20 SALMON FISHING IN CANADA. 



With the exception of one single stream, a most beautiful 

 one — the Jacques Cartier, there is not anything which 

 can be called salmon fishing to the westward of Quebec. 

 It is true that the salmon ascends the St. Lawrence, and 

 enters the St. Francis, the Credit, the Humber, and other 

 streams beyond Toronto, and are there speared and taken 

 iu nets ; but they have not, that I can ascertain, been ever 

 taken in any of them with the fly. The fact is, I suppose, 

 that they become wearied and spent by the long voyage 

 over a thousand miles which they perform in the fresh 

 water, and are not on their arrival in these waters in 

 condition to rise with the same vigour and recklessness 

 which they do when recently arrived from the depths of 

 the sea. After such an expedition for the purposes of 

 periDetuating their species, it is but reasonable that they 

 should set about that business at once, and give up the 

 folly of rollicking after gi'asslioppers and butterflies. 



It is, however, a melancholy fact that the extermination 

 of this noble fish has been commensurate wth the ci^uli- 

 sation and settlement of the country. A very few years 

 back every stream on both sides of the St. Lawrence from 

 Gaspe and Lal^rador to the Falls of Niagara abounded mth 

 salmon ; and it is no small reflection upon the legislators 

 of the country, tliat they have suffered such a valuable 

 article of commerce to be so wantonly and recklessly 

 destroyed. The spear of the Indian would never have 

 accomplished this ; the gill net of the settler would never 



