A Cruise on Lake Rossignol 



just below the Hopper, we made for Indian Gardens, 

 some sixteen miles from the camp, watching the shores 

 for moose, the water for rocks, and the sky for ducks. 

 We located one sunken rock without apparently doing it 

 any damage, and one flying duck with quite opposite 

 results. But we saw no moose. 



A lapstreak shallow-draught dory with ample propeller 

 protection is certainly the right combination for rocky 

 streams and lake-cruising. In the Straits we passed 

 what Joe called the " Old Sow," a big boulder with a 

 protuberance on its end shaped like a pig's nose. Ken 

 took the canoe and investigated it at close quarters while 

 we stopped the boat and took its picture. Erosion, ice, 

 and frost are gradually disintegrating " Old Sow," and 

 Joe observed that " she was twice as fat " when he drove 

 logs down this channel " forty year ago " ! 



Passing through Second and First Lakes (all part of 

 Lake Rossignol), we dropped our hook just above the 

 dam at beautiful Indian Gardens. Great storied oaks 

 shade the dam and foaming river below. Beneath these 

 same trees where we lunched that day lie the bones of 

 many a Micmac warrior. Weird tales have been handed 

 down the years of the feasts, fights, and frolics of the 

 ancient race, so few of whom have survived in purity of 

 blood the white man's civilizing but devastating influence. 

 Yet the old oaks still nod to each other in the breeze or 

 bend before the gale, and shade and shelter the just as 

 the unjust, while beneath the greensward, buried in 

 years and dust, is the Red Man's intimate history, never 

 to be truly divulged until the day when the oaks can 

 talk, or the trumpet blows a general muster of souls and 

 men. 



Ken carried the canoe below the dam, but we found 

 that trouting from the bank was easy, so did not launch 

 her. As evening was drawing near and the weather 



211 



