
Where a strong back is a useful adjunct 
Thru Quebec Wilds 
By J. W. EVANS 
HERE is a small lake east of 
Smooth Water Lake with some 
beautiful red trout in it. They 
are the same shape as a speckled trout, 
have the same colored fins and the same 
head and body, but instead of being 
speckled, they are red in color, and the 
dorsal fin is more pointed. I caught 
ten in about an hour, and we had them 
for breakfast and lunch. The flesh is 
the same dark pink as the brook trout, 
and they put up just as good a fight. 
We have been paddling and portag- 
ing for the last two days, and catching 
brook trout at the foot of almost every 
rapid, keeping the camp supplied with 
fish. At noon to-day we got ten big bull 
frogs, and found some ripe blue berries. 
We had brook trout for breakfast, 
frogs’ legs and blueberries for lunch, 
and brook trout for supper. The trout 
all weigh from one to two pounds. We 
stopped at the foot of a rapid where a 
small creek entered the river, and 
caught six one and a half pound trout, 
with a small spinner. They appeared 
to be very hungry, and would dart up 
to the side of the canoe and leap out 
of the water after the line when I was 
reeling in for a fresh cast. 
We are now in Florence River, hav- 
ing portaged from the Montreal River 
to the head waters of Crooked Creek, 
and entered it at the foot of a little 
fall, four inches wide and about two 
feet of a drop. There was not enough 
water to float the canoes, so we waded 
down beside them, but going a little 
further down we found deeper water. 
After paddling through overhanging 
alders and making innumerable sharp 
turns, doubling back and twisting and 
turning, it was not hard to see why 
they named it Crooked Creek. In places 
the water was very swift, and we had 
often to get out and ease the canoe 
between rocks and boulders. Finally 
we reached a stretch of still water, and 
the guide remarked that there would 
be a beaver dam ahead. We soon came 
to it—a new dam with fresh leaves on 
the twigs, and four feet of water above 
the dam, but only a little trickle be- 
low. We had to break open the dam, 
cutting a large opening in the center, 
and when there was a good rush of 
water, we got into the canoes and away 
we went on the freshet. 
HE beaver dams are very skillfully 
made, with a bank of sand on the 
upstream side running at a slope of 
one and a half to one, from the top of 
the dam back upstream, in this case 
fully five feet. There were heavy stones 
placed along the top. We came upon 
another large dam during the journey; 
which also had to be cut, but they are 
great little emergency engineers, and 
can repair such a break in one night. 
The scenery has changed now, and 
we go through rocky gorges with rapids 
every mile or so. In places one would 
think the banks had been rip-rapped up 
by hand and made into a canal. All 
the small stones are piled up along the 
A 
1,200 Mile 
Canoe Trip 
. 
in 
Northern 
Canada 
(Continued 
from 
October) 
Conclusion 
bank on one side, making a perfectly 
level bank, while the larger irregular 
fragments are piled up on the other 
bank in the same manner. We passed 
three of these places to-day, and I took 
a snap of one of them. 
E saw a baby loon in an enlarge- 
ment of the river and it swam 
ahead of us, coming up for air every few 
minutes, and finally I reached out and 
picked it up. It lay quiet in the bow of 
the canoe, and when we reached the 
portage we took snaps of each other 
holding it, together with a string of 
trout. It was not the least afraid, and 
kept looking up into our faces, and 
upon looking at it closely it gave a peck 
at my nose, though I am thankful to 
say it missed. We let it go and it swam 
off towards the center of the river, prob- 
ably to find its anxious parents, of 
which we had seen no sign It could not 
have been more than a week old. 
The black flies are getting fewer and 
fewer as we travel south, and the sea- 
son closes, but there are still plenty of 
mosquitoes. 
We travelled twenty-five miles to-day, 
and are at the end of Diamond Lake. 
It rained a good deal, and there was a 
gale on Lady Evelyn Lake, but we 
hugged the shore and took advantage 
of the islands, and got through O. K., 
although we had to land twice to empty 
the water from the canoes. 
We paddled from the dam to Bear 
Island in the pouring rain, and against 
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