HAMILTON SCIENTIFIC ASSOCIATION. 87 



Having selected a site for my own summer cottage we reluct- 

 entl}^ bade farewell to Grand Rapids and set out upon Lake Win- 

 nipeg, a shallow but ver}- large lake about 300 miles in length by 

 roo in greatest breadth. 



One might well be timid about crossing such a lake in canoes, 

 so we directed our course up the west shore for the first day and 

 then crossed over to Eagle Island and paid a visit to the large fish- 

 eries recently removed from Selkirk Island and Grand Rapids. 

 They were being carried on by two separate companies (both of 

 them American), viz.: The Dominion Fish Company and the 

 Northern Fish Company. Both have large refrigerators, packing 

 houses, ice houses and wharfs upon the island, and each employs 

 eight or ten fishing boats at this point, besides several steam tugs, 

 which collect the fish from other stations and take them to Selkirk 

 for shipment to Chicago, Detroit and other American cities. 



The most valuable variety caught is the famous I^ake Winni- 

 peg whitefish, averaging about six pounds in weight, but with it 

 are also taken toolibies, pickerel and pike, gill nets being employed 

 for their capture. Two different methods are adopted in the pack- 

 ing of the fish for shipment : the one company freezing the fish 

 in metal boxes from day to day as they come from the nets, then 

 keeping them in refrigerators until shipped or indeed until mark- 

 eted, but the other company prefers to merely pack the fish in 

 boxes with ice and thus to market them, claiming that unfrozen 

 fish have the better flavor and command a higher price than those 

 that have been frozen. The freezing method has, however, one 

 advantage over its rival in that, from the time the fish are packed 

 in boxes they do not require further attention until finally disposed 

 of, whereas with the unfrozen fish the boxes have to be opened 

 once or more during transport for the addition of ice. 



It is greatly to be regretted that the fisheries of this lake, once 

 thought to be inexhaustible, have been so sadly depleted. Where 

 one thousand fish were taken a few years ago, about fifty are 

 caught to-day. The hatcheries established on the lake by the 

 government have doubtless done much to check this depletion, but 



