94 
SALMON FISHING IN EASTERN CANADA 
basket, but never used it as the canoemen always have a kettle and 
frying pan in the boat and make tea whenever they land for lunch. A 
good wrist strap watch should be taken. Do not forget sketch book 
and camera if you are fond of these pursuits and a supply of literature 
and magazines will be much appreciated by yourself as well as by your 
friends. 
M °and itoe3 All these Eastern Canadian rivers have a bad reputation for these 
sand flie«. winged pests. The early part of the season is, I think, worst, for they 
undoubtedly begin to decrease in number and virulence in August. 
Some people seem to suffer much more from them thau others. But 
they cannot be circumvented in any but a few stereotyped ways, and 
therefore, one must make up one’s mind to endure them. Personally, 
I did not find anything so hard as I had been led to expect. 
To guard against mosquitoes, you have mosquito nets for your bed, 
made of rather fine netting or gauze and furnished with rings at four 
top corners as I have described before. These rings can be attached 
to nails in the walls of the hut, or to upright posts on the bed, or to 
the side of your tent or poles in the tent, and you can always adapt 
them somehow so as to secure immunity in the night from mosquitoes. 
During the day you must either wear a head-guard as before alluded 
to, or anoint your face with some of the mixtures which are found the 
best for this purpose. Of these carbolized oil, oil of lavender, firwood 
oil, a mixture of vaseline and Stockholm tar are all good. Also there 
are numerous preparations in the form of unguents and solutions for 
smearing your face and wrists with but, personally, I hardly found it 
necessary to use these except in the evening. On the river itself you 
are free from flies until the sun begins to get low. They catch you if 
you land among the trees to a play fish, and you have especially to be¬ 
ware of the sand flies and black flies ; they are so small that they can 
get through anything almost! When you land for lunch, or when 
you sit out of doors for meals, or in the evening, the best plan to keep 
off the insects is to light so-called “ smudges” of sticks and spruce 
boughs which are so arranged that they do not burn quickly but give 
a lot of smoke. You get to leeward of the smoke and, though it may 
be somewhat trying to the eyes, you will be free from insects. Simi¬ 
larly in your tent or hut; you drive out the insects by these smudges 
and then close up and put out the lights. One plan we adopted in 
the hut after dinner, when we wanted to sit and smoke or read &c., 
was to take the lamps and put them outside the windows of the hut 
which were fastened. The windows inside were then smeared with 
turpentine, a “ smudge ” was lighted in the room and this drove the 
insects on to the window where they stuck to the turpentine and 
perished. The rafters of the hut are generally full of flies, sleepy house 
and blue bottles. When the “smudge” is lighted you hear an angry 
buzzing begin up above as the smoke gets to them and then increases 
in violence till it becomes quite a roar of indignation. The flies 
descend into the room, and when the time comes the door is opened 
and a lamp held outside. There is a mob of half stifled flies in tho 
