FISHING THROUGH THE ICE. 377 



with my birch-bark, till I could send across for them in the 

 morning; but a couple of bears, judging from the different- 

 sized tracks, got at my cache during the night, and had the 

 bad taste to maul and pull about what they did not eat, 

 so that I rejected it as unfit for food. Fish I have always 

 found the most tempting bait with which to attract Bruin 

 into a trap, so I built a bower-house, and hung up the bait 

 at the end of it, with my trap nicely covered with leaves. 

 Still all would not do, he and his companion were too wide 

 awake, or had left the neighborhood. This lake I often vis- 

 ited again, and with equal success ; the influences of weath- 

 er never appeared to affect the fishes' appetites, and they 

 are always a welcome addition to a backwoodsman's fare. 

 In company of a Chippewa Indian, I also tried fishing 

 through the ice. The method adopted is simple, viz., cut- 

 ting a hole two or three feet in diameter, over which is 

 built a small hut to keep out the light, and sufficiently 

 large for the fisherman to sit inside, the end of his fish- 

 spear protruding through the top. With an artificial min- 

 now on a few feet of line in the left hand, and weighted 

 so as to make it readily sink, you attract the pike to the 

 surface, when, with a dexterous blow, you drive your leister 

 home. Very much like poaching; still, where fish are so 

 abundant and wanted for food, this system becomes less 

 culpable. 



At the northern end of Lake Couchachin, the beautiful 

 Severn, after tumbling over a grand fall, starts on its er- 

 ratic, precipitous course for Lake Huron. To visit this 

 spot was not more than seven or eight miles of water, 

 through a labyrinth of islands, and along the most pictur- 

 esquely beautiful shore, wooded to the margin. Beside 

 the fall was a saw-mill, belonging to a descendant of the 

 French aristocracy, who had emigrated before the days of 

 " The Empire." Whether or not the proprietor happened 



