Nepigon River Fishing 



howling dogs are forgotten. The final 

 cause of these sneaking and yelping packs, 

 all shabbily alike, can only be guessed 

 when the deep snows of this region make 

 their life a burden in the work of sledg- 

 ing. It is wiser to stop long enough to 

 cut a stiff birch mast, and then to cross 

 the lake under the evening breeze to 

 the mouth of the river, entering through 

 fields of rushes. It is here over one hun- 

 dred yards across, running deep and strong, 

 but smooth. Natives are fishing or smok- 

 ing in wigwams along the flat banks. At 

 some places Lake Superior fishing-boats 

 are tied up. They are both stanch and 

 trim, a cross between a whale-boat and 

 pilot craft, two-masted and half-decked, 

 with a centre-board, three to eight tons 

 in burden, and used for deep-water fishing 

 in the great lake. At the better shanties, 

 now and then built on some cleared half- 

 acre yielding a handful of potatoes or hay, 

 the canoe turns in with an inquiry for 

 eggs, the Indian name of them sound- 

 ing precisely like the ancient o>6y of the 

 Greeks. The almost certain answer is 

 that the dogs have eaten the fowls. Dis- 

 pensing then with the " omne vivum ab 

 ovo," we make supper without them, 

 pitching the tent among the hay, both 



101 



