IN A FISHING COUNTRY 



habitations. The word 'camp\ in losing 

 the essential notion of transitoriness, has 

 left the English (or I should say the Amer- 

 ican) language poorer. The creation of a 

 home in the virgin woods by one's own 

 labour and wits has little in common with 

 a shift to a warmed, weather-tight, fur- 

 nished country-house. At some of the 

 lakes oftenest fished there might haply be 

 found a disreputable cahnne or lean-to, but 

 none of the dozen 'camps' within a day's 

 journey of Murray Bay had then come 

 into being. 



Fishing was always a mainstay. Every 

 stream abounded in trout. The reward 

 for a day of good hard work on the Loutre, 

 the St. Irenee, the Fraser. the Gros Ruis- 

 seau, not to mention lesser streams, would 

 be from three to six dozen trout worthy of 

 being basketed, (I remember 24 dozen for 

 two rods and a half, on the last named 

 brook,) and it was the fisherman on his long 

 scrambles who brought first news of the 

 waterfalls now so well known. The lakes 

 on the seigniories, then much more difficult 

 of access, were frequently visited with 

 (and without) permission. Lac a Gravel 

 has yielded good fishing for well over fifty 

 years; but season and weather had always 

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