The wrecks continue at Anticosti. Not long ago the shattered skeletons of four fine ocean steamers might have been seen upon its fatal shores, but with Gamache the reign of the wreckers ended, never to return.
A LUMBER CAMP.
There is no summer in a Canadian lumber camp; that is to say, there is nobody in the camp in summer, which amounts to the same thing. The season of activity in the camps, or the "shanties" as they are generally called, extends from late September to early April, and all summer long they are left to the care of birds that chirp and squirrels that chatter on the roof.
In the month of September the Canadian lumberman joins the gang of sturdy, active men who are bound for the "shanties," where a winter of hard work awaits them. For him the forests exist only to be remorselessly cut down; but though he may never stop to think about it, his is a very romantic and fascinating occupation.
September is one of the loveliest months in the Canadian calendar. The days are still long and sunny. The heat of summer has passed away, and the chill of autumn not yet come. One cloudless day follows another, and nature seems to be doing her best to make existence a delight. This is the time when the shantymen gather into gangs, and by rail or steamer journey northward until they pass the limits of settlement. Then taking to "shanks' mare" they make their way into the depths of the forest.
Let us follow a gang that is going upon a "limit" still untouched by the axe, far up the Black River, a tributary of the Ottawa, a hundred miles or more from the nearest village. This gang consists of about forty men, including the foremen, clerk, carpenter, cook, and chore-boy, all active, sturdy, and good-natured fellows. Most of them are French-Canadians—habitans, as the local term is—but English, Scotch, and Irish are found among them too, and quite often swarthy, wild-eyed men whose features tell plainly of Indian blood.
Scouts have previously selected the best site for the camp. It is usually in the midst of the "bunch" of timber to be cut, so that little time may be lost in going and coming. On arriving, the first thing done by the gang is to build the shanty, which is to be its home during the long, cold winter.
This edifice makes no pretence to architectural beauty, but nothing could be better adapted to its purpose. It is an illustration of simplicity and strength combined. With all hands helping heartily, a shanty forty feet long by twenty-eight feet wide can be put up in five days. Meantime the builders live in tents.
This is the way they go about it:—First of all, a number of trees are cut down. The trunks, cleared of all their branches, are sawed into proper lengths, and then laid one upon another until an enclosure with walls eight feet high is obtained. Upon the top of these walls strong girders are stretched, which are supported in the centre by four great pillars called "scoop-bearers."
Then comes the roof. A Canadian shanty roof is neither tiled nor shingled, but "scooped." What is a "scoop"? It is a piece of timber something like a very long railway tie, one side of which is hollowed out, trough-wise, clear to the ends. Place two of these side by side, with the concave sides upward, and then lay another on top of them, concave side down, so that the edges overlap and fall into the troughs, and you have a roof that will defy the heaviest rains or wildest snow-storms that Canada can produce.