EXPEDITION UP THE GANDER RIVER 77 



except with expensive light-draught canoes, and these must 

 be handled by experienced watermen who are not easily 

 discouraged. The average Newfoundland guide likes to do 

 things comfortably, both for himself and the sportsman who 

 employs him, so he is quite content to take his man, or party, 

 and sit about the leads of Howley, Goose Brook, the Gaff 

 Topsails, or Patrick's Marsh. This involves no labour or 

 fatigue, and so abundant are caribou, that three stags apiece 

 may be killed at these places still. But rarely is a good 

 head obtained in this manner. To shoot good heads the 

 hunter must see many, and he can only do so by going far 

 afield. 



These at any rate were the conclusions we came to after 

 carefully surveying the map of Newfoundland. Two rivers 

 seemed to pierce to the very heart of the country, the Bay 

 d'Est and the main branch of the Gander, the longest river in 

 Newfoundland, whose source I afterwards discovered beyond 

 the Partridgeberry Hills, about a hundred miles from the sea. 

 We resolved therefore to adopt this last route, and to travel as 

 far as we could haul the canoes. 



The first thing to be done was to obtain, if possible, 

 some information about the Gander, or the " Nor'- West " 

 Gander as it is more generally called, and for this purpose 

 I went to Mr. W. D. Reid, who on this and subsequent 

 occasions kindly gave me every assistance in his power. It 

 appeared that fifteen miles up the river was a lumber camp 

 worked by the Newfoundland Timber Estates. This industry 

 has mills at Glenwood, on the Newfoundland Railway, and 

 its steamers ply the lake and haul the logs from both the 

 rivers which flow into its waters. Mr. Crowe, the manager 

 of this company, said that practically nothing was known of 

 the main Gander, and that no one had been farther than 



