140 
FOREST AND STREAM 
Jan. 31, 1914. 
New Fields For The Wanderer In Far Places 
Wilderness Heretofore Accessible Only to the Explorer or the Man With Unlimited Time Being Opened by, 
Extensions of Steel 
F INGERS of steel are reaching into the Cana¬ 
dian wilderness, and it will be a compara¬ 
tively brief period before vast territories 
known only from books written by explorers, or 
reports furnished by the geological and survey 
staff of the- Dominion, will be thrown open to 
the man who has always longed to wander in 
far places. True, these sections have been trav¬ 
eled in the past by trappers, even from the days 
of Champlain, and they are known more or less 
to hardy spirits who have passed through them 
on hunting and fishing trips, and whose accounts 
have appeared in outdoor journals. 
It will be a matter of regret, no doubt, to some 
men to realize that the last great wilderness of 
the north is soon to be conquered, and that the 
shriek of the railway locomotive will be heard 
in long stretches of country heretofore a prime¬ 
val wilderness. Civilization presses on, however, 
the game is being beaten back, but fortunately, 
civilized methods of conservation will preserve 
the wild life—in distinct contrast to the awful 
slaughter of former years that swept the buffalo, 
the antelope and the elk from the earth. 
The greatest railway enterprise of this genera¬ 
tion, the transcontinental ribbon of steel that is 
being laid across Canada far to the north of ex¬ 
isting lines, is nearing completion. It is in oper¬ 
ation for hundreds of miles in some sections and 
uninterrupted travel from the Atlantic shores of 
Nova Scotia to the wonderful new harbor at 
Prince Rupert on the Pacific, will probably begin 
within the next year. To the man east of the 
Mississippi, the country which will interest him 
if he seeks new ventures and new and unspoiled 
scenes, will be that north of the Great Lakes, run¬ 
ning east to Quebec. The Transcontinental line, 
after leaving Quebec, sweeps to the northwest 
and makes a straight departure westward in the 
neighborhood of the Height of Land intersect¬ 
ing the rivers flowing to Hudson Bay, rather than 
those seeking the Atlantic watershed. The Trans¬ 
continental lies north of Toronto about 500 
miles, and the spirit of the present day civiliza¬ 
tion is shown in the fact that Cochrane, a flour¬ 
ishing town of 2,000 souls, has an existence at 
the junction of the Temiskamang and Ontario 
Government line, which runs from Toronto to 
meet the Transcontinental there. East of Coch¬ 
rane the Transcontinental goes through an ab¬ 
solutely virgin country and touches the head¬ 
waters of the Ottawa, the Gatineau, the St. Mau¬ 
rice, the Gen de Terre, and other mighty streams, 
the beginnings of which are inextricably tangled, 
until their sources, as a matter of fact, lie in 
lakes which may be called the common parent of 
them all. 
This country is a succession of heavy forests, 
of crystal streams and sparkling lakes, most of 
the latter being of unmeasured dimensions, but 
some of them reaching mile after mile between 
the old Laurentian Hills. 
The agreement under which the Transconti¬ 
nental is being built calls for lines reaching 
from the main system to cities such as Montreal, 
Ottawa, the Sault Ste. Marie, and these intersec¬ 
tions will penetrate territories known now only to 
the Indian or half-breed trapper and the most 
hardened and venturesome spirits from cities 
who love to get beyond the last line of civiliza¬ 
tion. 
In the territory described there are here and 
there Hudson Bay Posts, for the Great Fur Com¬ 
pany has had, for over two centuries, sole pos¬ 
session, and as auxiliary to the Hudson Bay ser¬ 
vice, there are attached the usual Indian contin¬ 
gent of Crees, Obijways, Tete de Boules and in 
the east the Mountainais and the Nauskapees. 
So much for the Transcontinental in the east. 
Running far to the north of Lake Nepigon, 
famous as the home of the largest trout on the 
continent, the Transcontinental comes back into 
civilization through Manitoba and then sweeps 
to the northwest, crossing the Rockies, penetra- 
ing the Peace River country, and finding its ter¬ 
minus on the Pacific coast at Prince Rupert, 
which will be the northernmost railway terminal, 
aside from the local Alaska lines, in North 
America. 
But the spirit of modern progress does not 
stop with the mere traverse of the four thousand 
mile continent. It is beginning to push to what 
ninety-nine out of one hundred people call the 
Arctic portion of North America. Already a 
line has been constructed part way to the Hud¬ 
son Bay. The survey calls for a terminus at 
Fort Churchill, on the western side of the inland 
sea, two or three hundred miles north of the 
famous Hudson Bay Post at Moose Factory. 
This line is not a dream. On the contrary, it is 
being pushed rapidly, and unless all signs fail, 
Hudson Bay will be accessible by rail. The idea 
of a summer resort on the shore of that great 
sea (itself larger than the Mediterranean) will 
come as a startling idea to the average stay-at- 
home citizen. 
As it is, Moose Factory at Hudson Bay, is now 
accessible in a comparatively short vacation trip. 
The tourist can get as far as Cochrane on the 
Transcontinental near Lake A'bitibi, and as he 
is then over the Height of Land, he can take one 
of several rivers which run down the thousand 
foot incline to Hudson Bay. Just how quickly 
this journey can be made has been discussed a 
number of times, and an interesting attempt may 
be made next summer to see how many days 
will elapse before a Toronto newspaper can be 
delivered at Moose Factory, where until recent¬ 
ly, only one mail a year has been received the 
Hudson Bay Company steamer being depended 
upon to furnish that facility. 
But to get back to places actually accessible, 
the man who wishes to travel to the far north 
can now do so in comfort, and at the expense of 
little time. The Quetico Reservation in the 
Rainy Lake district is known to everybody, but 
another railway line which has been creeping 
outward to reach the Transcontinental has been 
constructed from Sault Ste. Marie along the east 
shore of Lake Superior. The country for about 
220 miles north of Sault Ste. Marie is dotted with 
innumerable mountain lakes and streams, which 
provide the best of brook, speckled and grey 
trout and bass fishing. The field being just open¬ 
ed has grown very rapidly in favor with the tour¬ 
ist and sportsman. The railway has erected a 
number of “Log Cabins,” commodious in every 
respect, to accommodate those not supplied with 
a complete camping outfit. The “Big Game” 
season, November 1st to 15th inclusive, drew 
many hunters the first season the railway gave 
through service, and 218 deer and 15 moose were 
brought through the Sault by rail; this not being 
the total number killed. 
The first portion of new country with which 
the hunting and fishing public will acquaint it¬ 
self is that north of the headwaters of Ottawa. 
As mentioned already, the section abounds in 
lakes unfished except by the occasional wander¬ 
ing Indian, but unhappily, hunted over by him 
without thought of game conservation. Still 
there will be magnificent moose shooting in that 
country for years to come. It is the opinion of 
trappers and others that the railways are driving 
the moose north, even to the verge of the almost 
illimitable caribou grounds west of Hudson Bay, 
but the moose will stick to the forests rather than 
migrate to the land of Little Sticks, all of which 
means, with anything like enforcement of law, 
a sporting paradise for the present and the next 
generation. That is, if it is preserved.. Here is 
the testimony of Roy North, a reliable man, as 
published in Rod and Gun, a Canadian paper, 
only a few months ago: 
“For some years I was in the employ of a well- 
known fur-trading company whose principal 
operations were conducted with the Swampy 
Cree Indians of Lac St. Joseph and the territory 
to the north of it. The lake, a magnificent ex¬ 
panse eighty-five miles in length, is known to the 
Indians as The-Big-Water-in-the-Muskeg, and is 
so called, no doubt, because of the great swamps, 
which stretch away on every hand behind the 
range of hills bounding its shores. To the south 
lies the wilderness of New Ontario and to the 
north the great and almost unexplored province 
of Keewatin. Formerly the district abounded, in 
