July 1. Our canoes and Indians arrived this morning about ten o'clock, and instead of being shepherds of the forest, with their blankets tied with yellow strings, they had no blankets at all, but wore coats and trowsers—yea, even boots, which I had always been told had no business in a canoe. There were four bark canoes and eight Mic-macs—one boat for each of us—and as we had a large amount of baggage and provisions, it was thought best to send off the canoes with these, while we went in wagons across a great bend of the river to the house of Mr. John Mowatt, the river overseer. We crossed the Matapediac in a dug-out: this is a tributary of the Restigouche, which comes in at Fraser's. On the other side we found wagons which took us to Mowatt's, seven miles over the hills, arriving at 4 p. m. The canoes arrived about sunset, having come twelve miles since noon against a strong current.
July 2. Starting in the morning at sunrise, the canoes took us six miles by seven o'clock, when we stopped in the woods for breakfast. The river has a very strong current, and from two to three miles an hour is all that can be done against it with setting-poles when there is a heavy load in the canoe. In places the water was too shallow even for a bark, and the men stepped over-board and lifted her along. The Restigouche is a beautiful river, with few islands or obstructions of any kind: the water is perfectly transparent, and very cold—the chosen haunt of the salmon. We see few houses or farms: rounded hills, from three to nine hundred feet high, border the stream, leaving only a narrow strip of beach, which is free from bushes or fallen trees. These are probably all swept away by the ice in the spring freshets. The hills somewhat resemble those on the Upper Mississippi, except that here there are none of those cliffs of yellow limestone which are remarkable on the great river of the West. About eight miles farther on we stopped for dinner near a cold brook, from which I took half a dozen trout. In the afternoon we proceeded five or six miles, and then camped for the night upon a rocky beach, and, though somewhat annoyed by the sand-flies, we slept well upon our beds of spruce boughs.
July 3. Broke camp at 5 a. m., and went up six miles to a place called Tom's Brook, where we breakfasted. Here I killed a dozen trout with the spoon. Six miles from Tom's Brook we came to the first salmon-pool, of which there were six in the portion of the river assigned to us—viz.: First, Big Cross Pool; second, Lower Indian-house Pool; third, Upper Indian-house Pool; fourth, Patapediac Pool, called by the Indians Paddypajaw; fifth, Red Bank Pool; sixth, Little Cross Pool. These pools are the places where the salmon rest in their journey from the sea to the headwaters of the river. They are usually in spots where there is a strong but not violent current, perhaps six or eight feet deep, running off to shoal water on one side of the river. The pools have been found by the Indians, who search for them by night with torches, which show the fish as they lie near the bottom, and they do not differ materially in appearance from other parts of the river where no salmon are to be found.
The salmon is what is called anadromous—that is, though an inhabitant of the ocean for most of the year, it ascends the fresh-water rivers in summer to spawn. In this function it is guided by curious instincts. The female deposits her eggs in swift shallow water at the heads of streams, in trenches dug by herself and the male fish in the gravelly bottom; but it must not be fresh gravel: it must have been exposed to the action of water for at least two years, or they will have none of it; and if a freshet should bring new gravel from the banks, they will abandon the place and seek for new spawning-grounds. It is only when the salmon are resting in these pools that they will take a fly.
The first pool was at a point where the river made a short turn around a large rock: the current was swift, with a hole at the foot of the rapid perhaps twenty feet deep, with a rock bottom. Here our leader, Kingfisher, rigged his salmon-rod, put on two flies and began to cast. I trolled in the swift water as we proceeded, and with my spoon took a few small trout. A salmon rose to the fly of Kingfisher, but was not hooked; this was the first fish that we saw. (The term "fish" is always applied to the salmon by anglers: other inhabitants of the water are spoken of as "trout" or "bass;" a salmon is a "fish.") Although we had seen none before, our keen-eyed Indians had seen many as we came up the river.
We then went on to the Lower Indian-house Pool, two miles farther, and Kingfisher made a few casts; but raising no fish, we went up a mile farther to our camping-ground, an island between the two pools, having plenty of wood upon it, with a cold spring brook close by—an old and famous camping-place for salmon-fishers—and here we intended to make our permanent quarters. We had four tents—one to sleep in, fitted with mosquito-bars; one for an eating-tent, with canvas top and sides of netting: in it was a rough table and two benches, hewed out with an axe by one of our men. There was also a tent for storing provisions and for the cook, for we had brought with us a man for this important office. A fourth tent for the Indians, and a cooking-stove with camp-chests and equipage, completed our outfit, which all belonged to Kingfisher, and represented the results of many years' experience in camping out. The cooking-stove is made of sheet iron and packs in a box, and is one of the most valuable utensils in the woods.
It took the rest of the day to make the camp, and in the evening Kingfisher and the Colonel went in their canoe to the lower pool, and the former killed two salmon, weighing eighteen and twenty-two pounds. These, our first fish, were objects of much interest to us new hands. The Colonel took his first lesson in salmon-fishing, and thought he could do it himself.
July 4. We proposed to celebrate this day by each of us killing a salmon, but I thought it would be prudent first to go out with Kingfisher and see how he did it, before attempting it myself. So I got into his canoe, and the Indians paddled us to Upper Pool, within sight of our camp but for a bend in the river. Kingfisher had the canoe anchored within casting distance of the channel, and there, as he sat in the bottom of the boat, he made his casts with a nineteen-foot rod, first about twenty-five feet, and rapidly letting out more line he increased the length of his casts to sixty feet perhaps, the big salmon-flies falling lightly on the water, first across the channel to the right; then letting the current take the flies down to the end of the line, he drew them round to the left in a circle; then raising them slowly from the water, he repeated the process, thus fishing over all the water within his reach. Now the Indians raise the anchor and let the canoe drop down a few feet. At the first cast after this change of ground a bulge in the water showed where a salmon had risen at the fly and missed it. "We will rest him for five minutes," said Kingfisher, and lighted his pipe for a smoke. Then he changed his fly for a larger and more brilliant one, and at the first cast a big fish rolled over at the fly and went off with a rush, making the reel whiz.
"I've got him," said Kingfisher, calmly putting up his pipe and bringing his rod to a nearly perpendicular position, which threw a great strain on the mouth of the salmon from the spring of the rod. He ran about twenty-five yards, and then leaped six feet into the air. Kingfisher dropped the point of his rod as the fish leaped, and then raised it as the salmon went away with twenty yards more of line.
"Up anchor, Hughey: we must follow him." So they plied their paddles after the salmon, who was making down stream, Kingfisher reeling up his line as fast as possible. Up went the salmon again, striking at the line with his tail as he came down; but this trick failed, and he then sulked, by diving into the depths of the river and remaining there motionless for half an hour. Suddenly he rose and made for the heavy current, from which Kingfisher tried to steer him into the still water near the shore, where it was about three feet deep, and where he could be played with more safety. After about forty minutes' play the fish was coaxed alongside the canoe, evidently tired out and having lost his force and fury, when Hughey struck the gaff into him near the tail, and lifted him into the canoe, where he struggled very little, so nearly beaten was he.