302 
FOREST AND STREAM 
down dale, now stopping at some little store or 
skirting the mountains, dipping down into charm¬ 
ing little valleys, on whose distant slopes al¬ 
ways hung the splendid blue haze of the Lauren- 
tian Hills. 
We lunched on the shore of a little lake near 
the Shawenegan Club near Lac Boyer, and later 
saw Mons. Boyer himself. 
It would be difficult to picture a more delight¬ 
ful region. Here was a modern club, with all 
the luxuries, and hard by a typical lumberman’s 
store and boarding house with a few little houses 
about it, the centre of activity in the long, cold 
winter. 
The men had taken the canoes from the wagon 
and were piling them on what was, without ex¬ 
ception, the most extraordinary craft I ever saw, 
though I once took passage on a steamer in Ore¬ 
gon that practically stopped when they mhistled, 
and whose boiler had once belonged to a harvester. 
This vessel was a flat scow, all open except for 
a stern wheel. The upright boiler had the shel¬ 
ter of a little roof. The propeller was a home¬ 
made affair of sheet-iron. The rudder was of 
the same vintage, and as the steamer swung in 
we could not look at the “Florida Water,” as she 
was named, without laughing; and it is good to 
laugh. 
The “Florida Water” was as sound as though 
she had been rated at Lloyd’s, and far be it for 
me to cast any aspersions on her, for she car-' 
ried us safely to our destination with a dignity 
and deliberation that was magnificent. I never 
could have been familiar or joked with the 
“Florida Water,” but I was obsessed to know 
why they had so christened her, and who did it. 
There was a genius—a man to know. The stern 
was too low for a name, so it was pasted on the 
little ramada over the engine—the gorgeous-col¬ 
ored label of the Florida water bottles. 
At last we were ready, the canoes, the canvas 
bag, guns, rods and reels aboard, and the deck 
covered with our lusty voyageurs. Then came a 
falsetto shriek—the whistle—a little, churning 
noise as though Eubald was washing his hands 
overboard, and we moved out into the lake, with 
high rocks or palisades on all sides. In a mo¬ 
ment we passed beneath an attractive bridge and 
saluted Mr. Boyer and friends. Eubald broke 
out into the delicious song of the habitant, and 
to its melody we drifted into Lac Wapizzagonk. 
that once was a deep crevice or canon. On the 
east shore, which we skirted, rose a noble Lau- 
rentian palisade, the oldest rocks under the sun, 
while on the opposite shore the forest came down 
to the shore and rose to the undulating hills in 
endless stretches. There were no desperate 
rushes, speeding, no dashes or spurts. Our ship 
was the emblem of all tranquility. She was 
built in lines not to disturb the eternal peace of 
these solitudes, and she did not disappoint her 
builders—at least on this trip. 
Lac Wapizzagonk was about nine miles long 
and very straight and narrow, making an ideal 
fishing lake. The left bank was set in little bays. 
We were continually finding new ones, and the 
captain, who sat on the rail with one eye on the 
safety valve and the other on the short iron 
tiller, held a rifle over his knee 'ready for bear, 
one having been seen on the preceding trip. 
Where there was a clearing the ground was cov¬ 
ered with blueberry bushes, a bear’s paradise. 
Here and there we passed little islands, and one 
with two or three lofty pines reminded one of a 
ship, as though some mystic craft had dropped 
down here and come to anchor. We made the 
lake trip in two hours and a half, and then en¬ 
tered a winding river. 
The men now took to the poles and poled the 
“Florida Water” through a charming bit of 
woodland. As I sat in the bow I could see that 
we were literally driving schools of trout ahead 
of us from Wapizzagonk into the picturesque 
and winding Lac Croche. On the right, as we 
entered, was a deserted logger’s camp, and not 
far away were several alluring little islands. 
The “Florida Water” had a redeeming quality. 
She was on time, and she ran her head on to the 
north bank of Croche at the very time her cap¬ 
tain had predicted. Here our fine voyageurs took 
the canoes and luggage on their shoulders, and 
with a “bon voyage” to the crew of the “Florida 
Water” we started the march up the carry to 
Lac des Isles, two and a half miles through a 
fine forest with ferns as high as your shoulders, 
and luxuriant vegetation everywhere. 
We were in the bear and moose country, as the 
muddy places were so many tell-tales, and Eu¬ 
bald, who was not, like some of the naturalists 
of the day, a “little brother” or a big cousin of 
bears, knew all about them and everything else 
alive, and was easily induced to tell just how long 
ago Mons. Ursus had passed by the print of his 
big plantigrades. Everyone had a bear story to 
tell. Only the day before some one had met a 
bear in the highway near San Souci, and had 
been chased. At San Flore bears came into town 
and a child was killed. 
No more interesting sight can be imagined 
than that presented by our habitant canoemen as 
they strode along. My men were brothers, 
George and Tom Cadarette. Tom, a black-eyed, 
handsome fellow, trained to within an inch of 
his life by a natural process of good living, good- 
natured to a fault, was a typical woodsman of 
the Laurentian hills. George was older, but just 
as good. Both were eager to do more than their 
share of work, and anxious to get me a moose, 
a deer or anything I wanted, so it was a delight¬ 
ful association. 
They packed the canoe with all it would hold, 
tied in the rods, bent over, and with a swing 
had the graceful boat on their shoulders, and 
with the band across the forehead they struck 
into the trail. You will observe that the row¬ 
ing, the sailing and the march across carries 
were so deftly arranged by nature that it was a 
constant and delightful change. 
Lac des Isles was one of the most beautiful 
of the entire series, a gem in an enchanting set¬ 
ting—the mountains climbing up on either side 
and shutting us in, the water, dark, deep and 
mysterious, little islands strung along here and 
there, covered with trees and seductive under¬ 
brush. Not a sound broke the stillness except 
the cry of an occasional kingfisher or the splash 
of a trout, and the methodical, rhythmic reach of 
the canoemen. To the laymen they all paddled 
alike, but this was not so. Each man had his 
peculiarities, and each team worked in its own 
and perfect way. I lay flat and low, the rods 
within reach on the left, a rifle at hand for the 
game. George had the port paddle and sat in 
the stern, while Tom knelt in the bow and pad- 
died to the right. 
When I say that these men could start early 
and paddle and carry canoes up hill and down all 
day and evidently not feel it, I am not doing 
them justice, as paddling is work for real men 
when it is in a real canoe country. There is 
something in the rhythmic motion of a canoe 
which takes hold of a man, enters his blood, and 
he becomes a part of it; and as our little flo¬ 
tilla passed up the Lake of the Isles in its deep 
shadows, three abreast, the men moving forward 
and back like automatons, it was a gallant sight. 
Our host was the commander, and the men 
all paid a certain canoe courtesy to him. Thus, 
as we came to a landing it was always a race for 
an eighth of a mile, each set of men putting all 
their strength into it and the canoes dashing on 
like race-horses. But at or near the finish the 
canoes would slow up and imperceptibly permit 
Mons. to hit the landing first. A little act of 
courtesy it was, but essentially characteristic of 
these Frenchmen, the descendants of the old 
voyageurs of long ago. When under way, George 
would often drink without stopping or losing 
the course by holding up his paddle high in air 
and catching the water in his mouth as it ran 
down the handle. 
It is one thing to paddle around on a pond in 
a canoe, and another to be able to paddle every 
day and all day for a week or a month, and 
that is what this sextette could do. The long¬ 
est carry we found was between Lac des Isles 
and Lac Croche number two, a two-and-a-half- 
mile walk up hill most of the way over the log¬ 
ger’s trail, with a splendid fern-filled gulch to the 
left, that deepened into a fine canon as we 
climbed. Half way up we rested, and the canoes 
were dropped in the fern beds. We had just 
crossed the line and were in the preserve of our 
host, where seventy square miles stretched away 
to the north and west, a splendid principality. 
The by-carry, always rising into the Laurentian 
Mountains, ended suddenly at Croche, and a 
stone’s throw away was the log cabin, our camp. 
The river here was dammed and fell rapidly over 
a wonderful rocky region, with picturesque trout 
pools on the different layers. It finally reached 
Lac Antikagomak. A big bear had been seen 
where I was standing the night before, so the 
fire ranger said. 
The men pushed on for the cabin, while I 
with the doctor aimed to find the feast or sup¬ 
per. We had left San Souci at 8.30, driven with 
the canoes ten miles, steamed a nine-mile lake, 
canoed several more, walked and climbed the car¬ 
ries and arrived at camp at 6.30, having climbed 
at least 500 feet. A big log reached out into the 
clear but dark water, and before I tried it I 
made a cast with a little Royal Coachman di¬ 
rectly alongside of it, merely to get my line out. 
Smash went something into the air, the resilient 
split bamboo bent, I heard an explosion behind 
me from the doctor, and the sport was on. 
Croche was a little lake, narrow, with a tall 
mountain on one side, that cast its whole self 
as a big shadow into it, and I saw at once that 
my trout, a gallant fellow, was playing among 
the splendid green of the spruce and birch 
leaves. In and out of the branches he seemed 
to go, only leaving them when he sprang into the 
air and displayed his beauty. The vision almost 
made me lose my equilibrium. Balancing on a 
log and playing a fish in the shadow of a moun¬ 
tain are not the easiest things, and my trout bade 
me adieu as I reeled him to the log. I had no 
