;o4 



RECREATION 



Trout there? Why, hadn't he seen them 

 jump ? The water fairly boiled with them. 

 This little gem, undiscovered of the great 

 army of fishermen who go to the Woods 

 each year on the 15th of April; this flower 



£^HHBui 



OUR RUSTIC DINING ROOM 



of the North, which had been wasting its 

 sweetness on the desert air for generations, 

 waiting for us to come and pluck it, was 

 Cage Lake, reached only by mountain trail 

 from the headwaters of the Oswegatchie 

 River, known (or at least that portion of it) 

 as the Inlet to Cranberry Lake. 



Now; as a matter of fact, Cage Lake has 

 been fished for the past two gen- 

 erations by at least its fair pro- 

 portion of the fifty thousand, 

 more or less, of tourists who seek 

 recreation in the Adirondacks an- 

 nually; and as a matter of rea- 

 sonable conjecture the troubling 

 of the waters, which -to his excited 

 vision represented millions of 

 trout, was probably caused by 

 hungry dace and shiners. 



Not to give Cage Lake a bad 

 name, however, they do say that 

 if one happens to strike it when 

 the trout are biting, there is no 

 limit to the number that may 

 be taken. Such a day is said to 

 have occurred in the seventies 

 and has probably been duplicated 

 once or twice each year since. 

 But it is not down on the calendar and 

 every ,fisherman has to find it out for him- 

 self. So we went to Cage Lake. 



" Resolved, that the pleasures of anticipa- 

 tion are greater than those of reality," is the 

 question we used to debate with much heat 

 in the little old red schoolhouse, and some- 

 times, even then, the affirmative had the 

 best of it. Any man who is a fisherman at 

 heart enjoys anticipatory pleasures. We 

 began to talk about Cage Lake in mid- 

 winter and long before the fishing season 

 opened our rods and tackle had been care- 

 fully overhauled, our dufne packed and all 

 made ready. 



The day of departure dawned at last. 

 Behold three middle-aged boys in out- 

 rageous togs and unspeakable head and 

 footgear, pack baskets slung on their 

 shoulders, making their way before day- 

 light to the early morning train with enthusi- 

 astic sleepiness. 



A ride of six hours brings us to Benson 

 Mines in a country where the hills are com- 

 posed of single granite rocks, bald as a 

 skull, and the meadows yield more "hard- 

 head " boulders than pasturage. God never 

 intended it for anything but timberland, 

 and when men cut and burned it over he 

 withdrew his favor. 



"The Mines" represent a deposit of 

 excellent iron ore, in which a fortune has 

 been sunk. They are now inoperative, 

 being unable to compete with the vast de- 



SURESHOT HAS A TROUT 



posits of the Superior region and cheap 

 lake transportation. So Benson Mines is 

 best known by campers and fishermen as a 



