VII Subglacial Angling 461 



seemed hardly worth the trouble, and if he said grace 

 after it, he was ' thankfu' for sma' mercies.' 



The only trial of fishing through lake-ice I have 

 ever had was farther north, Labrador -way ; and, as 

 you do not take to it as long as you have meat, you 

 fish with keenness and interest, because if you catch 

 nothing you chance a mighty slim supper. Go 

 along the north shore of the St. Lawrence in a 

 wheelless box, by courtesy called a sleigh ; through 

 the queer little Habitan villages, with their cosy beds, 

 which you have almost to borrow a ladder to get 

 into, like the top berth of a P. and O., but oh ! so 

 clean and fresh, and with such a marvellous knitted 

 nightcap of divers colours ever ready on the pillow 

 (nice people the Habitan, but with strange ideas as 

 to the fire-preventing properties of old fire-insurance 

 plaques) ; and so on and on till you can get no 

 farther, — your jumping-off place, in fact, where, if you 

 are lucky, you will find your Indians awaiting you. 

 Arrange your blanket artistically, so as to hold the 

 greatest possible amount of plunder ; put on your 

 snow-shoes craftily ; ask for a lift to get the carrying 

 strap comfortably across your chest (the Indians will 

 place theirs across the forehead), and then settle who 

 is to trail the necessary toboggan, which serves to 

 carry the heavier necessaries to camp, and to bring 

 home the ' beast,' if you are lucky to get one ; and so 

 over the untrodden snow into the silent pine woods. 

 They may be sombre and sad these pine woods, but 

 remember that if they were not here, it would be 



