290 SALMON FISHING IN CANADA. 



sible to almost eveiy family in Canada, but also an article of no 

 small commercial importance as an export to the United States, 

 in which country, by pursuing the course which Canada has 

 hitherto imitated, this noble fish has been almost exterminated. 

 Twenty-five or thirty years ago every stream tributary to the St. 

 Lawrence, from Niagara to Labrador on the north side, and to 

 Gaspe Basin on the south, abounded with salmon. At the pre- 

 sent moment, with the exception of a few in the Jacques Cartier, 

 there is not one to be found in any river between the Falls of 

 Niagara and the city of Quebec. This deplorable decrease in a 

 natural production of great value has arisen from two causes : 

 1st. the natural disposition of uncivilised man to destroy at all 

 times and at all seasons whatever has life and is fit for food ; and 

 2nd. the neglect of those persons who have constructed mill 

 dams, to attach to them slides, or chutes, by ascending which the 

 fish could pass onwards to their spawning beds in the interior. 

 It is supposed by many that the dust from the sawmills getting 

 into the gills of the salmon prevents them from respirating freely, 

 and so banishes them from the streams on which such mills are 

 situated ; but I am persuaded that this is a mistake, for salmon 

 are found in considerable numbers at the mouths of many such 

 streams, below the dams. In the Marguerite, in the Saguenay, 

 at the Petit Saquenay, the Es-quemain, Port Neuf, Eimouski, 

 Metis, and others that might be named, the real cause of the 

 decrease is the insuperable obstacles presented by mill-dams, 

 which prevent them from ascending to the aerated waters, high 

 up the streams, which are essential for the fecundation of their 

 ova, and so for the propagation of the species. Would you then 

 it may be asked pull down our mills in order that we might 

 have salmon in our rivers ? most certainly not, I reply, for it is 

 quite possible to maintain all our mills, with all their mill-dams, 

 and yet afford to the fish an easy and inexpensive mode of passing 

 upwards to their breeding places. 



