In the year 1858 the colonial government resumed possession of all the salmon and sea-trout fisheries in Lower Canada, and after the enactment of a protective law offered them for lease by public tender. A list is given of sixty-seven salmon rivers which flow into the St. Lawrence and the Saguenay, and of nine which flow into the Bay of Chaleur. There are also tributaries of these, making over one hundred rivers which by this time contain salmon, and many of them in great abundance. Licenses are granted by the government for rod-fishing in these rivers on payment of sums ranging from one hundred to five hundred dollars the season for a river, according to its size, accessibility, etc. These rivers are generally taken by parties of anglers, but of late I learn that licenses for single rods have been granted, so that all may be accommodated. Applications for a river or part of one can be made to Mr. William F. Whitcher of Ottawa, who is at the head of the Fisheries Department. Our party of four persons had obtained, through the courtesy of Messrs. Brydges and Fleming of the Intercolonial Railway of Canada, the upper part of the Restigouche, a river flowing into the Bay of Chaleur, and one of the best in the Dominion. Three of us had never killed a salmon, though we were familiar with other kinds of fishing. We had, however, for teacher one who for fifty years had been a salmon-fisher—first as a boy in Ireland, and since that for many years in Canada, in most of whose rivers he had killed salmon. As an angler he was a thorough artist, as a woodsman he was an expert, and as a companion he was most agreeable. Among the Indians, who have the habit of naming every person from some personal trait, he was known as "the Kingfisher," and by that name I shall call him. The second of our party, who procured the right of fishing the Restigouche, and made up the party, I shall call Rodman, which suits him both as fisherman and in his professional character of engineer. The third, being a tall man of rather military aspect, we knew as "the Colonel;" and the fourth, who writes this narrative, shall be called "the Scribe."
Behold us, then, at Quebec in the last week of June, making our preparations—laying in stores for camping out, and buying fishing-tackle, which for this kind of sport is best procured in Canada. On the 25th of June our thirty-one packages were on board the steamer Miramichi, piled on the upper deck, with many more of the same appearance—tents, buffalo robes, camp-chests, salmon-rods and gaff-handles—belonging to other parties bound on the same errand as ourselves. Three were British officers going to the Upsalquitch, men of the long-whiskered, Dundreary type, who soon let us know with many haw-haws that they had fished in Norway, and had killed salmon on the estate of my Lord Knowswho in Scotland, while guests of that nobleman. There were two Londoners in full suits of tweed, with Glengarry bonnets, who were bound to the Cascapediac: they tried to imitate the bearing of the military men; and why not? As Thackeray says, "Am I not a snob and a brother?" There was a party of Americans on their way to a Gaspé river—veteran anglers, who had frequented these rivers for some years. The rest of the company was made up of Canadians from Montreal and Quebec, many of them pleasure-seekers—stout elderly men, with equally full-fed, comfortable-looking wives, and rosy-faced daughters with straight, slender figures, by and by to emulate the rounded proportions of their mammas. The young men were mostly equipped with white canvas shoes and veils twisted round their hats—for what purpose I have not been able to discover, but it seems to be the correct thing for the Canadian tourist.
Four hundred and fifty miles from Quebec we reach the entrance of Gaspé Bay, at the head of which fine sheet of water, in a landlocked harbor, stands the town of Gaspé, distinguished as the place where Jacques Cartier landed in 1534. It is now a great fishing-station, employing thousands of men along the coast in the cod-fishery. Here are fine scenery, clear bracing air, good sea-bathing, excellent salmon- and trout-fishing and a comfortable hotel. What more can a well-regulated mind desire? Into Gaspé Bay flow the Dartmouth, the York and the St. John—good salmon-rivers, while both they and the smaller streams abound with sea-trout and brook-trout. Thirty miles south of Gaspé is the little town of Perce, also a fishing-station. Near this stands a rock of red sandstone, five hundred feet long and three hundred high, with an open arch leading through it, under which a boat can pass. It stands a mile from the shore in deep water, and its top affords a secure breeding-place for hundreds of sea-fowl.
South of Gaspé Bay we pass the mouths of the Bonaventure and the Grand and Little Cascapediac—rivers well stocked with salmon—and reach Dalhousie on the Bay of Chaleur about midnight on the 28th. We land in a small boat in the darkness, and soon find ourselves at the comfortable tavern of William Murphy, where we breakfast the next morning on salmon-trout and wild strawberries. The town contains about six hundred inhabitants, and has a pleasant seat along the bay. Its principal industry seems to be lumber, or deals, which mean three-inch plank, in which shape most of the pine and spruce exported from the Dominion find their way to England. Here they also put up salmon and lobsters for the American market—America meaning the United States. Two steamers touch here weekly, and there is a daily mail and telegraphic communication with the outside world. A few tourists, mostly from Montreal and Quebec, fill two or three small boarding-houses.
The next morning we started in wagons for Matapedia, thirty miles up the river, where we expected to secure canoes and Indians for our trip to the upper waters of the Restigouche. Our road was good, following a terrace about fifty feet above the river, which here is about a mile in width, and flows placidly through a wide valley, with high hills on both sides covered with a growth of spruce and cedar. Fifteen miles above Dalhousie, at the head of navigation for large vessels, lies the village of Campbellton. Here the character of the river changes: it becomes more narrow and rapid, the hills come down closer to the shore, and it assumes the features of a true salmon-river. It was formerly one of the most famous in the provinces, and the late Robert Christie, for many years member for Gaspé, used to take two thousand tierces of salmon annually from the Restigouche.
Here we fall in with the Intercolonial Railway, which has its western terminus at Rivière du Loup, below Quebec, and its eastern at Halifax. The line is to cross the river at Matapedia on an iron bridge, and follow down the valley. About 1 p. m. we crossed the ferry in a row-boat, just below Fraser's hotel. The river is deep, swift and very clear, with a rocky bank, from which they are getting out stone for the abutments of the bridge. This bridge, and another similar one where the line crosses the Miramichi, are building at Phoenixville, Pennsylvania, and we saw at Campbellton a large bark discharging her cargo, consisting of the bridge-work ready to set up.
We arrived at Fraser's in time to partake of a fine boiled salmon, and we observe a constant improvement in this fish. Those in Montreal were better than those in the States; those in Quebec still better; those we ate on board the Gulf steamer a shade finer still. At Dalbousie we thought that salmon had reached perfection, but were undeceived by those upon Fraser's table, which far surpassed all that we had yet tasted in succulence and flavor.
We had hoped to go up the river on the morrow, Saturday, but found it was a great festival of the Catholic Church, and the Indians would not start till Monday. Great was the indignation of the British officers who were preparing to go up the other river. To be delayed by the religious scruples of an Indian was too absurd. But even the "superior race" had to submit. So the next day we all went down the river trout-fishing.
I went about two miles to the "flat lands," and fished some pretty pools and rapids: the day was very bright and hot, so that I thought the trout would not rise to a fly, and I put on a small spoon, which I dropped into the rapids at the end of a long rod. After catching three or four they grew suspicious, and I changed my lure for an artificial minnow, and with it I had better success, though I have often tried it in Western trout-streams ineffectually. I got about a dozen, from four ounces to a pound weight: they were sea-trout, Salmo Canadensis, and the first of that species that I ever saw. They are handsome and active fish, lighter in color than the brook-trout, with silvery sides and belly. The flesh is red like a salmon, and is of higher flavor, I think, than that of Salmo fontinalis. My companions, Rodman and Kingfisher, both used the fly, and got, I think, more fish than I did.
The next day, June 30th, was Sunday, and the law of the Dominion prohibits fishing on that day. The weather was intensely hot, and we stayed in the house and enjoyed the fine scenery all about us. At night a heavy thunder-storm cooled the air for our next day's journey.