VOL. LXXXIV 
DECEMBER, 1915 
No. 12 
An Unexploited Wilderness by the Sea 
In these Super-Civilized Days it is Hard Indeed to find a Genuine Bit of Good Hunting and Fishing Territory 
Comparatively Accessible, But Here is One 
By Ellwood Colahan. 
pN these super-civilized days it is 
hard indeed to find a genuine 
bit of unexploited country 
which is nevertheless compara¬ 
tively accessible. It is not only 
delightful but positively novel 
to cruise through a forest' 
where there are neither trails 
nor people to travel them and to pitch one’s tent 
in a spot free of dilapidated tin cans and dena¬ 
tured cut boughs. In fact after a long and pro¬ 
gressive experience which began in a Catskill 
hotel and ended in a New Brunswick “camp,” I 
had about come to the conclusion that the real 
thing was not to be had south of 47 deg. N. 
latitude. Then I dicovered the East Shore of 
Nova Scotia, the Wilderness by the Sea,—and 
changed my mind. 
Like the old trout stream on the edge of 
town that nobody fishes, this fabulously quaint 
little corner of the universe has somehow avoid¬ 
ed the vast and ever increasing migrations of 
sportsmen and tourists until it remains almost 
the only reachable country where the best sport 
may be had for the asking—and nobody asks. 
The desperately barren and agriculturally use¬ 
less nature of the country and the consequent 
aloofness of the railroads may in a measure ac¬ 
count for this state of affairs although it is 
certain that so attractive a slice of the happy 
hunting ground as the East Shore can not'much 
longer limit its patrons to the few who have al¬ 
ready had the hardihood to venture into it. 
It was, therefore, with unmingled enthusiasm 
A Handsome Nova Scotia Salmon. 
that Yok and I greeted a letter from Jeff, an old 
Nova Scotia acquaintance of ours, asking us to 
join him on a two weeks’ prospecting cruise 
through the fastnesses of the East Shore. While 
Jeff was nominally interested in sounding the 
country for gold quartz, which occurs frequent¬ 
ly in this part of the world, his glowing descrip¬ 
tion of the sporting possibilities of the district 
constituted the inducement that eventually 
packed us up. According to Jeff, neither guides, 
fellow sportsmen nor closed seasons interfered 
with the placid serenity of the exclusive East 
Shore. In the hunting season after killing one’s 
limit, one need merely tie four feet of line and 
a hook wound with a wisp of grass to the muz¬ 
zle of one’s gun in order to get enough trout to 
stock an ordinary river, and vice versa in the 
fishing season. 
But you see we knew Jeff; and while we didn’t 
insinuate that he could tell an artistic one if he 
tried, we did come prepared for eventualities. 
No one realizes better than myself, however, 
that it is my business here to tell you what we 
actually did find. 
So, late in August, we packed our gear and 
took wing for Halifax. As both of us were 
ardent disciples of “going light” there wasn’t 
much to pack, our outfit consisting of a small 
balloon silk lean-to, a blanket and rubber blanket 
apiece, a small axe, a cooking outfit consisting 
of a pan, two pots, cups and spoons (purchased 
at Woolworth’s for less than seventy-five cents), 
and dehydrated and powdered foods and soups 
with a background of bacon, rice and prunes, 
