820 
low land is found to about seventy miles west 
of Cochrane where begins a different formation 
with outcropping rock ridges and bluffs. 
The entire country from Cochrane to Graham 
is densely wooded, mostly in spruce and cedar. 
Occasional giant black spruces are found and 
some fine pines. Groves of the latter, around 
some of the shores of the lakes in the westerly 
part of this region, furnish magnificent pictures; 
environed in such groves some of the most attrac¬ 
tive of the engineers’ and surveyors’ camps have 
been located. Burnt places are met here and there 
along the route. The Indians tell of a frightful 
forest fire which devastated this region about 
sixty years ago; since that time a substantial 
new growth has occurred and traces of the old 
fire are seldom found. There is comparatively 
little balsam or fir in this region and beds are 
made of cedar, a camping habit often met farther 
south. 
The number and variety of birds surprised me 
greatly until I learned from good authority that 
the life line of these woods’ companions is the 
same in most of this region as it is in Orillia, 
several hundreds of miles to the south. On the 
20th of October, making camp on the Height 
of Land in the western part of this region, I 
disturbed a couple of robins; as is often the 
case, these birds were less afraid of their human 
visitors on a lonely little island in an unvisited 
lake than they are in our city parks. The gen¬ 
eral climate is similar to southern Ontario, de¬ 
spite the fun which the railroad builders poke 
at it when they tell jokes about summer here 
being “two months of bad sledding.” The usual 
clothing and bedding adapted to the average 
summer camping trip in Canada will be found 
correct for this region. In the early season, 
preventive and curative equipment for insect 
annoyances will be required but my opinion is 
that there are fewer black flies in this region 
than in some more southerly sections of the 
Dominion. September is one of the finest months 
of the year here, with balmy sunshine at mid¬ 
day and crisp, bracing air at night. Owing to 
the moist character of the eastern part of the 
region, the fall coloration of the trees there is 
absolutely unrivalled. 
The whole five hundred miles is one vast net¬ 
work of waterways and lakes. There is hardly 
any time when the traveler is out of sight of 
some beautiful lake or little river. Some of the 
streams run north and others south; some run 
south, turn, flow under the tracks and join the 
great rivers running into Hudson Bay. It is 
possible to start a canoe cruise, therefore, in a 
southerly direction, following the current of a 
river, swing around in some great bend and 
come out again at the railway tracks. Thousands 
of these lakes have not merely never had a fly cast 
upon them, they have never even been cleft by 
the prow of a canoe, for they are off the beaten 
route which the Indians have been following 
north and south for centuries. No living soul 
knows what sort of fish are to be found in them 
for they have never been fished. Scores of them, 
when visited by surveying parties or inquisitive 
lailroad builders, fond of fishing, have yielded 
brook trout of magnificent size; when that has 
occurred, the practical chaps kept on fishing these 
same waters for supplies for the fry pan, bother¬ 
ing themselves but little as to what sort of fish 
swam in the next lake or the next brook. 
FOREST AND STREAM 
This entire region is destined to be the greatest 
moose hunting region in the east. The peculiar 
advantage of being able to get the game close 
to the railway, or along the shores of lakes 
that touch the railway, is one reason. The wild¬ 
ness of the region and the fact that now that 
the construction work is over, the wild creatures 
will promptly return to their accustomed haunts 
close to the railway tracks, is another reason. 
But stronger than these is the fact that along 
this route have been taken some of the largest 
heads Canada yielded during recent years. The 
incredulous visitor hears of six-foot spreads of 
horns so frequently that he learns to respect 
the story. There are antlers hanging up on 
the front of little log cabins all along this route 
which would amaze the average museum expert 
on such matters. Some of the best known big 
game hunters of the continent have been fight¬ 
ing their way into this formerly inaccessible 
region for many years to get the magnificent 
trophies which abound here. 
Moose are abundant in the eastern part of 
this territory. Cochrane is a convenient and 
reasonably sure center from which to start for 
them. As one goes west, say after seventy-five 
or a hundred miles, caribou are taken until in 
the headwaters of the Nipigon country, they are 
found in great numbers and of great size. Fifty 
were seen in one group by one of the construc¬ 
tion engineers last winter. Red deer are also 
found more in the western than the eastern part 
of this region and are plentiful in the country 
north of and two hundred miles east of Nipigon 
lake. Canada lynx are found in considerable 
numbers throughout the region and the grey 
wolf is rapidly increasing throughout the region; 
this latter fact is generally regarded by the 
natives and the Indians as a sure proof that 
the game is increasing. 
Amusing tales are told all along the route 
of the damages done by moose to the first tele¬ 
phone and telegraph lines, now being rapidly su¬ 
perseded by thoroughly modern equipment. In 
fact several times in my trip all plans for prog¬ 
ress were knocked in the head because it was 
found that some prowling moose had tangled 
his horns in the low-swinging wires, rendering 
communication by anything but gasolene “speed¬ 
er,” impossible. The locomotives of the con¬ 
struction trains frequently strike moose and 
sometimes the moose stands in the middle of 
the track and gives battle to the glaring head¬ 
light of the engine. It was here the story is told 
of the Irish construction boss who became tired 
of taking his men off the job that they might 
extricate some big moose from the wire fences 
and sent word to his chief that “the min can’t 
be spindin all their time shovin’ the mooses away 
from finds!” 
The game fish of this region are many. Brook 
rrout up to seven and eight pounds in weight, 
grey trout up to twenty-five pounds, black sal¬ 
mon trout up to thirty pounds and whitefish up to 
five pounds are found; while the great northern 
pike and the pickerel grow to enormous size. 
In the rivers running into Hudson Bay and in 
some of the larger lakes connected with those 
rivers sturgeon are taken up to a hundred 
pounds in weight. There are no black bass in 
any of these waters, so far as I can learn. It is 
a curious fact that many of the Indians, and not 
a few of the surveyors and engineers regard 
the whitefish as the most toothsome and delicate 
fish taken in these waters. The Indians will 
sometimes travel many miles to get whitefish 
when other game fish might be had close at hand. 
Close to Cochrane no brook trout seem to 
have been found. Some sixty miles to the west 
the brook trout waters commence and from there 
all the way to Winnipeg practially all the streams 
contain brook trout. Some of the smaller rivers 
furnish the most remarkable facts in connection 
with these game fish, a four and a half pound 
brook trout, for instance, having been taken from 
the little brook known as Wilgar Creek, which 
a man might jump across. “That trout must 
have had to stand on his head to wet his gills” 
said the cook in the construction camp. 
The western part of this region, among the 
headwaters of the Nipigon, is probably the 
finest brook trout territory on this continent. 
For many years the lower branches of the Nipi¬ 
gon River, near Lake Superior, have been 
famous for brook trout of great size and in 
great numbers. Few anglers, however, have ever 
visited the upper waters of this great brook 
trout preserve. They are now accessible to the 
average tourist, who can launch his canoe from 
the side of the railway tracks and make any 
one of the fifty cruises up, down or around the 
headwaters of the Nipigon river and lake. Here, 
brook trout up to ten pounds in weight have 
been frequently seen by the Hudson Bay men, by 
the surveying parties and by the occasional 
traveler or sportsman. No serious exploration 
of these wonderful brook trout waters has yet 
been made; it offers a magnificent field for sport 
as well as a contribution to 'the sporting litera¬ 
ture of the day. The Hudson Bay men and the 
transport officers of the government construc¬ 
tion crews or surveying parties have been too 
busy to bother with the variety or size of the 
game fish in the waters they, traversed. And it 
would take several seasons for any man to cover 
any considerable amount of this territory. The 
stories that one hears, as well as the fish that 
come to event the hurried sportsman cover¬ 
ing a vast area in short time, clearly indicate 
that here is a game fish paradise equal to any. 
There are half a dozen routes to Hudson Bay 
or, more strictly speaking, to James Bay, from 
this region. Cochrane is the easiest and the 
nearest starting place using the Frederickhouse 
river. By this route it is less than a week from 
Cochrane to Moose Factory; indeed it is claim¬ 
ed that the trip has been made by Indians in 
three days, but this was probably in high water 
and running light. The trip to James Bay has 
been made by half a dozen parties of sportsmen 
every year for a decade, by one or another of the 
various routes, although each party probably 
thought it was doing quite a bit of thoroughly 
wild exploring. Perhaps no party of sportsmen 
have so far made the trip whose investigations of 
the fish and game, the flora and the geological 
formations have been so noteworthy, or so valu¬ 
able a contribution to the knowledge of the re¬ 
gion as that made some six years ago by the 
party which Dr. Robert T. Morris of New York 
arranged. Dr. Morris followed the Moose river 
going and returning. 
(Concluded next week). 
