100 



FOREST AND STREAM 



For lLorest and Stream. 

 NARRAGANSETT BAY. 



VIEWED PROM THE ESTATE OF E. D. PEARCE, ESQ., SEPTEMBER, 1873. 



I'VE wandered far and been in many places, 

 With heeding mind, fixed thought and open eyes, 

 And memory paints but few with half the graces 

 Of the fair scene which now before me lies. 



I see the city's spires and silvery dome. 

 Its trees, the wharves, its bridges all in sight, 



The noble river safely bearing home 

 Its fleet of summer steamers, swift and white. 



The breeze brings music from the crowded deck, 

 With rousing chorus from the happy throng; 



While new formed wavelets roll to shore and break 

 Where Flora's offerings from the sea are strewn. 



Oh lovely peaceful stream! not more of praise 



Thy beauty, than thy graceful bosom given 

 To serve thy Maker's will, and make our days 



Of pleasure brighter— less of earth than heaven ! 



A wooded height along the river's side 

 Slopes gently downward to the water's edge, 



And birds are there, and sing and chirp and glide 

 In graceful flight from drooping branch and sedge. 



The puffing engine flies along its way 

 Past vale and rock, with steady hand to guide ; 



Cool breezes blow throughout the summer day 

 And cedars shade me as I walk beside. 



My steps are slow — I fain would linger long 



And give to memory all the beauty here, 

 And so recall the birds' melodious song 



And feel the river, woods and meadows near. 



Think of their quiet when I'm far away, 

 While noisy business works my soul-life low, 



I'll oft look backward on this happy day 

 And Avish me watching these fair waters flow. 



E. Farquhar. 



punting (^mihon in Jfw# Mk ^ 



4 



Cobeqtjid Mountains, ) 



Near Westchester, Nova Scotia, j- 

 Septemper 8tli, 1873. ) 

 Editor op Forest and Stream: — 



Thanks to some instructions given by you to me, as to 

 time and locality, while in your city in June last, I have 

 had the satisfaction of killing my first caribou. As I had 

 informed you, when last I had the pleasure of seeing you, 

 I was not unfamiliar with hunting this animal, having killed 

 three caribou in 1871, and two last year in New Brunswick. 



My traps I had sent to a friend in Halifax about the 

 middle of August, and I found them in good order on ar- 

 rival. At Halifax I stayed a day, and bought a Hudson 

 Bay frieze coat, an admirable protection for bad weather. 

 This with two rubber blankets, a bag or so of buck shot, 

 and a special kind of camp hatchet, made for me deftly by 

 a clever Irish blacksmith, completed my list of purchases. 

 Early next morning after an admirable breakfast at the 

 Halifax House, I took the Inter-Colonial railway to Truro, 

 stopping there at the Prince of Wales Hotel, kept by the 

 most jovial of hosts and Scots, Mr. McKenzie. Truro is a 

 charming little village at the head of an arm of the Bay of 

 Fundy, and is much visited, being the best place to see the 

 wonderful tidal action of the water, known as the Bore. 

 Every fine day hundreds of people drawn from all parts 

 of the world assemble on the bridge which spans the Sal- 

 mon River, awaiting the coming of the huge tidal wave. 

 Sometimes when wind and tide favor, it rises like a wall, 

 ten feet high, and sweeps on up the Sound. I know of no 

 phenomenon which impresses one more vividly with the 

 idea of the grand, rythmic power of nature, and I fancy 

 if Herbert Spencer had ever seen it, he would have used it as 

 an illustration. I took some pains to measure accurately 

 the absolute rise of the tide. Taking my sea tackle and 

 sinker, and letting it fall until it touched the bottom, at 

 low water, landing the sinker fast in the mud, and marking 

 the length of the line afterwards, where it was just on the 

 top of the water, the difference I found to be be sixty-four 

 feet, eleven inches. Its approach is heralded by a deep, 

 sullen roar. 



At Truro I remained all day, liavi ng to make arrange- 

 ments for the hiring of horse and buggy for a week or so, 

 not only to carry me and my traps to Purdy's, some thirty- 

 five miles distant, but to facilitate any movements I might 

 desire to make. Next morning, with a very good horse, 

 and a rough but strong vehicle, furnished me by McKenzie, 

 I started on my way, my road having been quite thoroughly 

 explained to me. The country I passed through was mag- 

 nificent. Dark, umbrageous spruce woods, sombre in char- 

 acter, were relieved occasionally by the brighter colored 

 maples. Sometimes gloomy gorges, hardly wide enough 

 lor the buggy to pass through, were almost sepulchral from 

 the heavy shadows of the mountains. 



In one place the road led along a mere shelf of rock, the 

 Londonderry, a noble stream, rushing along below me. It 

 was a rough road, so that it was almost nightfall before I 

 reached Purdy's. There I found myself in admirable 

 quarters. To the kindness of the host, Mr. Purdy, was 

 added the more delicate attentions of the Misses- Purdy, 

 l liree very handsome and highly educated women. As Pur- 

 dy's was to be my base of operations, I immediately com- 

 menced getting together my supplies, and the question of 

 guides was paramount. I had the choice of several excel- 

 lent men. Following the advice of my host, I chose George 

 Beesewanger, a native of the place, and secured his ser- 

 vices, agreeing to pay him $1 50 a day and to find him. 



My second guide I was instructed to find later. At Purdy's 

 I laid in the heavy rations, such as pork, tea, coffee, flour, 

 Indian meal, &c. 



There never was such a glorious view as I had from my 

 window when I rose next morning. Far, far below me w r ere 

 interminable forests of spruce, huge billows of green 

 leaves, surging to and fro with the breeze, and away be3 r ond 

 lay placidly the dark blue waters of the Bay of Fundy. I 

 tarried here fully three days — days of delightful laziness, 

 pure days of sensuous enjoj^ment — pretending, it is true, to 

 perfect my arrangements, just breathing in the fragrance of 

 the glorious woods, perhaps a little indifferent as to cari- 

 bou. At last Beese (the final "wanger" to his name I shall 

 drop in the future as quite superfluous) said to me at din- 

 ner that "he thought matters were now in good trim, and 

 that he felt it was caribou weather, and that it was time to 

 go to Castlereagh. " 



In Castlereagh dwelt John Gfamble, a famous moose and 

 caribou hunter, w T ho tilled a farm there. Taking horse and 

 buggy, well laden down with provisions, we left Purdy's, 

 and reached Castlereagh, a sparsely peopled settlement, at 

 about dusk. Gamble I found at prayers. There was some- 

 thing inexpressibly solemn in the picture I saw there. In 

 the small rough house were assembled the family, and by 

 the flickering fire Gamble was reading to them the prayers, 

 in deep, sonorous language. I hesitated almost to tell my 

 errand. The la^t amen was pronounced with unction, 

 when I told him the purpose of my coming. "I was for 

 caribou, and would he join me for ten days or so." He 

 quickly assented, and seemed pleased to go. A more wild 

 place than Castlereagh, as to topography, I never saw. It 

 is the ideal of a spot where civilization ends and a wilder- 

 ness begins. The people who live here, some forty souls 

 all told, are scattered over an area of about fifty miles. 

 They are all Scotch-Irish, were among the early settlers of 

 the island, and are strictly religious and trustworthy. Their 

 honesty may be shown by the fact that a lock on a door is 

 unknown. Their ideas are primitive, and their language 

 Scotch-English, with a dialect of their own. With but few 

 wants, ignorant of the world or its surroundings, many of 

 them, perhaps, have never, save when hunting, gone out 

 of the shadows of their woods. Everything was arranged 

 for an early start. My party had now an addition — George 

 Gamble, a highly intelligent lad of sixteen, with the pseudo- 

 nym of "Dandy," o-oing with us. Gamble had located a 

 lodge for moose and caribou some six miles from the settle- 

 ment, which was our objective point. Next morning, be- 

 fore dawn, we started, dividing the buggy-load between us, 

 the horse and vehicle remaining at Castlereagh. My bat- 

 tery consisted of a Remington, a Ballard, and a smooth 

 bore No. 10. My guides told me that it would be a long 

 and tedious tramp, up hill all the way, and so it proved to 

 be. Bass river, quite a brawling stream, waist deep, was 

 forded; no easy task for me, "heavily accoutred" as I was, 

 and, after a scramble up its steep, rocky banks, at last we 

 struck the woodlands. Here we visited what Dandy called 

 Porcupine Den, Avhen Dandy soon ousted a porcupine, 

 which he slew. Here we halted, took a bite, and started 

 again after some ten minutes' rest, and, skirting the woods, 

 a half hour before sundown reached Gamble's lodge, just 

 on the edge of the caribou barren. The lodge was well 

 built; three of the walls were of logs, the other made of 

 piled stones. The floor had been well rammed down, and 

 it was sweet and clean. Near it gurgled a limpid spring. 

 What struck me most about these Nova Scotia woods was 

 the intense, almost painful stillness. Nature must take her 

 kief here, to awaken later, when, in a paroxysm of passion, 

 with icy blasts she lays low the majestic trees. Beese, Gam 

 ble, and Dandy in a trice had everything in military order. 

 Of cooking paraphernalia, a kettle and a frying pan made 

 up the catalogue. Of fragile china or stronger delf had 

 we none. In a half hour, with pliant birch bark and 

 threads of withewood, cups, dishes, and plates were im- 

 provised, quite as useful and more durable than those made 

 by the potter's wheel. Fresh spruce boughs of aromatic 

 fragrance, so excellent for consumptives, were spread on 

 the floor. Dandy had killed four grouse as we left Castle- 

 reagh, and a good supper was assured us. Gamble was de- 

 sirous of having variety in the menu, and on his assuring 

 me that there was a stream positively not more than forty 

 yards off, I thought I would try for a trout, though I was 

 terribly tired out. With line in hand, cutting a pole as I 

 went, baiting my hook with some white grub picked from 

 a dead tree, in ten minutes I had some dozen trout. They 

 were small ones, scarcely half pound fish, but gamey and 

 pleasant to catch. With Gamble as chef de cuisine, I 

 watched the way he cooked them. The fish were cleaned, 

 not scaled; heads and tails and fins were all left on. Each 

 one was dipped into a birch bark dish, filled with meal, 

 inside a piece of fat bacon was inserted, a place was made 

 for it in the hot coals, and in ten minutes the fish was with- 

 drawn, done to a turn. The grouse were stuffed with wild 

 cranberries, hung from the ceiling with a bit of twine, put 

 before the fire, and Dandy was set to basting them. 

 How good a pottage de Porcupine is I do not know, but 

 I must confess that maple sugar as a condiment to a 

 porcupine, though original, is not to be despised. A fa- 

 mous pot of tea was then brewed, and we had bread from 

 the settlement. Hardly was tea swallowed, our pipes 

 smoked, and the least nip of rum taken, than I got drowsy, 

 and think I must have tumbled on the spruce bough covered 

 floor just as I was, for in the morning, between the last 

 word I had spoken or heard, and the song Dandy was sing- 

 ing (some quaint old stave) outside the lodge at daybreak, 

 there seemed to have been but the interval of a second. 

 Looking at Beese, who was still sleeping, I noticed he held 



his pipe tightly clutched between his teeth. I ran to n 

 trout stream, took a single refreshing dip, and strolled 

 about some little, and arrived just in time for a fflorinn 

 breakfast. s us 



Our first day was one simply of prospecting and findine 

 out the lay of the land. A caribou barren (we were on tk 

 verge of one) may be described as a platteau, covered with 

 a thick grey moss two or three inches thick, on which 

 grows the cranberry. Here and there it is dotted over with 

 huge quartz boulders, covered at their bases with that most 

 succulent of mosses, the lichen, on which the caribou princi 

 pally feeds. A barren is most always intersected by a runnin 

 stream, and there are occasional clumps of spruce. Th' 

 tree always looks dark and sombre, and long trails of fun 

 real-like moss hang like weepers from the limbs. On tl ' 

 moss, too, the caribou feeds. The trees are mostly stunted 

 This is not owing to the winds, for the barrens are gener- 

 ally encircled by the thick woods, which would keep off 

 the blast, but their low growth is an effect of the soil Bio- 

 where you may in the ground, wmen you have passed 

 through the cushion of moss there is a morass below. To 

 tread on this carpet of moss may be the poetry of motion 

 as far as softness of footfall goes, but until one is accus- 

 tomed to its yielding nature it makes walking quite 

 fatiguing. There are no brambles on a barren— nothing 

 but the cranberrry and whortleberry. The particular bar 

 ren we were to reconnoitre had an area of some 800 acres 

 and was completely enclosed. 



ts The caribou being the most sensitive and observant of 

 the deer species, the utmost silence is necessary when hunt- 

 ing them, so when skirting the ban-en, save by some mute 

 signs interchanged as to direction, hunters never speak 

 We all kept together for a mile from the camp, when we^ 

 divided, Gamble going with me in a southeasterly direc- 

 tion, and Beese and Dandy striking northwest. The woods 

 on our route soon opened, and the walking became easy 

 Gamble pointed out a tree of black spruce, a perfect giant 

 which he made a sign I should climb. It was not difficult 

 to scale, and when fairly on top, with my race-glass I 

 scanned the barren we were skirting. I had a beautiful 

 view of our barren, and of several barrens beyond, fully 

 ten miles distant. On our barren I saw r no sign of an ani- 

 mal, but on a barren I should have judged five miles off 

 with my glass I plainly made out two caribou. Gamble 

 on my descending and announcing the fact, expressed some 

 doubt, but on ascending himself verified the statement. 

 Sometime about mid-day we found Beese and Dandy, and 

 after lunching w^e proceeded homewards by a different 

 route. Dandy.was the first to find caribou tracks, which 

 he did cleverly in the afternoon. How he saw it I cannot 

 understand, and it was some time before I could see it, but 

 caribou foot it was, and a little further on the spot where 

 one had laid down was pointed out to me by Gamble. It 

 was determined not to follow up their track, but to still 

 keep up the study of the country, so that in case One of 

 the party got astray, which would probably have been my- 

 self , we' might have abetter chance of finding our quar- 

 ters. That night, around the camp-fire, Beese told me a 

 hunting story about killing and landing moose, which I at 

 first was inclined to doubt, until Gamble asserted its truth- 

 fulness. Some seven years before, Beese said that hunting 

 with two Indians in a rather small canoe, on the head 

 waters of the River Philip, they had shot a bull and a cow 

 moose. Moose meat was scarce at the settlement, and it 

 was a question how to get their carcasses home, as the 

 canoe was too small to hold even 100 pounds of additional 

 weight, and the two moose would gross 1,800 pounds. One 

 of the Indians suggested making a boat of the bull moose 

 and using it for transporting the cow. The bull was opened 

 and disembowelled, the head was cut off, the neck sewed 

 up, he was split carefully, ribs of wood were built into him, 

 and he was launched into the stream, and so, loaded with 

 the cow, was safely towed to the settlement, twenty miles 

 distant. 



Next morning it rained heavily, and our camp was thor- 

 oughly cleaned and guns overhauled. In the afternoon, 

 the rain having changed to a drizzle, Gamble proposed our 

 going to Rock Lake, some three miles distant. After 

 rather a wet walk of an hour we reached the lake, and 

 Gamble built a raft. One peculiarity of the lake was that 

 it was always bubbling, abounding probably with springs. 

 I had taken a light fly rod, and with a coachman hackle 

 and Blue Professor made a cast or two without success. 

 Later I tried a yellow Dun with no better luck, when choos- 

 ing a Miller and a bug the trout rose rapidly. In a half 

 hour I had secured eighteen fish, of about two pounds 

 each. A flock of black duck on the upper edge of the 

 lake attracted our attention, and I killed five. Of course 

 this shooting was done at some distance from the barren, 

 as a single gun fired in its immediate proximity would have 

 cleaned the ground of the caribou for a week. 



Fresh food now becoming scarce, as we had determined 

 not to shoot any more, we smoked our ducks for the future, 

 hanging them in the smoke of the chimney. Next day we 

 started just at daybreak. The sun rose clear, dispelling the 

 mist, and Gamble said it w r as "a fine hunting morn, and that it 

 would fetch caribou. " Dandy was left in camp, and Gamble, 

 Beese, and myself made the party. It was our intention 

 not to return without a caribou. We made directly for the 

 barren, but saw^ no sign. We now boldly crossed it, 

 plunged into the deep forest beyond, skirted the second 

 barren, and found here moose tracks three weeks old, but 

 no sign of caribou. Here we came across an old Indian 

 camp, which, being in good order, we took possession oi, 

 studying its bearings in case we should have to retrace our 

 steps and spend the night there. We kept on through the 



