A BLACK BEAR HUNT 



173 



A GOOD BIT OF CAN'OEIXG WATER. 



Accordingly, in the red afterglow of a lovely evening, we started 

 up stream, with Noel at the stern armed with spike-pole, from 

 which the noise-making steel shoe had been removed, while Nicola 

 took his station at the bow and kept a sharp lookout for game. 



Give me an Indian hunter for such a trip as this. The red man 

 with his birch-bark canoe is as much an integral part of this northern 

 wilderness as the black bear itself. After he has succumbed to that 

 strange sickness which civilization has brought on his race, the 

 rivers and forests will scarcely seem the same. 



Few persons know how beautiful and delicate a craft the canoe 

 is. It is made only by the Indian. In that the white man has 

 never equalled him. 



Of all the modes of locomotion a wilderness hunter can make 

 choice of, far and away the most delicious is travelling by canoe. 

 It is marvellous with what untiring energy and skill the Indians 

 mount the long impetuous rapids. When quiet ' steadies ' are 

 reached the light barque rushes along with an exhilarating buoyant 

 motion driven by the paddles through the pure cool waters. The 

 rare scent of wild flowers and resinous pine odours perfume the air. 

 Here the river broadens out into shallow reaches pouring over 

 glassy ledges. Now and then the canoe seems to have scaled 



