VOL. LXXXVI 
SEPTEMBER, 1916 
ON THE GRAND CASCAPEDIA 
TO CAST A FLY ON THIS FINE SALMON STREAM IS TO 
REACH THE SUMMIT OF PISCATORIAL AMBITION 
By S. H. Fitch. 
No. 9 
T O paraphase “honest Izaak’s” famous epigram 
on the strawberry: “Doubtless the Lord 
might have made a finer salmon river than 
the Grand Cascapedia, but doubtless the Lord 
never did.” There is probably no other stream 
in North America that offers the attractions of 
the Grand Cascapedia to a lover of the angling 
art. The quantity and quality of the salmon 
taken from its waters make it 
unique, and the river well deserves 
the prefixed adjective in its title, 
though used to distinguish it 
from its neighbor , the Little 
Cascapedia. 
The writer was fortunate 
enough to receive an invitation 
to partake of the June fishing 
this year. To a member of the 
fisherman’s craft such an invita¬ 
tion holds about the same rank 
as a command to dine with Roy¬ 
alty does in the social world. To 
cast a fly on the Grand Casca¬ 
pedia is to reach the summit of 
piscatorial ambition. Ne plus 
ultra. 
With the increase in population, 
building of dams and contamina¬ 
tion of the streams by sawdust 
and refuse, the Atlantic salmon 
has been almost wholly extermi¬ 
nated from the rivers of the 
United States, although we hear 
of occasional specimens being 
taken from time to time in some 
Maine river. Fortunately it is 
still plentiful in many Canadian 
streams, and the chief salmon rivers there are 
carefully protected, and the best known scientific 
methods employed in the preservation of the 
fish and their spawn. All the Maritime Provinces 
as well as Newfoundland have good streams, 
more or less known to fishermen from the States. 
Among the finest are those emptying into the 
Bay of Chaleur, which separates New Bruns¬ 
wick from the Gaspe peninsula in Quebec, and 
of these the Restigouche and Grand Gascapedia 
are facile principes. The fornjer (which has two 
famous tributaries, the Matapedia and Upsal- 
quitch) is in New Brunswick, while the latter is 
in the peninsula, and they enter the Bay of 
Chaleur at points fifty miles apart. 
In the 'd times, before the advent of the 
Intercolonial Railway, a journey to the Grand 
Cascapedia was a long and tedious undertaking 
and for a New Yorker required as much time 
as a trip to Liverpool involved. The late R. G. 
Dun, who was one of the first to exploit the 
river, used to go in the early seventies from New 
York to Quebec, and thence by sailing vessel 
down the St. Lawrence around Gaspe Point into 
the Bay of Chaleur to New Richmond at the 
mouth of the river, requiring often ten days to 
two weeks to make the entire trip. He some¬ 
times varied this route by an overland journey 
from St. John to Dalhousie through the wilds of 
New Brunswick, which was even longer and more 
tedious. 
The Intercolonial Railway was opened in the 
eighties and greatly abridged the 
trip and the more recent con¬ 
struction of the Quebec and Ori¬ 
ental Railway from Matapedia to 
Gaspe has brought the entire 
south shore of the peninsula into 
direct railway connection with 
the outer world and removed all 
the terrors formerly attending an 
excursion to the Grand Casca¬ 
pedia. Leaving Montreal at 7:15 
P. M. on the Ocean Limited Ex¬ 
press of the Intercolonial, Mata¬ 
pedia is reached at 10 o’clock 
next morning, noted as being the 
home of the Restigouche Club. 
The club house is near the sta¬ 
tion and presents an attractive 
and clubable appearance. The 
Matapedia joins the Restigouche 
at this point, and a few hundred 
feet below the station the rail¬ 
way crosses the river and con¬ 
tinues along its southern shore 
and the Bay of Chaleur on to 
Halifax. At Matapedia we trans¬ 
fer ourselves and our belongings 
to the Quebec and Oriental 
train waiting for us on the 
other side of the platform. There may be 
slower trains in Canada, but we have never 
encountered them, and its equipment and acces¬ 
sories contrast most unfavorably with the com¬ 
forts of the Ocean Limited. But the moun¬ 
tain scenery and the charming views of the bay 
obtained from time to time, and the queer French 
village through which we pass more than repay 
