July, 1922 
FOREST AND STREAM 
297 
MOOSE IN THE GASPE HIGHLANDS 
A STILL-HUNT IN A REGION OF PRIMITIVE WILDERNESS 
WHEREIN THE HUNTER MAKES AN ELEVENTH HOUR FINISH 
By STANLEY D. PEARCE 
Photo by H. A. P. Smith 
An important moment 
N orthward and eastward, 
an ever-broadening stretch 
of fathomless blue waters, 
the River St. Lawrence 
merges with the Gulf at a latitude 
of approximately forty-nine de- 
grees north latitude. The last 
1 shores which it touches to the 
i southward are the rock-bound 
; coasts of Gaspe which rise bold in 
1 forest-clad highlands above the sur- 
1 rounding waters of the Gulf. 
Ancient in the annals of the set- 
tlement of America, one of the first 
I landing places of Jacques Cartier 
I on the Continent in 1534 — since 
[ continuously settled along its shores 
I —the Gaspe Peninsular, ten miles 
inland, stands to-day a primitive 
wilderness of unbroken forest, 
known only to the woodsman, the 
guide, the trapper — a veritable par- 
adise of the hunter of big game of 
the far Northeast. 
In its physical characteristics, 
the Gaspe Peninsular projects like 
a huge thumb into the Gulf of St. 
Lawrence; its highest altitudes, 
I the Shickshock range of the Notre 
Dame Mountains, the farthest east- 
ward and northward extension of 
our own Appalachian system, at- 
tain elevations of almost four thou- 
sand feet above sea level, close 
along the northern edge, while 
southward through the centre of the Pen- 
insular its half a dozen rivers of crystal 
clear waters, famed as the home of the 
lordly salmon, tumble through wide, 
deeply-cleft valleys, over many foaming 
rapids to the warmer waters of the his- 
toric Bay Chaleur. 
** Of these rivers, the Grand Cascapedia 
is the greatest in the volume of its wat- 
ers and the extent of its watershed — the 
most entrancing in the varied panorama 
of beautiful valleys and spruce-clad 
mountain vistas. 
TT was clear and cold in the late fall 
^ days of November when I left the 
I last outpost of civilization on rail and 
I headed up the Grand Cascapedia. It was 
long past the moose-calling season, — 
snows were falling in the upper moun- 
tains, the moose were leaving the bogans 
and waters of the rivers for the uplands, 
and my plans called for a still-hunt with 
hard traveling along the slopes and crests 
' in rugged country. 
The first night out we spent in the 
lumbering camps at the lower end of the 
valley, to awaken at the dawn of a 
matchless day, cool, crisp, bracing. I 
had arranged for my guides to meet me 
; at the half-way camp up river; my sup- 
1 plies were to be toted in on a wagon of 
rugged construction, over a logging port- 
age road — a road in name only — a trail 
which, when not stashing on end, was a 
bottomless morass of unexpected pot 
holes of unknown depth. One could ride 
or one could walk. The necessity of 
physical preparation for the work ahead 
was not the only inducement to the more 
certain travel afoot. 
To the lover of the great outdoors, 
the charm of the winding valley was in- 
expressible ; alongside, in descending 
cascades of whitecap and foam, tumbled 
the Grand Cascapedia, its clear, spark- 
ling waters swirling from pitches to 
pools, far down into whose translucent 
depths, one could catch the outline of 
some great salmon, then resting almost 
motionless on its spawning bed; above 
from either shore rose the ascending 
hills, the lower slopes of the valley for- 
est, predominantly clad in maple in their 
last flaming glory of autumn reds and 
yellows, which as we moved up river, 
changed to the unbroken green of spruce 
and fir from valley to crest, the latter 
crowned with a filmy gossamer of drift- 
ing cloud. 
A rustling of leaves along the side of 
the trail, now directed attention to a 
strolling spruce or birch partridge, the 
former a bird of beauty only, the latter 
the northern ruffed grouse, a bird for 
sportsmen; with these before nightfall, 
I had filled my bag to the limit of our 
physical requirements. 
By nightfall we had traveled twenty- 
five miles and reached our half-way point 
up river where our guides for the 
big hunt joined us — Ossie Harri- 
son, the prince of Gaspe hunters 
and trappers, and his cousin Hil- 
liard. 
We made our quarters for the 
night in a new log camp, clean and 
wholesome, its long bunk beds 
mattressed high with freshly cut, 
pungent-smelling fir bf)ughs. 
Though the connoisseurs of the 
camp fire trail inveigh against the 
crime of serving birch partridge 
short of three days after the kill, 
no feast of kings could equal our 
supper of breasts of our birds, 
broiled with cross strips of crisp 
bacon over the live coals of our 
wood fire. 
TH daybreak we were away 
on our last lap to our hunt 
headquarters at Beaver Lodge, 
twenty-seven miles further up 
river, which without incident we 
reached at nightfall, a beauteous 
spot indeed ; located high above a 
broad bend of the Salmon Branch, 
nestling in the heart of a land of 
magnificent heights and distances, 
spruce-clad slopes rising tier on 
tier until they seemed to merge into 
the clouds of the distant mountain 
tops. 
In the council of war which we 
held in the evening before the roaring 
wood fire in the great stone fireplace, 
it was decided that due to the lateness of 
the season our only chance for big game 
lay along the edge of the cherry thickets 
on the summit of the barren mountains 
above the camp at the falls to the south- 
ward, and the following dawn found us 
headed in that direction. 
Four miles short of our new camp, 
leaving our supplies to go on in charge >if 
Hilliard, Ossie and I heade<l ^jIT. up al-mg 
the north flank of Cold Water Mountain 
for our first day’s hunt. 
Though the interior Gaspe country is 
forest area, practically untouched by the 
scourge of fire, the particular territ-iry 
we had selected had been the scene of a 
devastating eonflagration of halt a cen- 
tury before, which to this day had left 
the flanks and slopes of three uicat 
mountain sides a vast barren of m<.ss 
and rock, with only here and there a 
scattering of stunted birch or cherry or 
broken occasionally by clumps of under- 
sized spruce or fir. 
From the valley floor, the slopes ahead 
of us rose in a series of steep, pf ned 
benches: far above, along the '.kylme. 
seemed the summit of our ende.:Vi-rs, 
which, when reached, however, but un- 
folded another upward slope of appar- 
ently equal e.xtcnt, stretching up and up, 
(Continued on page 331) 
