Sea- Trout Fishing. 



529 



Well handled, a good birch may last for four years ; or she may 

 be banged into uselessness by an inexpert in one season of low water. 

 The red bark is stouter and more durable than the smoother yellow. 



TURNING A RAPID. 



Two years ago, fires 



ravaged the birch 



woods about the upper 



Saguenay, where much 



of the material is obtained, and forced 



the Indians to seek their bark at great distances, increasing the price 



of their work. A new canoe of the size used in these streams costs 



with equipment from eighteen to twenty-two dollars. These are 



eighteen feet long, three and a quarter across, and fifteen inches 



deep, weighing about forty pounds. They are Montaignie canoes, 



built by Indians of the north shore. The larger ones, used in the 



St. John's and the greater rivers, will carry nine men or a freight 



of nearly a ton. They are made by the Micmacs of the south shore, 



and have higher peaks and flatter bottoms, with less roll than the 



former. 



After eight or ten days spent at the home camp, all the pools 

 within range having been several times whipped over, and the run 

 of large trout sensibly slackens. At a point seven miles higher 

 up (measured through its crooks), the river rests, after its earlier 

 wanderings for seventy miles through untrodden forests, and ex- 

 pands into a basin, between two and three miles across in either 

 direction, deep set among craggy hills. Through this lake, and to 

 the far regions beyond, all the fish, salmon and trout, pursue their 

 pilgrimage. Just opposite the home camp a well-marked portage 

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