THE OUANANICHE AND ITS CAI^ADIAN 



ElSrVIRONMENT 



" OuAiTANicHE " is not to be found in any of the dic- 

 tionaries. But it has a place in the vocabulary of 

 thousands of anglers. It is a household word with all 

 who have made the acquaintance of Canada's distinc- 

 tively fresh-water salmon. It is the now generally 

 accepted designation of the gamest fish for its size that 

 swims. Ages before the arrival of the first white man 

 in America, the Montagnais Indians, who roved and 

 hunted the trackless wilderness between Hudson Bay 

 and the St. Lawrence, gave this name to the partic- 

 ular salmon that they found all the year round in the 

 waters of the streams and lakes that served as high- 

 ways for the passage of their birch-bark canoes. 



"The Canadian environment" of the ouanauiche 

 is fully as fascinating to the sportsman, the tourist, 

 the lover of I^^ature, and the student of ethnography 

 as is the fish itself to those who angle for it. A great 

 deal of ignorance concerning this country has disap- 

 peared in recent years with the steadily increasing 

 rush into it of angler tourists, though it is not yet 

 six years ago that a letter was received from a New 

 England sportsman, who had noticed my name at 

 the foot of an article on ouananiche fishing, and who 



