RECREATION 



VOL. XXIII. 



DECEMBER 1905 



No. 6 



PENCILINGS IN NEWFOUNDLAND 



By L. F. BROWN 



"Codfish, salmon, trout and whales, 

 Rock-shores flogged by surf and gales, 

 Wild and stern, majestic, grand. 

 That spells charming Newfoundland." 



RAILROAD train 

 roaring through 

 a wilderness 

 where a pine tree, 

 two natives and 

 a dog are a "sta- 

 tion"; sombre, 

 blue hills one or 

 two thousand 

 feet high ; green 

 streams full of trout (and sea-trout 

 and salmon in season) ; caribou that 

 cross the track by thousands when 

 migrating ; tens of thousands of name- 

 less lakes (over 30,000 known ones, and 

 687 with names) with nobody to fish 

 and no boats on them ; hills yellow 

 with bake-apple berries in late July and 

 early August ! These are among the 

 first impressions of the sportsman and 

 tourist as he goes through the heart 

 of and across the entire island. 



We pass the superb scenery of Bay 

 of Islands and enter the Humber Val- 

 ley, winding along the left bank of its 

 river — wild, clear water, but so deep it 

 is black, and made yet more sable by 

 the overshadowing bluffs. The narrow- 

 gauge road is the merest thread at the 

 base of cliffs often a thousand feet 

 high, standing in a virgin wilderness 

 that extends on all sides to the surf, 

 forever pounding the shores of an 



island 500 miles across from east to 

 west and north to south. We thought 

 that Maine, New Brunswick, Nova 

 Scotia and Cape Breton's Bras d'Or 

 lakes furnished superb scenery. When 

 we return it will all seem common- 

 place. 



Barrens covered with Arctic moss, 

 half jet-black soil and half water for 

 leagues ; sometimes three or four lakes 

 seen from the car windows, and each 

 with the surface of its water from 100 

 to 200 feet higher or lower than that of 

 all the others ; yet all a mile long and 

 broad, winding out of sight among 

 hills. Minerals showing right beside 

 the road — copper, iron, coal, asbestos, 

 mica, marble, and gypsum, all waiting 

 for capital and a market. It is wonder- 

 ful ! 



If the sportsman stops at Grand 

 Lake station, and paddles up the lar- 

 gest lake on the island forty miles to the 

 hills at its south end, he has but to 

 camp on the plateaus high above the 

 water, if he wishes to see and photo- 

 graph caribou whose size and beauty 

 are unrivaled. Or he may stop at Deer 

 Lake, Glenwood, Gambo or Bishop's 

 Falls, and feel the rush and see the 

 leaps of noblest salmon lurking in black 

 pools, which, as at Rack Pool, on Bot- 

 tom Brook, will yield brook trout by 

 the dozen (the way the Newfound- 



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