1 84 



RECREATION. 



after an all day trip in and out the many 

 bays, late the following afternoon at 

 Crooked creek, on Kippewa river. 



The Latours, father and son, were from 

 first to last courteous, honest and accom~ 

 modating. This was so much the excep- 

 tion that it is worthy of mention. I be- 

 lieve these men can be fully relied on. 



The guides we were obliged to take 

 were, with one exception, not guides at all. 

 They were doubtless good loggers and had 

 been used to hunting moose in yards in 

 winter, or perhaps to tracking in snow, but 

 not on bare ground, and they admittedly 

 knew nothing of that country. 



For 3 days we hunted faithfully for 

 signs of moose. We gave up fishing after 

 once seeing the stream, and with the ex- 

 ception of some last summer's tracks, in 

 mud bottoms of the ponds, we found noth- 

 ing encouraging. Instead, we found that 

 the many hunting parties Cormier had 

 placed in the various bays on the lake 

 were so near together that had there been 

 any game it would have been frightened 

 off. It would have been by merest acci- 

 dent if any of us had run across one. 



On the third day, when guides and 

 hunters were thoroughly disgusted, we 

 sent big Louis English, a half-breed, 

 whom Latour had sent down to us (for 

 we had been obliged to start with 3 in- 

 stead of the 4 men Cormier claimed to 

 have engaged for us), back to Kippewa to 

 get the boat and to take us anywhere 

 from Crooked creek, but directly to the 

 Turtle, whence we planned to go up the 

 North river to Ostobonning. Thence we 

 would go up Cherry creek, where Jean 

 Bastian, our head guide, had been. 



In our 2 days' waiting for the boat we 

 hunted faithfully. Late one afternoon I 

 ran across one of the 5 parties who had 

 gone in with us. They were moving up 

 farther North, on the installment plan, 

 making camp each night. They had seen 

 no game, and having come from Kansas 

 City, on Cormier's representations, you 

 may imagine the odor of brimstone about 

 their camp. In fact, as far as I can learn, 

 only one man in all the 5 hunting parties 

 who went in on Kippewa with us suc- 

 ceeded in getting a moose, and this he 

 ran across in the lake while on his way to 

 camp one night. He deserves great credit, 

 for he shot the moose after he had helped 

 to paddle in a long chase, and made the 

 shot at long range. 



Finally, on October 6th, Captain Kelly 

 came for us. He is another man who will 

 treat you white, if you take chances on 

 Kippewa. His remarks in re Cormier 

 were forcible, hard-boiled, and charac- 

 teristic, and we loved him for them. We 

 had exhausted our stock. 



Judging from the reports of Kelly and 



others, that part of Kipewa is not and 

 never has been a good moose country. 

 From Kelly we learned how the "special 

 permit" people had, in September, on 

 other parts of the lakes, obtained a num- 

 ber of heads. One of the Standard Oil 

 men had killed and taken out 4! 



A good many heads had been shipped 

 out of Kippewa before the season 

 opened, and Cormier must have known of 

 it, if he knows anything of moose hunt- 

 ing, which the natives all seem to doubt. 

 This would have spoiled the October 

 hunting, even if the game had ever been 

 as plentiful as he represented. 



From Captain Kelly's we went up 

 through the North river to Hunter's 

 point, and so on up the Ostobonning into 

 a real moose country. 



I spent 2 days with Jean, on a little 

 chain of lakes just off Ostobonning, where 

 the portages were all moose trails, and 

 where, if one could spend the time, he would 

 unquestionably find moose and bear. 

 It was there, by the way, that Fred Irland 

 photographed the cow moose and calf, 

 shown in Scribner's for September, 1899. 

 That story undoubtedly caused many peo- 

 ple to go to that region last October. 

 They, however, did not find the Indian 

 summer at that time, as pictured by Ir- 

 land. I had Billy, the boy mentioned in 

 Irland's story, and on my asking him 

 about the killing of the big bull moose, 

 as described by Irland, he said: "Naw, 

 man. He kill no buck, only 2 doe,* up 

 where you come out." The rest of Ir- 

 land's trip, Billy says, was about as stated. 



It is only fair to say that after we had 

 escaped from the locality where Cormier 

 had consigned us and had made a 3 days' 

 canoe trip farther North, we found some 

 splendid moose country. True, we saw 

 no live moose, but we found moose that 

 more lucky hunters had killed, and abun- 

 dant signs everywhere. Had we been di- 

 rected there in the first place, or to some 

 similar location, before we had wasted a 

 week in futile wanderings. I am inclined 

 to think we could have told a better story, 

 but by the time we reached the real moose 

 country our time was up. 



Perhaps other men reached Ostobon- 

 ning by a more direct route. Perhaps 

 they had a stronger pull with Cormier. 

 Perhaps we drew the wrong ticket and 

 had no business there anyway; but the 

 facts are as stated, and I earnestly advise 

 all would-be Kippewains to get some 

 other man than Cormier to salt them 

 down. 



At Buell's depot, head of Ostobonning. 

 we found a Mr. Leary, the silver lining 

 to the whole Canadian cloud. A more 



* Meaninsr cow moose. 



