FOREST AND STREAM. 



19 



For the Forest and Stream. 

 FIRE FLIES. 



AT day's decline I come and see 

 In garden, hedge, and on the lea— 

 The flies hi jolly repartee, 



Light up their lamps so brightly. 

 O come, they say, and join our glee 

 And learn to skim as well as we, 

 Who took the very first degree 

 For being gay and sprightly. 



Flies can not all be diamond flies, 

 (I don't know how we won that prize) 

 Though phosphorescent were our eyes, 



And flame were our volition. 

 We could as well our light disguise, 

 As too a matinee emprise; 

 Who e'er by day our badge espies,! 



Scarce grants it recognition. 



Though blest with reason, oft we see 

 That man igores our self-taught plea, 

 That all his power applied should be 



To some specific shining, 

 And not as though time did not flee, 

 His gift from bondage scorn to free, 

 Until he loose his own degree — 



Defeating God's designing, 



Martha Ewing. 



%tont %mln ft/am i}\t <$jfcpig0q. 



— ♦ — 



TALE II. 



1 — _ 



Camp Campbell, Nepigon River, July, 1873. 

 Editor Forest and Stream : 



I date my letter from "Camp Campbell," twenty-eight miles 

 up the Nepigon, above Bed Rock Landing. What pleasant 

 days we have passed here; what charming associations will 

 always invest this delightful spot ! Let us take in the un- 

 usual landscape. 



Here is a bold, rocky point projecting into the river, upon 

 which stands our canvas tent. It was covered with a thin 

 growth of birch once, and three large evergreens found root 

 and nourishment in the interstices of the rock-bed ; but we 

 have cut away all that is not needed for shade or ornament, 

 and the open space affords us an unobstructed view of the 

 river and its scenery above and below. Moreover, it permits 

 a free draft of air, up and down stream, which most effectu- 

 ally clears the camp of flies and mosquitoes, and in midday 

 affords a cool and refreshing relief from the heat. Even in 

 this northern latitude the sun is sometimes oppressive at 

 noon. Our bed is made of balsam boughs laid upon the flat 

 bare rock, and covered with a rubber blanket, with woolen 

 oies on top. By this arrangement we avoid the dampness 

 «f the earth, and escape the annoyance of the community 

 If spiders, ants, bugs, wood-ticks, flies, worms, and other 

 varieties of creeping and crawling things that infest the 

 voods, and more especially of that infinitessimal and excru- 

 dating mite known in different localities as the sand-fly, 

 nat, punky, and midge, and termed by the Indians " bite- 

 am-no-see-'em." On the left we are flanked by a dense 

 orest of hard wood and evergreens, threaded by paths which 

 iverge from the camp, one following the bank to "Camp- 

 tell's Falls," a few rods up stream, and another leading over 

 he portage to the landing, a quarter of a mile beyond. 

 'his portage is necessary to surmount the falls, and over it 

 11 goods, canoes and stuff must be carried from the navi- 

 ;able waters below to those above. Across this and the 

 everal other portages on the river, the voyageurs of the 

 Iudson Bay Company once hauled a fifty-ton schooner, 

 aying skids for its passage. 



In front of the camp are the cooking arrangements, and 

 rom the tent door the rocky knoll slopes gradually over 

 ;reen sward to the brink of a little land-locked bay. whose 

 lead is hidden by a high, round-topped, wooded promon- 

 tory on the opposite shore. This bay is not more than a 

 lozen rods wide, but it is thirty feet deep, and its waters 

 ire as green as those of the Niagara river. In the bight of 

 the bay, out of sight around the promontory, a sheer preci- 

 pice, five hundred feet high, and smooth as a wall, plunges 

 perpendicularly into the water and is lost in the gloom of 

 its own shadow. Directly opposite, on the other side of the 

 bay, rises an equally high cliff of columnar trap, like the 

 Palisades of the Hudson, with its base strewn with five- 

 sided prisms and debris that have fallen from above. From 

 cliff to cliff the slighest sound is thrown back and re- 

 peated in many an echo. Even the splash of the great lake 

 trout, as he leaps from the waters that teem with fish-life, is 

 heard with wonderful distinctness, whispered with a wierd 

 and hollow sound. This columnar trap formation is one of 

 the chief and grandest features of the Nepigon scenery, and 

 bccnrs at frequent intervals along the river. 



At our canoe landing we have spread an apron of alder- 

 brush, to prevent the delicate craft from chafing its bottom 

 upon the rocks. Half drawn from the water, its prow peers 

 above the brink, and we look lovingly and tenderly upon it, 

 for it is our only means of communication between the 

 wilderness and the settlements miles away. And looking 

 from our tent door out • upon the enchanting view of the 

 land-locked basin and wooded mountain ridges, noting the 

 swirl left upon the calm water where a monster fish broke 

 but now, ; watching the blue smoke curling from the camp- 

 fire, and our little group of Indians in their fantastic attire, 

 we cannot but bless the promptings of our inborn proclivi- 

 ties, which have taught us in this our after life to seek and 

 enjoy these beautiful primitive spots of nature. But this is 



only half of the picture. Let us turn riverward. If we 

 open the rear fly of our tent, we have the broad expanse 

 of the river before us, a river as broad as the Connecticut at 

 Holyoke. A high ridge of undulating, forest-clad hills 

 skirts its opposite bank. A wooded island divides it in the 

 middle, and from shore to shore the waves are lashed into a 

 tumult and commotion of white foam and leaping spray, 

 that vies with the rapids of the Niagara, and dins with a 

 never-ceasing roar. Right under and against the ledge upon 

 whose very brink our tent stands, it dashes with sweeping 

 turbulence, filling the air with delicious freshness and 

 droning in continual monotones of sound that almost 

 drown the voice. At night it is a soothing lullaby that wooes 

 sweet slumbers, and gives restoring rest. A dozen rods 

 above is a broken fall some ten feet high, hemmed in be- 

 tween the island and the rocky ledges of either shore. At 

 the foot of these falls, where the water sets back from some 

 jutting point, we can catch the monster speckled trout of 

 this famous river; or, shooting across the seething rapids into 

 the eddy below the island, we anchor the canoe in mid- 

 stream, and with full sweep of casttng room and unob- 

 structed channel, hook and play our fish until a surfeit 

 of pleasure makes the task laborious. These falls we have 

 christened " Campbell's Falls," after the name of my com- 

 pagnoti du voyage, a Brooklyn gentleman who has explored 

 the whole region, and taken up a claim of two miles square 

 for mining purposes. These falls are included within his 

 boundary lines. With the exception of "Rocky Portage," 

 four miles below, it is the finest fishing point upon the 

 Nepigon. 



A rough-looking customer is this city friend of mine in 

 his backwoods attire. I remember him as he stood at Red 

 Rock landing awaiting the steamer which bore me to his 

 chosen companionship, sun-browned to a hue as dark as the 

 Indian's, unkempt, red-shirted, belted, and moccassined, 

 with a flaring, knit woolen cap on his head, and a big knife 

 thrust into a sheath ornamented with beads. A group of 

 aborigines in motley, and a score of mahogany-hued survey- 

 ors stood near him on the wharf, and among them he was 

 the " noblest Roman of all." 



No ordinary event is the coming of the steamboat in these 

 parts. Until last year it never came at all, and the primitive 

 children of nature had never seen one. But now they are 

 not only familiar with the big fire-canoe, but, alas, they 

 know the way by heart to the bar on the lower deck, and 

 many is the ominous whisper exchanged in the darkness of 

 the passage-way near the shaft, and many a suspicious swell- 

 ing of the arm as the noble red men hug their blankets to 

 their breasts and quietly steal away to the gang-plank. To 

 the arriving passenger the surrounding bustle, the rattle of 

 trucks discharging freight, the process of wooding up, and 

 the constant passage of figures moving, make the scene a 

 lively one. The cabins are thronged with ladies in city 

 attire, the saloon piano thrums, and there is the presence 

 and familiar name of the steamer itself, so nearly associated 

 with home and civilization. Up on shore are ranges of sur- 

 veyors' tents, thirty or more, and wagons laden with their- 

 supplies are moving off to some distant points. All is activ- 

 ity for the nonce, and the place seems a stirring town. It 

 is not until the steamer moves off down stream out of sight, 

 and leaves one separated seventy-six miles from the nearest 

 settlement, and hundreds of miles from the most accessible 

 civilization, that he begins to realize the situation. And in 

 the morning, when the surveyors' tents are struck, and they 

 and their attendants, and the little group of Indians they 

 hired for guides and boatmen, have silently moved away and 

 left the place deserted, he for the first time feels the perfect 

 solitude. Here is only a single inhabited house, with its 

 adjoining store, warehouse and outbuildings; but another 

 large and substantial frame house is in process of erection, 

 and it is the musical clink of the carpenters' hammers that 

 alone relieves the sudden and almost painful stillness, and 

 makes him feel the pleasure of companionship. 



Nevertheless a warm heart beats under the frieze over- 

 shirt of the Company's agent, our good friend Robert Craw- 

 ford, and when he has squeezed your hand in his till the 

 bones crack, and towed you up to the little log house, and 

 made you welcome with a bottle of Bass, you forget your 

 momentary nostalgia, and are prepared to select your outfit 

 for the woods. An important functionary is this same fac- 

 tor; for under the Canadian regulations, he dispenses the 

 necessary permits, without which no angler can fish in the 

 Nepigon. 



Plentiful are the stores of pork, flour and tea that are se 

 apart for the voyage, and to these are added such luxuries 

 as individuals may prefer to take — pickles, sugar, condensed 

 milk and coffee, canned fruits, soups and vegetables, dessi- 

 cated meats, hard biscuit, ham, bread, ale, whiskey, molas- 

 ses, salt, pepper, soda powders, &c. Where the absence in 

 camp is to be a long one and much of the distance is to be 

 traversed by water, it is wise to provide one's self with all 

 obtainable luxuries. But in all other cases the knowing 

 ones will travel as light as possible, stinting themselves with 

 a meagre bill of fare, and depending upon rod, gun, and 

 snares to keep their larder full. A real curiosity shop is 

 Crawford's store, filled from floor to ceiling with an assort- 

 ment of goods so endless that it would puzzle a tradesman 

 to pick out his own. "If there is anything you want and 

 don't see, ask for it." As the blood of the Indian is here 

 diffused and commingled with that of the white man, in 

 every shade of degree and proportion, so the habits and 

 styles of dress are combined and assimilated, the French 

 Canadian or Scotchman donning the moccasins, beadwork 

 and fancy toggery of the Indian, and the latter arraying 

 himself in some portion of the habiliments of the white man. 

 I have seen, but in only one rare exception, an India,* 



dandy go so far as to assume kid gloves and neatly fitting 

 calf -skin boots, but I doubt if the temporary gratification 

 of his vanity compensated for the excruciating pain of 

 cramped up toes and abraded shin-bones. Wherefore it is 

 that in Crawford's store we find suspended a singular as- 

 sortment of moccasins, shoe-packs, boots, and a curious 

 variety of hybrids, so to speak, which combine the qualities 

 of all. The like foot-covering of tanned and untanned 

 leather, canvas and woollen cloth, it would be impossible 

 to find elsewhere. Then there is the heavy Hudson Bay 

 coats with their monstrous hoods to protect the head in win- 

 ter; the beautifully knit and parti-colored sashes, two fath- 

 oms long, which are almost invariably worn here in lieu 

 of a leather belt to support the trousers or leggings; tobacco 

 pouches and knife-sheaths, ornamented with beads; snow 

 shoes; baby-cradles that don't rock, but which are simply a 

 flat board to which is fastened a pocket highly ornamented 

 with quill work and beads, to put the baby in; toys, nap 

 kin -rings and table-mats of birch bark and sweet-scented 

 grasses interwoven ; beantif ully stained mats made of water- 

 rushes; queer knit woolen caps, scarlet and blue; and so on 

 to the end of the catalogue which supplements the trade-list 

 of patent-medicines, clocks, pickles, sleeve-buttons, cough- 

 drops, calicoes, tooth-picks, note paper, jack-knives, baking 

 powders, shot guns, and umbrellas, which are sent out from 

 England and Canada. 



Perhaps the most interesting curiosity here is the new 

 house which Crawford is building. The winters here are 

 bitter cold, and when the mercury sinks to minus forty, 

 water will freeze, in an ordinary house, between two red- 

 hot Canadian stoves set six feet apart. To secure the requi- 

 site warmth for comfort, Crawford is trying to make his 

 house frost-proof. It is a very creditable two-story-and-a- 

 half frame building, forty feet long, with a kitchen and din- 

 ing room extension. Upon both the inner and outer sides 

 of the joists are laid inch boards, tongued and grooved. 

 Then upon the outside of these is laid a thickness of tough 

 cedar bark; upon this a layer of two-inch planks, and out 

 side of all a coating of clapboards. The inside is furred, 

 lathed and plastered. In this domicile of ten thicknesses 

 the tough old factor of the Hudson's Bay post hopes to keep 

 warm next winter by the aid of his huge two-deck stoves. 

 The cost of this house would startle even a New York con- 

 tractor, for there are no saw mills here, and lumber and 

 materials have to be brought from Collingwood, eight hun- 

 dred miles away. The garden fence itself cost a dollar a 

 foot. By the way, Crawford's " gude wife " has succeeded 

 in raising vegetables that it would be supposed would hardly 

 grow in this climate. 



Dear me, how I do run on! This letter is already exceed- 

 ing the limits of your patience, and the columns of your 

 paper. I will call my Indians, get my stuff into the canoe and 

 paddle up stream to camp No. 1. We will imagine tents struck 

 at "Camp Campbell," and ourselves just starting for the 

 voyage, which I would rejoice if it were so that I might 

 live over again those delightful experiences in fact as well 

 as in memory. The camp is only half mile or so up stream, 

 just where the river rushes in turbulent discharge and mag- 

 nificent breadth from a rapid or fall above. It stands on a 

 grassy plateau surrounded by a hardwood thicket of birch 

 and maple, interspersed with spruce. From the tent door 

 we can see far down the river— the landing, Red Rock' and 

 the Islands below. In front the tide rushes by like a mill- 

 race; but a little jutting point above us makes an eddy, and 

 in the still water our canoe rests quietly, the main body of 

 water sweeping down with immense volume until it impinges 

 upon a sand bluff one hundred feet high. Here it spreads 

 out into a vast pool of great depth, and now with scarcely 

 perceptible current glides smoothly on its way. From the bluff 

 down to Crawford's is a half mile stretch that would be 

 prized in the States as a course for a regatta. Opposite the 

 camp is a low, flat island. There are two wigwams on the 

 point. These are occupied by the families of two of the 

 Indians who are to take us up stream. Their canoes are 

 just visible protruding from the alders that skirt the shore. 

 Up the bank nets and clothes are drying. One squaw with 

 a pappoose lashed to her back, is bending over the camp-fire 

 preparing supper. The evening shadows, thrown from the 

 high bluff opposite, are lengthening. The clouds in the west 

 are red. Trout are breaking in mid-channel. A scolding king- 

 fisher is balancing himself on a naked limb that overhang 

 the bank, keeping a sharp eye to business. The whole is°a 

 picture that needs no setting. It is simply enchanting. 



Now, while our factotum, John Watt, who is both cook 

 and pilot of our expedition, is putting up the tent and cut- 

 ting wood we will shove off the canoe and catch a few trout 

 for supper. We can catch trout anywhere about here. If 

 you will only toss your fly into the head of the channel that 

 cuts off the island opposite you will strike a four-pounder. 

 Down at the landing there is seventeen feet of water, and 

 just where the tide sweeps past the end of the pier, you can 

 hook them every time. I can see Crawford there now, with 

 my field-glass. Oh, the toiling, sweltering, friends at home! 

 What would you give for one hour of this probation? 



"John." 



"Sir?" 



" In the morning we will walk across to the head of the 

 rapids, and try the fish there at sunrise. Go down to Craw- 

 ford's and tell him you want his ox wagon to haul the canoe 

 and stuff across the portage, at daylight— remember " 



"I will, sir." 



" Now, John, get your coals red hot; we will bring you a 

 couple of trout in a jiffy. Shove off the canoe." 



Havelocx. 



