Gaspe and Paradise 
By THE DECKHAND 
From the Laurentians to the Lower St. Lawrence 
I N July last I started out prospecting for busi¬ 
ness in Canada, taking the large cities from 
Sarnia, near Detroit, to Halifax. It was 
strictly business as far as Montreal, where a 
good friend devised a week end trip to the 
Laurentian Mountains to the north, and beauti¬ 
ful we found them—not so much a range as a 
cluster, as in the Catskills, of noble hills, making 
between them many a pocket in which lie charm¬ 
ing lakes well stocked with trout. The weather 
was hot and the water of Lac dTsles, where 
we stopped, was positively warm, the fish were 
off feed and had gone to the deepest water. 
Our catch was trifling, but what true angler 
minds that? We had a charming outing, all 
new country to me, and returned to Montreal 
satisfied. And yet not satisfied, for the fishing 
itch had seized me again and from then on I 
determined to prospect more for trout than for 
business. 
My next objective was Halifax, N. S., a long 
jump, and how best to go I knew not, but a 
kindly providence steered me. An advertise¬ 
ment in a newspaper told of a steamer which 
leaves Montreal every second Tuesday after¬ 
noon for Quebec and the Gaspe coast under con¬ 
tract with the Government to deliver mails at 
St. Felicite, Cape Chatte, Mont Louis, Grande 
Vallee, L’Anse a Louise, Grande Greve, Gaspe 
Bassin and other points. A glance at the map 
show'ed that these French or Frenchy fishing vil¬ 
lages are on the south shore of the St. Law¬ 
rence near the mouth, where it is as wide as 
a sea. Many of them are 75 to too miles re¬ 
moved from a railroad and that suited me. 
Surely, there must be good trouting there. 
Something pleasant lingered in my mind around 
the word Gaspe, high praise from someone in 
days gone by. 
The “Gaspesian” proved to be an old tubby 
boat, very stead)' and good enough in fine 
weather, but not so comfortable in wet weather 
because of the limited cover. She was full to 
overflowing, but good company, good meals and 
a good steward made things endurable despite 
considerable fog and enough of a storm to make 
all passengers but four call for pails and mops. 
We were in Quebec by daylight Wednesday 
and stayed till 4 P. M., giving time to run about 
that charming city. Here we lost some but 
gained more passengers, including five or six 
priests who had been in the hill city at some 
conference and were now returning to their 
charges iu the various settlements. They were 
as diverse a lot of men as one could meet, from 
the young ascetic with missal in hand to the 
elderly and jolly Irish-Frenchman who could 
tell or enjoy a good story with the rest. So 
we bade Quebec adieu and for thirty-six hours, 
with hardly a stop, plugged along at the des¬ 
perate speed of ten miles or less per hour. She 
would burst before she could travel eleven. 
Early daylight Friday found us running into 
Cape Chatte, one of the most charming pictures 
I can remember. On the shore of the cove lay 
the scattered village; close behind started up 
two bold mountains, one to the right, one to 
the left, and through the clove or valley formed 
by these two sharp hills, arose a third, and the 
three overgrown by forests filled the landscape. 
The swirling mists shrouded them in part, but 
the bold cape and lighthouse forming the battle¬ 
ment to our right stood out clear and the picture 
of gray and green—for the early sun was 
clouded over—was a thing to be remembered. 
Only one of these villages had a dock at 
which the steamer landed; at other places, stanch 
fishing boats came out to meet us, and tying up 
to the steamer, had loaded into them by derrick 
or block and fall, Ituggies, reaping machines, 
household furniture, barrels of flour, merchan¬ 
dise of all kinds and passengers and their bag¬ 
gage. Sometimes there was considerable jump 
to the sea—for here the river is many miles 
wide, the other shore entirely out of sight—and 
the passengers found it skittish business to climb 
down the short ladder, which now would have 
its foot in the fishing boat and the next moment 
would be far above it. These same boats are 
sturdy craft, double enders like an English peter 
boat, averaging probably twelve Ity thirty feet, 
excellent sea boats and very buoyant. Rigged 
with two or three masts and spritsails in most 
cases, they have no doubt been evolved to meet 
the needs of the locality. They carry stone bal¬ 
last and no centerboards and land on the open 
beach, which is generally coarse shingle. 
So we proceeded, dropping here and there a 
priest and some of his parishoners, the scenery 
ever varying and always charming, and that 
about the voyage which none of us had seen 
before. The.entire shore is one continuous set¬ 
tlement, white houses and neat farms; the peo¬ 
ple, farmers and fishermen by turns, gathering 
a double crop from sea and land. Acres of 
codfish, split and salted, were drying in the sun. 
and close by, yesterday fisherman, to-day turned 
farmer, was taking in his crop of hay or other 
produce. The folk are thrifty, clean and rela¬ 
tively prosperous. Every farmer-fisherman has 
his buggy and horse and lives sq much on home 
produce that he can save seventy-five cents out 
of every dollar he earns. Panics or so-called 
prosperous times seem little to affect them. 
They know no extremes. The voyage ended at 
Gaspe. Ah, memories of beauty—Gaspe. 
"See Naples and die.” said someone. “See 
Quebec and live forever,” said someone else. 
“See Gaspe and—stay there,” say 1 . And I 
took my own advice. Expecting to stay two 
days I remained nine, and had not time and 
money reached a limit I might be there still. 
Two hotels give excellent accommodation at 
very reasonable rates and the endless variety of 
the view over bay, river and hill is too good 
for me to attempt to put on paper such breezy 
days, such moonlight nights. Go and see for 
yourself. And the fishing on the Dartmouth and 
St. Johns rivers is as good as mortal man ought 
to wish for. Swift natural streams, of startling 
clearness—the St. Johns in particular is ideal— 
a tint as of green glass in the water,- alternating 
pools and rapids and boatmen for guides whom 
it is a delight to chum with. They astonish one 
by the way in which they pole a canoe up those 
watery slopes. Annett and his chum were my 
men and gave me plenty of trout, but salmon 
were not to be had. They were there, but it 
was the very last of the season in August, the 
fish were stale and nothing would tempt them. 
But I am going back to those woods again early 
in the season, for the hotel owns some good 
water free to .guests, and I hear that when sal¬ 
mon were plenty and taking early last summer, 
there was no one there to get them. 
The trip on the Lady Sybil esatward was a 
further pleasure. It took us past the celebrated 
Perre rock and up the Bale de Chaleur to Camp- 
belltown. Thence we went by rail to Halifax 
for a brief stay, then through the Evangeline 
country with its quiet beauties and sites nobly 
guarded by the Nova Scotia Historical Society. 
Arrived at Weymouth we quit the train and 
took to the woods, for a good Halifax friend 
had told us to look for Ned Sullivan there¬ 
abouts and see what he could show of river, 
lake, woodland and fish in the wilds of Nova 
Scotia. Twelve miles back from the railroad 
I found Ned taking in his apple crop from the 
orchard around his snug cottage on a neck be¬ 
tween two lakes. 
Ned gave me three days in the woods which 
I shall never forget. We compassed a chain of 
lakes forming a crescent, sometimes connected 
by streams. More often we had to portage, and 
to see that chap in moccasins with load on back 
and bark canoe overhead stride over those trails 
which were pathless forest to me, taking at a 
