4 THE OTTANANICHE 



anxiously inquired, prior to making up his party for 

 a trip to Lake St. John, whether the Indians and half- 

 breeds up that way were peaceable, and if it was safe 

 for ladies to accompany the party ! 



Lake St. John, the present centl'e of ouananiche 

 fishing in Canada — 190 miles by railway to the north 

 of Quebec, and nearly a hundred miles in circumfer- 

 ence—was discovered 250 years ago by Father de 

 Quen, the Jesuit missionary to the Indians. The 

 hardships which he endured in ascending the rapids 

 and crossing the portages that lay between the navi- 

 gable portions of the Saguenay and Lake St. John are 

 described with remarkable felicity of expression in 

 a letter addressed by him to the Father Superior of 

 his order in France, and which is still preserved in 

 the Helations des Jesuites. Yet but little more was 

 really known of the great inland sea and the details 

 of its fish fauna until very recent years, or of the 

 weird land — " in mist and glamour wrapped " — by 

 which it is surrounded. This vast reach of country 

 that extends from Quebec to Hudson Bay, from the 

 St. Lawrence to Ungava, and from the waters of the 

 St. Maurice to the Atlantic coast of Labrador, has 

 been aptly termed Nature's great fish preserve. Its 

 waters abound in brook and lake trout as well as in 

 ouananiche, and in various localities are to be found 

 also, prominent among a number of other varieties, 

 pike and pickerel, chub and carp, perch and bass, fresh- 

 water smelt and whitefish ; the lower reaches of many 

 of its mighty rivers affording opportunities for some 

 of the grandest salmon and sea-trout fishing that the 

 world has ever known. 



