enough as an
anchorage for mercantile shipping, as a play-
ground for yachts and motor boats, or as a source
of ozone for the congested lungs of those who toil
in the neighbouring coal mines. Away from the
waterside, the northern Sydney is immeasurably
inferior to its greater namesake in the southern
ocean, consisting, in fact, of a single street of
shops, with one or two others occupied by the
residents. It has on,e comfortable hotel, the
Sydney, the manager of which, Mr. J. I. Robinson,
tmderstudied Providence for n^y benefit, with
a patience all but divine, so long as I was in
the neighbourhood. Considering the immense
difficulties in the way of procuring fresh meat and
other material in this outlying margin of the
Dominion, the Sydney keeps a very creditable
table. Those who, fresh from the demoralizing
variety provided by an " Empress," or from the
well-served meals of the Place Viger or Frontenac,

SYDNEY'S FORMER PROSPERITY 99

turn up their noses at the simpler fare of the
Sydney, should try some of the lesser houses of
refreshment in Cape Breton. Prom the meagre
choice offered along these sidetracks they will
return to the Sydney and think themselves at
Sherry's.

The glory of Sydney is, in some measure,
departed, and its fame to-day rests chiefly on the
fact that it was the last civilized port from which
Peary set out for his final conquest of the Pole.
Of old, it was a favourite haven with the Spanish
navigators, but the drift ice in spring forms a
dangerous barrier reef forty or fifty miles off the
shore and, what with this and the local ice of
winter, Sydney is closed to trafl&c for four or
five months in the year. Louisburg, on the other
hand, is always open water, safe, accessible,
landlocked, and five hundred miles or there-
abouts nearer Liverpool than is New York. The
wealth of Sydney is rather in its coal mines and
steel works, now an amalgamated concern, with
its headquarters at the neighbouring town of
Glace Bay. A determined strike paralysed the trade
for nearly a year and ended only a few months
ago. It was marked by many deeds of violence,
thanks to the baneful influence of American
agitators on the miners of many nationalities,

g2

100 A WIND-SWEPT COAST

and the situation was only saved by enrolling
an efficient force of special constables and calling
out the militia. It is said that even now there
are so many " bad men " about the streets of
Sydney that it is unsafe to be out alone at night.
My own experience of the place in those hours
is limited to the short distance between the Sydney
and the comfortable Yacht Club, which gave me
of its hospitality during my stay, and no one tried
either to murder or to rob me.

The climate of Sydney is curiously unlike that
of its namesake in Australia. Here are no
languorous summer nights, but always a cold
snap, even in July and August, when blankets are
welcome and a light overcoat not to be despised.
I believe that the climate of Lower Canada ranges
from 30° to 100°, so that in winter it must be
fit only for Shackleton's penguins. Moreover,
being damp, with generous contributions of fog
from the banks of Newfoundland, the winter cold
is much more trying than farther west, where the
atmosphere is so dry that a much greater fall of
the thermometer has less effect. This aspect of
Canada is also wind-swept on nine days out of
ten, a condition that, however encouraging to
yachtsmen, is less welcome to those who aim at
the capture of big fish on calm seas, which, with

A CONTRAST 101

Sydney as my headquarters, was the end and aim
of my visit to Cape Breton.

Apart from the disappointment with the tuna,
of which, indeed, I never had very sanguine hopes,
my month on Cape Breton was in many ways
enjoyable. True, the island could not, by any
stretch of imagination, be called either beautiful
or romantic. Indeed, the gorgeous sunsets over
Sydney harbour and the wooded heights of St.
Ann's, an occasional evening effect on the Mira
River and one unforgettable daybreak on the
Canso Strait are the only beautiful memories of
my stay. Such a country could scarcely be
regarded as a paradise for a summer holiday as
compared with the lovely backwater of Anatolia,
where I spent much of the preceding summer.
With its courteous old Turkish farmers and its
cheery Armenian fishermen, its proud mountains,
its eternal sunshine, its bounteous cherry orchards
and its satisfying sport, the Gulf of Ismidt will
certainly hold a warmer place in my affections
than the rugged coastHne of Cape Breton, with its
solemn Scotch folk, its grey skies, its simple com-
missariat and its wholly unsympathetic fish.
Yet there are many who would give the preference
to the coolness of its summer climate and the
complete absence of those domestic insects which,

102 THE SETTLERS

it cannot be denied, impart to life in the mj^sterious
East moments of anything but pleasurable excite-
ment. During my month in Cape Breton, I saw
just one flea, and of those less mentionable but as
constant companions of my Turkish nights on what
Thackeray calls " bedding suggestive of anything
but sleep," not so much as a trace.

In that northern land, so cool, even in summer,
that it is hard to realize that it is on the same
latitude as the Riviera, there are not wanting the
elements of picturesqueness. There is pathos,
too, in those thrifty Presbyterian communities,
whom the minister, narrow and severe, rules
with an iron rod, where once the kindly old parish
priest led with a silken cord, though there are
settlements of Scotch Roman Catholics also, chiefly
from the Uist. Their farms are, for the most part,
of the poorest, yet, having cleared a few of their
hundred acres of the encroaching soft woods, they
till their modest potato patch or their little
crop of oats all the week and on Sundays flock to
hear God's word in the Gaelic. Indeed, so closely
associated in my travels is the tunny with Mediter-
ranean countries, or with the mist - wreathed
heights of Madeira, that the little Presbyterian
kirk overlooking the inner fishing grounds at
Englishtown struck the one incongruous note.

MICMAC INDIANS 103

Of the IMicmac Indians, a few hundred of whom
survive, under Government protection, on the
island, I saw nothing, though a number of them
were busy one day picking blueberries on a moun-
tainside overlooking my fishing grounds. They
are anything but hard workers, though capable
of excellent cooperage, and they seem to be just
holding their own, though for many years after
the final overthrow of French supremacy they
dwindled in numbers, many of them migrating to
the remaining French possessions, where they
seem to have received better treatment than at
the hands of the English. This, if true, is singular,
for if we compare the French treatment of ces
cochons cPindigenes in Algeria with our own of
the native races in Egypt and in India, the
advantage is aU on the British side, yet somehow
the conquering race seems at first to have fallen
short of its obhgations in the lands of the west.
Nowadays, on the contrary, the Indians are being
killed with kindness.

On the east coast of Cape Breton Island, a
little south of Sydney, and at the southern ter-
minus of the Dominion Company's Eailroad,
which runs from that port through Glace Bay
and Mira, stands all that is left of " Louisburg,"
once the last hope of the Lilies of France, but

104 THE RAVAGES OF TIME

to-day the saddest spectacle in the Province of
Nova Scotia, passed over by trade, abandoned
by its own sons, truly, like Hawthorne's Salem,
a crumbling town over which to write Ichahod !

Yet what curious flashes of old history, made
and unmade, come back to those who moralize
amid its ruins, what strange memories of loyal
American Colonies (Connecticut, Massachusetts
and New Hampshire) fighting for the honour of
King George II. against the veterans of Louis of
France. Not yet had the streets of Paris run
with the red horror of Revolution ; not yet had
the baleful star of Napoleon risen over the dark
horizon of Europe. And now British suzerainty
over Connecticut and Massachusetts is as dead
as the Monarchy in France, and Louisburg is as
dead as the Bourbons for whose might it once
stood firm against the thunder of the Atlantic
and the cannon of the Elector of Hanover.

It is to the Declaration of Independence that
the Province of Nova Scotia owes the sturdy
backbone of its population, for it was on the
signing of that document by the emancipated
colonists that twenty thousand United Empire
Loyalists — Scotch, Irish and English — declined
to live under the Republican flag, rebuffed all
overtures of conciliation, and trekked north across

DESCENDANTS OF LOYALISTS 105

the border, where, side by side, with Gael, Celt
and Saxon direct from the Old Country, their
great-grandchildren are the thrifty farmers of
Cape Breton to-day. The descendants of these
loyal King's men muster strong in Louisburg,
where, on the other hand, not a single French
family is left.

Reference has already been made to the siege
of 1745, of which the French had such good
cause to be proud. A crumbled bastion and
two mouldering bomb-proof shelters, with a monu-
ment of mtodern erection, are all that mark the
scene of what must have been an heroic resist-
ance. How the gallant inhabitants contrived to
hold out so long against overwhelming forces on
land and sea is a mystery on which casual inspection
of the position throws no light, for here is neither
a Gibraltar nor a Quebec, perched on some com-
manding rock with sheer approaches, but a little
town exposed to every side, lying among sand
dunes and open to the ocean. Consider, too,
for a moment the relative forces engaged, the
figures of which are copied from the monument
erected in 1895 by the Society of Colonial Wars.
The defenders had v/ithin the town only two
thousand five hundred regulars and militia, com-
manded by General Duchambon. The British,

106 THE DESERTED VILLAGE

on the other hand, mustered four thousand
provincials, under Lieutenant-General Pepperrell,
supported by two considerable fleets. In the
British fleet, under Commodore Warren, were ten
sail and five hundred guns ; in the provincial,
under Captain Tyng, sixteen armed vessels, eighty
transports and two hundred and forty guns. All
in all, it seems remarkable that the siege should
not have been over in a week instead of lasting,
as it did, for many months, during which the
attacking force had to employ every device of
tunnel, mine and frontal assault.

Seeing that, unlike the rival port of Sydney,
Louisburg has open water all the year round,
and that it is connected with the other by rail,
it should be the first port of Cape Breton Island,
It is not. During the middle of the day, in
August, I once saw three human beings in Main
Street, while in Wolfe Street, which follows the
curve of the bay to the old town, cows were
peacefully grazing and farmers getting in their
hay ! The magnificent harbour was as deserted
as the town, and the only craft on its otherwise
unruffled waters was a solitary racing cutter,
which seemed unable even to find a rival. In
vain does the lighthouse flash its warning over
the outer ocean, for ships neither come nor go in

OLD CANNON AT LOUISBURG STATION.

-«;l«'^- ~".-1«Z ■%;■''«.' '.^-vii

RUINED '-bomb-proof" SHELTERS, LOUISBURG.

106]

OLD CANNON 107

summer, though during the months in which
Sydney is ice-bound, coal is perforce shipped from
Louisburg. He who has the curiosity to enquire
on the spot into the meaning of Louisburg' s
decay finds himself baffled by mysterious allusions
to hidden forces operating against the place in
favour of the more northern port, which is nearer
the headquarters of the allied steel and coal
companies.

At any rate, whatever the cause, the traveller
will have no difficulty in realizing that here is
perhaps the saddest spectacle of a city's downfall
in all his experience. Batoum, on the Black
Sea, is depressing since the decay of the oil trade,
but Batoum is to Louisburg as Birmingham to
Berwick. No longer, indeed, a city, Louisburg
will, with a little more emigration, cease to rank
even as a town. It is conceivable, indeed, that
in a few years the old French cannon, which
guard the little railway station, will be the only
relics of an age that has passed away, and that they
will be removed for preservation in the Halifax
Museum when Louisburg is no more. It is
hardly to be imagined that new vitality will be
infused into its being, though great things are
expected of the coming of the C.P.R. into Nova
Scotia ; and prophecy is dangerous in those

108 CELT, SAXON AND GAEL

countries of swift and incredible developments.
If its revival never comes, the pilgrim may wonder
whether it was worth while to take so much from
France and to make so little of it !

St. Ann's Bay was formerly in great measure
inhabited by EngHsh and Irish settlers, but these
were driven from their strongholds by the Gael,
even as the moose is driven out of vast tracts of
forest land by the deer. The Celt and Saxon
removed to Ingonish, and the Gael remained in
St. Ann's, farming and fishing, both in a hap-
hazard style just sufficiently productive to satisfy
his modest needs, and seemingly without any
notion of bettering himself by raising produce for
outside markets. Yet he is, on the whole, a happy
Gael, for there is no man over him, and he glories
in the thought that his acres, however unproductive,
are his own and his children's for all time. The
soil may be rocky, and the timber unmarketable ;
they are his, even as the lean kine and shrivelled
sheep that wander sadly over the unyielding
pastures. I asked one of the less unprosperous
farmers on the bay how it was that Scotsmen,
with the national eye to possibilities, ever came
to settle on such unpromising soil when there
were millions of better acres in Canada for the
taking.

AN EXPLANATION 109

*' Well," he said. " It was like this. Someone
wandered out here and was too tired to go any-
farther. Then, feeling kind of lonesome, I guess
he wrote to some friend of his in another part of
the country and told him he should come here as
well. And then the pair of them, wanting more
company, set about attracting others, and so the
colony grew."

The sequel to this innocent deception was that
many of the old settlers moved still further on —
to New Zealand !

Another native of St. Ann's assured me that
his grandfather migrated there after service with
the Hudson Bay Company in the Saskatchewan
section, under the mistaken notion that the land
was as good as out west, and that, once in Cape
Breton, he found it impossible to get away again.
Yet, bad as is much of the soil, I suspect that the
apathy of the farmers is not a little to blame.
They are as honest as children, hating sin almost
as much as they hate fresh air, but nowhere else
have I met such sleepy Spanish-Scotch folk.
Spaniards, indeed, plan at any rate for to-morrow,
but these Cape Bretoners are all laying their plans
for eternity. They could surely raise fruit.
Nature reproves their backwardness with
bounteous crops of wild raspberries and blue-

110 PRIZES OF TRAPPING

berries, and the soil that will raise wild fruits
wiU, I imagine, with a little fertilizer and spade-
work, raise tame. When asked why they do not
cultivate orchards, they reply that there is no
market for fruit. Is this the spirit of their forbears
from the Hebrides ? Some few of them have been
demoralized at times by the easy profits of trapping.
I know of one boy who trapped a pure black fox
just behind his father's farm one winter's day
and got 175 dollars (over £35) for it, and that was
reckoned a very poor price. Who is going to
work hard with thirty-five guineas putting itself
in a trap ? Others prefer the higher wage and more
varied existence on board the steamers on the great
lakes ; and even the daughters are in revolt, seeking
situations in Boston or Montreal. So the farms
are left to the old folks at home, and they cannot
be blamed if they are slow to introduce new
methods. They are contented enough with their
hundred acres, theirs for all time at a purchase
price of forty dollars, and with no rent to pay,
and all improvements theirs and their heirs, and
at that let us leave them.

The biggest thing that Englishtown ever pro-
duced was Angus McAskill, a giant who measured
7 ft. 9 in. and weighed 30 stone. As a matter of
fact, this mighty Scotsman was born in the Old

THE ENGLISHTOWN GIANT 111

Country, in the Lewis, but, as he came to the
province as a puny child, it may fairly claim him as
its own. Like many who are strong, he was also
merciful and singularly opposed to deeds of violence,
so much so that he threw a wrestler, who challenged
him, over a woodpile 10 ft. high, and he shook
hands with a prizefighter, with similar ambitions,
so that the blood spurted from his finger tips.
On another occasion, when some of the local
fishermen played a practical joke on him by hauling
his boat over a high beach and into a pond, he
playfully tore the boat in half and threw one of
the jesters into the air. On the whole, then,
McAskill could not have given Englishtown
many dull moments, and it must have missed him
sadly when he was on tour with Tom Thumb
and other dwarfs who furnished a welcome foil
to his inches. On returning from his tour of the
United States and Great Britain, which included
the honour of an audience of Queen Victoria,
McAskill set up a store, and I have been told by
those who remember him that he could take a
pound of tea out of the box in one grip of his right
hand, and there are women to this day in St.
Ann's who remember, as children, being frightened
to take his gifts of sugar. Well, his elephantine
ashes he beneath a 12-ft. mound in the little church-

112 FUTURE OF CAPE BRETON ISLAND

yard, marked by a granite tombstone that records
all manner of virtues, which, in all probability,
he himself, dear ogre, never suspected. A more
accurate estimate sets him down as an habitual
smoker and a moderate indulger in intoxicating
liquor. Also, he was a Presbyterian, and died of
brain fever. May this human mammoth rest in
peace until the blast of the last trumpet brings
him to his feet again !

Is there the possibility of sleepy Cape Breton
awaking to a new era of prosperity ? Short of
a miracle, this looks to be out of the question.
Yet there is surely something anomalous in the
backwardness of a Scotch province with such
geographical advantages. Quite apart from its
agricultural resources, which are not, I imagine, of
the first order, and from its mineral wealth in coal,
iron and gypsum, which is undeniable, it ought,
one would think from a glance at the map, to stand
in the foremost rank in the transit trade. Sydney
lies more than 800 miles nearer Liverpool than does
New York. It is, in fact, with the exception of
those in Newfoundland, the easternmost port of
the North American continent. True, it is blocked
by ice during the winter months, but there is
Louisburg, open all the year for the sale of coal
at mine prices. Why these proximate ports should

A RIDDLE 113

be neglected for the benefit of Rimouski, I do not
pretend to know and ought not perhaps to ask.
There are usually wheels within wheels that it is
no part of the tourist to poke his nose into. Poking
one's nose into a wheel might be painful anyway,
so I gladly leave the solution of the mystery to
hardier seekers after truth.

CHAPTER VI.
The Land of Evangeline.

The Canso Strait as a Barrier — Halifax Contrasted with St. John —
Madame Melba's Tour — The Reversible Falls — Longfellow's Imagina-
tion— Fate of the Old French Settlers — Policy versus Sentiment — The
Fireweed — The Apple Industry — Scenery and Tradition — A Comfort-
able Steamer — The Ashes of Campbelltown — Last Impressions of
Quebec — Journey's Ending — Emigrants.

My ineffectual raid on the tuna of Cape Breton
having, as already described, come to its con-
clusion, I once more crossed the Canso Strait,
this time bound for the smiling Annapolis Valley,
as I wanted to see its apple orchards and to feel
the romance of its association with Longfellow's
poem " Evangeline," which has invested the grassy
plains round Grand Pre with a glamour otherwise
remote from such homely scenery.

The Canso Strait, a mile wide at its narrowest
part, is at times either frozen over or blocked with
drift ice, but is never closed to traffic for more
than a matter of hours, and is crossed by the train
on a scow, a sudden change of movement which
wakes most of those asleep in their berths. It
has, however, proved an effectual barrier to some

THE RESPECTABILITY OF HALIFAX 115

animals less inventive than man. The skunk and
porcupine, for instance, are notable absentees
from the fauna of the island, though plentiful
on the mainland. On the other hand, moose,
bear and deer have no difficulty in crossing,
either swimming or on the ice, and there has been
a continuous migration of big game, for the most
part, it seems, in the direction of the mainland.

My first halt was at Halifax, which, leaving
Sydney the last thing at night, I reached early
next morning. Originally built as a rampart
against the French and as an asylum from the
Indians, Halifax was then our naval and military
headquarters in eastern Canada. In course of
time, even that use lapsed, and it now wears the
nunc dimittis air of a city that has done its best,
but is no longer needed. It is, in fact, just an ex-
garrison town, laid out in pleasant residences and
gardens, with a great cemetery, long since disused,
in the heart of its streets, and an atmosphere of
official respectability more in keeping with its
former status than with its more recent endeavour
to keep pace with its rivals in the commercial
world. I suspect that its ambition to do so is
but half-hearted, for, compared with St. John,
across the Bay of Fundy, to which I came later,
it is a town without trade, more like Bournemouth

H 2

I

116 THE HUSTLE OF ST. JOHN

than Bristol ; rich, indeed, but in its own right,
and without any struggle for the dollars. It
recalled, in fact, something of the suburban
quarters of New Orleans, though the warm colour
of the south is lacking, and, apart from its water
front, which may be admirably viewed from the
roof-garden of the Queen Hotel, and from its
public gardens, ablaze with flowers and planted
with splendid trees that shade the trim paths and
level lawns, the capital of Nova Scotia cannot
lay claim to any rare beauty, though officers of
the mailboats that make both their winter ports
of call prefer it to St. John.

The two ports, so near on the map, could hardly
be more unlike. But for the possession of the
St. John River, a magnificent asset, no doubt,
in the lumber and salmon trades, the commercial
capital of New Brunswick looks at first sight far
behind its vis-a-vis in position ; yet its commerce
is incomparably greater, the result, I imagine,
of more strenuous effort on the part of its citizens,
who put business first and last, whereas many of
the oldest residents of Halifax are still imbued
with a military distaste for trade. As a result,
while St. John is all bustle and hustle, its main
street a miniature replica of the Marseilles Canne-
biere, though without either its gaiety or its

A SINGER'S TRIUMPH 117

bouillabaisse, its cars crowded, and its population
ever on the move, Halifax preserves the old spirit
of Acadie, its comfortable citizens drowsing
peacefully in their shady avenues and gardens
and resenting the deserving efforts of the Chamber
of Commerce to awaken a proper spirit of rivalry
with its neighbour. They are more likely to enter
with enthusiasm into the new era of naval occupa-
tion, when, in place of the English battleships, a
new Canadian navy shall proudly ride at anchor
in their splendid harbour. Many ports have been
mentioned in connection with this phantom fleet
of the near future, even poor deserted Louisburg ;
but, though others will doubtless serve as ports
of call, it is inconceivable that the headquarters
should be anywhere but at Halifax, a choice
dictated by strategic reasons, no less than by
tradition. Halifax is not the city to leave any
very strong impression on the bird of passage,
though the beauty of its gardens and the lungs of
its hackmen, who shout themselves hoarse at the
incoming of every train, are likely to be remem-
bered for some time. I arrived on the same day
as Melba, and the portrait of the diva, or what
purported to be such, was on every hoarding.
It was here that she opened her Canadian tour
and met with the first of a hundred ovations.

118 THE REVERSIBLE FALLS

Canadians, if not very distinguished musicians
themselves, are, at any rate, quick to appreciate
the real thing and are very critical of unsustained
pretensions. Halifax has a couple of fair hotels,
with but a house between, and its fruit shops are
attractive with the pears and plums of California,
though of local produce they showed at that season
little or none.

The one " lion " of St. John is its Reversible
Falls. Few will be prepared for the sight of water
falling uphill, but this is actually what happens,
though the reality may fall a little short of anticipa-
tion. Water, when we come to think of it, is the
worst climber in Nature. Only its unconquerable
habit of finding its own level gives it sufficient
energy to ascend. Otherwise, like Jack and Jill,
it invariably tumbles downhill. At St. John,
however, thanks once more to the Bay of Fundy,
it falls both ways in six hours. This is but another
freak of that amazing inlet. The tidal bore at
Moncton has already been figured and described.
On my way through the Annapolis Valley, which
has yet to be referred to, I stopped at Windsor at
the hour of high tide, and found a broad and
smiling river filled with shipping. Six hours
earlier or later I should not have seen a single
mast, but only a thousand acres of brown mud.

WINDSOR'S RIVER 119

for it is a fact that Windsor, though the third port
in this part of Canada, is a port only during four
hours out of the twenty-four. Such an amazing
transformation is unknown even elsewhere on the
Fundy coastline, and it prompted one traveller,
whose train passed Windsor at low water, to write
home that the Avon would seemingly be a very
beautiful river if only it had any water in it.
And now, after Moncton's bore and Windsor's
quick changes, came the Reversible Falls, which
may be pleasantly witnessed from a bridge that
spans the river gorge in the suburbs, a short car
drive, with one transfer, from the hotel. I was so
fortunate, with only one morning for choice, as
to find the Falls in the act of reversing an hour
before my train left, and the effect was certainly
very curious, more eccentric, indeed, though less
tremendous, than that of Niagara, where, all said
and done, a mass of water merely falls over a rock
because it cannot help itself. These Reversible
Falls, on the other hand, with their eternal coming
and going, give, more than ordinary estuarial
ebb and flow, the impression of perpetual motion.
Between Halifax and St. John lies a land of
orchards, now known as the Annapolis Valley,
but at one time, if we may beheve Longfellow,
covered with big timber.

120 POETIC LICENSE

** Still stands the Forest primeval ; but under the shade of its
branches

Dwells another race, with other customs and language."

It must be confessed that conditions are changed,
the only timber visible from the pastures of Grand
Pre to-day being very youthful birch. It seems
inconceivable that the old forest trees, presumably
soft woods, as elsewhere in this section, should
still have been standing in Longfellow's time, and
there are those, indeed, who boldly assert that the
poet never saw with his own eyes the scenes that
he has touched with such magic as to make them
for all time a shrine for tourists, even as
Washington Irving made the Catskills, with his
equally plausible story of Rip Van Winkle.
Needless to say, Basil the Blacksmith did not
actually exist, any more than the prosperous
farmer, the guileless notary and other pleasant
creatures of the poetic imagination; but to me,
running through the beautiful apple country that
looks across the ocean to Cape Blomidon, they
seemed very real, and I understood the emotions
of young American girls who looked out through
brimming eyes on the well and willows — all that
remain of Grand Pre — while they recited, in accents
peculiarly their own, such snatches of the poem
as they could recall. All that can be said (in the

THE VANISHED ACADIANS 121

absence of biographical dictionaries or other works
of reference) is that, if Longfellow did not actually
see Grand Pre for himself, he made wonderful
use of knowledge acquired at second hand, for no
lines could better render the fierce ebb and flow
of the neighbouring Bay of Fundy than those
in which —

*' Back to its nethermost caves retreated the bellowing ocean,
Dragging adown the beach the rattling pebbles, and leaving
Inland and far up the shore the stranded boats of the
sailors."

" Where," asks the poet, " are the hearts that once
* leaped like the roe ? ' " Well, they are not even at
rest under the sod, for they were exiled ; the
French peasants of Acadie being banished even as
they had banished the Micmacs. The memory
of the English Governor has been reviled for this
seemingly harsh act, but these thrifty tillers of
Grand Pre, holding to their old allegiance to the
Lilies in despite of treaties, must have been a
sharp thorn in his side. Policy had to come before
sentiment, and the Acadians had to go. Seen
through Longfellow's eyes, the transaction looks
mean beyond question, but a cooler survey of the
facts will more than justify the action of Governor
Lawrence. It is not even as if the French were
the first white men in the land, for it had been

122 FOREST FIRES AND VEGETATION

colonized by Stirling's Scotsmen more than a
century earlier. Yet the French were undoubtedly
the first to get the best out of the rich alluvial
soil, stemming the tides of Fundy with their
impregnable dykes and tilling their acres as they
do to this day in their own fertile country.

Well, the " Forest primeval " is no longer
standing, but in its place is birch, which invariably
alternates with the softwoods after a forest fire,
springing up, like a Phoenix from the ashes, little
less mysteriously than the red-blossomed fireweed.
Perhaps the fireweed is the more puzzling of the
two, for the secret of its propagation does not
appear to have been solved. The lightning spread
of the blueberry in new country, and particularly
on the sides of mountains, which has caused many
folks to wonder, is, after all, perfectly intelligible
when we take into account the offices of bears
and birds ; but the genesis of the fireweed savours
of miracle.

Round Grand Pre are some of the most productive
apple orchards I have seen outside of Devonshire,
and there is no difficulty in believing the statistics
which fix the year's export of apples at three-
quarters of a million barrels, which, according to
one authority, would, if placed end on end, reach
twenty miles further than from London to Edin-

^^4"^^

ANNAPOLIS APPLES 123

burgh. I am not, as a rule, partial to this graphic
method of statistical demonstration, because there
is not the slightest sense in picturing these barrels
arranged in such ridiculous order, but it certainly
impresses the importance of the Annapolis apple
on the homely mind friendly to such illustration.
Of the apple I am no immoderate lover, while
cider, even brewed on its native Devon soil, turns
my stomach, but the productive land in this part
of Acadie was undeniably restful to eyes that
had dwelt over long on the barren farms of Cape
Breton, the surface of which " provokes the wrath
of the farmer," and is of more personal interest
to the geologist. Not that the apple orchards
were free from taint, for everywhere the fatal
meshes of the tussock and the web worm may be
seen, even from the passing train. Still, the Anna-
polis Valley is the best cultivated country on this
side of Canada, and the red and white cattle
grazing along the muddy banks of rapid rivers,
and the little hayricks, kept out of the rising
waters by wooden pedestals, testify to the pros-
perity of the farms.

Those who seek splendid scenery will not find
it hereabouts, nor, for the matter of that, anywhere
to my knowledge in the province of Nova Scotia.
I have never, in fact, spent a holiday abroad so

124 SCENERY AND ROMANCE

far from mountains, but, after all, a fisherman may
be happiest at the lower levels. Without its pretty
story of a maid's devotion, the country round
Grand Pre is no more intoxicating than that round
Clacton. Yet might not as much be said of other
scenes famous in tourist travel ? What of the
Jordan ? As I remember it, it is as muddy as
these rivers of the Bay of Fundy, as dangerous to
navigation, as hopeless for the angler. None the
less, watching the Russian pilgrims bathing in its
healing waters, and recalling its sacred legend,
I have paid willing homage to its unpleasant flood.
What, again, of the grudging farmland round
Bethlehem, where, according to tradition, Ruth, with
whom the resigned Evangeline had much in com-
mon, lived her simple life, toiling in the fields ?
True, I rode out to the Httle Church of the Nativity
during a long spell of drought, but more wretched
acres may my worst enemy never farm ! Yet,
looked at in the light of Bible story, how romantic
they seemed in the setting sun of an April day !
The country round Eternal Rome is alive with
classic memories, yet, without them, it would be
a hateful prospect. Therefore will these quiet
meadows on the way to Annapolis Royal be
remembered when many more pretentious scenes
have faded.

A SUGGESTION FOR THE C.P.R. 125

The railroad serving this romantic valley has
hitherto been controlled by the Dominion Atlantic
Company, and not much fault can be found with the
trains, though some of the track lends itself to
eccentric behaviour on the part of the rear car.
In view, however, of the pending change from
D.A.R. to C.P.R., I venture to suggest two slight
changes in the system, which, if I know anything
of its zeal to please the tourist, the new control
will be likely to adopt. The first is the addition
of a dining-car to the early morning train from
Halifax, the only train of the day, in fact, which
makes connection with the steamer at Digby.
Romance is well enough, but on an empty stomach
it is a hollow mockery, for how can a man pretend
to be moved by memories of those who suffered
more than a hundred years ago when he himself is
feeling the pangs of hunger now ? The other
alteration in the day's programme, which would
be scarcely less welcome than the wherewithal
to feed, is a stay of at any rate fifteen or twenty
minutes at Grand Pre, instead of at Kentville,
which, however commercially important as the
headquarters of the railroad, has no legendary
interest whatever for the tourist. By the existing
arrangement the train stops there no more than
a minute, and one excited American, who rushed

126 THE "PRINCE RUPERT"

forth to take a photograph, in order, as he

ingenuously confessed, that his friends at home

might believe that he had seen the place, got, I
am convinced, nothing more than a foreshortened

view of the cars, when the conductor called his

inexorable *' All aboard ! " and we had to scurry

to our places hke children playing at musical

chairs.

The steamer which conveys passengers across
the Bay of Fundy, from Digby to St. John, is
a well-found and very steady craft called " Prince
Rupert," originally designed, I understand, for
the cross- Channel service from Dover, but relegated
to this part of the world because she fell short of the
requisite standard of speed. All I can say of this
admirable "Prince" is that it obeys the mandate
of Euripides and pleases the multitude, affording
moreover ample material for the refreshment of
those famished folk who, uninformed as to the lack
of opportunity on the train, and unappreciative
of a hurried snack at Kentville, have not tasted bit
or sup since leaving Halifax in the early morning.

My way back to Montreal by the Intercolonial
Railway lay along the banks of the Restigouche
and Matapedia, which, a week after the ending of
the season, looked even as the Promised Land
from Pisgah. Through Campbelltown we came

RUINED CAMPBELLTOWN 127

also, and even stayed there long enough to take
note of the dreadful ruins left by the disastrous
fire of July, which rendered hundreds of families
homeless. Already temporary shacks were stand-
ing on every available site, the most substantial
homes that the fallen fortunes of the townsmen

could compass until better days should dawn.
* * *

From the lonely tent on the little island,
round which Madwayosh sprinkled salt to keep
the snakes out, I came back to the great world of
little things. Out there, under the stars, smoking
in silence with my Indian, I felt how puny a thing
is man, with all his troubles. Back in Montreal,
I found the world agog with the tirades of Father
Bernard Vaughan, who first condemned his
Protestant hosts (most of the funds subscribed
for the Eucharistic Congress came from heretics)
and then apologized ; or with the diplomacy that
had prompted Cardinal Vanutelli to give the toast
of King George before that of the Pope ; or with
the punishment that would surely overtake the
authorities for refusing a military guard of honour
to his Eminence on landing. I suppose aU these
matters are of real importance to someone. To
myself, newly come from the peace of God on the
great waters, they seemed pitiful. Those lonely

128 OLD QUEBEC

scenes filled me with more reverence for the
mystery of the universe than any words mouthed
by cardinals or lesser clergy.

And so, at the end, I came to Old Quebec,
not, as I saw it two years earlier, smothered in
hired flags and shaken by the roar of imitation
warfare, but the peaceful sentinel of the St.
Lawrence, the keystone of Canada, first to welcome
the coming, or to speed the parting, guest. Quebec
is, for me, the most charming of all Canadian cities
that I have seen, though I know not Ottawa.
It is content with its ancient glories, leaving politics
to Ottawa and trade to Winnipeg. The pride of
Quebec is in its monuments and memories, and
it does honour to a thousand heroes, who died on
the Heights of Abraham or on the veld. The most
graceful of its monuments is that erected to the
common memory of Wolfe and Montcalm, with
a suitable inscription in Latin setting forth how —

Mortem Virtus Communem,

Famam Historia,

Monumentum Posteritas

Dedit.

Apart from the^e tributes to the fallen, perhaps
the most famihar landmark of this historic city
is the building of the Chien d'Or, near the Post
Office, where the Golden Dog still gnaws his bone

ROMANCE OF THE GOLDEN DOG 129

over a doorway. Many are the traditions asso-
ciated with this venerable hound, the first being
the story of its owner, one merchant named
Philibert, who had a quarrel of long standing with
the French Intendant. As a result, he was killed
in a duel by one of the Intendant' s boon com-
panions, but the victor, going out to Pondicherry,
met with retribution at the hands of the victim's
son. Of close interest to English visitors is another
story popularly associated with the Chien d'Or,
which tells how a young English naval captain was
only narrowly prevented from contracting a
clandestine marriage with the innkeeper's pretty
niece. This happened many years ago, for the
young captain's name was Horatio Nelson, and
a local guide-book ingenuously remarks, with a
conviction that does more honour to its ethics
than to its discernment, that, but for the inter-
vention of the captain's friends, the good fame of
Lady Hamilton might have been saved ! There
is even another tradition of how, either at the
Chien d'Or or in the immediate vicinity, another
suitor wooed a pretty maid, but, as his proposals
did not include even clandestine marriage, he
was well horsewhipped by his charmer's father.
The gentleman who suffered this indignity was
afterwards King WiUiam IV. of England.

130 THE CHATEAU FRONTENAC

By far the most imposing building in Quebec is
the Chateau Frontenac, the splendid hotel run by
the C.P.R. on the site of the old Chateau St. Louis.
There can be few hostelries in all the world with
such a position as the Frontenac, and personally
I can only recall the Grand, at Plymouth, which
does not, however, command so extraordinary a
panorama from its windows, though to my own
taste the red-winged trawlers creeping past Drake
Island to the Barbican in the golden mist of an
autumn sunrise may be a more beautiful prospect
than that of the liners and ferry boats in the
St. Lawrence. The Frontenac, by far the gayest
hotel of all the C.P.R. system, is neither more nor
less than the Shepheard's of the New World, for
here, more than beneath any other roof, gather
the fair and the brave, the distinguished and the
attractive (with a few thousand who fall under
none of these categories) of two hemispheres.
Instead of standing, like Shepheard's, in a hot
and crowded street, the Frontenac is perched on
a site not unlike that of the signal station on the
Rock of Gibraltar. There is none to compare with
it in all Canada. The Place Viger I know, and the
crowded hotel at Winnipeg, the tourists' paradise
at Banff, the elegant mansion at Victoria, but the
Frontenac has something in which all of them are

A LAST IMPRESSION 131

deficient. Well does Mr. Frank Carrel say of it,
in his admirable guide to Quebec, "It is delight-
fully unexpected in its ways."

It is ! The rooms on the fifth floor, where alone
there was a vacancy on the night of my arrival,
had neither elevator nor bells. The lift goes
to the fourth floor only. I could overlook the
single flight of stairs between, but to be cut off
from all communication with the outer world,
to be able to order neither iced water nor a hot
bath, seems to be an eccentric arrangement of
which a Httle goes a long way, and I sincerely
hope that the management will not allow such a
defect to go unremedied. It may be " delight-
fully unexpected," but I would rather find more
hackneyed practices in vogue. With this sUght
drawback, the hotel calls for nothing but praise.
Its charges (a guinea a day inclusive) are sufficient,
but so also are its meals, while the view from
Dufferin Terrace, or, over a wider horizon, from the
upper windows, is a memory to treasure in after days.

One of my last impressions of Quebec was of a
thunderstorm, which, coming slowly up from the
Levis shore, burst with terrific fury over the city.
This, however, was only my second sight of Hght-
ning during over two months in the country, so
that thunderstorms can hardly be very common

i2

132 THE CANADIAN WINTER

in the Canadian summer. Of the Canadian winter
I have heard nothing but praise, but, as Canada
interests me wholly as a fisherman's playground,
that rigorous season fortunately hes outside my
province. Something of its mellow softness may,
however, be gathered from a notice posted in the
bedrooms of the Chateau Frontenac. The notices
to visitors in hotel bedrooms have always had an
attraction for me, for they invariably suggest
something of local interest. I remember one in
Barbados which forbade the introduction of
monkeys and parrots as bedfellows. Another,
in Batoum, set forth the charges for samovars
and extra bed linen. So here, in Frontenac,
I found a pleasing hint of winter days in Canada,
for visitors were cautioned that if they left the
windows open in cold weather, they would have
to pay the plumber's bill !

The Empress of Ireland lay alongside the wharf,
and back to her hospitable decks I came at the
ending of my hohday. She carried a goodly
company, including a number of Boy Scouts,
returning from the Toronto Exhibition, and " the
Greneral " was there to see them off. During the
voyage, I was able, in conversation with Captain
Wade, who was in charge of them, as well as with
the lads themselves, to gather a good deal of

"SEA SCOUTS" 133

information about this wholly admirable move-
ment— a splendid work, which has had a well-
deserved success at home, and which in particular
appeals to the Canadian imagination, since wood-
craft and open air knowledge are the birthright
of the Indians and backwoodsmen. The General
has done well to instil these arts in the young, for
these are the finest raw material. There is nothing
of the jingo principle in the training of the Scouts,
which rather aims at teaching perseverance and
resourcefulness, keen observation, manliness and
fair play, by-products of the curriculum which
have their uses in peace as well as in war. On this
particular occasion, even seamanship was included
in their course, by way perhaps of justifying the
badge " Sea Scouts " which they wore on their
caps. The boys had daily demonstrations in
splicing and other useful branches of sea lore,
and previous to the ending of the trip a paper
was set, and a prize offered by the captain, an
excellent incentive which had the best possible
results. All classes were represented, even in this
little scratch contingent on board, and this levelling
is not the least wholesome feature of the movement.
We carried also the victorious team of cadets,
most of them public schoolboys, who had won the
shield from their Canadian rivals.

134 A CALM PASSAGE

The pleasant days of an extraordinarily calm
passage passed all too quickly. Thanks to a stern
breeze for the first half of the voyage, which,
within a thousand miles of the Irish coast, died
away altogether, the great ship was as steady as
a pier, and there was rarely a vacant seat at table,
while the scene on deck recalled my Australian
and West Indian voyages of other days. This
i^as in marked contrast to the bitter cold of the
same passage in July, which, unless it was abnormal,
suggests that September is the month of months
on the North Atlantic. It is undoubtedly so for a
Canadian holiday. The weather is perfect, and
the insects are at rest. The fishing, so far as
black bass and trout are concerned, is as good as
earlier, though salmon fishing on the North Shore
ends, of course, in the middle of August. Were I,
however, bound that way again in quest of any
fish other than salmon, I would not leave England
until the middle of August. The Canadian July
is admirable in the matter of temperature, but
its black flies and its midges belong more properly
to the entertainment of the damned in the nether
regions, and should have no place in the sports-
man's holiday if he can as conveniently take it
two months later. If, on the other hand, circum-
stances should compel him to pay his visit to the

THE NORTH ROUTE 135

Dominion in the earlier month, he must grin and
bear it. As a matter of fact, these insects are not
so terrible that a keen fisherman cannot easily
put up with them, particularly if he takes such
reasonable precautions as have been indicated on
earlier pages of this book. I was badly bitten
on the Miramichi, but my memory is all of the
beautiful river and the nights round the camp
fire, and if I recall the insects it is only by an
effort. Moreover, the Miramichi was innocent of
winged life, compared, for instance, with New-
foundland, where a gallant admiral, with whom I
compared notes on the homeward voyage, had
splendid sport, even late in the season, on one of
the less frequented rivers (visited, in fact, only
by the officers of the man-of-war in charge of
fishery matters), but where also he was unmerci-
fully eaten by the flies, against which tar and tallow
were the only safeguard.

Much has been said against the north route
on account of its occasional cold and fog. Yet,
although the outward passage in July was the
reverse of agreeable, the voyage home, in
September, might have been through the Medi-
terranean, so calm was the ocean, so warm the air,
so blue the sky. And for those who do not find
their dear dehght in sea travel, it should always

136 LIFE ON A LINER

be gratefuUy remembered that this same criticized
route, which is open to traffic earHer in the year
now that wireless telegraphy keeps us in touch
with the vagaries of the ice-pack, saves one hundred
and eighty miles, or nearly haK a day's steaming,
which, in conjunction with the navigation of the
St. Lawrence, means a remarkably short ocean
crossing.

The personnel on the homeward trip is notably
different from that which journeyed into the sunset
nearly three months earlier, with more of the
tourist element and Httle of the emigrant, except
a few who were sufficiently prosperous to afford
a trip to see their less enterprising relatives in the
Old Country.

Life on a liner of such dimensions suggests a
week in some great hotel, and gives little experi-
ence of —

" The heave and the halt and the hurl and the crash "

aboard smaller craft. To some, these days of sea
and sky are a welcome respite from the routine
of life on shore, to others a tribulation. It is
a question of stomach and temperament. Even
the most comfortable stateroom has its draw-
backs when, swinging in a beam sea, it reduces
a man to a state of uncertainty as to which leg

A LAST CHANCE 137

he shall first put into his trousers. On the whole,
however, the progress of the Empress is stately,
and few who throng the cafe after lunch or dinner,
or for afternoon tea, would imagine themselves
at sea at all.

Among the steerage emigrants there can, of
course, be no such delusion, but these folk have
more weighty matters on their minds than a few
days of discomfort, and, looking at them as they
whiled away the time with skipping ropes,
boxing gloves, or other pastimes, I wondered,
on the outward voyage, how they would
suit Canada quite as much as how Canada
would suit them. There were, no doubt, many
undesirables among them, and it was not always
difficult to recognize them. The greatest error
possible, when contemplating emigration, is to
assume that the desirable immigrant is necessarily
the undesirable emigrant. On the contrary, there
are men who, though England can well afford to
lose them, may prosper exceedingly in a new
country. But it is much more dangerous to
imagine, as so many do, that the man who has
tried his hands and failed at almost everything
at home will surely strike oil on the other side
of the Atlantic. Parents and guardians are too
often persuaded to ship these derelicts off to the

138 THE WRONG SORT

colonies as a last chance. It may not be a chance
for them, and it will assuredly not be one for the
land to which they are consigned. All that can
reasonably be assumed is that, with the conditions
so different on either side of the ocean, success
or failure at home is no forecast of either abroad.
Now, so far as I have been able to ascertain in
conversation with Canadians qualified to give
an opinion on the subject, Canada does not want
its people drawn from either of two classes which,
unfortunately, contribute generously to those
who seek her hospitality : (1) small artisans and
shop hands, weakly stock bred in towns, at once
unfitted for an open-air life and holding exaggerated
notions of the ease and profits of life on a small
farm ; and (2) ne'er-do-wells of the better class,
idle and supercilious youths, with a rooted objec-
tion to spade work and a reluctance to hobnob
with their fellows in a democratic community.
These men, though of the same blood as the
pioneers, will fail dismally. There has been much
talk of an advertisement, so often quoted that it
may be omitted here, but an Englishman of the
right sort will always be appreciated. If he ever
had an Oxford manner (many have it who never
so much as saw the spires of that city), he must
put it behind him. He must take off his coat.

CANADIANS OF THE FUTURE

(British Emigrants on the " Empress").

[138]

THE RIGHT SORT 139

Canada wants workers, not ornaments. Brawn
counts for as much as brain ; often for more ; and
for the man who puts on " side " Canada has no
vacancies. At the same time, when I contemplated
these steerage folk — and I hope it is no disrespect
to many pleasant people whom I met with on the
voyage if I say that the steerage folk were the
most interesting community on board — I hoped
that their new neighbours might exercise a Uttle
charity during the process of acclimatization.
In those mutual antagonisms, which so often
arise between the newcomers and those already
in the land, there is a want of tact on both sides.
It is the same in other walks of life. The English-
man out from home is too ready to despise the
Canadian as an unlettered boor, with a soul only
for fruit or lumber. The Canadian, quite as
unreasonably, ridicules the other as a high-collared
" dude," incapable of honest work and good fellow-
ship. Why not recognize the difficulties on both
sides ? Men who are making a living on the land
have no time for Browning or Wagner. The local
newspaper (which many of them see but once a
week) is their sole literature, and a gramophone
supplies their music. On the other hand, it is
unfair to expect the Englishman out from cities
to know anything of the mysteries of lighting a

140 CANADA FOR WOMEN

campfire or poling a canoe. He will learn in
good time, but in the home he has left such accom-
plishments were of less importance than others,
of which the rough diamonds of the backwoods
are fully as ignorant as he of their everyday
labours. Among the immigrants that crowded
down the gangway at Quebec were a considerable
number of young girls, many, apparently, without
relatives on board. Possibly they had read of
the dearth of women in Canada, and were resolved
to make a bid for a home in a land endowed with
more wheat than women. I hope that they have
all found husbands by now, but I hope yet more
fervently that they were under no illusion as to
the meaning of life on the prairie. Canada is a
delightful country, but it is a long way from
England, and for those who find that they have
made a mistake it might not be easy to go back.
Even when provided with a husband in comfort-
able circumstances, who will necessarily have to
spend much of his time away from home, at
any rate, during the day, the wife wiU have to
make shift with her own company. If she has a
servant to share her loneliness, she will be lucky
above the average.

Canada has recently promulgated some regula-
tions and restrictions affecting this traffic, which

THE En\) of the holidays 141

have been severely criticized, not so much perhaps,
on the grounds of their severity as because, in
the opinion of many, they came too suddenly
into effect, and without sufficient notification
to those concerned. There can hardly be any
reasonable objection, due notice being given in the
usual quarters, to a money test in respect of all
but agricultural labourers, if, needing this class
more than others, the Government of Ottawa
was resolved to encourage it and to discourage
the rest. It is, of course, easy to cast ridicule
on these precautions, particularly in respect of
the questions addressed by the authorities to
incoming passengers on the high seas. It is,
for instance, nothing short of ludicrous that
ladies travelling in the first class should have to
say solemnly whether they have ever worked as
stablemen, railway surfacemen or navvies. If,
indeed, there be these openings for women in the
Dominion, there will be a greater public than
ever for an artistic C.P.R. booklet entitled " Get
rid of your Girls ! "

And so, beneath a cloudless sky and on a
painted ocean, my holiday ended. What had I
got out of it ? Holidays should not be reckoned
by the same profit and loss account as the working
year. Yet, though I do not believe, as Stevenson

142 RETROSPECT

says, in " dallying in maudlin regret over the
past," there is always a curious instinct of retro-
spect to see how each tour abroad has realized
the promise with which it started. Frankly —
and there is no getting away from it — my failure
even to hook, much less kill, a tuna was a grievous
blot on the scutcheon, nor was the salmon fishing
in the Miramichi quite equal to what I had been
led to expect. Yet I had visited a part of Canada
hitherto new to me, a section of that remarkable
country more associated with the early struggle
for supremacy, with the French and Indian wars,
with the pioneer Scotsmen and the early mis-
sionaries, than the better known tourist resorts
further west. I had seen something of canoeing,
with both pole and paddle, and I had camped
with many kinds of guides. I had caught both
grilse and trout on the fly and black bass otherwise;
and of wild life, moose, deer, porcupines and other
beasts, with some variety of birds and an occasional
snake, I had seen as much as on my former trip.
I had nearly three months of excellent weather,
a very good exchange, to judge by home letters,
for what they were getting in merry England.
I enjoyed the best of health, without the need of
using any of the tabloid drugs in my medicine
chest. I made a few more friends and no more

THE PERFECT PLAYGROUND 143

enemies. This may not perhaps seem a very
abundant result for so long a journey, but what
more, after all, could I have written on the credit
side elsewhere ? From Canada I return stronger
than ever in the conviction that, as a playground
for the sportsman, and in particular for the fisher-
man, it has not its equal. As an adopted home,
the aspect in which it interests so many men and
women of all classes, I am neither anxious nor
competent to judge it. I do not wish to move my
goods and chattels there, for I am neither a farmer
nor an artisan, the two kinds of immigrant most
likely to find it a change for the better. Something
has just been said in these pages on the subject
of suitable and other emigrants from the Old
Country, but I do not lay claim to any profound
study of the conditions and have written only from
hearsay and from casual observation on the spot.
But for those who wish to play, and not to work,
to spend money and not to make it, to tarry for
a Httle beside such lakes and rivers as, without
all manner of restrictions and expense, they can
find nowhere in the British Islands, I say, unhesi-
tatingly, go to Canada. If it disappoint them,
they must be hard to please.

INDEX,

Accommodation at Englishtown, 66
Adene //., 51, 55, 57, 61
Alewife, 49
"Amerind," 90
** Angle- worms," 81
Annapolis Royal, 124

Valley, The, 114, 119

Apples in Nova Scotia, 122, 123
Armstrong, Mr., 10

Aapy, The, 45, 52, 58, 66, 71
Avon, 119

Bait for Black Bass, 81

Tuna, 49, 70, 71

Banff, 130
Barasois, 69.

*' Big Grappling," 56
Bird Islands, The, 44, 69
Black Bass, 6, 8, 77, 81

FUes, 9, 28, 134.

Blueberries, 103, 122

Boats for Tuna Fishing, 67, 76

Boiestown, 22, 32

Bore, Tidal, 94

Bow River, 4

Boy Scouts, 132

British Columbia, 2, 6

Broom, Lake, 8.

Burnt Hill, 33

Campbell River, 2
Campbelltown, Fire at, 97, 127
Camping Out, 14, 16, 17
Canoeing, 14, 86
Canso Strait, 97, 101, 114
Cape Blomidon, 120

Breton Island, 8, 13

Caribou, 25

Chateau Frontenac, 7, 98, 130, 131

Chien d'Or, 128, 129

Chippewa Indians, 83

Chub, 28

Climate of Cape Breton, 100

Conn, Mr. C. G., 38, 47, 48, 49, 51,

57, 61, 70, 72
Cost of Trip, 72
Coureurs des Bois, 15
Cowan, Mr., 4
Cowichan River, 2
"Cranes," 27
Crayfish, 28, 81

Dauphin, Cape, 56, 60, 62

Deer, 24

Digby, 125

Dominion Atlantic Railroad, 125

Coal Company, 46, 103

Dore, 83
Dragonflies, 29
Duchambon, General, 105
Duck, Wild, 27

Eagles, 27
Eels, 28

Emigrants, 137, 138
Empress of Ireland^ The, 132
Englishtown, 66
Equipment, Fisherman's, 54
Evangeline, 114, 124

Farlow, Messrs. C, 47
Farmers, 13, 88
Fenton, Martin, 80
Fire weed, 122
Fish Lnke, 3
Five Mile Brook, 20

146

INDEX.

Flyfishing for Black Bass, 81
Frostbite, 29

Fruit in Cape Breton, 109
Fimdy, Bay of, 94, 118, 121

Gaelic Settlers, 13, 102, 106

Gaspereaux, 49, 70

Georgian Bay, 83

Giant, A Canadian, 45, 110

Glace Bay, 50, 99, 103

Grand Pr6, 114, 120, 121, 122, 124,

125
Grilse, 2, 20
Guides, 11, 29-31, 83, 84

Habitants f 18

Halibut, 53

Halifax, 115

Heights of Abraham, 128

Herons, 27

Hickson, Mr. Edward, 96, 97

Indian Brook, 50, 53, 69, 71

Guides, 83

Ingonish, 65, 108
Insects, 9, 28

Intercolonial Railway, The, 96, 126
Irving, Washington, 120

Kamloops, 3

Lake, 5

Kentville, 125
Kingfishers, 27
Kyack, 49

Lake Fishing, 8

Lane, Mr. C. F., 10

Lawrence, Governor, 121

Leeches, 28

L6vis, 131

Licence, Fishing, 34

Longfellow, 119, 121

Long Lake Forest Reserve, The, 3

" Lost Man's Friend," 27

Louisburg, Siege of, 58, 59, 103

Lower Provinces, The, 6

" Lunge," 82

McAskiU, 45, 110
McRitchie, Percy, 56, 68

Magog, Lake, 8

Maritime Provinces, The, 12

Matapedia, 8, 96

Melba, 117

Method of Fishing for Tuna, 75]

Micmacs, 91, 103, 121

Midges, 9, 15, 28

Minnows, 81

Mira Bay, 40, 42, 44

Miramichi, The, 22, 135

Lake, 22

Moncton, 89
Monroe Beach, 56, 58
Montcabn, 128
Moose, 22, 24, 25
Mosquitoes, 15, 28
Muskallonge, 78, 82

" Muskatol," 9, 28
Muskoka, 78
Muskrats, 23

New Brunswick, 8, 13, 2
Newfoundland, 100, 112
Nightjar, 27
Nipigon, 6, 7
Nova Scotia, 13, 87

Ob jibe way Indians, 91
Ontario, 6
Owls, 27

Pacific Slope, 2
Parmachene Belle, 3, 20, 81
Parry Soimd, 7
Perch, 28

Petitcodiac River, 94
Petrie, Louis, 45
Photographing the Bore, 96
Pickerel, 83

Landing, 80

Pictou County, 88
Pike, 83

Place Vigor, 130

Pollack, 53, 56

Pools of the Miramichi, 31

Porcupine, 26

Prince Rupert, The, 126

Quebec, 128-131

INDEX.

147

Rainbow Trout, 3, 4

Restigouche, 6, 8, 12, 96

Reversible Falls, 118

Rimouski, 113

Roads in Canada, 78, 79

"Robin," 27

Robinson, Mr. J. J., 98

Rocky Mountains, 1, 3, 5, 7, 12

Rogerville, 88

Ross, Mr. J. K. L., 37-41, 60, 61

St. Ann's Bay, 38, 42, 43, 108

St. John, 116, 117, 118

St. Louis, Lake, 8

St. Lawrence, The, 128

Salmon, 2, 3, 6, 20

Flies, 33

Sangaree Island, 44, 53
Scotsmen in Canada, 88
Sea Scouts, 133

Trout, 70

Shark, 63
Silver Doctor, 3
«« Snipe," 27

" Sportsman's Agency of Canada/

10
Steelhead, 3
Suckers, 28
Sudbury, 7
" Sure Pop Hole," 62
Sydney (N.S.), 45, 66, 97

Tackle for Tuna Fishing, 48^

" The Old North Trail," 91

Thompson River, The, 4

Toronto Exhibition, 83

Troll for Muskallonge, 82 '

Trolling for Tuna, 54

Trophy for first Canadian Tuna, 74

Trout, 20, 45, 53, 62, 70, 77

Tuna Fishing, 36-76

Tussock Moth, 123

United Empire Loyalists, 104

Vermin, Absence of, 102
VoyageurSf 15 .

Wanikew, Camp, 80

Weather, Canadian, 6, 10 .'100

Web Worm, 123

Whisky 85 93

Windsor, 118

Winnipeg, 130

Wolfe, 128

Women in Canada, 140

Woodill, Mr. Arthur, 51, 67

Yacht Club, Sydney, 100

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