LET US GO AFIELD 



lives on conny half the year and hope and whitefish 

 the other half, there seems to be no one who knows 

 very much about this mysterious fish. I could not 

 learn whether or not it comes out of the ocean, 

 whether or not it is ever taken in salt water. I 

 could not learn its spawning season, though I pre- 

 sume it to be in the spring or early summer. We 

 know all about fur seals but no one describes 

 the pelagic pursuit of the inconnu amid the unknown 

 islands of the North. 



In appearance the fish did not in the least re- 

 semble a salmon which has come out of salt water, 

 reached its spawning grounds, and dropped back. 

 It is a bright, clean silver color ; the scales are rather 

 coarse, more like those of the whitefish than of the 

 salmon, which, of course, scarcely seems to have 

 scales at all. Even in the muddy water far up the 

 Mackenzie River it retains this clean look, though 

 the Athabasca, the Great Slave and parts of the 

 Mackenzie are among the dirtiest waterways of the 

 entire world. 



The inconnu seems to survive sediment. So far 

 as known, it never is found south that is to say, 

 upstream beyond tke great rapids of the Great 

 Slave River, between Fort Smith and Smith's Land- 

 ing. That sixteen miles of wild waters seems a sort 

 of dividing line between tame things and wild 



78 



