FISH SPEARING THROUGH ICE. 503 



are known to frequent. Every second or third day the nets 

 are taken out to dry and repair." : 



This gives a very good idea of the way fishing" is 

 carried on throughout the winter in the great northern 

 wilderness of British America at the Hudson Bay Co.'s 

 forts, and elsewhere. 



In same of these northern waters the native Indian 

 tribes were very clever in the use of fish spears at 

 holes cut in the ice, as also were some of the white 

 settlers. Ice fishing may not appear to be very lively 

 sport, but may at times prove of extreme importance, 

 in getting food supplies during winter in the northern 

 wilderness, a great part of which, it is not too much 

 to say, would be quite uninhabitable, were it not for 

 the fish and fisheries. As the cold gets very intense, 

 the fish go out away from land into the deep water, 

 and sometimes the very best ice fishing is obtained in 

 the severest weather, f 



When snow covers the ice, as it always does to a 

 considerable depth under normal circumstances in these 

 regions, the water beneath it is of course then buried 

 in profound darkness ; when therefore a window is cut 

 through the ice in the form of a hole, it is easy to 

 understand that the light will prove a powerful source 

 of attraction to fish, swarms of which come to the 

 spot, when a bit of stick and a yard of string will be 

 enough to make a rod and line sufficient to capture 

 great numbers. Bits of fish make the best baits on 

 these occasions. An ice chisel must be carried to 



* Boat Voyage through Rupert's Land, by Sir John Richardson, in 

 1848 49, Vol. ii., p. 80, published 1851. 



j- See " Observations on Ice Fishing " in The Emigrant and Sports- 

 man in Canada, by John J. Rowan, 1876, pp. 300 301. 



