SALMON AND TROUT FISHING IN CANADA 



Princess Pool in this river, the Princess Louise, during the Governor- 

 Generalship of the Marquess of Lome, killed a salmon of fifty -two pounds. 

 The record fish of the Gascapedia with rod and line is one of fifty-four 

 pounds, taken a few years ago by Mr R. G. Dun, of New York. 



The Grand River of Gaspe, which is privately owned, and which, like 

 the Gascapedia, flows into the Baie des Chaleurs, is also noted for the 

 large size of its fish, and very much resembles the Gascapedia in character, 

 though not so large a river. Its bed is so changeable that birch-bark 

 canoes are discarded by its fishermen for the stouter and more substantial 

 craft, built of wood, and known as the Gaspe canoe, from the place of 

 its manufacture. The two Micmac Indian guides, one in the bow, the other 

 in the stern, are supplied with both paddles and poles. After ascending 

 above tidal water, the passage of the canoe, as in several other Canadian 

 salmon rivers, is through an avenue of forest -clad mountains, sloping 

 to the margin of the water. This water comes from countless springs, and 

 is so perfectly filtered by the gravelly nature of the riverbed and sur- 

 rounding country that it is clear as crystal, every pebble at the bottom 

 of the stream being as clearly visible at a depth of forty feet of water 

 as if only separated from us by a sheet of glass. Here and there are stretches 

 of comparatively shallow and rapid water, where the river widens out to 

 a considerable breadth, alternating with deep holes which appear to have 

 been hollowed out of the channel by ice. Quite abruptly, the bed of the 

 river, which was nearly fifty feet below us a moment ago, now rubs against 

 the bottom of the canoe, and the Indians have dropped the paddles, and, 

 standing up in either end of the canoe, are forcing it against the current 

 with all their might, their long, iron-pointed poles stuck into the gravel 

 or prised against the rocks of the shallow channel. So the journey goes; the 

 Indians sometimes wading through the shallow passes, where the canoes 

 scrape the bottom, and then driving the somewhat heavy craft directly 

 up picturesque rapids of half a mile or so in length, where the water is 

 carded by angry rocks into white and fleecy foam, and where, by dint of 

 muscular effort and judicious employment of brain and pole, the guides 

 succeed in fairly forcing the canoes up perpendicular falls of water over 

 the large scattered rocks of the rapids. At every turn of the constantly 

 winding river new beauties of scenery are revealed, and often a salmon 

 pool is passed, where the water is so clear that the fish may be seen to 

 dart away as the canoe passes almost over them. 



On many of the north shore streams, and also upon some of those 



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