20 EARLY LIFE 



not allowed to touch his salmon rod or flies, and 

 considered myself lucky when I got even trout 

 flies, so I had to be satisfied with trout and bait 

 fishing. On the Manitou, a branch of the Min- 

 gan, there was excellent trout fishing, with trout 

 of large size. 



I had a very narrow escape from drowning in 

 the Mingan river. I was then ten years old, and 

 having always lived so far north there had been 

 little opportunity of learning how to swim, owing 

 to the water being so cold at all seasons of the 

 year. In fact, for this same reason, very few of 

 the natives or whites born on the coast learn to 

 swim. At Mingan, however, we found an im- 

 provement in this respect, for the water in the 

 river would become fairly warm in July and 

 August, and I made the most of it. One day we 

 had a visit from Mr. Richard Nettle, Inspector 

 of Fisheries, accompanied by his son, at that time 

 a lad of about fourteen years. We made friends 

 together and I proposed that we should go in for 

 a swim; so we repaired to the river. There was 

 a short portage behind the Post, which led to a 

 point on the bank where it was very steep with 

 deep water close in to it. It was not a very suit- 

 able place for beginners, but we never thought of 

 the danger. Young Nettle could not swim much 

 more than I did, and that was just about suffi- 

 cient to keep myself afloat for a couple of min- 

 utes. After one of these attempts at a swim, and 



