CHAPTER VIII
COUNTRY DELIGHTS
Sometimes, I go a-fishing and shooting, and even then I carry a note-book, that if I lose game, I may at least bring home my pleasant thoughts!—PLINY.
I am fishing for graylings, but so far have caught none, my case being similar to that of one Chang Chi-Ho, who in the eighth century, "spent his time angling but used no bait, his object not being to catch fish."
And truth to tell, I have not even the grace of an object, unless it be to talk to the men folk who are lading the big flat scows called "Sturgeon-Heads," for the trip down the river.
By these right pleasant waters of the Athabasca, you are no longer guided by duty but throw a rein on the senses. You do things because you want to do them, and not because you ought to. This is owing to the fact that the time-table loses its thrall north of 55°. I intend stopping here a long while.
It is a sun-steeped day, and the river looks like a bed of sequins. The sun, although it is strong in Alberta, doesn't seem to ripen people like it does farther south. I can see this from the way people give me greeting and from how they tell me all that is in their hearts.
Antoine hears that far off in that place called Montreal they dig worms out of the clay for bait, and that these worms have neither shells nor fur. This must be "wan beeg lie," for how could the worms keep from freezing? It is not according to reason. These white men with trails in the middle of their hair say these things so that the Crees, who are very shrewd rivermen, will go to live in Montreal.
I heartily concur with Antoine. I have been to Montreal myself and have never seen so much as the sign of an earth-worm. They tell queer yarns, those Eastern fellows who come from down North to write books and buy land, but Antoine and I won't be fooled by them. Indeed, we won't.
Antoine caught a pike the other day without a line, but he lost it again. It was the biggest fish he ever caught, but this is only natural, and is no new thing, for ever since the first slippery fish slithered through the hands of primeval man, it has always been the biggest one that got away. Where these biggest fish foregather ultimately has always been a mystery to me. Some day, we shall discover a piscatorial paradise with millions of them in it.