84 SALMON FISHING IN CANADA. 



soon as lie is hooked, into the top branches of the nearest 

 tree, — an event which has more than once occurred to the 

 \vriter of these pages. Should the accoiupanying sketch 

 ever meet the eye of an old and kind friend in a " cottage " 

 at Toronto, it mW remind him of an hour in one summer's 

 evening, in which such an occurrence took place, and 

 during which he and I killed five salmon, the smallest of 

 which weighed fifteen pounds. In many of them, walls of 

 rock of an immense height rise perpendicularly from the 

 narrow strip of gravel from whence you have to throw 

 your line, and afford the most convenient means which 

 can be well conceived of knocking the very best tempered 

 hooks into smash. 



Well do I remember mj^ first visit to the Chute-en- 

 haut, or upper fall of the Eschemin, or L'Essumain, as it is 

 indifferently called in the maps. It was in the year 1845 

 that my friend and I ran our boat ujJ to within a few 

 hundred yards of the lower pools, which I believe had not 

 been fished since General Sir John Macdonald had killed 

 some four hundred salmon there in one week, some few 

 years before. The salmon were in plenty, the sea trout were 

 in myriads. We killed both, and ate both, till our piscatory 

 and epicurean propensities were satisfied ; during which 

 process we became acquainted with the only man who 

 resided within thirty miles of the place, a half Frenchman, 

 half Indian, who set some rude stake nets in the estuai-y, 

 and spoke a most unintelligible language, composed of 



