
FOREST AND STREAM. 
19 


For the Forest and Stream. 
FIRE FLIES. 
——— 
7 day's decline I come and see 
In garden, hedge, and on the lea— 
The flies iu jolly repartee, 
Light up their lamps so brightly. 
. Ocome, they say, and join our glee 
And learn to skim as well as we, 
Who took the very first degree 
For being gay and sprightly. 
Flies can not all be diamond flies, 
(I don’t know how we won that prize) 
Though phosphorescent were our eyes, 
And flame were our volition. 
We could as well our light disguise, 
As too a matinee emprise; 
Who e’er by day our badge espies,] 
Scarce grants it recognition. 
Though blest with reason, oft we see 
That man igores our self-taught plea, 
That all his power applied should be 
To some specific shining, 
And not as though time did not flee, 
His gift from bondage scorn to free, 
Until he loose his own degree— 
Defeating God’s designing. 
Martua Ewrne. 
Crout Eails from the Jlepigon. 
TASES -£ i 



Camp CAMPBELL, Nepigon River, July, 1873. 
Eprror FoREST AND STREAM : 
T date my letter from ‘‘Camp Campbell,” twenty-eight miles 
up the Nepigon, above Red Rock Landing. What pleasant 
days we have passed here; what charming associations will 
always invest this delightful spot! Let us take in the un- 
usual landscape. 
Here is a bold, rocky point projecting into the river, upon 
which stands our canvas tent. It was covered with a thin 
growth of birch once, and three large evergreens found root 
and nourishment in the interstices of the rock-bed; but we 
have cut away all that is not needed for shade or ornament, 
and the open space affords us an unobstructed view of the 
river and its scenery above and below. Moreover, it permits 
a free draft of air, up and down stream, which most effectu- 
ally clears the camp of flies and mosquitoes, and in midday 
affords a cool and refreshing relief from the heat. Even in 
this northern latitude the sun is sometimes oppressive at 
noon. Our bed is made of balsam boughs laid upon the flat 
bare rock, and covered with a rubber blanket, with woolen 
ones ontop. By this arrangement we avoid the dampness 
of the earth, and escape the annoyance of the community 
of spiders, ants, bugs, wood-ticks, flies, worms, and other 
varieties of creeping and crawling things that infest the 
woods, and more especially of that infinitessimal and excru- 
ciating mite known in different localities as the sand-fly, 
gnat, punky, and midge, and termed by the Indians ‘‘ bite- 
*em-no-see-em.” On the left we are flanked by a dense 
forest of hard wood and evergreens, threaded by paths which 
diverge from the camp, one following the bank to ‘‘Camp- 
bell’s Falls,” a few rods up stream, and another leading over 
the portage to the landing, a quarter of a mile beyond. 
This portage is necessary to surmount the falls, and over it 
all goods, canoes and stuff must be carried from the navi- 
gable waters below to those above. Across this and the 
several other portages on the river, the voyageurs of the 
Hudson Bay Company once hauled a fifty-ton schooner, 
laying skids for its passage. 
In front of the camp are the cooking arrangements, and 
from the tent door the rocky knoll slopes gradually over 
green sward to the brink of a little land-locked bay. whose 
head is hidden by a high, round-topped, wooded promon- 
tory on the opposite shore. This bay is not more than a 
dozen rods wide, but it is thirty feet deep, and its waters 
are as green as those of the Niagara river. In the bight of 
the bay, out of sight around the promontory, a sheer preci- 
pice, five hundred feet high, and smooth as a wall, plunges 
perpendicularly into the water and is lost in the gloom of 
its own shadow. Directly opposite, on the other side of the 
bay, rises an equally high cliff of columnar trap, like the 
Palisades of the Hudson, with its base strewn with five- 
sided prisms and debris that have fallen from above. From 
cliff to cliff the slighest sound is thrown back and re- 
peated in many an echo. Even the splash of the great lake 
trout, as he leaps from the waters that teem with fish-life, is 
heard with wonderful distinctness, whispered with a wierd 
and hollow sound. This columnar trap formation is one of 
the chief and grandest features of the Nepigon scenery, and 
ocenrs at frequent intervals along the river. 
At our, canoe landing we have spread an apron of alder- 
brush, to prevent the delicate craft from chafing its bottom 
upon the rocks, Half drawn from the water, its prow peers 
above the brink, and we look lovingly and tenderly upon it, 
for it is our only means of communication between the 
wilderness and the settlements miles away. And looking 
from our tent door out upon the enchanting view of the 
land-locked basin and wooded mountain ridges, noting the 
swirl left upon the calm water where a monster fish broke 
but now,; watching the blue smoke curling from the camp- 
fire, and our little group of Indians in their fantastic attire, 
we cannot but bless the promptings of our inborn proclivi- 
ties, which have taught us in this our after life to seek and 
enjoy these beautiful primitive spots of nature. But this is 
only half of the picture. 
Let us turn riverward. If we 
open the rear fly of our tent, we have the broad expanse 
of the river before us, a river as broad as the Connecticut at 
Holyoke. A high ridge of undulating, forest-clad hills 
skirts its opposite bank. A wooded island divides it in the 
middle, and from shore to shore the waves are lashed into a 
tumult and commotion of white foam and leaping spray, 
that vies with the rapids of the Niagara, and dins with a 
never-ceasing roar. Right under and against the ledge upon 
whose very brink our tent stands, it dashes with sweeping 
turbulence, filling the air with delicious freshness and 
droning in continual monotones of sound that almost 
drown the voice. At night it isa soothing lullaby that wooes 
sweet slumbers, and gives restoring rest. A dozen rods 
tbove is a. broken fall some ten feet high, hemmed in be- 
tween the island and fhe rocky ledges of either shore. At 
the foot of these falls, where the water sets back from some 
jutting point, we can catch the monster speckled trout of 
this famous river; or,shooting across the seething rapids into 
the eddy below the island, we anchor the canoe in mid- 
stream, and with full sweep of casttng room and unob- 
structed channel, hook and play our fish until a surfeit 
of pleasure makes the task laborious. These falls we have 
christened ‘‘ Campbell’s Falls,” after the name of my com- 
pagnon du voyage, 4 Brooklyn gentleman who has explored 
the whole region, and taken up a claim of two miles square 
for mining purposes, These falls are included within his 
boundary lines. With the exception of ‘‘Rocky Portage,” 
four miles below, it is the finest fishing point upon the 
Nepigon. 
A rough-looking customer is this city friend of mine in 
his backwoods attire. I remember him as he stood at Red 
Rock landing awaiting the steamer which bore me to his 
chosen companionship, sun-browned to a hue as dark as the 
Indian’s, unkempt, red-shirted, belted, and moccassined, 
with a flaring, knit woolen cap on his head, and a big knife 
thrust into a sheath ornamented with beads. <A group of 
aborigines in motley, and a score of mahogany-hued survey- 
ors stood near him on the wharf, and among them he was 
the “noblest Roman of all.” 
No ordinary event is the coming of the steamboat in these 
parts. Until last year it never came at all, and the primitive 
children of nature had never seen one. But now they are 
not only familiar with the big fire-canoe, but, alas, they 
know the way by heart to the bar on the lower deck, and 
many is the ominous whisper exchanged in the darkness of 
the passage-way near the shaft, and many a suspicious swell- 
ing of the arm as the noble red men hug their blankets to 
their breasts and quietly steal away to the gang-plank. To 
the arriving passenger the surrounding bustle, the rattle of 
trucks discharging freight, the process of wooding up, and 
the constant passage of figures moving, make the scene a 
lively one. The cabins are thronged with ladies in city 
attire, the saloon piano thrums, and there is the presence 
and familiar name of the steamer itself, so nearly associated 
with home and civilization. Up on shore are ranges of sur- 
veyors’ tents, thirty or more, and wagons laden with their- 
supplies are moving off to some distant points. All is activ- 
ity for the nonce, and the place seems a stirring town. It 
is not until the steamer moves off down stream out of sight, 
and leaves one separated seventy-six miles from the nearest 
settlement, and hundreds of miles from the most accessible 
civilization, that he begins to realize the situation. And in 
the morning, when the surveyors’ tents are struck, and they 
and their attendants, and the little group of Indians they 
hired for guides and boatmen, have silently moved away and 
left the place deserted, he for the first time /eels the perfect 
solitude. Here is only asingle inhabited house, with its 
adjoining store, warehouse and outbuildings; but another 
large and substantial frame house is in process of erection, 
-and it is the musical clink of the carpenters’ hammers that 
alone relieves the sudden and almost painful stillness, and 
makes him feel the pleasure of companionship. 
Nevertheless a warm heart beats under the frieze over- 
shirt of the Company’s agent, our good friend Robert Craw- 
ford, and when he has squeezed your ‘hand in his till the 
bones crack, and towed you up to the little log house, and 
made you welcome with a bottle of Bass, you forget your 
momentary nostalgia, and are prepared to select your outfit 
for the woods. An important functionary is this same fac- 
tor; for under the Canadian regulations, he dispenses the 
necessary permits, without which no angler can fish in the 
Nepigon. 
tlentitul are the stores of pork, flour and tea that are se 
apart for the voyage, and to these are added such luxuries 
as individuals may prefer to take—pickles, sugar, condensed 
milk and coffee, canned fruits, soups and vegetables, dessi- 
cated meats, hard biscuit, ham, bread, ale, whiskey, mola&s- 
ses, salt, pepper, soda powders, &c. Where the absence in 
camp is to be a long one and much of the distance is to be 
traversed by water, it is wise to provide one’s self with all 
obtainable luxuries. But in all other cases the knowing 
ones will travel as light as possible, stinting themselves with 
a meagre bill of fare, and depending upon rod, gun, and 
snares to keep their larder full. A real curiosity shop is 
Crawford’s store, filled from floor to ceiling with an assort- 
ment of goods so endless that it would puzzle a tradesman 
to pick out hisown. ‘‘If there is anything you want and 
don’t see, ask for it.” As the*blood of the Indian is here 
diffused and commingled with that of the white n.an, in 
every shade of degree and proportion, so the habits and 
styles of dress are combined and assimilated, the French 
‘Canadian or Scotchman donning the moccasins, beadwork 
and fancy toggery of the Indian, and the latter arraying 
himself in some portion of the habiliments of the white man. 
I have seen, but in only one rare exception, an Indian 
dandy go so far as to assume kid gloves and neatly fitting 
calf-skin boots, but I doubt if the temporary gratification 
of his vanity compensated for the excruciating pain of 
cramped up toes and abraded shin-bones. Wherefore it is 
that in Crawford’s store we find suspended a singular as- 
sortment of moccasins, shoe-packs, boots, and a curious» 
variety of hybrids, so to speak, which combine the qualities 
of all. The like foot-covering of tanned and untanned 
leather, canvas and woollen cloth, it would be impossible 
to find elsewhere. Then there is the heavy Hudson Bay 
coats with their monstrous hoods to protect the head in win- 
ter; the beautifully knit and parti-colored sashes, two fath- 
oms long, which are almost invariably worn here in lieu 
of a leather belt to support the trousers or leggings; tobacco 
pouches and knife-sheaths, ornamented with beads; snow 
shoes; baby-cradles that don’t rock, but which are simply a 
flat board to which is fastened a pocket highly ornamented 
with quill work and beads, to put the baby in; toys, nap 
kin-rings and table-mats of birch bark and sweet-scented 
grasses interwoven; beantifully stained mats made of water- 
rushes; queer knit woolen caps, scarlet and blue; and so on 
to the end of the catalogue which supplements the trade-list 
of patent-medicines, clocks, pickles, sleeve-buttons, cough- 
drops, calicoes, tooth-picks, note paper, jack-knives, baking 
powders, shot guns, and umbrellas, which are sent out from 
England and Canada. 
Perhaps the most interesting curiosity here is the new 
house which Crawford is building. The winters here are 
bitter cold, and when the mercury sinks to minus forty, 
water will freeze, in an ordinary house, between two red- 
hot Canadian stoves set six feet apart. To secure the requi- 
site warmth for comfort, Crawford is trying to make his 
house frost-proof. It is a very creditable two-story-and-a- 
half frame building, forty feet long, with a kitchen and din- 
ing room extension. Upon both the inner and outer sides 
of the joists are laid inch boards, tongued and grooved. 
Then upon the outside of these is laid a thickness of tough 
cedar bark; upon this a layer of two-inch planks, and out 
side of all a coating of clapboards. The inside is furred, 
lathed and plastered. In this domicile of ten thicknesses 
the tough old factor of the Hudson’s Bay post hopes to keep 
warm next winter by the aid of his huge two-deck stoves. 
The cost of this house would startle even a New York con- 
tractor, for there are no saw mills here, and lumber and 
materials have to be brought from Collingwood, eight hun- 
dred miles away. The garden fence itself cost a dollar a 
foot. By the way, Crawford’s ‘‘ gude wife” has succeeded 
in raising vegetables that it would be supposed would hardly 
grow in this climate. 
Dear me, howI do run on! This letter is already exceed- 
ing the limits of your patience, and the columns of your 
paper. I willcall my Indians, get my stuff into the canoe and 
paddle up stream to camp No. 1. We willimagine tents struck 
at ‘‘Camp Campbell,” and ourselves just starting for the 
voyage, which | would rejoice if it were so that I might 
live over again those delightful experiences in fact as well 
as in memory. The camp is only half mile or so up stream, 
Just where the river rushes in turbulent discharge and mag- 
nificent breadth from a rapid or fall above. It stands on a 
grassy plateau surrounded by a hardwood thicket of birch 
and maple, interspersed with spruce. From the tent door 
we can see far down the river—the landing, Red Rock'and 
the Islands below. In front the tide rushes by like a mill- 
race; but alittle jutting point above us makes an eddy, and 
in the still water our canoe rests quietly, the main body of 
water sweeping down with immense volume until it impinges 
upon a sand bluff one hundred feet high. Here it spreads 
out into a vast pool of great depth, and now with scarcely 
perceptible current glides smoothly on its way. From the bluft 
down to Crawford’s is a half mile stretch that would be 
prized in the States as a course for a regatta. Opposite the 
camp is a low, flat island. There are two wigwams on the 
point. These are occupied by the families of two of the 
Indians who are to take us up stream. Their canoes are 
just visible protruding from the alders that skirt the shore. 
Up the bank nets and clothes are drying. One squaw with 
a pappoose lashed to her back, is bending over the camp-fire 
preparing supper. The evening shadows, thrown from the 
high bluff opposite, arelengthening. The clouds in the west 
arered. Trout are breaking in mid-channel. A scolding king- 
fisher is balancing himself on a naked limb that overhangs 
the bank, keeping a sharp eye to business. The whole is a 
picture that needs no setting. It is simply enchanting. 
Now, while our factotum, John Watt, who is both cook 
and pilot of our expedition, is putting up the tent and cut- 
ting wood we will shove off the canoe and catch a few trout 
for supper. Wecan catch trout anywhere about here, If 
you will only toss your fly into the head of the channel that 
cuts off the island opposite you will strike a four-pounder. 
Down at the landing there is seventeen feet of water, and 
just where the tide sweeps past the end of the pier, you can 
hook them every time. I can see Crawford there now, with 
my field-glass. Oh, the toiling, sweltering, friends at home! 
What would you give for one hour of this probation? 
“* John.” 
piste: , 
“In the morning we will walk across to the head of the 
rapids, and try the fish there at sunrise. Go down to Oraw- 
ford’s and tell him you want his ox wagon to haul the canoe 
and stuff across the portage, at daylight—remember.” 
“*T will, sir.” 
‘“Now, John, get your coals red hot; we will bring you a 
couple of trout in a jiffy. Shove off the canoe.” 
HAVELOCK, 
