ANENT THE SALMON. 98 



astounding sums these angling privileges command ! Ten, twenty, thirty thousand 

 dollars, and even more, for a few rods of river front with a bare fortnight's fishing 

 per annum ! To those who have enjoyed the freedom of the river, without money 

 and without price, in years gone by, the changed condition of things seems strange, 

 and the question naturally comes up: How has it all happened? Has the intense 

 passion for salmon fishing, whose charms all the poets and anglers have sung from 

 the days of Oppian to Bethune, at last reached fever heat? Or is it merely the 

 pleasure of exclusive possession that enhances value? 



I remember once coming down the Restigouche twenty odd years ago, and 

 stopping at old man Merrill's over night, half way up the river. He occupied a 

 small log cabin beside a splendid salmon pool, and lived a lonely life in a very humble 



SALMON FISHING ON THE MIRAMICHI RIVER. 



way. He was poor, but gathered no end of salmon during the season ; indeed 

 became a drug at his table, and a steady diet of the pink-hued fish for forty days 

 would cloy his stomach. Wishing to do the handsome act for his guest at supper, 

 he graciously set before me the best his larder afforded, in his estimation, which was 

 a broiled smoked herring. This seemed to be the piece de resistance. No cooked 

 salmon was in sight. I was hungry for a mess of the dainty fish, for I was fresh 

 on the river myself, and for hours previously as the ever dipping paddles sped us 

 down the stream, I had kept thinking: "At Merrill's we will have fresh salmon." 

 However, I had no occasion to feel disappointed, for I had only to express my 

 desire and abundance soon appeared. I ate of the coveted viands to repletion, but 

 old Merrill "allowed" that he had had so much of it all summer that he didn't think 

 I would care for it. That seems to be the logic of the present status on the river. 



