86 



RECREATION. 



sun and then found the snow fields ap- 

 parently as distant as before. I was 

 ■discouraged and, quitting the trip to 

 snowland, I stepped over into a nar- 

 row canyon "whose precipitous walls 

 had fostered a bank of the beautiful. 

 Merrily I hit my companion a re- 

 sounding whack with a well made 

 snowball, thus making a record of 

 having played the wintry sport on 

 the 17th of July. Then we glissaded 

 a stony way to level ground again. 



But the lake ? I found it behind the 

 Mayor's barn, as had been stated ; 

 whence it extended 4 miles to the very 

 foot of the mountain. Anywhere 

 other than amid such surroundings it 

 would be a magnificent body of water, 

 but its beauty pales beside the majesty 

 of those mighty peaks. Lying at their 

 feet it is but a small item in the boun- 

 teous banquet spread forth by Nature. 



Driving along the road which trav- 

 erses the lake shore, the first feature 

 to attract attention is the water's ex- 

 treme clearness. Rocks and fallen 

 trees are plainly perceptible at a depth 

 of 40 or more feet. Seeking a cause 

 for this I found that the streams 

 which feed the lake are in turn fed by 

 the perpetual snows of the high alti- 

 tudes. Winter and summer, through 

 heat and through cold, these streams 

 have tossed and torn their different 

 ways down the precipitous mountain 

 sides until all soil along their courses 

 has long since been swept away, and 

 they froth and foam over a bed of 

 clean and polished stone. This leaves 

 the water of a crystal clearness which 

 is deceiving to the eyes. 



One day, when trying for trout I 

 thought to anchor my boat in the inlet 

 by stabbing an oar into the sand and 

 tying to the oar. Seemingly 4 feet 

 below was the shining sand. I made 

 a lunge at it with one oar, but the bot- 

 tom was not where it seemed. The 

 impetus of my effort carried me on a 

 hasty and headlong search for it. I 

 found it ; but my companion said af- 

 terward that mv feet disappeared be- 

 neath the surface before my head 



touched the lake bed. That indicated 

 a depth of more than 6 feet. . 



At the time of my visit there were 

 2 Government sharps at the lake, sent 

 out by the Fish Commission to pry 

 into and assess the quality and quan- 

 tity of things connected with that 

 body of water. I observed their move- 

 ments and incidentally purloined a few 

 data. They took, in a most unsports- 

 manlike way, 11 different varieties of 

 fish from the lake ; got variegated 

 samples of mud from its bed; ascer- 

 tained its morning and evening tem- 

 perature; felt its pulse; looked at its 

 tongue; examined its internal organ- 

 ism ; and did many other things which 

 1 shall not mention, as a detailed state- 

 ment of their movements might sadly 

 conflict with the report which they 

 sent to their superiors. Through them 

 and their diversified armamentarium I 

 found that the streams running into 

 the lake had a temperature of only 43 

 degrees; surface water of the main 

 body registered 65, while that at the 

 bottom showed only 55. The deepest 

 sounding was 268 feet, and the aver- 

 age depth about 175. Bacteria, 

 bacilli, and other microscopical infer- 

 nal machines are entirely at sea there, 

 though phantastomata abound ; which 

 the public will no doubt be glad to 

 learn. 



I tried the fishing. The limpidity 

 of the water has influence on the 

 sport. A trout loafing under the shady 

 side of a stone, watching the move- 

 ment of things, can see a man wink 

 his eye at 20 paces ; therefore the 

 swing of a casting rod gives the alarm 

 to all fish within reach of a fly. 



Trolling is more successful. Na- 

 tives claim to have taken 12-pound 

 Dolly Varden trout in that manner. 



During the first 3 days of my so- 

 journ at the lakeside, according to the 

 government data which I purloined, 

 the surface water showed an increased 

 temperature of 3 degrees. This was 

 undoubtedly due to the activity I dis- 

 played in scurrying over the water as 

 I plied the troll. The result was noth- 



