482 
Forest and stream. 
[Dec, 17, 1898. 
On Forest Lakes and Trails. 
Probably few persons realize the fact that one of the 
most extensive forests of the world is within twenty- 
four hours' ride of the city of New York. 
It is said that the forest lying north of the St. Lawrence^ 
River is surpassed in extent only by those of the" 
Amazon, Siberia, Central Africa and the northwestern 
part of our continent. It stretches a thousand miles 
south from Hudson Bay toward the St. Lawrence, 
and is i,7oo miles in width from east to west. 
Within its range are the Laurentide highlands, the 
oldest known geological formation; not lofty elevations, 
but rolling in long, graceful, billowy lines, now covered 
with the waving forest, but in the remote antiquity of 
the glacial period buried, according to Dana's compu- 
tation, to the depth of nearly two miles under the ice 
which flowed thence over the Green and White moun- 
tains, the Catskills, and down to the sea. It is an 
ancient land, strangely preserved intact in its primeval 
wildness and beauty. 
The pioneers of civilization from France, touching the 
north shore of the St. Lawrence, pushed westward in 
their nervous haste of exploration, leaving the savages 
and the wild beasts in possession of the vast, somber 
forest. 'Since those early days the severity of the winter 
and the indifferent nature of the soil have combined 
to deter the enterprising Canadian from attempting 
seriously the conquest of the wilderness. 
Indians are still found in their ancestral haunts. Some 
of them are now the proteges of the Hudson Bay Com- 
pany, and bring their furs, as in the former days, for 
sale or exchange: others are guides to the hunting and 
fishing grounds of their fathers. The moose, the cari- 
bou, the bear and the fox continue to tempt the patient 
hunter; the beaver builds his dams across the streams; 
the loon and the wild duck breed along the lakes. The 
inland waters abound in game fish; the brook trout 
( fontinalis) , the great lake trout (namaycush) , the ouan- 
aniche, the maskinonge, the dore and the pike. The 
primitive woods remain, bowing and bending under the 
weight of snow in the winter, and in summer radiant 
beneath the warm Canadian sun that tempers the cool- 
ness of the interminable shade. 
There stand in solitary grandeur the last survivors 
of the old pines of the East. About them cluster the 
tall dark spruces, the hemlocks* cedars, maples, the 
white-stemmed birches, the smooth-barked beeches and 
fragrant balsams, not yet reached by the greedy axe 
and still protected by their inaccessibility. Along the 
water courses the lumbermen have hewed out the valu- 
able timber, and the spring floods have borne it through 
many a turbulent rapid to the mills below, but the 
larger part of the region is a profound solitude, covered 
with a dense forest and little disturbed except by the 
solitary trapper and hunter. 
Picturesque lakes of all sizes and forms, and of di- 
vergent beauty, bordered by their faithful friends the 
trees, the untiring condensers, lie in long chains and 
systems among the hills and mountains. 
The ice which creeps over them in November, and is 
the playground of the restless winds and whirling snow 
through the winter, does not disappear until May. 
April is not the birthtime of the Laurentian world, 
but with the tee goes winter, and summer quickly suc- 
ceeds. Spring is superfluous, and has no place. 
The trees burst into foliage, and the wild grasses spring 
up where the sunshine falls. There is a sound of wings 
in the air, and the loons and ducks,, sweeping up on the 
south wind, drop into their familiar haunts; the heron 
and bittern again stalk through the swamps; the singing 
birds come "jubilant, noisy, triumphant"; the beaver, 
leaving the wintry depths, cleaves the surface of the. 
water; the air is soft and the time has come to travel 
the forest lakes and trails. 
Three summers ago I was in the main camp of the 
Laurentian Club on Lac la Peche, in the southern edge 
of the great forest, with some friends. While we were 
waiting idly for a rain to cease and the sun to shine, 
an Indian from the Hudson Bay Company came in, and 
we obtained information from him about an attractive 
lake of which we had heard, situated some seventy miles 
to the north. He sketched a rough map upon a piece of 
pine board, showing its location, and the waterways and 
trails leading to it. which one of our guides copied upon 
a sheet of birch bark. Provided with this, we decided 
to make a trip to the lake. A box was packed with 
provisions from the storehouse, and two small tents were 
put in canvas, bags, These articles, with blankets, were 
sent in advance about forty miles through the woods 
to a log camp of the club on Lake Dunbar, upon the 
route we were to take. 
The canoe selected for our use was a Peterborough, 
a strong and comfortable boat, built of basswood, 19ft. 
long, 37in. wide, and I2in. deep. 
Our party for the excursion, exclusive of guides, con- 
sisted of three persons, one of whom was a lady experi- 
enced in forest life and travel. Our two guides, Pierre 
and Noel, were Indians, both skillful voyageurs. Pierre, 
the head guide, was tall and straight; of gentle manners, 
with a voice soft and musical, very intelligent and trust- 
worthy. He had all the natural dignity of an historical 
Iroquois chief. 
At 8 o'clock on Wednesday morning we placed our 
few personal effects — rifle and fishing tackle^ and one 
day's provisions — in the canoe, and embarking upon 
Lac la Peche, paddled away for the north. 
We traveled fifteen miles that day, and about 4 o'clock 
in the afternoon reached our resting place for the 
night, a spacious log house on the shore of Lake 
Pizagonke, remarkable for its fine scenery, and the 
headquarters of the Shawinegan Club, a Montreal assor 
elation, whose hospitality was generously extended to 
us. Beyond this lake we were not to have roads and 
scarcely a civilized sign. 
We were afloat early in the morning, for our next 
camping place was thirty miles distant. When we 
pushed from the reedy shore, we entered a dense, white, 
fog that hung over the lake. We could hear the call 
of the loons from the misty depths, but we could not 
see them, nor the kingfishers, whose disjointed notes 
we heard. 
Once a blue heron loomed silently and weirdly into 
view, but a few strokes of her long wings carried her 
into the fog again out of our sight, 
As the sun rose higher it dissipated the fog, and 
during the rest of the passage down the lake wc had a 
succession of fine views. 
For two miles or more we paddled close to high, per- 
pendicular cliffs of Laurentian rock, whose savage rug- 
gedness was softened and half-hidden by pines that clung 
to their sides from base to summit, rooted in the seams 
and scars made by centuries of frost. The cliffs ter- 
minated in a lower shore, thickly covered with timber. 
Across the lake the hills rose, ridge above ridge, "pile 
above pile of fresh and stately verdure." 
The lake was nine miles long, and when the canoe 
slid over the lilypads into the soft grass of the further 
shore we were glad to land and take the trail to the 
next lake. 
I must not omit to relate one incident of the morn- 
ing. As we approached a narrow pan of the lake a 
bull moose suddenly came out of the woods on our right 
front. Pierre, who was in the stern of the canoe, saw 
him first and whispered "Moose!" The guides stopped 
paddling, and we watched the movements of the monarch 
of the woods. He walked vigorously to the water 
through some bushes that lined the shore. . At the edge 
of the lake he stopped, facing the water, and tossed 
his big antlered head right and left, and 'sniffed the 
air. The sun was behind us, shining in a clear sky, and 
the light breeze was in our faces. It was evident that 
the moose did not see us. Apparently he intended to 
swim across the lake, for after reconnoitering an instant 
he strode into the water until it nearly covered his 
body, only his huge head and antlers and the upper line 
of his brown back remaining visible. Whether he saw 
us or imagined an evil presence, or whether some moose 
omen appeared to him in the sky above, we could not 
determine, but he turned and went out of the lake 
with moderate haste and plunged into the woods. He 
had been within easy shooting distance for five min- 
utes at least. A trusty rifle was lying on the floor of 
the canoe, but it was Aug. 28. with still three days untold 
of the then close season, and we did not shoot. 
What Pierre and Noel would have done had they 
been alone it is not necessary to consider. They were 
experienced hunters of moose and caribou, and Cana- 
dian Indians as a race are not noted for constant and 
unswerving obedience to the game laws. However, it 
is only fair to them to say that our forbearance and 
the reason for it seemed to meet with their approval. 
Leaving Pizagonke, we traversed lakes Croche, Desiles 
and Antikiagamac, all connected by easy trails. A por- 
tion of the latter lake was luxurious with lily plants,' 
and among their broad leaves some big pike were sun- 
ning themselves near the surface, and lazily moved away 
when the canoe approached them. 
Passing through the outlet, we twisted down a creek 
as crooked as the folds of a steam radiator, emerging 
by noon upon the Mattawin River, within the territory 
of the Laurentian Club. 
• The Mattawin is a tributary of the St. Maurice River, 
and is about 100 miles long, running through the forest 
its entire course. Falls of 40ft. or more at intervals 
mark its precipitous descent. Where we struck it, and 
for the seven miles we followed its windings, the cur- 
rent, although swift, was smooth except for two or three 
rapids. Along the margin were numerous stretches 
of bright yellow sand dunes, on which we saw occasional 
footprints of black bears and caribou. 
* Now and then we startled a black duck from her nest; 
several times flocks of sheldrakes seemed to challenge 
us to race with them. As we approached the quiet 
coves where they were feeding, they would peer out, 
swim in different directions for a minute or two in an 
uncertain way, and then there would be a sudden glitter 
of wings and a rush of the whole flock on the waterline 
at wonderful speed. The canoe, racing with current 
and paddles, was no match for them. Kingfishers were 
numerous, as they are everywhere by the waters of the 
Canadian woods, dropping from overhanging branches 
upon their finny victims, and as they fly rattling off their 
castanet notes. Along the shores we saw several of the 
large red-headed woodpeckers hammering on the boles 
of old trees. 
About 2 o'clock we entered the mouth of the Castor 
Noir River, a stream of clear, cold water, paying tribute 
to the Mattawin, and landed near the base of a line of 
imposing granite cliffs, whose summits were crowned 
with white pines. The river rushed noisily through 
a deep gorge in the mountains. It was navigable by 
the canoe, but contained many rocky, foaming rapids, 
which forced us to make as many portages while ascend- 
ing the stream eight miles to its source. The scenery 
was very wild. At some points the densely wooded 
shores crowded in upon the river, making narrow passes, 
through which the water ran swiftly in the dark shadow 
of the trees, while at others the bed of the river was 
choked with big brown boulders, so that the guides 
found it difficult to force a passage. 
We crossed a beaver dam, the guides getting out upon 
it and pulling the canoe over. The barkless branches ot 
which it was built were of a fine whiteness, having been 
washed by the pure water and bleached by the sun. We 
crept over sandbars, over which the water was so shal- 
low that we could feel the flexible bottom of the canoe 
wrinkling under us. So with much portaging and hard 
paddling we pushed our way up during the afternoon, 
having the evergreen woods on either bank and views 
of rugged hills over the tops of the trees. When within, 
about a mile of Lake Dunbar, the source of the stream,' 
further progress by water was made impossible by 
rapids that came tumbling down to meet us, and the 
guides hoisted out the canoe, and we took the trail. 
As we climbed the ascent, we had frequent glimpses 
of the river, that rushed, singing, over the ledges in 
four successive leaps, resting in as many foam-flecked 
pools before reaching its more level bed below. 
' We came out of the woods upon the surface of an 
immense ledge that formed the rim of two upper pools 
to a view at once rugged and beautiful. Below, on the 
right, was the valley we had ascended; a sea of waving 
tree tops. The opposite shore of the river was a mass 
of boulders and angular rocks. 
Beyond, the mountain, a pile of gray stone, dotted with 
scattered trees, rose abruptly to the height of 1,200ft 
In front of us the water hurried foaming over the granite 
shelves, its- shattered column sending off a thin mist that 
drifted glistening in the sunshine over the deep, pebbly 
pools, the natural home of the trout. These are 
pools which no sane angler can neglect, so now the 
light bamboos are jointed, the reels slipped into their 
grooves, the filmy leaders hung with bright-winged 
flies, long casts are made from the rocky floor into the 
turmoil of broken, rushing water to the foot of 
the cascades^ The flies flutter down through the 
silvery spray into the white foam; the trout leap with 
an energy born of the swift water; the strike is made 
quicker than thought can come; the slender rods bend 
and spring as the captives dash around the pool until 
exhausted, they are led gently into the net and laid side 
by side upon the brown ledge, beautiful as the trout of a 
mountain stream can be, 
Our camp on Lake Dunbar was a mile from the falls, 
a log house flanked by a guide house and a bark kitchen. 
Pierre and Noel soon had a fire roaring in the throat of 
the big stone chimney. 
They cut a heap of spicy boughs from neighboring 
balsams and deftly laid them upon the rude bed frames. 
Blankets were spread over them, and we were ready for 
the trout supper and sleep. 
We found here our tents and provisions, which had 
been sent in advance. The next day was rainy, and we 
kept the comfortable camp. We piled logs upon the 
fire. We read. We watched the clouds as they drifted 
along the sides of the mountains and sifted through 
the pine forest, and we made attacks upon the blue- 
berries that grew in luxuriant abundance in the clear- 
ing, even up to the log doorstep of the house. 
The next morning was fair and bright, and we made 
an early start. 
We paddled up the lake, walked at a lively pace over 
a two-mile portage, and put our canoe into the Grand 
Castor Noir Lake, a lovely skeet of water, decorated 
with green islands — a gem of the wilderness, perfect 
in its beauty and solitude. Its scenery was in striking 
contrast to that of the following portage, which was a 
rough trail through a gray old wood, littered with rocks 
and trunks of generations of fallen trees in all stages 
of decay, some of them only traceable as lines of green 
moss. 
The next lake in our course was seven miles long, and 
it was high noon when we reached the lower end and 
landed to eat our luncheon. Here was a heap of tangled 
logs, once the shelter of the hunter, and near by, white 
and shining in the sun, was the complete skeleton of a 
bear, killed and flayed no doubt by the owner of the 
cabin. 
Crossing the foot of the lake, we .followed a trail that 
led to Lake Souci, and pitched our tents in a grove of 
spruce and balsams. 
At the rear of the camp a talkative stream dashed 
over a rocky bed, its chatter echoing through the 
woods. Within ten minutes' walk were two large 
lakes, connected by this little river. We were now 
about fifty miles from Lac la Peche, and it being Satur- 
day evening we decided to remain here until Monday. 
While casting for trout on Lake Souci in the canoe, a 
jolly young bear with a coat as black as jet came 
running down through a rocky canon to the shore. 
When he saw us he stopped and looked at us with evi- 
dent curiosity. As he slouched away, we shouted at 
him; he stopped again on the trunk of a fallen tree and 
turned his face toward, us for an instant, then shambled 
off, and we saw him no more. 
Running close under some perpendicular cliffs that 
rose out of the lake, we were puzzled at the sight, of 
some circular wooden frames, like hoops, perched on 
apparently inaccessible shelves of the rock above the 
water. The guides told us they were used by trappers 
to dry their beaver skins, and were placed there so as to 
be out of reach of the inquisitive and destructive bears. 
We broke camp on Monday morning, climbed over 
a low ridge, waded across a grassy bog that absorbed 
us to our ankles; picked our way over a bed of large 
rocks, so thickly set that we could step from one to an- 
other, and came to a branch of the Wessoneau River, 
where we launched the canoe. The river, however, was 
only navigable for short stretches, and we were obliged 
to "foot it over an old Indian trail that followed the 
windings of the stream. We made eight portages to 
avoid swift water and falls, crossed two small lakes and 
a solemn old swamp, and as the sun was declining 
emerged from the woods upon a bluff and looked down 
upon the lake we had sought for five days. 
It was about five miles in diameter, indented by deep 
bays. The Indians called it Waulumkok, meaning the 
lake with much sandy shore. 
John Burroughs' saying that "water makes the wild 
more wild" is peculiarly applicable to this lake. It rests 
in a basin, guarded on every side by high hills densely 
covered with the never-ending forest. The trees begin 
at the edge of the water and climb the slopes, their wav- 
ing tops stretching away in graceful, undulating lines 
to the rim of the horizon. 
Looking from the high bank over the blue water for 
a fitting camp site, we saw on the far shore a line of 
shining sand, and the guides advised us to cross to it. 
We were fifty minutes in crossing, but the intelligence 
of the Indian was vindicated, and it proved to be an ideal 
spot for a camp. 
A sandy beach lined the edge of the woods for three- 
fourths of a mile, having a gradual slope outward. 
At its inner margin dunes of considerable height 
showed the effect of the mingled force of waves and 
winds. Above the dunes was a low bluff set thick with 
pines, spruces, balsams and birches. There, where the 
trees were thinnest, the tents were set up under the far- 
reaching arms of a tall, vigorous pine. 
Examinations previously made of similar pines in 
these woods, for the purpose of determining their age. 
furnished data for the conclusion that this old patriarch 
was basking in the sunshine and tossing its sturdy 
branches in the stormy winds when De Salle and Cham- 
plain were pursuing their brilliant careers, and was keep- 
ing watch over the lake when, in the year 1534, Jacques 
Cartier was exploring the St. Lawrence. We gazed at 
its ancient form and then upon the two red men sitting be- 
neath it at the entrance of their tent, and we felt that the 
tree belonged to them and their history, and not to us or 
