410 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



[June 14, 1888. 



NEW FIELDS FOR GUN AND ROD. 



BEFORE me on the table lies one of those illustrated 

 time tables and guides in book form of the Canadian 

 Pacific Railway. It is soiled and worn from use on a 

 trip across the Continent on this line which I made last 

 summer. I happened to get it out from a lot of travel- 

 ing souvenirs and memorabilia to find some information 

 for a friend; and seeing it to-day has given me the 

 thought that as this road is a new one and in its whole 

 extent furnishes as much opportunity for reaching fine 

 sport to the hunter and angler as any road on the conti- 

 nent, and is comparatively unknown to the great mass 

 of sportsmen, I might be able to contribute some notes of 

 interest. I had the good fortune to stop off at several 

 places and try the fishing, though no hunting, as it was 

 in mid- summer. I will take the route going westward. 



After leaving Montreal on the express in the evening 

 the first place of interest the traveler sees is North Bay 

 on Lake Nipissing. All the cultivated and developed 

 part of Canada westward, including Ottawa, has been 

 passed in the night. North Bay is "interesting because 

 here one meets the dining car and obtains his breakfast. 

 The country around North Bay, at least along the road 

 and westward for a considerable distance, is flat, swampy 

 and covered with a dense growth of small evergreens. 

 North Bay is not much of a place from our standpoint, 

 but no doubt is a good spot to arrive in from a sports- 

 man's view. There are steamers on Lake Nipissing, and 

 I Baw one departing with an excursion apparently. The 

 fishing on the lake is said to be good and of great variety. 

 A gentleman told me he caugbt a 71bs. lake trout from 

 the dock while waiting for a train. I saw canoes and 

 boats, and guides no doubt could be obtained. I saw a 

 number of clearings and farms along the lake shore. 



After leaving here the next interesting point to the 

 sportsman is Sturgeon Falls. The road passes over the 

 falls and at the foot of them is a magnificent pool, in 

 which I have been informed by friends great numbers of 

 sturgeon are taken as they come out of the lake to spawn. 

 "Westward from here the country is broken and rocky, a 

 most desolate region covered with shrubbery and dead 

 trees. Great patches of it have been burnt over, present- 

 ing a most forlorn appearance. It has lately, however, 

 assumed a great importance from the discoveries made in 

 it of mineral wealth. Copper and silver are mined and 

 gold I notice is said to have been recently found. 



The country is literally covered and packed with small 

 lakes, and notably from Chapieau westward the railway 

 seems to be crossing arms of these lakes, which wind in 

 various directions among the pine-covered rocky hills, as 

 much as it runs on the ground among the woods. There 

 is literally no end to them and an attempt to count them 

 soon becomes monotonous. It is said the Hudson's Bay 

 voyageurs used to travel 500 rniles on them making short 

 portages. As the country grows I have no doubt in time 

 they will become famous for their opportunities for 

 canoeing. 



At Sudbury I stopped several days to visit friends and 

 see the large copper mines recently developed there. The 

 town is new and, like our western places, of small un- 

 painted houses. It is growing rapidly, however, and 

 will soon be quite a place. Besides the mines another 

 factor that is aiding it is the junction here with the main 

 line of the Algoma branch from Sault Ste. Marie. This 

 if not already opened soon will be, and a new extent of 

 country will be opened to the sportsman. 



Theie are as usual a number of fine lakes around Sud- 

 bury and one is scarcely a mile from the town. It has a 

 sawmill and a little settlement on it and here we obtained 

 a boat one day and explored the lake. The surprising 

 way in which these lakes wind among the hills makes 

 the exploration of them interesting and delightful. One 

 imagines he has come to the end, when rounding a rocky 

 point, suddenly a new body of water opens before him 

 as large as that he has just quitted. As yet they are 

 practically untouched and the angler can reap a golden 

 harvest. They contain muscalonge and bass, some of 

 them brook trout in large size and some, strange to say, 

 both trout and bass. On the lake we visited we cast the 

 fly for bass, and although the day was bright and hot 

 and we were rowing and exploring most of the time, we 

 took eight small-mouth bass that weighed 231bs. when 

 we returned, besides a number of rock bass running 

 about a pound, which took the fly and proved very game. 



In the fail and winter, I was informed, there is good 

 hunting for moose and caribou, the latter having been 

 seen scarcely a mile from the town. Bears are also com- 

 mon, and as for small game, the duck shooting on the 

 lakes is tine, while grouse are plenty beyond precedent. 



This character of country and sporting opportunities 

 continue all the way west to Lake Superior. 



The line runs along, the Spanish River for some dis- 

 tance and the latter has falls and pools in its rapid course 

 that make the angler's heart swell with the desire to cast 

 a fly on their black and foam-flecked eddies. I was in- 

 formed by several well-known anglers that it formerly 

 contained magnificent trout rivaling the Nipigon, and 

 was still a fine trout river, though the "first real top cream 

 had been skimmed. (In parenthesis — the fishing oppor- 

 tunities are so fine and new waters so abundant, they 

 speak in this way if a water has been visited a dozen 

 times.) 



Nearly all the stations along here are situated upon the 

 side of some lake, for the convenience of watering I sup- 

 pose, but making it extremely convenient for sportsmen 

 who will take the trouble to carry a canoe and outfit with 

 him. All he has to do is to disembark, launch his canoe 

 and go to work; if he don't like it, take the train, go to 

 the next station and try a new sport. A guide cannot be 

 at all necessary as everything is right by the railroad. 

 This could be done through several hundred miles of 

 country and I imagine would be a most delightful experi- 

 ment. He would have to carry Ms supplies, however, 

 generally speaking, as most of* the stations consist of 

 simply a house built in the wilderness for the operator. 



At one such lake and station I saw several camping 

 parties of sportsmen. The lake was celebrated for the 

 fine brook trout fishing it contained, running to 31bs. and 

 above. The last of this country contains Lake Winde- 

 mere, which twists its narrow length like a snake for 

 fifty miles along the track and around the hills. It is 

 evidently the bed of an ancient river. The reports of the 



fishing which I heard here were simply fabulous. I did 

 not have a chance to verify them. 



Westward from here the train runs along the north 

 shore of Lake Superior, where the scenery is very tine 

 from the towering cliffs that overhang the lake. I need 

 not advert to the opportunities for sportsmen here, as 

 they are already well known. 



A stop of several days was made at Nipigon, which has 

 been also described. Unfortunately I was not able to stay 

 long enough to go up to the falls, and so missed what is 

 said to be the best part of the river. What I saw, how- 

 ever, fully justifies the praises of this noble river, prob- 

 ably the finest trout stream in the world. It may inter- 

 est sportsmen to know that a small inn has been put up 

 at the station, where fair accommodations may be had. 

 The fare was not of the best type, but with fresh bread 

 and butter, and egg3 and fried trout, and the appetite 

 that an outing brings, we ask nothing better. We only 

 fished the lower river, but had plenty of sport, getting 

 trout up to 41bs. Indians and a canoe can be obtained at 

 any time from Mr. Flanigan, the genial Hudson's Bay 

 Co.'s agent at the post. He is in clarge of an excellent 

 store, where everything that one can need in those parts 

 can be purchased. Mr. Flanigan has a visitor's book, 

 wherein parties fishing in the river are requested to write 

 their names and an account of their luck, and it would 

 make an Eastern angler's eyes stand out to read some of 

 the scores between its covers. There were no insect 

 plagues to trouble at the time I was on the Nipigon, and 

 their absence and fine sport made the stay halcyon days 

 indeed. May they come again and more of them! 



Westward between here and Port Arthur, at the end of 

 the lake, there are several streams where fine sport may 

 be had, though not to compare with the Nipigon. At one 

 point there is a lake called Loon Lake, on the right side 

 and but a short distance from Lake Superior, the railroad 

 running between them. • In this lake there is fine trout 

 and small-mouth bass fishing, as noticed by one of your 

 correspondents last fall. A singular sensation truly to 

 hook a 31bs. brook trout and a bass at the same time, and 

 play and land the lively team. 



At Port Arthur, at the upper end of Superior, the Kam- 

 inistiquia River comes in, carrying the largest volume of 

 water next to the Nipigon. Unlike that river of crystal 

 purity, its waters are dark and brown, 



The road runs for a long distance by its banks, giving 

 views of splendid pools and eddies in its rapid and often 

 turbulent course. I know nothing of it personally, but it 

 is said to yield fine sport. 



There was a long Scotchman on our train at this point 

 who was an enthusiastic angler (and there are few Scotch- 

 men who are not), with whom I fell into angling talk 

 galore. The magnificent pools we often saw on this river 

 would rouse him tremendously, and when we passed one 

 he would clap me on the back and say, "Heck! mon, did 

 ye ever see onything like that? Suppose ye could lay a 

 fly on the edge of that froth. Hey?" and he would spring 

 like a rubber ball at the very thought. 



The country between here and Winnipeg is not of an 

 inviting aspect to sportsmen; it is wild and desolate, 

 abounding in tamarack swamp, probably the continu- 

 ation to the northward of the great swauipy region of 

 northern Minnesota. 



No doubt there is good hunting in the winter time; the 

 mosquitoes make life unendurable here in summer. 

 Moose exist, and it is said they are killed in numbers in 

 the winter. 



A train conductor told me a curious and amusing story 

 relative to the moose here. He was running the freight 

 a year ago this winter and the engineer had slowed his 

 train in a desolate spot to fix some connection or other. 

 The conductor was in the cab warming himself, when he 

 suddenly heard the engineer shout to him to pull the 

 lever, at the same time starting for the cab. Peering out 

 he saw ahead of the moving train, shown in every detail 

 by the brightness of the headlight, an enormous moose, 

 his antlers thrown back, bounding up and down on the 

 track ahead of the engine. In his excitement he reversed 

 the lever and slowed the train, and when the engineer, 

 who had reached him, hurriedly put on all steam the 

 moose disappeared in the forest, fortunately for the noble 

 animal, who deserved a better fate than to be killed in such 

 a cruel way. As the conductor phrased it, "he would have 

 surely got him if he had not pulled the wrong way." 

 But the end was not yet. About a week later, not far 

 from this place, the engineer again saw a huge animal 

 running on the track ahead of his engine. Putting on all 

 speed he crashed into the astonished beast before he could 

 get off the track. The train came to a halt, and taking 

 lanterns they went out to see the prey and found a fine 

 large ox which belonged to a settler whose cabin was not 

 far off. Draw a veil of silence over the rest. 



Westward from Winnipeg to the Rockies the game is 

 that of the great mid-continental plain. In the settled 

 parts of Manitoba it is of the feathered kind mostly. 



I saw numbers of prairie chickens, and the shooting in 

 the early fall must be good. In Assiniboia and Alberta 

 I saw no antelope, but was told that in summer they go 

 to the northward, returning during the winter. There 

 were the usual millions of gophers or prairie dogs, and 

 these with one badger and the coyotes were the only 

 four-legged animals indigenous to the country I saw in 

 this stretch. As usual the gophers were a curse to the 

 farmers who cursed them in return. But as for feathered 

 game no man who has not been there can imagine it. In 

 Assiniboia. between Regina and Medicine Hut on the 

 Saskatchewan are numbers of flat lakes on the prairies. 

 Beside many of these the railroad runs. Many are very 

 alkaline. The surfaces of these lakes are black with, 

 waterfowl, Avhile waders of various kinds, plovers, sand- 

 pipers, etc., stand in solid rows and rows on the beach. 

 The air is full of the flying multitudes, long trains of 

 various species of birds coming and going in every direc- 

 tion. It is a veritable Golconda of feathered riches. 

 Sportsmen coming out in the early fall before the birds 

 have dex>arted for the South, and bringing an outfit with 

 them, could enjoy a veritable gunner's paradise, and that 

 in the immediate vicinity of the railroad and stations 



Further west we come to the Canadian Rockies. The 

 kinds of game, the hunting for them, the fishing to be 

 found and the scenery are not essentially different from 

 the same region on our northern border which has been 

 often described, and the admirable sketches of "Yo" 

 have left little to be told. The Canadians have a national 

 park at Banff, in a valley on the main range. There is a 

 fine hotel here and the railway company has a splendid 

 building in course of construction. Roads and buildings 



are being constructed, and when I visited the spot last 

 summer I found quite a little settlement there, many 

 visitors camping in log huts and tents for the enjoyment 

 of the scenery, air and sporting advantages, while the 

 white tents and red coats of the mounted police maintain 

 the best of order. There are several warm springs impreg- 

 nated with sulphur which afford medicinal advantages, 

 and at one of them is an excellent bathing house. The 

 views in the valley through which the Bow River winds 

 are magnificent, comparing favorably with Switzerland 

 or the Tyrol. There is fine fishing in the lakes and streams 

 for the black-spotted mountain trout, and there are also 

 several other species of trout here. One of these, which 

 is commonly caught in the Bow River, and goes by the 

 local name of "bull trout," and of which I caught a 

 number, bears a much stronger resemblance to our 

 Eastern fontinaUs than the black-spotted iridea, and I 

 am inclined to believe it to be the same as Suckley's 

 Salmo parkii of the Kootenay system of waters. 



Mr. W. F. Whitcher, formerly connected with the Can- 

 adian Fish Commission, has spent two seasons in the 

 Canadian Park investigating the game and fish for the 

 Government. From his report, which he kindly had 

 sent to me, I quote: "The fishes comprise generally 

 whitefish, mountain trout, lake trout, river trout, brook 

 trout, herring, gold and silver carp, catfish and suckers. 

 It does not appear that jack fish, perch and pickerel exist 

 in the neighborhood. The whitefish and lake trout breed 

 dui ing October and November, the other trout vary from 

 spring to autumn; indeed, there are some of different 

 kinds in spawn throughout the season. The best variety, 

 known as rainbow trout, is undoubtedly a spring breeder. 

 In March, April and May the spawn is either far ad- 

 vanced or ready for extrusion. 



"There is a remarkable confusion of trouts hereabouts 

 that may be related to the former profusion. Of identi- 

 fied river trout the rainbow variety (Salmo iridea) ranks 

 originally in form, size, color, flavor and gaminess; the 

 brook trout (Salvelinus fontinaUs), though much smaller, 

 ranks next; the Rocky Mountain brook trout (Salmo stel- 

 latus) runs small, but is very lively and tasty: the largest 

 river trout (Salmo purpuratus) is heavy and dull, but 

 fairly eatable; a brownish trout, called 'bull trout,' seems 

 to be a variation of fontinaUs — an awkward country 

 cousin, but a hard fighter when hooked, but of insipid 

 flesh. There has been so much interbreeding among 

 these trout that many others are found, and their aspect 

 and flavor are affected by consequent irregularity of 

 spawning condition. 



"If like circumstances exist elsewhere in the myriad 

 waters flowing by circuitous routes through diversified 

 stratas and variable temperatures toward the North and 

 South Saskatchewan within the trout range, it is no 

 wonder many persons express unceitain opinions and 

 relate diverse experiences concerning the regular spawn- 

 ing season. 



"In the large lakes the Salmo naymacush predomi- 

 nates, and is logy and coarse-fleshed. In the smaller 

 lakes there is a. trout answering in shape and markings 

 to Salmo ametJiystus but not structurally differing from 

 other lake trouts. Brook trout also occur in these small 

 lakes. 



"The above particulars are stated in support of a 

 recommendation to generalize close seasons rather than 

 as data relating to species and valuations, which in 

 those northwestern wilds develop strange perplexities." 



The fishing in the mountain streams is best in early 

 summer, as later the melting snows and glaciers in the 

 inoun tains cause them to rise and become turbid, inter- 

 fering seriously with sport. 



The grayling is reported to be in some of these moun- 

 tain lakes and streams as also in those running west- 

 ward into the Frazer. The so-called grayling at Banff, 

 of which I was unable to see a specimen, is a species 

 of the genus Coregonus and not a thymalloid, so Mr. 

 Whitcher told me. 



From here as everywhere else comes the cry of lawless, 

 destructive and wasteful methods of fishing. Iridea, as 

 Mr. Whitcher says, is the best fish in these mountain 

 waters, taking the fly well in clear streams, running to 

 many pounds in weight and being very gamy, I was 

 told a number of wonderful stories, but I ref i ain. 



On the summit of the pass through the Selkirks, amid 

 magnificent scenery of mountains, glaciers, torrents, 

 waterfalls and forests, is a hotel and dining station of the 

 C. P. R. Here the traveler and sportsman can stop and 

 sample the surrounding. On the summit of the Gold 

 Range lies a number of deep dark lakes, surrounded by 

 tall mountains, and resembling the wildest of Scotch tarns 

 to a marvellous degree. Their black depths are said to 

 contain fishy monsters, but to this I can add nothing. I 

 saw Indians fisMng from their canoes on several of them, 

 however, and where Indians fish there are generally fish 

 to be found. They do contain musquitoes: that I can 

 testify right well. 



Further west is Shuswap Lake, an immense long nar- 

 row body of water, beside which the raflway runs for 

 miles and miles, amid beautiful scenery. From the 

 western slopes of the mountains to the coast and down 

 the Frazer, in whose boiling canon one sees the Indians 

 dipping salmon, the traveler passes through a wilder- 

 ness.whose forest depths and myriad waters are yet com- 

 paratively unknown to the sportsman. 



If it be the good fortune of some reader of the Forest 

 and Stream to cross the continent on this line do not 

 fail to stop at some of these places and tell us about 

 them on your return. 



In closing I cannot refrain from giving a just word of 

 praise to the Canadian Pacific for the excellent train ser- 

 vice and accommodations they offer when the country 

 through which they pass is considered. The sleepers are 

 marvels of comfort in upholstery, with bathrooms, 

 smoking compartment, etc. The dining cars and stations 

 even in the wilderness a thousand miles from civilization 

 are as good as any in the East, while the officials are po- 

 lite and wonderfully accommodating, and especially to 

 sportsmen. - Peroyval. 



New York Laws.— The Governor has signed Assembly 

 bill 511 to provide for a more effective organization of 

 game and fish protectors; also signed Assembly bill 150 

 for the protection of fish in the waters of Richmond 

 county. He has failed to sign Senate bill 348. prohibiting 

 between March 15 and June 1 pound and purse net fishing 

 in the Hudson River; also Assembly bill 732, for the pro- 

 tection of homing and fancy pigeons; also the bill, 1,093, 

 for the better protection of fish in Cayuga county. 



