98 THE LABEADOE PENINSULA. CHAP. vi. 



or trunks of dead trees drawn over the cache. It was 

 made on the side of a hill forming the boundary of the 

 valley of a small tributary to the Moisie, which came 

 down ice-cold from the neighbouring mountains. 



We saw numbers of salmon leaping up the falls, but 

 not one could we catch with the most gaudy and attrac- 

 tive flies. Even the celebrated fiery brown failed to 

 decoy them, and we, who were so anxious to husband our 

 provisions, saw the most noble of fish leap and plunge 

 before our eyes with perfect impunity. No duck or other 

 wild bird, with the exception of a kingfisher, was visible 

 even at this beautiful pool ; and although fish life was 

 abundant, there was apparently an absence of four-footed 

 animals of any kind whatever. 



The pool into which these falls pour their foaming 

 waters is one of the favourite Indian resorts for spearing 

 salmon by torchlight. This mode of taking salmon is 

 very properly interdicted by the Canadian Government, 

 on account of the great waste of fish to which it leads. 

 But a description of one of the most successful artifices 

 employed by the savage wanderers in British America for 

 procuring food will perhaps be acceptable to the reader. 



Spearing any kind of fish during the day time is a 

 tame and monotonous occupation compared with the 

 irrepressible excitement which attends spearing salmon 

 by torchlight, with Indians who understand their work. 



It has been my fortune to witness the spearing of dif- 

 ferent kinds of fish in places far apart, and under widely 

 different circumstances: whitefish, with Ojibways on 

 Lake Huron ; pike and whitefish, with the Swampies on 

 the Lower Winnipeg ; sturgeon on the Assinniboine ; but 



