1912 AND FISHERIES COMMISSION. 65 



namely, the rapid disappearance of both these varieties. The peculiar 

 beauty of the northern portion of Lake of the Woods, with its innumerr 

 able woody islets, enchanting scenery and practical immunity from very 

 high seas, renders it eminently suitable for a great summer playground, 

 and its accessibility has already resulted in attracting to it numbers of 

 persons from Winnipeg and vicinity, as well as a goodly proportion of 

 Americans, to pass the summer months in this neighborhood. The citi- 

 zens of Kenora have become alive to the great importance of this annual 

 influx of visitors, many of whom have built for themselves beautiful 

 homes on the mainland or on the islands, and, as must always be the 

 case, leave behind them each year tribute in the shape of cash for all the 

 necessaries and luxuries of life, and, by their very coming, create 

 enhanced values of real estate both in the town and surrounding coun- 

 try. Although this traffic has already attained very considerable pro- 

 portions they are bent on further exploiting its possibilities by every 

 means within their power. Municipal enterprise is being directed to- 

 wards this end in the erection of a fine modern hotel and other measures 

 for the comfort and convenience of the visitors, and there can be little 

 doubt that under their energetic direction each succeeding year should 

 disclose a material increase in the numbers of persons attracted to the 

 locality. The value of the tourist traffic is held already to have greatly 

 surpassed the total possible value to be derived from the commercial 

 fisheries, and it is, therefore, with considerable indignation that the 

 rapid disappearance of the pickerel and mascalonge and the diminution 

 in the numbers of lake trout have been observed. 



It is claimed that in the vicinity of Kenora it is now practically 

 impossible to catch a pickerel or a trout, where both used to be plentiful, 

 and that an angler can now fish for a week over mascalonge grounds 

 without once getting a strike where formerly a good catch was assured 

 any and every day of the week, and that as a result of this the male sec- 

 tion of those visitors who have built their summer homes in the locality 

 spend yearly less time in them, and that others will not come for more 

 than a, day or two at a time. This diminution is naturally attributed to 

 the baneful effect of commercial netting now carried on by legal and 

 illegal means, and, as a consequence, a strong movement is on foot to 

 abolish all commercial fishing practically throughout the northern 

 zone — that is, over the whole of that area which affords such picturesque 

 and attractive cruising and camping grounds to the summer visitors, 

 and farther, to secure the erection of Provincial hatchery plants for the 

 purpose of restocking these waters with mascalonge, pickerel and trout 

 and introducing into them the black bass. 



Undoubtedly the matter is worthy of the most serious consideration. 

 The value of the tourist and annual summer visitor traffic lias been 

 strongly called to attention in the Interim Eeport of this Commission, 

 as also the potentialities existing in sporting fish as an attraction to the 

 same, and perhaps no better instance of this could have arisen than tha 

 case under review. 



