NEW BRUNSWICK. 119 



channel entirely with nets, striving by one grand haul to 

 destroy the supply forever. To this general rule Wilson 

 is the only exception, and may be relied on, not only to 

 do whatever in reason is required of him, but to do it at 

 a moderate price. His only extravagant charge is for 

 driving to Fredericton to meet his guests. 



The guides were waiting for us, and after making the 

 requisite preparations and passing a comfortable night 

 in the old log house, we started next day on our journey 

 toward the head-waters of the Miramichi. Our canoes 

 were made of the log of a tree, and familiarly called 

 dug-outs, and were admirably adapted to the purpose. 

 Being extremely long, sometimes thirty feet, and nar- 

 row, they offer every convenience for poling, draw 

 but little water, and are not injured by contact with a 

 rock, that would pierce the thin bark of the delicate 

 birch canoe, and will hold their way better against a 

 strong rapid. They are made of the trunk of some tow- 

 ering branchless pine-tree that the adventurous woods- 

 man has marked during the winter for his own, and 

 which, after being cut down, is transported to a conve- 

 nient place, where it is hewn into the shape of the outside 

 of the boat. Augur holes are bored in the bottom, and 

 pegs, two inches long, are driven, to answer for guides aa 

 to thickness. The inside is then roughly hewn away, 

 till the pegs are reached, when it is smoothed off, being 

 left two inches thick at the bottom, and a half inch at the 

 gunwale. Slender knees are introduced at proper dis- 

 tances to prevent its warping under the sun ; a brace is 

 fastened across from gunwale to gunwale, near the stem 

 and stern, and the boat is complete. It is worth about 



