Original
XIII. IN A HOUSE-BOAT ON THE KOOTENAY
LORIOUS Kootenay!” That’s what the folders call it, and if any more intense adjective could be found that too would be tacked on. That Canadian Northwest strains the English language tremendously. “Magnificent,” “splendid,” “grand,” “glorious,” are worn to frazzles by constant use, and were it possible to roll them all into one big word, it would still be utterly inadequate to express the native’s admiration for his country. The chances are that the reader does not even know where the Kootenay is, and, while we have a distinct aversion to playing the part of a guide-book, we will go so far as to advise consultation of a good map of British Columbia. Down in the southeastern corner you will find Kootenay Lake and River, but the map does not reveal the rugged mountains, the wine-like air, the sparkling water, the sunshine, the peace, the restfulness, the TROUT that make the Kootenay one of God’s best gifts to man.
The confession may as well be made first as last that we went to the Kootenay country for the express purpose of fishing. This is no disparagement to the people or to the scenery, for each stands at the head of its class. But some philosopher has said (or if he has not he ought to have done so): “Count that vacation wasted in which you do no fishing.” Wasting a vacation is sinful; therefore we fish. Here in the Kootenay are trout worthy of one’s skill; heroes of many battles; cunning and adroit veterans who know all the tricks at the command of the enemy.
Just below the point where the Kootenay River breaks out of the lake is the little hamlet of Proctor. There is not much to the place but the hotel and the name—yes, and the trout. The river is wide and deep, with swift current and numberless counter-currents. Where the water rushes around some rock or point of sand, where current struggles with current and a great swirl grows out of the conflict, there the rainbow-trout hold their town-meetings. We attended some of them and tried our uttermost to break them up. It was in a visit to one of these gatherings that the Junior made his bow to the inhabitants of the Kootenay waters. Behold the young man (not quite four years old) seated in the stern of the boat, rod firmly grasped, determination in his eye, while his aged sire works the oars. To and fro over the waters for a little time, then the rod bends sharply back, and far behind a quivering mass of colour springs into the air and falls back with a mighty splash. “I’ve got him!” cries the Junior, and “Hang on!” cries the Senior. And he does hang on. Great boy, that! He’s as quiet and self-controlled as if only purloining cookies out of the jar in the pantry. It must be confessed that the fond father gave a little aid in landing the victim, but what of that? A noble two-pounder is lying in the bottom of the boat, and if there is a prouder mortal in the universe than that boy it is his venerable father.
But it is the house-boat concerning which we set out to write. Be it known that the Canadian Pacific Railway Company maintains a finely furnished house-boat on the Kootenay waters for such visitors as may desire to realize the utmost of human happiness. Can you see it in your mind’s eye? Sixty feet long by about twenty in width, four staterooms with two berths each, servants’ quarters, kitchen, pantry, storerooms, toilets, cabin. On the upper deck are chairs, and here, under the shade of the awning, we rest after the arduous labour of doing nothing. The houseboat is towed to any point on river or lake which you may select, and tied up to the shore. The steamer stops daily on its trips from Nelson to Kootenay Landing to take your orders for provisions or to bring supplies. A Chinaman does the “house work,” including alleged cooking. Do you get the picture?
It was five o’clock on a Friday afternoon when the tug and the house-boat picked us up at Proctor. By “us” is meant the Preacher and his family, together with the Doctor and his daughter. The wind was blowing fresh from the south, and our destination was twenty miles away. Once out of the river where the wind could get a fair chance at us, and that house-boat began to buck. Perhaps you think there are no possibilities of a heavy sea on an inland lake. If so, you will do well to think again. Kootenay Lake is more than one hundred miles long with an average width of some five miles. Great mountains guard it on either side, and up that long tunnel the wind came with a whoop. The boat was lashed to the windward side of the tug, and so was in position to get the full benefit of any slap that the waves thought best to give. We rose and fell and heaved about. The hawsers were not absolutely taut, and ever and again the boat would be knocked against the tug with a jar that made everything rattle. It was time for supper, and the potatoes were on to boil and the tea-kettle was just beginning to sing, when a huge wave lifted us up and hurled us against the tug. Over went potatoes, tea-kettle, kerosene can and everything else that was not nailed down, while the dishes flew from their resting-places and smashed to pieces on the floor. Who cares? Certain members of the party did not, at any rate, for they had lost all interest in the food supply, and were in retirement. Huge joke, to be sea-sick on a house-boat! The captain yells from the tug that we must abandon the thought of making Midge Creek that night, and heads for Pilot Bay, across the lake. Blessed haven! In a landlocked harbour anchor is dropped and in a short time order is brought out of chaos, and the discouraged members of the party regain their appetites.
At four o’clock the next morning we are awakened by the chugging of the tug. Day is just breaking, and the lake is as smooth as the floor of a bowling alley. Three hours later we are tied up to a sandy beach on the west shore of the lake, and vacation has really begun. Not a house is to be seen except two or three in the distance on the opposite shore. Ten rods away, to the north, a mountain stream comes rushing down the canyon and goes billowing far out into the lake. At the south end of the beach a giant mass of bare rock lifts itself into the air, while the mountains are all about us. Here and there a snowy peak looms into the blue. The lake dimples and smiles under a cloudless sky, and murmurs a gentle welcome as it laps upon the gravelly beach. This is a beautiful world, and nowhere more beautiful than on the shores of the Kootenay.
Original
What about the fishing? In view of the dictum recently rendered by certain inordinately good people and recorded in one of our great religious weeklies, that question is clearly out of order. It has been decided by those who have no question as to their infallibility that it is wicked to catch fish. (Poor Peter! How thoroughly ashamed of himself he would be were he living in this day of ethical enlightenment.) Let it be understood before proceeding further, that our action has historic precedent in the well-known case of the boy and the woodchuck. We had to fish. We were forty miles from the base of supplies. The Doctor and the Junior and the girls and the head of the house and the Chinaman and the Preacher must eat or perish. As each and all manifested a strong prejudice against perishing, some one must fish. The Preacher offers himself as a hesitating violator of that high-toned, transcendental morality which places fishing among the mortal sins, and the Doctor aids and abets him.
Just here listen to a word of advice: If you will fish, provide yourself with a friend so unselfish that he will joyously perjure himself by declaring that he does not care anything about the sport and prefers to row the boat. It is important to have good tackle, carefully selected flies, a rod that will stand strain and a line that runs freely; but the sine qua non is a companion whose generosity is so much greater than your own that he will insist upon turning himself into a motor for your benefit. Such a man is the Doctor. May all blessings rest upon him! Those golden hours on the Kootenay were enriched by his companionship, and his unselfishness materially increased the Preacher’s score.
Now we are off. The trunks have been unpacked, the “girls” are tidying up the boat, the Junior is busy floating his ships from the shore, and the row-boat, with the Doctor at the oars and the Preacher waving his rod, is rounding the point of rocks to the south. Repeated casts of the flies find nothing doing. At last there is a swirl and a tug. But what sort of a trout is it at the end of the line? He pulls and plunges, but there is never a jump nor any indication of a purpose to break water. It is not much of a fight, anyhow, and the net lifts in a fish the like of which neither Doctor nor Preacher has ever seen before. Large head, enormous mouth, brownish back and sides with yellowish belly, he looks something like a salt water ling. And that was the sum total of the morning’s catch. Not much slaughter of the innocents about that! We ventured to cook that unclassified victim, and he was not bad as food for the starving. Later on the Doctor learned from the hermit—of course we had a hermit—that the stranger is called a “squaw-fish,” although it is said that the proper name is “squawk-fish,” so called from the noise it makes when caught.
Is this all that the far-famed Kootenay can furnish? Must it be told to future generations that two able-bodied men spent a half-day of strenuous toil and only captured a plebeian squaw-fish? Well, tell it if you must, but when you get started keep right on and tell the whole story. That afternoon we deserted the calm water along the shore and struck out for the tumbling billows made by Midge Creek as it rushes into the lake. Then and there the sport began. The trout were at home and receiving callers. The gaudy “Parmachene Belle” had no sooner struck the water than snap—whizz—jump—splash—landing net—two-pounder, and then it all began over again. We had struck our gait.
What fishing! Did you ever catch a rainbow trout? If not, you have yet to live. He is a combination of gymnast and dynamo. When communications have been established, he at once begins a series of acrobatic performances which leave no doubt as to his agility. The writer counted twelve jumps made by one fish before he was brought to net. These were not little disturbances of the surface of the water, just enough to give notice of his whereabouts—but clean leaps. How high? How would three feet do? If that’s too much, take off an inch. Especially fascinating was the sport after sundown, when the dusk was upon the face of the waters. Then, with a “white miller” as lure, we circled the broken water, knowing not where the fly lighted, but certain that it would be seen and craved by some hungry trout.
But it was in the early morning that the most wonderful phenomena were seen. The writer pledges his word that if he had not been there he would not believe it (the reader is not expected to credit the statement), but the Preacher, on divers and sundry occasions, left his berth before sunrise and went out to fish. The grey is in the eastern sky, and the lake motionless. Nothing breaks the silence but the roar of the creek or the sharp challenge of a chipmunk. Rowing slowly along the shore, the world seems as fresh as if newly born. A tip-up teeters along the beach, a thrush sings his morning hymn of praise among the trees on the mountain side, and now the sun peeps over a notch in the eastern hills. Did you ever see more exquisite colouring than the brown of the moss upon that rock, or the delicate shades of green in that clump of trees? The fish are not early risers, or, if they are up, have not found their appetites: but what matters it? Here are peace and beauty; God’s good world at its best.
Just one little story about the big trout. It was close by a face of rock that rose sheer from the water for fifty feet or more, that we struck him. Up and again up, in mighty leaps clear from the water he flung himself. With great surges he carried out the line, and then allowed himself to be coaxed gently toward the boat. When the Preacher fancied that the fight was well over and the great fish could be seen plainly but a few feet from the boat, there was another rush, and this straight down. There were one hundred and fifty feet of line on the reel, and the old warrior took out every inch of it. Where did he go? To China for aught the writer knows—but he came back. Slowly and reluctantly he yielded to the steady strain, and at last lay in the bottom of the boat, a dream of beauty. Three pounds and a quarter! The biggest rainbow trout caught in the Kootenay this summer; so the Nelson fishermen aver! Hooray!!!
By this time, the members of the gentler sex are saying, “It must have been deadly dull for the ‘girls.’” Far from it. Ask the Preacheress, and she will tell you that every moment of every day was full of happiness. That you may have a glimpse at some of the experiences which helped to make the hours pass pleasantly, listen to the tale of the chipmunks. The whole family looked at us askance when we first tied up near their home. Just a hurried scamper along the logs, and then away they fled with a warning chatter. Two days had not passed before they were eating crumbs thrown out for them. On the third day their suspicions were so far allayed that they ate from the hand of one of the party. After that, not a day passed, and hardly an hour of daylight, but some one could be seen holding out a crust at which a chipmunk was gnawing away. They lost all fear and would crawl over the knees and sometimes up on the shoulders in search of rations. They would allow us to stroke their heads and feel of the cheek-pouches in which they stored away food, without raising the slightest objections. When we left they had come to seem like old friends. They deserved better treatment at our hands than was accorded them, and the writer’s heart is filled with self-reproach as he recalls the dastardly act with which we closed our relations with these little friends. We gave them Jimmie’s pie! (Jimmie was the Chinese cook.) Near the close of our stay he manufactured the most wonderful and in every way impossible pie ever achieved by human ingenuity. One after another, every member of the party attacked that combination, only to suffer defeat. It was still intact when the time came to leave. It would have had abiding interest as a specimen, but there was danger that it might be broken in transit, so we left it for those confiding chipmunks. One thing is sure, if living, they must be woefully discouraged.
Jimmie was a character. What he did not know about the English language was equalled only by his abysmal ignorance of cooking. Asked to bring some breakfast-food for the Junior, he disappeared kitchenward, and when, after a long absence, one of the party went in search of him, he was discovered proudly bearing toward the table—a canteloupe. But Jimmie did his best, and that was quite enough to satisfy the happy members of our little family. He could boil potatoes well, and the water that he brought from Midge Creek was always first-class. Then, too, we had cooks of our own.
“Time to stop,” do I hear the weary reader say? Very likely, but the half has not been told. You should hear about the “hermit,” with his long, white hair and beard, his piercing eyes, his little shack and garden and the romantic love-affair which is said to have driven him into voluntary exile. You have not heard of the hard tramp up the canyon, past almost innumerable cascades and rapids, back and upwards until a pool is reached where a great throng of mountain trout is assembled. That marvellous rainbow which followed the Sunday afternoon storm must be ignored. The Junior’s sand-wells, his fall from the gang-plank resulting in a broken collar-bone, the fracas with a colony of yellow-jackets, the night of storm when we feared lest the cables break and we go drifting at the mercy of wind and waves—but what’s the use? You will never know what you have missed through your insistence that you’ve had enough. The writer had intended to tell of the total depravity of those trout, manifested on the Sundays of our stay with them, as they gathered en masse at the stern of the house-boat and dared the Preacher to cast a fly. Perhaps it is just as well to stop right here, for words cannot be found with which to describe the ministerial struggle.
Original
Original
Angling is an art, and an art worth learning; the question is whether you be capable of learning it. For Angling is something like Poetry, men are to be born so. I mean with inclinations to it, though both may be heightened by discourse and practice. But he that hopes to be a good Angler, must not only bring an inquiring, searching, observing wit; but he must bring a large measure of hope and patience, and a love and propensity to the art itself; but by having once got and practised it, then doubt not but Angling will prove to be so pleasant, that it will prove to be like virtue, a reward to itself.—Izaak Walton, The Complete Angler.
Original
XIV. SKEGEMOG POINT
HAT’S that?”
The elect lady should have been asleep instead of sitting up in bed, an animated interrogation point, for the hour was late and the ride from Chicago that day had been hot and dusty and fatiguing.
“What’s what?” grunted the sleepy partner of her joys.
“That noise. Don’t you hear it? It sounds like a band playing in the distance.”
When this suggestion finally penetrated the semiconscious mind of the husband, the absurdity of the idea called forth certain emphatic if not convincing negative arguments, all of which were met with the puzzling query, “If it’s not a band, what is it?”
“That’s what I’ll soon find out,” answered the skeptic, as he arose to begin a serious investigation.
The noise was unmistakable; faint but clear, and from without. Approaching the window the noise became more distinct, but the character of it remained a mystery. Bands are not indigenous in rural districts, and no large town was near. With nose pressed against the window-screen in a vain effort to see everything within a radius of five miles, the explorer suddenly realized that the music was right at hand, and the musicians, in countless numbers, were separated from his face only by the wire netting. Mosquitoes? Exactly, and their name was legion. If night had suddenly turned to day one could not have seen anything through that window for the cloud of mosquitoes. New Jersey may justly boast of the size and ferocity of her mosquitoes, but for numbers Skegemog fears no rival.
It is more than probable that some reader will say to himself, “I wouldn’t stay in such a place.” Well, we stayed, not because of the pests, but in spite of them, and because they formed the only drawback to one’s enjoyment. The Lodge was on a point of land with water on three sides, the table was exceptionally satisfactory, the guests were congenial and the black bass never failed to respond promptly to our advances. What are a few mosquitoes, more or less, when such paradisaical conditions obtain?
To many people a bass is a bass, and that’s all there is to it. To be sure, they recognize the fact that some bass are larger than others, but the process of differentiation begins and ends with the table of weights and measures. Skegemog bass belong to the small-mouth family, and there is as much difference between these and the big-mouth variety as between a split-bamboo rod and a saw-log. The small-mouth is the aristocrat of the bass family. He is more dainty in his tastes, more plucky, and has more brains than his brother of the more generous facial opening.
And the small-mouth bass are not all alike. The marked differences seen in children of the same family are duplicated in the individuality shown by fish belonging to the same species. The bass whose home is in swift waters is a stronger, more tireless fighter than his brother of the lake. Of two bass living side by side in the same water, one may be logy and lazy and indisposed to strenuous exertion when hooked, while the other is brought to net only after he has tried every dodge known to fishdom and exhausted every atom of his strength.
It was while fishing on the reef just west of the Point that the invalid bass was taken. Each fisherman has his favourite method of capturing bass. One uses live frogs and casts close to the edge of the rushes or weeds along shore. Another trolls with many yards of line out, and a piece of pork-rind or a minnow fastened to the spoon.
Still a third anchors his boat and still-fishes with live minnows. A fourth method, and one which we prefer to any of the others, is to row slowly over promising ground, letting the minnow sink well down and keeping it constantly moving. It was while fishing in this manner and after taking six or eight fine fish, that a feeble tug at the line signalled the presence of the invalid. He came in with scarce a struggle; in fact he seemed to be relieved to have his troubles ended. As no expert was present to diagnose the case we shall never know from what malady he suffered, but he was a sick fish. If he had been a man the pallor and emaciation might have indicated tuberculosis, although he did not cough. He had a giant frame, and in health would have weighed five pounds or more. As it was, he barely went two pounds. As he was still able to wiggle a little after the weighing process was over, he was returned to the water, where, after lying seemingly lifeless for a moment, he feebly swam away. Just before he disappeared he turned a reproachful look towards the fisherman, as much as to say, “Why didn’t you put an end to my suffering? I’m disappointed in you.” If we ever catch another invalid fish we’ll kill him on the spot.
On a certain day, among the new arrivals was a Cleric and his Satellite. The Cleric was a genial and interesting man and an enthusiastic fisherman. That night he asked many questions about the fishing, and calmly announced that the next day he would show us how to catch bass. Then the Satellite took the floor and descanted at length upon the prowess of his friend and the piscatorial victories won by him on other waters and in other days. Not a word was said in reply by the men of the company, some of whom had fancied that they knew a little about bass fishing; but on more than one face there was a grim look which betokened something a little short of perfect happiness.
The next morning the Cleric and his Satellite were up bright and early, being the first to start out upon the day’s fishing. Later on, three other boats put out, each containing a man who had vowed to beat that Cleric or perish in the attempt. When night came and the records of the day’s catches were compared, it was found that the high-hook had brought in eighteen bass, another twelve, a third eight, while the invincible Cleric had taken but two. Never again, as the guests gathered on the porch at nightfall, did the Cleric expatiate upon his skill as a fisher for bass, and no more did the Satellite recount the marvellous exploits of his hero. On the faces of the other fishermen there rested a look of deep satisfaction and in their eyes one might detect a gleam of amusement. It isn’t necessary to brag about your achievements. Just do things, and let that brag for you.
But the Cleric was a good fellow and his stories helped to pass many an evening pleasantly. One, that may serve as a sample, has stuck in our memory:
“Where a railroad crosses a Michigan river is a deep pool under the bridge. As a fisherman was casting in this pool one day, he had a mighty strike followed by the fierce whizzing of his reel as the fish ran out the line. Before the man realized what was happening the line parted and the fish was free. In the afternoon he returned with a new and stronger line, only to repeat the experience of the morning. Then salmon tackle was called into use, which was promptly smashed by the, as yet, unseen denizen of the pool. By this time the fisherman had parted company with all his cherished principles of sportsmanship, and vowed that he would capture that fish even if he had to shoot it. Abjuring the rod, he next employed a muskallonge line and a cod-hook, baiting with a five-inch minnow. The fish responded promptly, and the big line just as promptly parted when this Sandow of the finny tribe had gotten fully into action. As a result of deep reflection the fisherman then bought a clothes-line and employed a neighbouring blacksmith to make him a hook big enough and strong enough to hold a shark. Baiting the hook with a pound of raw beef and giving the line a half-hitch around a near-by stump, he once more challenged his unseen foe. For three hours a mighty battle raged. The blacksmith, two section hands and a farmer joined forces with the fisherman, and the five of them finally succeeded in landing the fish. After quieting him with a club, they began to wonder at the fight which he had put up. While he was large—some twenty-five inches in length—his size did not fully explain matters. Then one of them undertook to turn the fish over with his foot, and could not stir him. He used both hands and failed. Then the five together tackled the job and barely succeeded. Evidently, here was an extraordinarily heavy fish, and the phenomenon was explained only when they cut the fish open and found him full of railroad frogs.” That story brings to mind the champion storyteller of northern Michigan who acted as occasional oarsman for the Skegemog guests. He was generally known as the “Cheerful Liar,” and his kinship to Baron Munchausen was put beyond the shadow of a doubt by the variety and character of his stories. After a somewhat careful study of the man, at least one of his occasional companions became convinced that he did not prevaricate consciously. His was simply a case of an over-grown and exuberant imagination. Given a tiny bit of fact as a starter, that imagination began to caper about without let or hindrance until the most incredible story resulted. He was a great comrade, always good-natured, always personally interested in the fishing, a lover of the woods and the water, ready at all times with an interesting story and never telling the same one twice. What more can one reasonably ask in an oarsman?
In earlier days he had lived in another part of the state, and most of his alleged adventures were localized on or near Clearwater Lake. As accurately as we could compute, the fish which he claimed to have caught in this one lake would have been sufficient to cover the southern peninsula of Michigan to a depth of seventeen feet, six inches, and then leave some four hundred fish unused. One of the most fascinating of his many delightful yarns concerned his adventure with a giant pickerel:
“Cousin Jim Smith and I,” the narrator began, “were fishin’ one lowery day on Clearwater Lake in a cranky little boat, when Jim hooked on to a pick’rel. The fish put up a tough fight and Jim got excited and kept standin’ up in the boat and I a-yellin’ to him to se’down. Bimeby Jim got ‘im into the boat, and then jumped up again, and over we went. When I saw we were goin’ I grabbed for the line and got holt just above the spoon. That pick’rel pulled and I hung on and he took me clear to the bottom in eighteen foot of water. When we got down there, I grabbed that fish with both hands, tucked him under my left arm, gave a big spring and shot up to the top of the water. What does that pick’rel do as soon as we reached the top, but slip out from under my arm and make for the bottom again, me hangin’ on to the line close to the spoon. When we reached the bottom I tucked him under my arm again, gave another spring, came to the top; the fish squirmed out again, and—well, I don’t know how many times we made the trip up and back, but just when I was about tuckered, some fellows in another boat came up and pulled us both in. That pick’rel weighed twenty-two pounds.”
The thoughtful critic will easily separate the element of historic fact from the mythical accretions in this story, and be able to retain Jim and a fishing trip and a big “pick’rel,” even if compelled to reject the account of the numerous subaqueous excursions.
In many of the larger inland lakes of Michigan lake-trout may be found, and summer visitors vary the sport of bass fishing with excursions after trout. Early in the season these fish are found in shallow water, along the shore, and may be taken by ordinary trolling; but as the weather grows warm the trout retreat to the deepest part of the lake, where they can be captured only by some unusual means. The method employed does not appeal strongly to a true sportsman, but he can afford to try it, once, at least, for the sake of the novelty. At the foot of Elk Lake lived an old man who was a past-master in the art of taking these deep-lying trout, and to him the visitor turned when he grew satiated with bass fishing and sighed for new worlds to conquer. The old fisherman has a big, heavy boat, in the back end of which he has fixed a windlass holding a thousand feet of fine, copper wire. The trout are lying in about three hundred feet of water, and no ordinary line will allow the trolling spoon to sink deep enough to reach those dim recesses. With all the copper wire paid out, the old man rows slowly over the deepest parts of the lake, while the tourist sits holding the handle of the windlass, ready to begin turning at the least suspicion of a strike. Now and then there is a false alarm, and the excited fisherman cranks in a thousand feet of wire only to find a piece of wood or weed fastened to the spoon-hook. When, by chance, a trout is hooked, the sensation differs little from that experienced in winding up a bucket of water from a deep well. The fish has not travelled far in his involuntary journey through the water before he loses all ambition, fills with water and becomes no more obstreperous than any other inanimate object would be when fastened to sixty rods of line. These trout are delicious eating, and run as high as twenty-five pounds, or even more in weight.
Other trout, the real, speckled brook-trout, are found in the streams flowing into the lake, and more than one delightful day was spent in pursuit of them. After all, there is no other fishing quite like that. It is not altogether because brook-trout are the cleanliest, handsomest of fish, or that they are so gamey and so toothsome that this sport is easily the prime favourite with fishermen. The brook itself is a joy. Just to company with it makes life worth while. It chatters to you, laughs at you, plays hide-and-go-seek with you, and never gets to be an old story. Sitting on an old root, just where a log fallen across the stream makes a good hiding-place for the shy fish, it doesn’t matter very much whether you catch anything or not. The checkers of sunlight are dancing all about you, a red squirrel is scolding at you from a neighbouring tree, a mink may go stealing by if you are quiet, and over all is a great peace which steals into the heart, filling it with profound contentment.
One day we followed far up the brook, so far that when the night fell and we saw a farmer’s home across the fields, it was deemed wise to seek lodging there for the night rather than to attempt the long trip back to the Point through the darkness. The farmer and his wife were hospitable and kindly, furnished us with an appetizing supper and, later on, showed us to a tiny bed-room under the eaves. It was not the fault of the house-wife, for the buildings were old, but a brief stay in that bed proved beyond peradventure that it had been preëmpted. We did not “fight and run away”; we ran without even beginning to fight. Stealing quietly down stairs we made for the neighbouring barn and the haymow, where we slept untroubled by anything more vicious than an occasional “daddy-long-legs.” Then, in the early-morning, back to the brook again and to trout that fairly tumbled over one another in their eagerness to grab the “Silver Doctor” as the light rod sent it flitting to and fro over the face of the stream.
When one of the guests proposed, one evening, that we all go on an excursion up the lakes the next day, there was hearty and unanimous assent. The lakes that wash the shores of Skegemog Point are only two of a series, all connected by thoroughfares. A steamer of light draught can go the whole length of the chain, some twenty-five miles or more. The next morning proved ideal for such a trip. The sky was a deep blue with just enough fleecy clouds in it to furnish the needed contrast. The wind set little wavelets to dancing on every inch of the lake, but never grew troublesome and unpleasant. The farmers were at work in their grain fields on either shore, the luncheon was excellent, and nothing occurred to mar the pleasure of the day. Why write of an experience so common and so uneventful? Just because of what the day brought to one member of the little company.
Among the excursionists was a man in middle life whose mother had gone home to God the previous Christmas-time. He had seen the light go out of her eyes, had held her hand in his as she breathed her last, had stood by the new-made grave in the village cemetery as they lowered the casket into the earth. The snow lay deep upon the ground and was steadily falling as the friends turned away from the burial and, Christian man though he was, that son could not feel that his mother was. Have you ever felt that one who has been a part of your life, is not only dead, but has utterly and entirely ceased to be? He told himself that she whom he had loved so passionately was safe in our Father’s house, and he believed it—but he could not feel it. The days and weeks and months had come and gone, and still there had come to his heart—whatever his head might affirm—no comforting sense that his mother still lived, safe-sheltered in a better country. He was sitting by himself that day, far up in the bow of the boat, drinking in the beauty of earth and sky and lake. It all brought back other and golden days when he and his mother had been together on the majestic St. Lawrence, and then, all at once—She was at hand. He felt her presence like a benediction. He heard no voice, saw no vision; but somehow his soul sensed her nearness, and his sore heart knew a comfort that has never departed and never lessened in the years that have come and gone since that hour.
Original
Original
Original
XV. IN THE ALGOMA WOODS—AND BEFORE
AVE you ever taken the Georgian Bay trip?” asked the General Passenger Agent when we sought his advice as to our annual outing. “The scenery is beautiful and the fishing all that heart could wish.” So it came to pass that we boarded the steamer at Sault Ste. Marie for the round trip of Georgian Bay, our tickets including generous stop-over privileges. Undoubtedly “palatial” is the proper term to use in describing a passenger steamer, but having never lived in a palace we are unable to judge of the fitness of the appellation as applied to this particular boat. We can affirm, however, that we were very comfortable, and that the scenery quite equalled our high expectations. So many people have made this trip and it has been described so frequently and so well, that the eulogistic possibilities of the English language were long ago exhausted in praise of the beauty of this unsalted sea.
It will be enough to say that we made the regulation trip and were quite orthodox in the matter of admiration. The moments of enthusiasm over the scenery were interspersed with periods of deep reflection; for somewhere along the course of the steamer we had decided to stop off for a stay of some weeks. Where should it be? We had started with a notion that the choice would lie between Pantanguishene and Parry Sound; but the former place failed to make a strong appeal, and at Parry Sound there were too many people and too few fish.
On our way down we had touched at Manitowaning.
When and where had we heard of this place? Carefully overhauling the odds and ends stowed away in the chambers of memory, we came at last upon a glowing account, given us some years before by a fisherman friend, of a vacation spent at Manitowaning. Much of what he said had been forgotten, but not his praise of the fishing. When the captain of the steamer assured us that there was a comfortable hotel in the little village, the matter was settled, and Manitowaning it was. It may be just as well to exhibit the “fly in the ointment” at once, and have done with it. The hotel had a bar, and the drinking and the drunkenness went far towards marring our enjoyment of this otherwise most delightful spot.
Manitou Lake, three miles from the village, swarms with little-mouth bass. One can hire a rig for a dollar and a half for the day, and many were the hours spent in close and delightful intercourse with the inhabitants of this beautiful body of water. Bass are freaky fish, and one never knows just when they will take a notion to scorn all efforts at their capture. One day Sue and the writer drove over to the lake, and those bass took everything that was offered. In a little sandy bay, where the water was not over four feet deep, we anchored and began fishing with minnows. So eager were the fish that both of us were kept busy hauling in the victims and putting on fresh bait. The Senior decided to try a gaudy, artificial fly, and the bass grabbed it with utter disregard of the fact that it resembled nothing which they had ever seen before. The fishing went forward so fast and furiously that it was finally agreed to throw back every bass that was not clearly of three pounds in weight, or more. Urged on by the sport of that day, the whole family started bright and early the next morning to duplicate the delightful experience. Alas! some mysterious change had come over the “spirit of their dream” in fishdom. Not a bass could be found in the little sandy bay where they had thronged only a short twenty-four hours before and, after a day of arduous toil, the net results were five bass, not one over two pounds.
If the fisherman were to find an earthly paradise it would be where he could catch trout from one side of his boat and little-mouth bass from the other. Next in attractiveness to this unrealized ideal must be placed the spot where these two species of game fish may both be found within a radius of a few miles. In this respect Manitowaning fills the bill. Although the village is on an island—Grand Manitoulin—trout streams abound, and among these the one flowing out of Manitou Lake was highly recommended by local sportsmen. The favourite point was some fifteen miles distant, and we were advised to drive over in the afternoon, stay all night at a farmer’s nearby, getting the evening and morning fishing. That sounded attractive, and was promptly tried out. There may be lazier horses than the one we drove that day, but if so they should be promptly executed for the crime of putting an unendurable strain on the driver’s good nature. But we finally arrived at our destination, and could hardly wait to stable Bucephalus, so eager were we to begin operations with the trout. It was a sizable stream, with much quick water in sight as we crossed the bridge and, in anticipation, we saw the big string of noble fish that we would carry proudly back to Manitowaning on the morrow. Must it be told? When it was nine o’clock that night and too dark to distinguish a favourable pool from a mud-puddle, we turned towards the farm-house not only without a trout, but not having had one rise in response to the incalculable number of times that the alluring flies had been cast. The next morning, at sunrise, we were on the stream again, and four hours of faithful fishing brought in return two small trout which had evidently escaped from some asylum for feeble-minded fish.
On our way out we had noticed an attractive looking stream which we crossed some ten miles from Manitowaning. Just by the bridge over this stream stood the remains of an old mill, half fallen down and with the timbers of the dam furnishing ideal hiding places for trout. When this spot was reached on the return trip the pull was too strong to be resisted and, hitching the apology for a horse to a nearby fence, preparations were made for a foray upon the unsuspecting fish. Fly-casting was out of the question and, after choosing a new snood of double gut and covering the hook with an exceedingly plethoric angleworm, the bait was cautiously dropped into the rushing waters at the upper side of the ruins of the flume. Slowly the line was paid out and the lure allowed to go far down out of sight. Zip! Yank! Tug!—and it’s all over. Under the conditions, any such thing as playing the fish was out of the question, and the straight-away pull parted that new snood as if it had been made of a single strand of cotton thread. Our humiliation was complete, and with a thoroughly chastened spirit the horse was untied and the homeward journey resumed. That night as we told the champion fisherman of the village of the experience at the old mill, he poured a little balm upon our sore spirit by exclaiming, “That’s no trout, that’s a whale. There isn’t a fisherman within twenty-five miles of the old mill who has not hooked that fish and lost him.” Strange, isn’t it, how other men’s ill fortune takes some measure of the sting from our own?
But this is no tale of woe. On another day, and on the same stream that flows by the old mill, the elect-lady and her unworthy consort spent hours that are a joy to recall. It was only eleven miles to the point recommended by our friendly adviser, and the horse was reasonably ambitious. We had laid in a supply of provisions and took along a skillet. A perfect day and perfect comradeship, plenty to eat and the novelty of unexplored territory, made it certain that, fish or no fish, the hours would pass pleasantly. As so frequently happens when we are not very particular whether the fish bite or not, they elected to be friendly. The stream where we visited it ran through meadow and pasture-land, with a luxuriant growth of alders along its banks. The open spaces afforded opportunities for my lady to try her hand at trout fishing, and the other member of the party could wade the stream and test the more inaccessible places. The water was almost ice-cold, the stream having its rise less than a mile away in a great, bubbling spring. Owing to the colour of the water the stream is called the “Bluejay.”
When noon came, a fire was kindled in a secluded spot close by the running brook. Coffee! You never tasted any like it. Fried trout! Why are they never so appetizing as when cooked and eaten in the open? We lingered long over that dinner, and the writer would fain linger a little over that day even now when it is only a memory. He has known many happy days; days which are golden as he looks back upon them across the years; but among them all no day spent in the out-of-doors, in touch with fields and stream and sky, stands out more clearly and alluringly against the background of yesterday than that passed with the dearest woman in the world upon the banks of the Bluejay. The sun was low in the west as we started homeward, and from the summit of a low hill over which the road led, we looked north and eastward over miles of woodland and cultivated fields, and saw in the distance the glistening waters of the bay. Yes, there is the lighthouse at Manito-waning, and the children are watching for us. In spite of the alluring beauty of the scene, something more attractive awaits us yonder. We must hasten.
Before leaving home it had been decided that all but one member of the family should spend a portion of the vacation time in visiting old friends.
Accordingly, when Sault Ste. Marie was reached, the devotee of rod and reel turned his face towards the north, while the wife and children took steamer for Chicago. The trip into the woods was not undertaken alone, for a fisherman friend who shall be known as Jim, one of the best of comrades, was waiting at the Canadian “Soo” to bear us company on the visit to the Algoma woods. What name, if any, the railroad bears which runs from the “Soo” sixty miles northeast, we do not know. The company does not depend upon passenger traffic for revenue, for that would mean bankruptcy. The road is used for hauling out logs, with the suggestion now and then made that some day it will be extended to Hudson’s Bay. The day before we were to go up the line, a trestle had been partially burned, and the train crept fearfully over the half-repaired structure. We were probably some five or six hours running the sixty miles which brought us to Trout Lake and the shack where we were to stop.
Through the kind offices of the Superintendent of the Algoma Railroad we had been able to secure accommodations with a forest ranger, who had a comfortable cabin and was an excellent cook. It was the only building for many miles around, and Edwards, the ranger, must know some lonely hours, especially during the long winters. Lest others may share the delusion of a friend who said that he wondered we did not starve at such a long distance from market, listen to the bill of fare: plenty of good bread and butter, eggs, bacon, toast, trout, with blueberries and raspberries ad libitum. Less than eighty rods away was a lumber camp where we could get milk and cream, and in return for trout the cook kept us supplied with delicious blueberry pies. The man who is on friendly terms with the cook for a logging camp need never suffer from hunger.
The first night after our arrival we were awakened by a knocking at the door. Upon being admitted the visitor told of a sick child which had been brought up from the city in hopes that the change might prove beneficial. The mother and child were living in a tent and they feared the little one was dying. Had we any medicine? We had, and he departed with it. The next morning the baby was reported as being better, and the following Sunday when we were invited to dinner at the logging camp, the mother and child were at table with us. When we saw that mother feeding baked beans, boiled ham, pickles and pie, to a child that had recently been at the point of death with cholera infantum, we had an unexpressed conviction that it would take something more than cholera-mixture to save the child this time. However, so far as we could learn, the little one survived in spite of its mother’s folly. Possibly ham and pie are specifics in this disease.
The country here is broken, rocky hills of considerable size almost surrounding the lake. Neighbouring lakes are to be found in nearly every direction, one of them less than half a mile away. From these lakes trout of large size may be taken, but not with the fly; at least at the time of year when we visited them. They seemed lazy and somewhat indifferent even to the minnows offered them. Now and then one would deign to respond to our invitations, but it was never with any enthusiasm. It will always remain an open question whether the huge trout that coquetted with Jim’s hook, one day, was a reality or a phantom. We were on a lake some three miles from camp and had taken a few fish. Fishing in some fifteen feet of water, Jim had a strike and brought a big fish so near to the surface that he was plainly seen by the three of us, and then the exasperating rascal quietly sank down out of sight. The bait was immediately lowered and a prompt response secured in the shape of another strike. Again the trout came within clear view, and again, without any apparent haste, disappeared. How many times this was repeated deponent saith not; but the repetition of this ungracious performance went on until even Jim’s patience was exhausted and we went on our way.
It was on this lake, near the outlet, that we came upon a beaver-house, recently built. We did not get a sight of the shy animals, but saw many evidences of their work in the stumps and freshly cut pieces of wood. A well-beaten path led from their timber reserve to the edge of the water, and they evidently floated the timber to their building some twenty rods away. The discovery of this colony called out numerous stories from the forest ranger of his experiences with the beaver, in the recounting of which he referred to the “outlaw” beaver which lives alone and in a hole in the bank of some stream or lake. The Indian theory is that this exile has been driven out by the members of his family on account of his bad disposition or for some crime committed against the society of which he is a member. We must confess to a measure of skepticism as to the absolute trustworthiness of this bit of natural history, and only the testimony of a well-known naturalist established it in our minds as an indubitable fact.
The best August fishing in this section is to be found either in the streams or just where they empty into the lakes. Here the sprightly, always-up-and-doing brook trout furnish real sport. In the Chippeway River, outlet of Trout Lake, we made good catches, and where a spring brook empties into the lake, sport that met our highest desires was found. One spot on the river made an indelible impression. It was where the stream, rushing against a wall of rock, was sharply deflected, forming a deep and shaded pool. The timber grew so densely all about that it was seemingly impossible to fish this pool from the shore, and its depth made wading out of the question. By dint of much climbing and fighting with underbrush, the top of the rock was reached, from which point of vantage one could look down upon the pool and the big trout lying near the bottom. While the rod could not be used on account of the brush, it was possible to drop a line into the water from the over-hanging rock, and however unsportsmanlike this may have been, it was done with most satisfactory results. Eight large trout were pulled up, hand over hand, from this secluded retreat.
The mouth of the cold brook yielded the largest returns of any one spot found during our stay. Just as the sun was going down, to send a cast of two or three flies dancing over this water was to be rewarded by doubles frequently, while rarely did the flies go untouched. Then back to the cabin and, after one of Edwards’ good suppers and a chat about the roaring fire, to bed and to the sleep that “knits up the ravelled sleeve of care” and sends one forth to the new day buoyant and rejoicing.
Full many a glorious morning have
I seen
Flatter the mountain-tops with
sovereign eye,
Kissing with golden face the
meadows green,
Gilding pale streams with heav-
enly alchymy.
—William Shakespeare,
Sonnet XXII.