466 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Sept. 17, 1910. 
Canoe Cruises in Canadian Reserves. 
“Out of the sweltering city, 
Out of the blaring streets 
And narrow houses of men, 
The seaboard express for the North 
Forges,' and settles for flight 
Into the great blue summer, 
The wide, sweet, opulent noon.” 
That is the way we felt about it when—on 
three separate occasions, each time in August— 
we had seen our home-built canoe and all camp¬ 
ing duffle safely aboard the over-crowded bag¬ 
gage car, and knew that in a few hours we 
should see the country of pointed firs and sense 
the cool air of a glorious lakeland on our faces. 
We had been wise. We had had months of 
preparation, coupled with joyful anticipation, 
for each cruise; we had carefully gone over a 
mass of outing literature concerning how to go 
light but right; had tabulated and compared 
several ration lists—only to find them later 
short on the items lard and sugar—had built 
a 16-foot canoe and converted a 9x16 wagon 
cover into a 7x7 tent; and now needed only 
to get a few loaves of bread at the jumping off 
place. 
This preliminary study and preparation is of 
great value, for it enables one to go into the 
bush something more than a mere novice, 
though one will always have something more 
to learn even on his ’steenth trip. With our 
provision list carefully compiled in advance, and 
already largely filled from home supplies, we 
could spend a few hours in Toronto or Ottawa 
getting certain necessaries and luxuries of larder 
or outfit. We knew enough to buy only the 
best, to eliminate the carrying of water in 
foods, and to reduce weight and bulk in duffle. 
The great fault of the frontier supply store 
outfit lies just in disregard of this last prin¬ 
ciple. It will load you up with canned and 
bottled near-foods until your canoe has little 
freeboard, and your guide will either prevail 
upon you to break camp as seldom as possible, 
or will take care that the cruel packs get mys¬ 
teriously lighter on every portage. We did not 
want canned tomatoes and bottled mushrooms, 
and thought we would never miss the boneless 
turkey at the fancy prices of the poststore, nor 
did we deem it worth while to pay three dollars 
for a deep-water copper trolling wire when we 
had taken one from home for twenty cents. We 
had let the writers of books on camping tell 
us how to get ready in advance, and how to 
have a lot of fun in doing it. 
The First Trip. 
It is a December evening as I sit and smoke 
and muse over that first camping trip in Al¬ 
gonquin Park. As a Missouri boy I had re¬ 
ceived some training in woodcraft on deer, 
turkey and small game hunts with my father; 
but in those days Horace Kephart and Perry 
Frazer had not arisen to tel! us about camping 
and canoeing in the border South, and though 
I had read in boyhood much about bough beds 
and portages, I essayed my first experience of 
these on a trip alone with my young wife, a 
typical city girl who regarded a brick house as 
man’s natural and normal habitat. She has 
greatly changed now, has ceased to call a camp¬ 
fire a bonfire, and has come to regard indoor 
life as a condition to be borne with patience. 
Six hours of hard labor did it take to get that 
first night’s camp made at the first portage. It 
was a short portage and I did manage to get 
that eighty-pound canoe across, but I was 
crushed under the conviction that I could not 
possibly get it across a longer carry; that I 
alone could not paddle, portage and rustle for 
two. So, after a restless night, we broke camp 
and went back to headquarters to at least con¬ 
sider a guide—scorned by 11s heretofore. That 
was true wisdom, as the event has abundantly 
proved. The novice has much to learn on his 
early trips, and no one can teach him so quickly 
as the native. Ezra proved “guide, philosopher 
and friend,” for he was elastic enough in all 
capacities to let us paddle, portage, cook and 
work about camp to our heart’s content, and we 
did our share of all of these because we liked 
to do it. Though, as he said of himself, he 
was not “much bigger than a pint of cider and 
it half drinked,” he negotiated portages at good 
speed, was tireless with paddle and ax, and 
always entertaining at the camp-fire, for he 
“could swing his lip” with the best of them. 
We had crossed Cache and White lakes, and 
two easy portages past fresh beaver dams, 
when we made our second Algonquin camp on 
Little Island Lake. A party of young men 
passed and told us they had just capsized in 
Smoke Lake and lost all their outfit, except one 
bag. Here was a lesson in caution not lost on 
the novices. A supper, a camp-fire and then 
the quartering moon shone through the trees, 
while an owl, “most musical, most melancholy,” 
CAMP ON SMOKE LAKE. 
soothed us to sleep on our first real bough bed. 
Smoke Lake will be the gem of a southern 
trip in the park and will give you plenty of five- 
pound namaycush, if you go for them with 
copper line and spinner—the favorite lure here 
where minnows are easy to get. This fine lake 
will be sure to embarrass you if there should 
LITTLE ISLANJ) TROPHIES. 
be a brisk west wind, and we constantly •remem¬ 
bered the party that had capsized. Before such 
a wind we ran down to the eastern end and 
visited Ragged and Porcupine lakes, and saw 
the great wooden timber slide, but when we 
again saw Smoke, the wind had not gone down, 
and we had trouble enough to get back. The 
struggle against wind and wave and the tri¬ 
umph under a glorious sunset illumination re¬ 
main as a fragrant memory for the bow paddle; 
but the city girl recalls only her terror as an 
inactive and helpless passenger. Moral, get 
into the fight! 
In spite of Ezra’s derision, I wished to try 
the troll with the phantom minnow. I got a 
two-pounder and was duly gleeful, but when it 
was shown that the fish had but one eye, Ezra’s 
delight knew no bounds. He claimed that no 
normal fish would strike that lure. A year later 
my triumph with a wood minnow was unquali¬ 
fied. but the. spinner is better than either. 
From old Smoke you may go on south into 
Tea Lake, and if you are there in fly time, you 
will get fontinalis on the way; but this is only 
the highway toward the northern lakes of the 
park, which are better worth your while. In 
order to see these, you would better start from 
Joe Lake station (Merrell’s), unless the black 
bass of Cache and White, and the trout of 
Crown Lake are your lode stars. Lake trout 
come easier in the northern trips, though all 
will fail you in Burnt Lake, whose beauty alone 
is the reward for your visit. Such names as 
Joe, Mrs. Joe and Baby Joe. Buck, Doe and 
Fawn are in themselves alluring enough to take 
you northward. Island Lake will surely hold 
your camp for at least a night—two are always 
better if you are resting and recreating—and 
will give you trout, yea, here I have seen two 
taken at one strike on a single spinner. When 
you have left Island, you will see far fewer 
parties, and Big and Little Otter Slide will hold 
you for a good rest before you tackle, the five 
portage barriers on the interesting Petewawa 
River. 
O. E. Fischer. A. C. A., 5801. 
[to p>e concluded.] 
