214 Our North Land. 



by such hateful mixture of evil odours and polluted waters, and in 

 the few streams where the water is still sufficiently pure for the 

 salmon to venture into them, the array of nets, weirs, and all kinds 

 of salmon traps is so tremendous, that not one tithe of the normal 

 number is now found in them." 



The writer of the above should go to the rivers, and brooks, and 

 torrents, and leaping, foaming, dashing streams that everywhere 

 empty their turbulent waters into Hudson Strait. There the salmon 

 has taken up his abode ; there, far away from the haunts of civilized 

 man ; there, where cataracts roar and rapids foam ; and where is only 

 the spear of the wily Eskimo to avoid, and the jaws of the porpoise, 

 the walrus and the seal, the otter and the agile polar bear to shun, 

 dwells the salmon in its virgin beauty. 



The salmon is of course a migratory fish, annually leaving the 

 sea, its really permanent home, and travelling up the rivers and into 

 all sorts of streams to meet the fresh water for the purpose of 

 depositing its spawn. The perseverance and skill of this fish in 

 working its way up the streams is wonderful. It penetrates the 

 swiftest currents, and scales the swiftest rapids, nor even is it always 

 checked by falls. It will sometimes spring out of the water, leaping 

 several feet above the surface, and scaling the falls in a manner that 

 is altogether incredible. In this way it often ascends a series of 

 falls in a river, some fifteen or twenty feet, and having gotten above 

 them it burrows into the gravelly bottom and there deposits its 

 spawn. 



The salmon abound in the streams running into Hudson Strait so 

 plentifully that a ship can be loaded with them in a few days. 

 Already, at Ungava Bay, the Hudson's Bay Company have opened 

 a salmon fishery, and ship a refrigerator steamship load to the Old 

 Country annually. These salmon are pronounced the finest in the 

 world — much better in quality than those caught on the Pacific 

 slope or in the more southern waters of the Dominion. They abound 

 in such immense quantities, in such a vast stretch of country, that 

 the possibilities of development of the industry are unlimited, and we 

 may fairly expect that in the near future fresh salmon will not only 

 be sent in a frozen state from the Hudson's Bay country to all the 



