14 EARLY LIFE 



the best salmon rivers, for angling purposes, in 

 the Dominion of Canada. Through the courtesy 

 of the proprietors, Messrs. Law & Manuel, I ap- 

 pend elsewhere the synopsis of a complete record 

 of the angling scores from 1859 to the present 

 day. In 1879 I was appointed by the Federal 

 Government a Fishery Officer for the Division 

 of Godbout, which position I still hold. J'rc 

 vious to this apointment 1 had the lease of several 

 net fishing stations, the average yield of which 

 was about ten thousand pounds of salmon, so that 

 in my days 1 have seen and handled thousands of 

 these fish. Hut more of this anon, as I am di- 

 gressing. 



I presume that up to the age of four or live 

 years I grew up like the majority of boys, but af- 

 ter that period my life was out of the ordinary 

 routine of most white children. The members of 

 the Agent's family at a Hudson's Bay post, espe- 

 cially in the days when I was a child, were the 

 only whites in the neighborhood, and sometimes 

 they were not entirely of that color, for not infre- 

 quently the agent was married to a half-breed or 

 pure Indian woman. Naturally, therefore, I 

 had no other playmates than the Esquimaux, 

 Nascapie, or Montagnais boys, just as we hap- 

 pened to be located. Our principal amusement 

 was running about in the puddles left at low 

 tides, spearing fish. The spears we made our- 

 selves with nails, bones, and sometimes entirely 



