58 



NOTES OF THE HUNT. 



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X .i| 



lake, the canoe has to be carried on the guide's back, 

 while the passenger carries his gun and * dunnage.' 

 Thus it become an object to have a boat of the least 

 possible weight fit to contain two persons. 



And these canoes, in which so many of our hours 

 were spent and on which so much depended, what of 

 them ? After a few weeks' lake-hunting, one gets to 

 have a sort of affection for the canoe he rides in, and can 

 very well understand the guide's solicitude about it. 

 This is his vehicle, his arm-chair, often his bed. To 

 lose it or to have complete disaster happen it, is for a 

 poor carter on shore to lose his dray, or the scissors- 

 grinder his wheel. A bruise or a crack caused by a 

 projecting knot or an unnoticed rock may mvian, to the 

 hunter, the loss of a deer, or to the trapper, that of a 

 load of furs. If it happen to be a birch bark canoe, 

 damages are repaired by the hunter with celerity by 

 means of fresh bark and resinous gum from the trees. 

 But to mend a clinker-built boat, when injured, twenty 

 miles from tools other than a clasp-knife, is no joke. 

 These frail shallops, of wood or bark, having to be 

 carried over portages every few hours, must be made as 

 light as possible. Then, considering that they often 

 have to contain a pair of dogs and a carcase or two of 

 venison, besides the hunters, it is essential that they be 

 strong and also buoyant, as well as * sharp ' enough to 

 make good time under the paddle. 



All these qualities we found represented in the fleet. 

 Birches were in the minoi ty ; the other canoes were 

 mostly of the model described by the authors of '^Canoe- 

 ing in Canuckia*' as a cross between the "Rob-Roy" 

 of John McGregor and the " Nautilus " of Baden 

 Powell. A green hand, the balance of whose body is 



