go 



RECREATION 



sea with signs and not a clam or jelly fish 

 living there would be benefited by it. For- 

 tunately we do not appeal to the jelly fish 

 or clams of the communities, but to the peo- 

 ple with good red blood in their necks, sound 

 hearts in their breasts and with brains cap- 

 able of reading and understanding. 



To those who. have posted themselves on 

 this subject it is unnecessary to say that the 

 preservation of our streams is necessary to 

 the preservation of our fish, but many of the 

 readers may not yet have considered how 

 intimately the preservation of our forests 

 is connected with the preservation of our 

 streams and hence the very existence of 

 many fish, especially brook trout, depends 

 upon the preservation of the forests. 



To illustrate this relationship between for- 

 ests and water, make a couple of troughs, 

 line one with clay to represent the country 

 denuded of trees, the opposite trough line 

 with sods of grass or moss to represent the 

 forest-clad mountain side, set them on an 

 incline and connect their upper ends with 

 a rough reservoir. Pour a pail of water into 

 this reservoir and there will be a wild rush 

 of water down the clay-lined trough, while 

 the moss and grass-lined one will drip for 

 hours. 



It only needs a little imagination to con- 

 vert this machine into a forest-clad moun- 

 tain and one denuded of timber. 



The cloudburst represented by the contents 

 of the bucket of water suddenly poured into 

 the top reservoir is only a dangerous cloud 

 burst on the barren slope. By the use of 

 this simple device you can explain to a child 

 the absolute necessity of preserving the for- 

 ests upon the water sheds, if we would have 

 continuous running water and not the cer- 

 tainty of flood and droughts which are caused 

 by the water-sheds being recklessly denuded 

 of timber. 



Clinton Harris, Nashville, Tenn. 



THE QUEER KOOTENAY CANOE. 



Editor Recreation : 



Canoes differ in model and vary in size 

 and weight as you pass from one district to 

 another. Canada is the land of the canoe, 

 because the forests are, as a rule, dense, in 

 many parts there is no feed for ponies, but 

 there is an almost unrivalled system of water 

 ways, permitting easy passage from one valley 

 to another. The canoe with which most of us 

 are familiar, is either the large, high centered, 

 seaworthy, Micmac canoe, used in the lower 

 provinces, or else the smaller, lighter, and 

 more graceful birch bark of the Algonquin. 

 But for originality of model the Kootenay 

 canoe, made by one weak tribe in Southern 

 British Columbia, carries off the palm. This 

 canoe is small and narrow, and of rough 

 workmanship, being originally made of 

 spruce bark, although canvas is now much 

 used in place of bark ; however, its strongest 

 claim to our notice lies in the peculiar shape 

 of its ends. 



Both bow and stern have ram-like projec- 

 tions similar to the ram of a battleship or 

 cruiser. It puzzled me to account for this, 

 and none of the white hunters seemed to 

 know just why the Indians had selected this 

 strange model. One day, however, while on 

 a steamer on Kootenay lake, with half a gale 

 tearing up the clear, green waters into re- 

 spectable waves, I solved the problem. An 

 Indian and his kloochman were paddling vig- 

 orously against the wind, and as each wave 

 approached the canoe, the buoyancy of the 

 under water ram was so great that it invari- 

 ably lifted the canoe well up over the crest 

 of the wave, and not a drop of water found 

 its way into the frail little craft. Another 

 advantage of the long ends is that it keeps 

 the canoe traveling in a straight line, with- 

 out yawing, as an ordinary birch bark must 

 do when a single paddler is propelling it. 



The Kootenay Indians have a method of 



A. I- b-2. 



Fig. i Denuded Fig. 2 Forest covered 



water shed water shed 



A AND B, WOODEN TROUGHS REPRESENTING HILLSIDE. 

 AI CROSS SECTION OF A. B2, CROSS SECTION OF B. 



