340 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 



great tract of forest embraced many thousand acres of land, and pre- 

 sented au extent of country about forty miles in its greatest length by 

 twenty to thirty in breadth. More than twenty lakes appeared in this 

 vast expanse of forest-land, and their tributaries and connected streams 

 meandered or rippled through every part. At the period above men- 

 tioned the country exhibited all the wild freshness and sublimit^' of its 

 primeval beauty ; the forest abounded with noble game, and the clear 

 lakes and the limpid and sparkling streams teemed with fine fish. It 

 was in reality one of the wildest parts of the State, and comparatively 

 unknown, except to the hunters, or to the venturesome lumbermen who 

 penetrated into the deepest recesses of our distant forests in search of 

 the pine and the spruce. 



The glowing accounts which the hunters gave of the fish and the fish- 

 ing in these regions were too exciting to be overlooked by a lover of 

 angling, and I resolved to devote the next college-vacation to examining 

 these unknown waters and their precious finny tribes. Therefore, the 

 next September found me on the road which leads from Calais on our 

 eastern frontier to the outlet of the chain of lakes in question, and which 

 was about twenty miles distant. At the outlet I was to engage an In- 

 dian guide, and pass up the lakes, by means of a canoe, to the nearest 

 fishing-grounds, which were fifteen miles farther up the lakes. On 

 arriving at the lower lake I encamped at the humble and solitary inn, 

 which serves as a refuge in spring to the returning lumbermen, and at 

 other times to the benighted settlers on their way to new homes in the 

 upper valleys of the Saint John. The worthy landlord corroborated the 

 stories of the hunters in relation to the fish, and sent up to the Indian 

 town for Toma, whom he regarded as the best hunter and fisherman in 

 the tribe. The Indian soon appeared, and engaged to carry me in his 

 canoe to the stream which empties from Grand Lake into the smaller 

 lakes below. We arrived at the month of the stream the next morning, 

 and, disembarking, we hid our canoe in a distant clump of alders, and 

 shouldering our pack, started on the old Indian trail which led to the 

 outlet of Grand Lake, nearly three miles distant. The stream, as it 

 flowed from the lake, rushed with considerable swiftness over the re- 

 mains of a decayed logdam, and subsided a short distance below into 

 broad, deep pools. The bed of the stream was of decomposed quartz, 

 and heightened the clearness of the water, whose pure tints reminded 

 me of the Rhone as it flows from Lake Leman. Tall pines cast broad 

 shadows across the bubbling waters, and sharp ledges of rock here and 

 there stretched across the stream and changed the clear currents into 

 foaming cascades.' Taken all in all, it was the beau-ideal of the angler 

 as a trout or salmon stream. 



Laying aside our packs, we soon arranged our camp by stretching a 

 rubber blanket over poles stuck in the ground, and then collecting a 

 pile of fire- wood to cook our food and warn the wolves away at night. 

 While the Indian was building the tire I adjusted my rod, and attached 



