FOREST AND STREAM 



Far Forest and Stream. 

 THE P RE-ADAMITE. 



HO ! for a rhyme of the good old tunc, 

 Ere Adam or Eve was born, 

 When the saurian slept in the sluggish slime 

 With the mriqne unicorn; 



When the mermaid smiled on the mammoth mild, 



And the Dodo sang her lay, 

 And the behemoth breasted the billows wild 



With the plesiosaurus gay. 



Oh t a happy wight was the Pre-adamite, 



He basked in the griffin's smile, 

 Or followed the dragon's dizzy flight, 



Or angled for crocodile. 



Then an omelette, made of the roc's eggs, stayed 



His appetite so rare, 

 While whale on toast, or a walrus roast, 



Was his daily bill of fare. 



No hotel bills or doctor's pills 



Impaired his appetite; 

 He laughed at gout, with his stomach stout, 



And kept his molars bright. 



Ho ! a tear and a sigh for the days gone by ! 



And a dirge for the doughty dead ! 

 Let the sea-serpent shuffle his coil, and die; 



For the good old days are sped. 



J. J. Roche. 



§rant §nih ft[am tfje S^WH- 



* 



TAL E I. 



Red Rock, Lake Superior, July, 1878. 

 Editor Forest and Stream : 



When I saw the prospectus of your new newspaper enter- 

 prise, I congratulated myself and the public ; for now I 

 know we shall have a paper which will furnish just the 

 kind of information which we sportsmen have long needed 

 and looked for in vain. Excuse the flattery — but I have 

 learned by experience that the man who wrote that, to us 

 useful book, entitled " The Fishing Towrist" is well informed 

 of what he writes. I feel assured that he is entirely com- 

 petent to take charge of just such a journal as we expect the 

 " Forest and Stream" to be, and that under his manage- 

 ment it cannot fail of complete successs — for which I pray. 



Following the instructions printed in the book above 

 mentioned, I have visited the Nepigon river, and cannot 

 but express myself delighted with the careful accuracy of 

 the information given, and more then satisfied with my trip 

 and the attractions of this remarkable river, and its marvel- 

 ous fish and fishing. Nay, it is more than marvelous. I 

 only wonder that the author should not have given to its 

 pages minuter details, which could not have failed to en- 

 chant the reader and enhance the value of the book. 



Let me premise what I have presently to say, by the state- 

 ment that during my ten day's sojourn upon the Nepigon, 

 I took perhaps one hundred speckled trout, ( I might as well 

 have taken a thousand ) scarcely one of which weighed less 

 than three pounds/ And to convince your incredulous friends 

 that they are the genuine salnw fontinalis, I forward here- 

 with a couple of tails of fish that weighed nearly six pounds 

 each. 1 saw one' trout caught with a hook by a surveyor 

 of the Canadian Pacific Railway, (one of whose routes is 

 laid near this place), which weighed eight pounds! These 

 facts fully substantiate the truth of the '■'Fishing JhurisV 

 If they do not sufficiently whet the appetite of the genuine 

 sportsman who has courage enough to come out and rough 

 it, I will amplify hereafter. In this letter, however, I shall 

 merely give a brief outline of my journey and of the river, 

 adding some incidents of personal adventure and experience 

 in other letters which will follow. 



Imprimis, I purchased a through ticket from New York 

 to Toronto, via the Erie railroad, and in seventeen hours 

 found myself at Niagara Falls. Thence four hours to Tor- 

 onto by boat — preferable to railroad, after a sufficiently 

 long journey by land. At the Rossin House I was most 

 hospitably entertained by the Messrs. Shears, father and 

 son, the proprietors, not more by the good provender provi- 

 ded, than by their congenial and very intelligent intercourse 

 and information upon all subjects interesting to our frater- 

 nity of sportsmen. These gentlemen are recognized as 

 among the most thorough sportsmen in Canada, which is 

 saying a great deal ; for, assuredly, for rough, practical, 

 intelligent work, the Canadians much excel the majority of 

 our sportsmen in the States. Any honorable, fair-minded 

 man without prejudice, will acknowledge this. The latch- 

 siring of the Rossin House always hangs a long way out for 

 ' ' thoroughbreds. " 



There is a Shooting Club in Toronto, which numbers two 

 hundred members, besides a yatch and boat club, and other 

 minor clubs. The Shooting Club at Niagara Falls, of which 

 Mr. J. B. King is President, cromprises some forty mem- 

 bers of excellent grit. 



From Toronto there is a choice of routes either to Colling- 

 wood or Sarnia, whence good boats run to Sault Ste. Marie, 

 and from there, the first to the north shore of Lake Superior, 

 and the other to the South Shore, touching at Marquette and 

 oilier points, and on to Duluth, The North Shore steam- 

 ers connect at Prince Arthur's Landing with other boats 

 for Duluth, one hundred and forty miles distant. A favorite 

 route for Americans is from Buffalo vut Lake Erie to De- 

 troit, and thence through Lake Huron to Sault Ste. Marie. 

 Residents of States west, and north of New York, will nat- 

 rially make Detroit their objective starting point. Of the 



two routes from Toronto I chose the Collingwood, by your 

 direction, and purchased a round trip ticket for thirty-live 

 dollars gold, which includes meals and stateroom. The 

 fare from New York to Toronto is eleven dollars fifty cents ; 

 so that the cost of the entire trip from New York and re- 

 turn is about sixty-five dollars currency. The actual run- 

 ning time of the trip occupies ten days. One cannot com- 

 plain of the expense. I am explicit in giving information 

 because I hope gentlemen will avail themselves of it, as 

 August and September are the best months for fishing the 

 Nepigon. 



The distance from Toronto to Collingwood is ninety-six 

 miles by the Northern Railroad, and I was surprised to find 

 the route lying through a populous and rich country, with 

 substantial farmhouses and extensive sawmills at intervals 

 along the whole line. The appointments of the railway are 

 first-class, and the station nouses models of neatness and 

 beauty. Nearly all have tasteful flower gardens and lawns 

 attached, with jets of water spurting from fountains that 

 cool and refresh the plants. It is a rare combination, es- 

 pecially in a new country, this association of the finer 

 features of nature with the harsh ^asp of gang-saws and 

 the rumbling of ponderous railway rolling stock. This is a 

 touch of nature which appeals to the sympathies of all who 

 love her for herself. At die head of Lake Simcoe, famous 

 for its fishing, and a delightful summer resort, is an unex- 

 ceptionable lunch room ; and while the passengers are 

 breakfasting or dining, the train runs up to Barrie a couple 

 of miles on a branch track. Barrie is a handsome brick 

 town upon the sloping hillside that girts Lake Simcoe, 

 and the locality o* a famous Trotting Course, where annual 

 meetings are held ir July. At Collingwood there are 

 two large saw mills, a long oier, and an immense grain 

 elevator, and very little else. The place is low and inattrac- 

 tive, and in winter bleak and wind-racked. Three steamers 

 compose the Collingwood Line. It was my eminent good 

 fortune to take passage or the " Cumberland;' Captain 

 Sandy McGregor, an accomplished gentleman and a most 

 skillful navigator of intricate channels and uncertain shores. 

 For be it known that, although the waters of Huron and Su- 

 perior are vast and deep, fogs continually envelope their 

 waters during -he early summer months, and at all times 

 treacherous gusts and storms are liable to sweep over their 

 expanse. The water of the lakes, especially of Superior, 

 is very cold, and it takes many weeks to equalize the sur- 

 face temperature and the warmer air above. Often the 

 steamers have to "lie to" for twenty-four hours and more, 

 and when a heavy sea is running, proximity to sunken 

 rocks and fog-enveloped shores becomes unpleasant. Tropi- 

 cal fruit doesn't grow in this latitude ; but the Aurora 

 Borealis often gleams out on calm clear nights to remind 

 the tourist that the Arctic "ice blink" is not many degrees 

 to the northward. From the time we left Collingwood 

 until my return in the middle of July, I was not without 

 my overcoat on some portion of each day. At all times 

 warm clothing should be at hand for immediate use, to 

 meet the constantly varying moods of the weather. Yet 

 there are many :junny days which cheer the wayfarer, and 

 make him feel that it "is good to oe here." 



At Collingwood Landing a motley crowd is gathered to 

 witnesc the steamer's departure. The deck-hands of the 

 boat are all full-blooded or naif-breed Indians, and hard- 

 workers they are, too. Then there 'is the remarkable 

 consociation of Scotch, English, Irish and French, which 

 are always noticed throughout the Canadian Dominion, all 

 busy about the -"reight-house and wharf. There is a general 

 scene of bustle and activity everywhere. The only per- 

 sons nqt employed are a dozen of do-nothing negroes who 

 lie around loose and impassively watch the proceedings. 

 The presence of so many is an enigma to practical geogra- 

 phers who know that Ethiopia lies in the tropics. These 

 are doubtless retired barbers, waiters, and whitewashes 

 whom handsome fortunes realized have made independent 

 of work. 



The freight of the steamer is a curious conglomeration 

 of mills, implements, live stock, furniture and supplies, en 

 route for the mines or the more distant and far Northwest. 

 The Canadian Pacific Railroad also adds a large business to 

 the steamboat line, and gangs of surveyors with their out- 

 fits are constantly going forward. 



Not many hours after we leave the land we are on the broad 

 expanse of Huron, as boundless to all appearance as mid 

 ocean. Seldom does a floating object come into view. There 

 is nothing but the life within the vessel to break the dead 

 monotony of the watery waste without. But on the second 

 day a grateful change is sprung upon the scene. We are 

 in Georgian Bay ! Islands succeed islands in an unbroken 

 continuity hour after hour as we glide on ; islands of every 

 conceivable size and shape, more numerous than the 

 thousand islands of the St. Lawrence many times multi- 

 plied ; islands barren, wooded, sandy, rocky, columnar, 

 gracefully rounded, precipitous and gently sloping, wind- 

 swept and. storm-polished, large, diminutive, and infinitesi- 

 mal; reefs widely spreading, and submarine monoliths 

 whose peaks barely project above the surface. There is a 

 breadth and sweep and never-ending change in the pano- 

 rama which is all-absorbing to a mind intent upon the 

 picture. For one hundred and seventy miles we steam 

 through this island scenery ! In the calm repose of a sum- 

 mer morning, when the waves are stilled and the face of 

 the lake gleams like polished glass, the shadows fall heavily 

 from the indented shores, and every rock and tree is sharp- 

 ly outlined and reproduced inverted in the mirror. Then 

 we seem to float on airy nothing, looking upward into 

 cloudland and downward into cloudland, into depths above 



and below that seem illimitable. There is very little • ' 

 mal life upon the islands. The main land is a conlinu^ 1 ' 

 upheavel of bare Laurentian billows of granite that °^ 

 were moulten. There is but a scanty growth of tr"? 

 Sweeping blasts have scathed them and frequent fires blr i 

 ed out their vitality. There are very few houses and but 

 little cultivation. Occasionally a bark canoe glides f ro , 

 behind a point, and at intervals a solitary fisherman's Im 

 is descried. Were it not for the gaunt white gulls that 

 hover over our wake or keep vigil on the rocks' ir 

 would be a solitude. 



In places the flinty strata of rocks yield a mineral wealtl 

 sufficient to induce the sinking of a mining shaft or the bai k 

 country affords a supply of furs which necessitates the 

 establishment of a trading post and depot. At the ' 

 the steamboat touches, sometimes to take in wood soni* 

 times to land a passenger, and anon to descharg'e sonic 

 freight. At the hamlet of Killarney, 173 miles from Col 

 lingwood, we run into a rocky passage so narrow that we 

 almost touched both shores. Here is a hamlet of a dozen 

 houses, a store, a small fleet of bark canoes, and a score 

 of loungers, chiefly half-breed Indians. A few miles 

 farther is Indian Landing, a wooding place with a 8uM e 

 shanty, where an intelligent Indian sells mats, miniature 

 canoes and birch bark toys to curiosity seekers, and drives 

 a thriving trade. There is an Indian village of Ave hun- 

 dred people a few miles distant which boasts a very neat 

 stone, chapel and substantial dwellings, some of them of 

 stone. Next on the route comes Little Current, another 

 small hamlet, and here a tide sets between the islands with 

 a four-knot current. Singular phenomenon in this great 

 lake of three hundred miles in length! It is said the tide 

 is caused by the wind, that it sets in whichever direction 

 the wind is blowing at the time. Still further on is the pic- 

 turesque Hudson's Bay Compny's post called La Cloche, with 

 its sunny white buildings, red-roofed. The water is shoal for 

 two miles out from the shore, so that all supplies for the 

 post have to be landed and received at an isolated hut far- 

 off. When the boat arrives, great birch canoes manned by 

 Indians of every hue and degree of miscegenation put out 

 from the distant shore, and with sturdy arms and many 

 paddles, skim over the intervening space. From the stem 

 of the foremost flaunts the red flag of England, and under 

 its official a3gis a fleet of light canoes filled with lads and 

 squaws and their pappooses, follow in the rear. When 

 they have reached the steamboat landing, the men and boys 

 squat in line upon the shore and motionless watch the bust- 

 ling operations of landing freight. The squaws sit in their 

 canoes and nurse their progeny, never wincing under the 

 scrutiny of the glasses levelled at them from the promenade 

 deck. When the boat departs, the aboriginal coterie, hav- 

 ing filled up the measure of this little episode in life, paddle 

 back to headquarters. What noble impulses swell their 

 tawny breasts! what ambition, what pride of race and tra- 

 ditional renown must stimulate them to other deeds of like 

 emprise I 



At the Bruce Mines, three hundred and seven miles from 

 Collingwood, are the huge chimney stacks and shops and 

 piles of copper ore and ranges of hovels two miles long 

 that belong to this great company that delves the precious 

 metal from the bowels of the surronnding earth. The 

 works have cost over a quarter of a million of dollars, 



We are now near the head of the lake, and presently en- 

 ter the wide and serpentine St. Mary's river, with its In- 

 dian reservation and villages upon the Canadian side, and 

 an occasonal farm on the Michigan shore. Forty miles 

 more, and we reach the Sault, with its foaming rapids, its 

 great ship canal, and the rival villages that confront each 

 other from either shore. Here if one elects to tarry, he 

 will find good fishing. There are numerous Indians on 

 hand to lend their services and canoes, and if the sports- 

 man will try the Garden river on the Canada side, he can 

 fill his creel with trout, though the stream is much netted 

 by the tribes of Lo. Sixteen miles below the Sault is Hay 

 Lake and its outlet, affording fine trouting and good duck 

 shooting in their respective seasons. There is a very com- 

 fortable hotel at Sault Ste. Marie called the Chippewa 

 House, but the town itself is not attractive. The green 

 parade ground of the old fort alone relieves the monotony 

 of dingy houses and rotting plank sidewalks that character- 

 ize the place. The Canadian side is more picturescrue, and 

 there are some fine private residences there. 



Through the Sault and into Lake Superior! We have 

 traversed one vast Mediterranean, and another is before us. 

 We have still 417 miles to sail by the route to our destina- 

 tion. And Duluth the terminus, is 198 miles further yet! 

 It is only now that we begin to realize the immensity of 

 these inland seas. The voyage for duration is like a jour- 

 ney to Europe. Great ships of thousands of tons burthen, 

 traverse its highways, and storms that are not surpassed 

 in violence agitate its depths. One hundred miles we speed 

 after loosing sight of land, and then arrive at Michipico- 

 ton Island and river. Here in summer the boats tarry a 

 few hours that excursionists may pick up agates along the 

 pebbly shore or catch huge trout in the adjacent waters. 

 Were it not that so much larger fish can be taken in the 

 Nepigon, the size and quantity of these would seem amaz- 

 ing. Some of the agates found here are of unusual beauty 

 and transparency. The light-house keeper, who has a sort 

 of monopoly of the business, in that he has thoroughly 

 raked the placers, will sell a pint of them for a dollar. 



Hence to Prince Arthur's Landing and Fort William 

 the distance is 306 miles. The latter place is ninety-six 

 miles beyond the x^Tepigon. Boats generally go there di- 

 rect and touch at the latter place on their return. Fort Wil- 



