In time its isolation was to disappear before invaders like Dr. Henry, in pursuit of pleasure. So gradual was the change that we hardly know when it came. By 1850 there was a little summer colony mostly from Quebec and Montreal. Soon a few came from points more distant. As means of transport on the St. Lawrence improved a great many travellers passed Murray Bay on their way to the Saguenay. Tadousac, at its mouth, was already well known and an occasional stray visitor stopped off at Murray Bay to see what it was like. The accommodation offered was rude enough, no doubt, but perhaps less rude than one might suppose. At Pointe au Pic stood a substantial stone house. This was turned into a hotel and known some fifty years ago as Duberger's house. There were besides a few other houses for summer visitors. Thus, long ago, was there tolerable comfort at Murray Bay. In any case visitors soon found that the place had abundant compensations even for discomfort. They came and came again. Friends came to visit them and they too learned to love the spot. Some Americans from New York chanced to find it out and others of their countrymen followed; by 1885 already well established was the now dominant American colony.
The influx has limited and restricted but has not destroyed the old diversion of fishing. There are still many hundreds of lakes in the neighbourhood on which no fisherman has ever yet cast a fly. But nearly all the good spots within easy range are now leased or owned by private persons and clubs; no longer may the transient tourist fish almost where he pleases. All the better for this restriction is the quality of the fishing. What magnificent sport there is in some of those tiny lakes on the mountain side and what glorious views as one drives thither! To reach Lac à Comporté, for instance, one crosses the brawling Murray, drives up its left bank for a mile or so and then heads straight up the mountain side. Turning back one can see the silver gleam of the small river winding through its narrow valley until lost in the enveloping mountains. From points still higher one looks northwestward upon the mountain crests worn round ages ago, some of them probably never yet trodden by the foot of man. Most are wooded to the top but there are bare crags, a glowing purple sometimes in the afternoon light; but the prevailing tone is the deep, deep blue, the richest surely that nature can show anywhere. Along the road where we are driving stretch the houses of the habitants and sometimes, to survey the passing strangers, the whole family stands on the rude door-step. They rarely fail in a courteous greeting, with a touch still of the manners of France.
Two or three days spent on one of these wild mountain lakes, such as Lac à Comporté, is as pleasant an experience as any one can have. The walk is beautiful from the last cottage where the vehicles are left and the two or three men are secured who shoulder the packs with the necessary provisions. At first the forest path is hewn broadly in a straight line but it soon narrows to a trail winding up the mountain side. The way is rough; one must clamber over occasional boulders and turn aside to avoid fallen trees. The white stems of birches are conspicuous in the forest thicket. After a stiff climb we have passed over the shoulder of the mountain; the path is now trending downward and at length through the arch of green over the pathway one catches the gleam of the lake. The pace quickens and in a few minutes we stand upon the shore of a lovely little sheet of water with a shore line perhaps three miles long, lying in the mountain hollow. Evening is near and, half an hour later, each fisherman is in a boat paddled softly by a habitant companion. In a thousand places the calm water is disturbed by the trout feeding busily; they often throw themselves quite clear of the water and, when the sport has well begun, at a single cast one occasionally takes a trout on each of his three flies. Before it is dark the whole circuit of the lake has been made and a goodly basket of trout is the result.
A camp at evening is always delightful. The tired fishermen lie by the cheery fire while the men prepare the evening meal, to consist chiefly of the trout just caught. They have the vivacity and readiness of their race: rough habitants though they are their courtesy is inborn, inalienable. After the meal is over silence often falls on the group of three or four by the fire. Every one is tired and at barely nine o'clock it is time for bed. Before each of the two or three small tents standing some distance apart by the water's edge the men have built a blazing fire which throws its light far out over the tiny lake. All round rise the mountains, now dark and sombre; a sharp wind is blowing and as one stands alone looking out over the water there comes a sense of chill; for a moment the mountain solitude seems remote, melancholy and friendless: with something like a shiver one turns to the cheerful fire before the tent. Here blankets are spread on sweet scented boughs of sapin; the bed is hard, but not too hard for a tired man and one quickly falls asleep.
Other fishing expeditions at Murray Bay take one farther afield and into more varied scenes. In its upper stretches, three thousand feet above the sea, the Murray River flows through a level country before it plunges into mountain fastnesses, almost impregnable in summer, for a long and troubled détour, to emerge at length into this last valley. To reach this flat upland one must drive through a beautiful mountain pass with great heights towering on either side of the winding roadway. In the upper river the fishing is still unsurpassed. Of small trout there are vast numbers, excellent for the table, but in the deep pools are also huge trout, ranging in weight from three to eight pounds. The surrounding country is open; there are only clumps of scrubby timber; and the plain is covered with deep moss readily beaten into a hard path upon which the foot treads silently. Here the bears come to feed upon the berries and the Canadians have called the plain prettily the "Jardin des Ours." Other sport than trout fishing there is. In season the caribou and the moose are abundant—but that is a sportsman's tale by itself.
Fishing and hunting are not the sole diversions. As long ago as in 1811, when young Captain Nairne came here fresh from Europe, the boating attracted him and he spent much time on the bay and the river. No doubt the young seigneur was soon skilful in the art of paddling a canoe. In those days there were real Indians and no other canoes than those of birch bark; now these have well-nigh disappeared and, indeed, few visitors at Murray Bay, use any kind of a canoe. The pastime is thought too dangerous for all but the initiated. Amid these mountains, winds rise quickly and beat up a sea, and it is well to keep near the shore. The rising tide sweeps like a mill race over the bar at the mouth of the bay and when one has passed out to the great river it is like being afloat on the open sea. On perfectly calm days we may go far out to be swept up with the tide; but it is both safer and pleasanter to glide along close to shore under the shadow of the cliffs, around sharp corners, dodging in and out among boulders submerged, or now being submerged, by the rising tide. The successive sandy beaches are each backed by high cliffs. The river is a shining, spangled, surface of light blue and white, reflecting the sky sprinkled with fleecy clouds. Here a chattering stream, the Petit Ruisseau, falls over white rocks to lose itself in the sand. Far ahead now one can see the Church of Ste. Irénée perched on a level table-land, two or three hundred feet above the river. Soon a dark green line on the high birch-clad shore marks the gorge by which the Grand Ruisseau flows to the St. Lawrence. At its mouth is a good place to land and make tea. The canoes are drawn up on a sandy beach under the shadow of cliffs, a medley of red and grey and brown. Near by, the Grand Ruisseau, a fair sized brook, babbles in its bed crowded with great boulders. A wild path, part of it including steps from rock to rock in the bed of the stream itself, leads to a lovely little cascade where, in white foam, the water falls into a deep dark pool. One hurries to visit it and then, with the evening shadows falling and the narrow gorge becoming sombre, it is wise to hasten back. As one steps out from the wooded path to the shore of the great river the scene is enchanting. The river's shining surface is perfectly smooth. Far across it is a dark-blue serried line of mountains. Houses, twenty miles distant, stand out white in the last light of the sun. From the tin-covered spire of a church far away, the flash of the rays comes back like the glow of fire. Standing in shadow we look out on a realm of light:
"As when the sun prepared for rest
Hath gained the precincts of the West,
Though his departing radiance fail
To illuminate the hollow vale,
A lingering light he fondly throws
On the fair hills, where first he rose."
The shore is strangely silent; one hears only the occasional puffing of the white whale or the sad cry of the loon.
A thrilling diversion is that of running the rapids in the Murray River. The canoe is sent up by charette and after luncheon it is a walk or drive of eight or nine miles up the river to the starting point—a deep, dark-brown pool, which soon narrows into a swift rapid, the worst in all the stretches to the river's mouth. Formerly a procession of half a dozen canoes would go through the rapid with light hearts, but, long ago, when the river was very high, a canoe upset here and one of its occupants was never seen alive again. As one paddles out into the pool and is drawn into the dark current moving silently and swiftly to the rapid the heart certainly beats a little faster. The water's surface is an inclined plane as it flows over the ledge of rock. Straight ahead the current breaks on a huge black rock in a cloud of white foam. One must sweep off to the right, with the great volume of the water, and need catch only a little spray in swinging safely past the danger point. Then, in the waves caused by the current, before the canoe is quite turned "head-on" a wave may curl over the bow and leave the occupants kneeling in half an inch of water. In such a case it is wise to land and empty the canoe. In the next rapid, a tangled maze, the water is shallow and skill is required to wind in and out among the rocks and find water enough to keep afloat. Then the canoe slips over a ledge with plenty of water and the only care is to curve sharply to the left with the current before it strikes the bank straight ahead. The whole trip down the river occupies two glorious hours. There are short stretches of smooth and deep water; then the river contracts and pours with impetuous swiftness down a rocky slope. Sometimes trees stand close to the river; then there are bare grey banks of clay; then smiling fields sloping gently up to the high land; at times the canoe is in shade, then in the flashing sunlight. The river grows milder as it nears its mouth but the excitement does not end until we float under the bridge at Malbaie village and lift the canoe over the boom fastened there to catch logs in their descent. To paddle home in calm water across the bay seems tame after dancing for two hours on that tossing current.