Volume XVII. 



RECREATION 



OCTOBER, 1902. 

 G. 0. SHIELDS (COQUINA), Editor and Manager 



BACK OF BARRIO AFTER MOOSE. 



Number 4. 



THE OBSERVER. 



No country of an equal area, easily 

 accessible to New England sports- 

 men, fulfills as does Nova Scotia the 

 conditions necessary for successful 

 moose hunting. Possibly the condi- 

 tions savor too much of the parlor- 

 hunt to suit some of our hardy West- 

 ern friends ; but a trip into good 

 moose territory, 20 hours from Bos- 

 ton by boat, can be made strenuous 

 enough to satisfy the majority of us. 



Follow me a few days back of Bar- 

 rio, in the Tusket region, and if a 

 feeble pen does not defeat my pur- 

 pose, I will give you glimpses of a 

 pleasing country, game enough for 

 fair minded sportsmen and certain in- 

 cidents which befell our party in the 

 autumn of 1901. 



In the Tusket region no guide can 

 pride himself on a reputation equal to 

 that of Ned Sullivan. As tracker, 

 caller and sure shot, he stands alone ; 

 while in knowledge of the country, 

 great physical strength and the other 

 natural gifts of a successful hunter 

 and trapper, Fortune has been to him 

 most kind. His was the commanding 

 figure in our shabby quartette as we 

 broke camp on Lake Barrio early one 

 October morning and embarked in 

 canoes for Toad lake and the adjoin- 

 ing country Northward. The other 

 members of our party I shall desig- 

 nate as L., a business man of Boston, 

 and B., his journalistic friend. 



In Nova Scotia the chief function of 

 the Provincial Game Society seems 

 to be the acquisition of license fees. I 

 wish I might truthfully record as 

 great alacrity in enforcing game laws 



as in the collection of bills due, but I 

 can not. Remarkably favored in its 

 supply of big game, and in a country 

 so easily patrolled, Nova Scotia has 

 yet to do its full duty in properly con- 

 serving a glorious endowment. As a 

 most valuable asset of the Province, 

 as a duty to the world at large, there 

 is every reason to give her noble game 

 adequate protection. This has not 

 been done. 



As my first visit to the region was 

 to be one of investigation, I decided 

 not to invest to the extent of the $30 

 necessary for a non-resident's license 

 to hunt the lordly moose. During the 

 entire trip my only weapon of offense 

 or defense was the camp axe. 



Lake Barrio is one of the fairest 

 sheets of water in the whole region, 

 rather uneven in outline, dotted with 

 a few islands and wooded to the 

 shore. The surrounding ridges are 

 covered with a fine hardwood growth 

 of beech and maple, and as the sun 

 rose on the morning of our start, a 

 glory of autumnal tints lit up the 

 more somber green of the omnipres- 

 ent spruce. Our paddles soon carried 

 us across 2 miles of shining water, 

 and drawing the canoes well up on 

 shore, we prepared to shoulder packs 

 for the journey afoot. 



The whole district has been exten- 

 sively lumbered, and rude cart roads 

 traversed the first stage of our jour- 

 ney, at all angles. While this fact 

 made our trail easy at first, the fre- 

 quent corduroys were found decidedly 

 slippery after a 2 days' rain, and the 

 mechanical swing so necessary for a 



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