CHAPTER VIII
The Coming of the Pleasure Seekers
Pleasure seeking at Murray Bay.—A fisherman's experience in 1830.—New visitors.—Fishing in a mountain lake.—Camp life.—The Upper Murray.—Canoeing.—Running the rapids.—Walks and drives.—Golf.—A rainy day.—The habitant and his visitors.
In the Middle Ages mankind in pursuit of change of air and scene and of bodily and spiritual health went on pilgrimage to some famous shrine; in modern times dwellers in cities, in a similar pursuit, go in summer to some beautiful spot by sea, or lake, or mountain. To many these places then become as sacred as was the saint's shrine of an earlier age. Busy men have leisure there to be idle, to read, to enjoy companionship, to pursue wholesome pleasures. Such a spot has Murray Bay become to many. Their intrusion was not looked upon with favour by those who wished to preserve the old simplicity, but it could not be resisted. More than a hundred years ago Colonel Nairne and Colonel Fraser had parties of guests in the summer that must have made the two manor houses lively enough. The beauty of the place, its coolness when Quebec and Montreal suffered from sweltering heat in the short Canadian summer, the simplicity and charm of its life, proved alluring. There was also excellent sport. Salmon and trout abounded. Though time has brought changes, in some seasons the salmon fishing is still excellent and, in all the world, probably, there is no better trout fishing than in the upper waters of the Murray and in some of the lakes.
Thus it happened that the earliest annals of pleasure seeking at Murray Bay relate to fishing. It is at least possible that more than two hundred years ago the Sieur de Comporté tried his fortune as a fisherman in the lake that bears his name. A hundred and fifty years ago, as we have seen, Captain Nairne and his guest Gilchrist had such excellent salmon fishing that Gilchrist thought this sport alone worth a trip across the Atlantic. Many other fishing expeditions to Malbaie there must have been and, fortunately, a detailed narrative of one of them, made in 1830, has been preserved. The fishermen were Major Wingfield and Dr. Henry—attached to the 66th regiment at Montreal.
They went by steamer from Montreal to Quebec and an American General on board jeered at them for travelling three hundred miles to catch fish which they could buy in the market at their door! When they reached Quebec they found no steamer for Murray Bay,—hardly strange as then the steamboat was comparatively new. Three days they waited at Quebec until at length they bargained with the captain of a coasting schooner bound for Kamouraska, on the south shore of the St. Lawrence, to land them at Malbaie. The weather was stormy, the ship nearly foundered, and the eighty miles of the journey occupied no less than four days and nights. The fishermen had brought with them a quarter of cold lamb, a loaf, and a bottle of wine, but, before the journey was over, sheer hunger drove them to the ship's salt pork and to sausages stuffed with garlic. Rather than take refuge below among "thirty or forty dirty habitants from Kamouraska" they stuck to the deck and encamped under the great sail, but the rain fell so heavily that they could not even keep their cigars alight. At length "with beards like Jews," cold, wet, half-starved and miserable, they reached their destination. As they landed at Murray Bay they saw a salmon floundering in a net, bought it, and carried it with them to the house of a man named Chaperon where they had engaged lodgings. Here, says Dr. Henry, the sensation of being clean and comfortable in their host's "pleasant parlour" was delicious. The tea, the toast, the dainty prints of fresh butter were all exquisite "after rancid pork and garlic," and he declares that they ate for two hours and consumed "some half gallon of thick cream and half a bushel of new laid eggs." Under their window bloomed a rose bush in full flower. Murray Bay was at its best.
On Monday morning, July 5th, 1830, the two fishermen engaged a calèche, and a boy named Louis Panet drove them up the Murray River. The present village church was already standing, "a respectable church," says Dr. Henry, "with its long roof and glittering spire and a tall elm or two"; the elms, alas, have disappeared and now there are only willows. A wooden bridge crossed the Murray and its large abutments loaded with great boulders told of formidable spring floods sweeping down the valley. A recent "éboulement" or land slide had blocked the road along the river and men were still busy clearing away the rubbish. Eight or ten miles up the river at the fall known as the Chute, still a favourite spot for salmon fishing, they had magnificent sport. One Jean Gros, in a crazy canoe, took them to the best places for casting the fly. The first salmon weighed twenty-five pounds and they had to play it for three-quarters of an hour. That evening when they returned to M. Chaperon's, to feast once more, they had five salmon weighing in all one hundred and five pounds and forty-five sea trout averaging three pounds each. No wonder Gilchrist has said such fishing was worth a trip across the Atlantic! The blot on the day's enjoyment was that in the July weather they were pestered with flies.
Excellent sport continued from day to day. Once Jean Gros lost his hold of the pole by which he controlled the canoe and it drifted helplessly towards a rapid, Henry all the time playing a salmon. The man was alarmed and knelt to mumble prayers but Henry caught up a board thrown from the shore, gave him a whack with it on the back and shouted: "Ramez! Sacré! Ramez!" The effect was electrical. The old fellow seized the board, paddled with it like mad, steered down the rapid, and Henry finally landed his salmon. Day after day the two fishermen drove up to the Chute to fish until, after a fortnight, the river fell and the salmon ceased to rise; then they went down in a large boat to Rivière Noire, said never yet to have been fished with a rod, slept at night on the sandy beach, but had no luck. Henry tells of an annoyance at Malbaie that still continues; mongrel dogs ran after their calèche; sometimes one would try to seize the horse by the nose and nearly cause a run-away. Each cur pursued the vehicle and barked himself hoarse, and then, when he retired, his neighbour would take up the task. At length, after this experience had been frequently renewed, they decided to retaliate. One black shaggy beast had made himself specially obnoxious; with his thick wooly fur he did not mind in the least being struck by the whip. So one day Dr. Henry got ready the salmon gaff and, as the brute darted out at them, skilfully hooked him by the side. The driver whipped up his horse, which seemed to enjoy the punishment of his enemy, and the vehicle went tearing along the road, the dog yelling hideously as he was dragged by the hook. The people ran to the doors holding up their hands in astonishment. The Doctor soon shook off the dog and he trotted home little the worse. Next day when he saw the fisherman's calèche coming he limped into the house "as mute as a fish" with his tail between his legs.
Dr. Henry thought Murray Bay an earthly paradise. The people in this "secluded valley" were the most virtuous he had ever seen. Flagrant crime was unknown,—doors were never locked at night. There was no need of temperance reform; "whole families pass their lives without any individual ever having tasted intoxicating fluids." The devout people, he says, had social family worship, morning and evening; the families were huge, fifteen to twenty children being not uncommon; when a young couple married the relations united to build a house for them; and so on. Unfortunately we know from other sources that conditions were not as idyllic at Murray Bay as Dr. Henry describes; but it was, no doubt, a simple and virtuous community.