The Fair Dominion: A Record of Canadian Impressions

by R. E. Vernède

Let me begin with Bill. Bill was our Indian guide. He was an Ojibway. Youthful, well built, reserved in manner, he paddled us on the average eight hours, cooked three meals, and set up or took down our tent in an incredibly short time every day. When either of us caught a fish, Bill laughed; when we did not, he stared into space. He laughed pretty often, for we caught quite a number of fish. It seemed unavoidable on the French River. Occasionally, in answer to questions, Bill spoke. He spoke English. Once or twice he spoke on his own account. I remember his saying that he preferred eggs to fish. I do not know how much Bill thought. Accustomed to connect such outward reserve and dignity as Bill showed with a philosophic mind, I fancied for quite a long time that Bill must think a great deal. I doubt it now. Those who have studied the Red Indian in his native haunts have discovered, I believe, that though his mind works in mysterious ways, it does work; but not quickly, or with superhuman gravity or discernment. As for that look of reserve—it indicates no more brain-work or brain-power than the look of reserve on the face of an alligator. When I read hereafter that the hero of a book has a reserved face and an imperturbable manner (he so very often has in the novels of ladies) I shall think of Bill, and be delighted. Bill was so soothing. So was the French River. It is worth an Englishman's while to know of it—worth his private as well as his Imperial while. American sportsmen seem to know it well. They come fishing up it in fair numbers earlier in the year, and they come shooting later—deer and partridge and cariboo. The partridge shooting is said to be some of the finest in Canada.

The French explorers also knew the French River, for it was by this route that they first found their way to Lake Huron when, by reason of Bill's ancestors being out on the war-path, seeking scalps, they found Lake Ontario impossible of crossing. In width it varies considerably. Sometimes it narrows to rapids, at others it broadens to over a mile across, and is divided into channels by steep islands. The scenery of it is as changeful as its channel. Now the banks are built in sheer stone, a hundred feet high; again they rise terrace by terrace, smooth as if men had made them; a little later they are nothing but a chaos of strewn rock. Sometimes the firs predominate, sometimes the birches, pale green still these latter, or yellowing in the fall. Then a splash of cherry colour or crimson shows a maple on its way to winter. There are reedy backwaters where great pike lie; and natural weirs, below which the rock bass wait for their food; the deep pools hold pickerel or catfish. Everywhere the air exhilarates, and along the wider reaches we used to meet a wind like a sea-wind that put the river in waves and set them tippling into the bows of the canoe.

For the most part we trolled, six or seven miles upstream from Pickerel landing, using an artificial minnow or feathered double spoon, which latter seemed to attract pike, bass, and pickerel, though the last, like the cat-fish, preferred a worm. However, it is a dull fish, the pickerel, hardly worth catching. Not so the cat-fish. A six-pounder of this variety can be very strenuous indeed, and the only drawback to it is, as an American we met remarked, you would have to shut your eyes before you could eat it. Certainly it is one of the most grotesque and hideous of freshwater fish, having four slimy tendrils growing from the sides of its mouth, with pig's eyes between. The bass is a fine eater. We got bass up to four pounds, and if it is not mean to mention such a matter in connection with so sporting a fish, you know that when you have landed one you have landed a glorious supper. Those suppers over the camp fire, which Bill could set roaring within three minutes—so much timber and touchwood lies everywhere—what would one not give to enjoy the like in England? In an artificial sort of way you can do so. Here one is in the wilds as they were from the beginning—except that the Indian is cooking for the white man instead of cooking the white man for fun.

What a delight it was, too, to go to bed on a couch of fir boughs, with the wind rustling through the birches, to the soothing sound of Bill, stretched at the foot of the tent, spitting gently into the night. It was a soothing sound, until I awoke one night to find that Bill had drawn the flap of the tent tight, but was still spitting—I do not know whither.

We spent four days on the French River, and our catch averaged over twelve pounds a day. It would have been much more if we had fished for every sort of fish and taken no photographs. As it was we took a good many photographs, and spent most of our time trying to lure the maskinongé. It is the king-fish of these waters—a sort of pike—but with the leaping powers of a salmon and the heart of a tiger. Bill used to madden us with tales of how the last party he had guided had landed twenty maskinongés in three days. We fished and fished, and then I, trolling with a spoon, hooked one. We saw him almost instantly take a great white leap into the sun, thirty yards from the canoe. Then Bill paddled gently for the nearest shore at which one could land him, and I played him the while with such care ... Oh, my maskinongé, never to be mine! I got him to the bank—a flat piece of rock with a kindly slope to the water. Perhaps he was not more than fifteen pounds in weight. Perhaps he was. Bill said not. But then Bill had not hooked him; and in fact it was Bill who lost him. Anyway, fifteen pounds is fifteen pounds, even if they do run to forty. Yes, it was Bill that lost him. I stick to that—though I admit that we had all been stupid enough to come out without a gaff. So it came about that, though I drew him ever so gingerly to the rock, yet—yet as Bill made a lunge at him to get him up—my maskinongé leaped once more—and broke the line!

There for a second he lay, all dazed and silvery, in the shallow water—then woke up and vanished, spoon and all!...

Bill vowed that the line was too weak; but what line would have stood it?

No matter—though I did not say 'no matter' at the time. Some day perhaps I shall go back to the French River. For fifty pounds a man could get there from England, spend three weeks in fishing, and return again to the old country—a five-weeks trip in all—and know, maybe, the best August and September of his life. Yes, I hope to go back and catch maskinongé, and listen once more to the wind in the birches, and go to sleep again to the sound of Bill spitting—for choice into the night.