I._A January Journey in the Gaspe Peninsula 
in Quebec 
ment which makes you lengthen your stride and 
which induces the healthy glow that comes from 
hard exercise. It is fitness and the ability to 
keep going; so harden yourself physically before 
you start. 
The only really hard work connected with a 
winter expedition is breaking trail or hauling a 
sleigh. This work can be left to the men, but 
if you go to the woods often for sport; or if, 
as in my own case, business takes you there and 
sport is secondary and incidental, you will pres¬ 
ently prefer breaking trail yourself with an oc¬ 
casional turn behind for a mile or so when the 
snow is heavy. 
If you go to the woods frequently, learn to be 
your own guide, and after a while you will find 
that the acme of enjoyment comes when, with 
the aid of the compass and with a developed 
sense of direction and distance, combined with 
the habit of close observation and the ability to 
distinguish and differentiate things and- places 
which look alike, you can dispense With guides, 
blazes and trails and can find your own way 
comfortably, even in unknown and unsurveyed 
territory. 
The mental stimulus, the developed self-re¬ 
liance and the great pleasure of novelty in un¬ 
known forests; the fact that instead of a guide’s 
back being the principal object of your concen¬ 
tration, you are taking in on your own initiative 
and at the rate of progress that best suits you 
every charming detail, every little movement or 
speck of color which denotes wild animal life', 
all this will make an immense difference in your 
physical capacity. The interest and occupation 
of your mental facu'ties will keep you from 
noticing the fatigue which otherwise would cer¬ 
tainly make itself felt. 
As I have said, the rivers are the highways 
now, and nothing but canoeing in rapid water 
is more stimulating or gives one more of the 
feeling of exploration and discovery and con¬ 
quest than does swinging along, pole in hand, 
tapping here and there and telling from the 
sound of the ice what it will stand. Sometimes 
you cross buckling ice where the pole will punch 
a hole almost by its own weight if let fall heavily 
enough, sometimes you take extreme precautions 
where there are several feet of snow and no 
apparent danger, but where even as you lift your 
feet perhaps, a hole the size of the snowshpe 
track will suddenly appear to the man behind 
you, showing where you have been supported a 
moment and no more. Sometimes you swing 
along with the ease and assurance of long ex¬ 
perience on the very edge of the boi ing water 
of an open rapid^ where the ice is all in curly 
little wind-swept waves, and looks as if it was 
going to break off and drop the adventurer into i 
the rapid, but which in reality would probably 
bear a horse. Rarely if ever does the practiced 
woodsman make a mistake, paying for it with a 
Winter Camp-Fires 
By W. J. BIGNELL 
T HE most interesting, the most bracing, the 
most picturesque time of the year to be 
in the Canadian woods is when fewest 
sportsmen know them. 
This is mid-winter, say in January, when cari¬ 
bou are still in season in the Province of Quebec, 
to give a raison d’etre, if one must have some¬ 
thing to kill. Most caribou still retain their ant¬ 
lers at this time, affording an excellent chance 
for trophies. The rivers and streams have be¬ 
come natural highways of white, with only here 
and there a gleam of open water or a blue sheen 
of ice. 
If you have never had the pleasure of starting 
off for a week or so at this enchanting time 
some frosty morning when the sun is just pene¬ 
trating the beautiful haze of glistening ice par¬ 
ticles in the still atmosphere and turning every¬ 
thing into a scene of enchantment, when the 
smoke from the chimneys is drifting up in a 
straight white column, as only wood smoke in 
winter can do, when branches are cracking from 
the frost with the report of pistol shots—make 
up your mind to try the experiment of a forest 
outing. 
Go to familiar haunts where you have canoed 
and fished and idled on your last summer s out¬ 
ing, and see the transformation that has taken 
place. Spots you already knew will in their sum¬ 
mer garb seem very different on a mid-winter 
trip. 
Perhaps your base is some familiar little Cana¬ 
dian village where lives the particular Jean Bap¬ 
tiste or Jean Paul who guided your destinies in 
canoe and camp last summer. If you know your 
man well—know him for a truthful and experi¬ 
enced guide and factotum—well and good, espe¬ 
cially if he is a chasseur dc pelleteries; but if 
you are not sure of him, nor of yourself in the 
woods in wjnter, then look out for unfortunate 
results. 
Many excellent summer guides are not used 
to this class of work and would cause you need¬ 
less discomfort, especially if you arc not accus¬ 
tomed to snowshoes. Your guide must see that 
you have on four or five pairs of heavy woolen 
socks, that your snowshoe straps are adjusted 
with skill and care, and that you do not overdo 
it the first day or so, for blistered feet or tnal 
de raauette come as a thief in the night, sud¬ 
denly and without warning. Your guide cannot 
take any liberties with the short Canadian winter 
days when the sun scarcely gets above the tall 
treetops, or perhaps does not show all day 
through the melancholy, pallid leaden half-light 
of the forest, and he must not be the sort to 
THE SHICKSHOCKS. 
get flustered or excited if it looks like sleeping 
out of doors—an experience which is not as bad 
as it sounds if you know how to go about it in 
case of an emergency. In fine, he must not be 
the kind to forget the matches, to get them wet, 
or to do any of the little things which turn what 
in summer is merely an annoyance into a genu¬ 
ine calamity in winter. 
One other word of warning. Do not try the 
woods in winter unless you are fit, for to escape 
discomfort one must be able to keep going all 
the time and to keep the blood in circulation. 
Heavy clothing, except for the feet, is not the 
secret of warmth, and that pure animal enjoy¬ 
