136 
FOREST AND STREAM 
Jan. 31, 1914. 
The North Country 
By Frank A. Waugh. 
W HERE the Laurentian Mountains spread 
out over northern Quebec they make an 
exceedingly beautiful landscape. The 
mountains themselves are large and solid enough 
to be picturesque, even impressive. But they are 
everywhere clothed and their outlines are soft¬ 
ened by heavy growth of forests. This always 
adds to their beauty. And their original rugged¬ 
ness was doubtless much worn down by the ice 
pack during the centuries of the glacial epoch 
when the ice trust had this country in its grasp. 
Among these mountains are numberless lakes 
of all sizes. A few are large enough to be found 
on the public maps, but the most of them are 
quite unknown to fame and to literature and may 
therefore devote themselves wholly to beauty and 
the production of fish. These Canadian lakes are 
everywhere beautiful. They are filled with cold 
clear w-ater. They are quiet and solitary (and 
here we name charms of the highest order.) They 
are surrounded with forests and mountainous 
bluffs, which are reflected everywhere in the still 
waters. But they have no shores. It is hard to 
land a boat anywhere. The trees and brush 
crowd so heavily on the margin of the water that 
even a moose can scarce find a place where he 
may come down to drink. There are very few 
marshy spots, very little shallow water, where 
lily-pads and pickerel weed grow. Canadian 
swamps are mostly sphagnum bogs in which larch 
and spruce are at home. 
Then there are rivers—also a few brooks. The 
rivers are used by the lumbermen, and are the 
chief highways of commerce, social intercourse 
and adventure. They serve both in summer and 
winter. “When the ice goes out in the spring,' 
said one of the residents, “you can follow the 
trail down the St. Maurice from La Tuque to 
Grand Piles by the continuous line of gin and 
whiskey bottles.” 
The St. Maurice is one of the most beautiful 
of all rivers. The spread of water and the con¬ 
formation of land along the shores are some¬ 
thing like the Rhine between Mainz and Cologne, 
but while the banks of the Rhine show the 
most intensive civilization, these of the St. 
Maurice exhibit all the beauty of unspoilt natu¬ 
ral scenery. There are occasional farms with 
houses dotted along the shores, but nobody takes 
them seriously. They are places where women 
live and whither men retire when they are too 
old and stiff to be couriers du hois or lumber 
jacks. Several men told me that they had wives 
at Grand Piles, La Tuque, Trois Rivieres or 
somewhere else. They seemed to consider it 
quite respectable and proper. 
The Hunting and Fishing Club of Richmond 
leases from the Government of Quebec the ex¬ 
clusive fishing privileges of Lake Vassal and 
Lake Guinness with all their tributaries. These 
tributaries consist of about five or six other lit¬ 
tle lakes, mostly beautiful but negligible in a 
country like this. Vassal is the main lake, and 
forms the center of interest and activity. It is 
a little less than four miles long and contains a 
quantity of water. Also a number of gray trout 
which supply the main sport and the excuse for 
coming here to enjoy camp life and the scenery. 
One of our most engaging occupations during 
our visit was to map the country coming within 
the range of our activities. Barometer, pedo¬ 
meter and compass served for instruments, and 
we found it interesting sport to explore miles of 
territory never mapped before. 
FLORA AND FAUNA. 
Our party consisted of two. The senior mem¬ 
ber was host, provider and general manager. The 
other man was guest, invalid, and cook. Both 
were interested in everything out of doors—in 
scenery, rivers, lakes, trees, herbs, fish, flesh and 
fowl. 
The characteristic trees of the locality are 
spruce, hemlock and birch. There used to be 
larch (tamarack), but they were all killed a few 
years ago by a great invasion of saw-flies, and 
their dead stems may still be seen standing naked 
in considerable numbers in various places. There 
used to be some white pine, too, but that has 
been very closely culled ouf by the lumbermen. 
In the Rat River district, where we were, the 
timber limits are in the possession of paper pulp 
companies; and for their purposes the spruce is 
chiefly prized. The maple and the hemlock are 
practically unknown here. 
There are fine raspberries and blueberries in 
the woods, and a part of our sport was to gather 
all we could eat. 
The woods were full of moose. At least 
that's what the natives say, and we saw moose 
tracks everywhere, but the animals are very shy 
and did not seek our acquaintance. There are 
caribou, too, and red deer. We did see one of 
the former—a fine big buck who came down to 
drink by the lake near our camp. In the way of 
small game there are a very few ducks, of which 
we bagged none, and a good many partridges, of 
which we did get a few. 
There were also several other kinds of birds 
to be seen, such as wren, finch, phoebe, loon, 
kingfisher, great horned owl, woodpeckers of 
two species, some sparrows, etc. The senior mem¬ 
ber, who was here last year, says that most of 
these species are new here since then. But he 
was here later in the season, and perhaps some 
of these species had already migrated. The lit¬ 
tle “peep,” which were common about the lake 
when we came in, left between August 15 and 20. 
The fish constitutes the principal part of the 
fauna of this region so far as we are concerned. 
Of these two species outrank all others. The 
senior member fishes only for the gray lake trout, 
weighing 1—8 p’ounds as we see them. Stories 
are told of specimens up to 20 pounds and more, 
but fish stories are fish stories. The junior mem¬ 
ber is- a fly caster by profession, and prefers to 
flirt with the brook trout. These are fairly 
abundant, especially when the junior member is 
sufficiently enthusiastic to walk six miles down 
to the Little Batiscan and back. In Lake Batis- 
can are pickerel (or jack pike), but our fisher¬ 
men are too aristocratic to angle for so mean a 
fish. 
CAMP LIFE. 
The routine in camp consists of eating, sleep¬ 
ing and doing the laziest and most unnecessary 
things possible, including hunting and fishing. 
Eating has to be attended to, of course, and, with 
it, some cooking. A sheet-iron box, called a 
stove, does equally wretched service indoors or 
out, according to the weather. The eating is 
gauged by appetite, however, and not so much by 
the cookery, and as appetities are always good 
in camp, it is easy to compliment the cook. 
Sleeping begins early, because there is noth¬ 
ing to sit up for. Usually 8 130 finds every one 
in bed—9 o’clock at the latest. We get up when 
we are ready, that is to say, about 7 o’clock. 
Sometimes when Blackburn, the guide and cus- 
LIBERATING ENGLISH PHEASANTS. 
Photo by Cora June Sheppard. 
