: 
recently comparatively unknown. 
that portion of Ontario lying west of the upper 
JAN. 13, 1906. | 


ON A LAPLAND TRAIL. ° 
vappus knew of a Lap who had a spare room, 
and with him I stayed five weeks, while waiting 
for the river to open, having a very comfortable 
time, barring the fleas, of which there were un- 
told numbers; but I was glad there was nothing 
worse. During these five weeks I had for once 
in my life all the hunting I wished, as the Karas- 
jok valley is one of the main routes for water- 
fowl, and thousands of ducks and geese were 
passing by. while in the woods the mystifying 
tones of the capercailzies’ love-songe could be 
heard every night. The hares would also come 
from afar down to the river bank, where the 
snow had gone away, and in their white coats 
furnished shining marks for the Krag-Jorgensen. 
Of my journey up in the mountains I may 
send an account later on; as far as the output of 
gold is concerned, it was a failure, but it is some 
satisfaction to know that no one else has made it 
pay. I stayed up there till the latter part of Sep- 
tember and was not sorry to get out again, as 
the Laps were not the best of companions, as 
they were not able to talk Norwegian. 
I had the pleasure of making the acquaintance 
of a .Lap amazon; she was probably about 
eighteen years old and was the happy owner of 
a shotgun, which she used better than any man 
in Karasjok, and that summer she landed single- 
handed with rod and reel a salmon weighing 22 
kilos, or about 44 pounds. 
One thing will always remain in my memory 
and that is, the mid-summer nights with the mid- 
night sun low on the northern horizon shedding 
its mellow light over the birch-clad hills, with 
the river winding along at their feet. How 
many a night I have sat enchanted drinking in 
the beauty of the scene, and with a feeling of 
being in an altogether different world from this 
hustling, bustling globe of ours. 
- Getting back to Karasjok I rested a few days | 
and started with a pack horse and one of my 
summer companions as guide for Bosekop, which 
was reached a couple of days afterward. It felt 
good to come back to civilization, but I made 
up my mind that if a good companion could be 
secured the trip was going to be made over 
again, not for gold, but sport. Cur. G. 
Hama, Norway. 
New Ontario. 
ConsuL WAKEFIELD, of Orillia, Ont., writes 
that the name “New Ontario” has been applied 
to the northern section of the Province of that 
This section of Ontario was until quite 
It comprises 
name, 
Ottawa River and its tributary lakes and north 
of Lakes Huron and Superior, with Quebec the 
eastern and Manitoba the western boundary. 
Lost in the Woods. 
I HAVE recently been very much interested in 
the series of articles upon the gentle art of get- 
ting “‘lost.” The subject‘is timely. Every year 
hundreds of people who penetrate the great un- 
tracked regions of the United States entail a 
great deal of suffering upon themselves and 
cause their friends much mental anxiety by in- 
considerately going out into the woods and 
forthwith losing themselves. 
It is to be regretted that we do not possess 
the exact locality sense of the North American 
Indian. During a large portion of my life 
I have been the hunting companion of Indians. 
We have hunted the vast mountain wastes of 
‘North Idaho for weeks together, in all kinds 
of weather, and in every season. During that 
time I have never known an Indian to be for 
one moment at a loss to locate the direction 
of camp. When the time comes to return, your 
savage just throws up his head, takes one glance 
around and sets out in the direction of camp. 
We have tramped all day elk hunting in the 
dense of a mountain snow storm, when my ideas 
of locality were very much confused indeed, 
yet my companion would wheel in the direction 
of camp whenever I suggested the advisability 
of returning. 
Now, how does he do it? Well, in the first 
place he never sets out with the idea of getting 
lost. In the second, he never gets “rattled.” 
In the last and most important, he never al- 
lows one thing to escape him. He may appear 
intent upon the pursuit of game and utterly ob- 
livious of everything else under the sun, but 
all the time his sharp black eyes are observant 
of every rock, tree, bush, stream, hill, in short, 
the make of the entire landscape. Nay. more, 
not even the smallest animal or bird or even 
their tracks escape his ken. At night he can 
tell you exactly just how many brown squirrels 
or bluejays we passed during the day. He can 
locate the precise spot where a single deer 
crossed the trail. Constant contact with these 
people has made me master in some degree of 
this habit of observation. The man who enters 
the woods and expects to not get lost must 
cultivate this habit of seeing things. Next he 
must cultivate the habit of keeping cool under 
all circumstances. The man who allows himself 
to get into a state of “funk,” as our British 
brethren say, is already lost, though his camp 
may be only around the next hill. 
There are certain people who never see any- 
thing. That man is first cousin to the fellow 
who leaves camp without matches or a knife. 
Both of them should have a good and sufficient 
guardian appointed to look after them and then 
never get out of hearing of the town clock. 

FIVE O'CLOCK TEA. 
I do not believe that any set of rules can be 
laid down to keep certain people from getting 
lost. You cannot teach woods lore from the 
printed page. I can write woods signs until 
I am black in the face, and there are hundreds 
who read them that could not go out into the 
timber and pick out one of them if it was as 
plain as the New York Post Office. The good 
old reliable method of setting your compass 
and going in a direct line is a perfectly sure 
method of getting back into camp, but it is 
a mighty slow way of killing game. It stands 
to reason if you go directly north ten miles and 
then turn round and go directly south ten miles 
you will in all probability get back to camp, un- 
less somebody has moved the camp while you 
are away. You see some game on the tramp, 
too, but the chances are against it. 
I am going to say a few words about not 
getting lost, then a few more about locating 
yourself after you are lost. There are a few 
things that will help you very much in the 
timber, and one of them is an accurate map of 
the region where you are hunting. There are 
two methods of procuring these. The Govern- 
ment publishes sectional maps of every locality 
in the United States. These can be had by 
writing for them and paying the small fee re- 
quired. The Land Department of every State 
has topographical survey maps of the entire 
State, and you can obtain blue prints of any 
particular township or range by writing to the 
chief clerk of the Land Board. Now, before 
you ever leave camp take these maps and spread 
them out before you and study them carefully. 
I do not mean by that simply to glance over 
them hastily and fling them aside, but get down 
and dig the whole topography of the country 
out. Locate every stream and its direction. 
Spot every mountain and its position with re- 
gard to your present location. Mark carefully 
the various monuments placed by the surveyors, 
so that in the event you should happen upon 
one of them you could instantly form a mental 
picture of your whereabouts. Next I should 
advise you to study the cabalistic marks by the 
surveyors upon the corner posts and witness 
trees. Once mastered, they give you a key to 
your locality. Of course, it is only occasionally 
that you run across these different landmarks, 
but then when you do happen across them it 
is pretty comfortable to be able to tell just 
where you are at by their assistance. 
Cultivate a habit of looking upon every object. 
that comes under your eye as possessing 1m- 
portance. Note that in certain localities as, for 
instance, the Bitter Root Range, that all the 
undergrowth inclines to the north. The reason 
for this is that all the snows and prevailing 
winter winds are from the southwest, and that 
