Interna- 

 tional 

 Fisheries 

 Commis- 



sion 



Boundary 

 waters 



'The Days of a Man 



1908 



in fishery laws relating to the Great Lakes and Puget 

 Sound, in which regions jurisdiction over the same 

 bodies of water was the right of two governments as 

 well as of numerous states and provinces. The mat- 

 ter having been discussed with Mr. Root, the Secre- 

 tary of State, Great Britain and the United States 

 executed a treaty on April u, 1908, providing for a 

 'Joint International Fisheries Commission" to pre- 

 pare uniform laws for the boundary waters, - - such 

 laws to be accepted and alike enforced by our coun- 

 try and Canada. 



Upon approval of the treaty by the Senate, Roose- 

 velt appointed me International Commissioner of 

 Fisheries for the United States, the Hon. Samuel 

 Bastedo, Commissioner of Fisheries for the Province 

 of Ontario, being likewise designated by his govern- 

 ment to represent Canada. As associates I chose Dr. 

 Evermann and Mr. A. B. Alexander, expert in methods 

 for the Bureau of Fisheries, and as secretary, Stolz, 

 then my assistant secretary at Stanford. 



The district in which we were to operate, officially 

 termed "boundary waters," was defined as follows: 



(i) The territorial waters of Passamaquoddy Bay; (2) the 

 St. John and St. Croix rivers; (3) Lake Memphremagog; 

 (4) Lake Champlain; (5) the St. Lawrence River, where the 

 said river constitutes the international boundary; (6) Lake 

 Ontario; (7) the Niagara River; (8) Lake Erie; (9) the waters 

 connecting Lake Erie and Lake Huron, including Lake St. 

 Clair; (10) Lake Huron, excluding Georgian Bay 1 but including 



1 In this enumeration Saginaw Bay and the head of Lake Superior including 

 Duluth and the Apostles Islands of Wisconsin should also have been omitted, 

 for their fisheries in no way concerned Canada. The unfortunate inclusion of 

 Saginaw Bay as will later appear caused us considerable embarrassment. 

 Indeed, Lake Superior and Lake Huron would better have been entirely omitted 

 because they are so broad and deep that fishing on the one border (outside of 

 waters about Sault Ste. Marie and Port Huron) has no effect on the other. 



C 256 ] 



