Out from the station stretches a series of broad stone arches, carrying the tracks upon an elevated way that reminds one of London, to the outskirts of the city, and into the quaint French villages named by pious founders after some Ste. Rose, Ste. Therése, or St. Phillipe, or other revered personages of the olden times.
We go to sleep, and do not know when Ottawa, Canada’s pleasant capital and lumber market, is passed at midnight. We are oblivious to this and all the world besides until a cheery call of “Breakfast-time, sir!” rouses our energies, and we peep out of our window to find ourselves rushing through a dense green forest, still glistening with the night’s dew. Then the breadth of Lake Nipissing opens like a plain of azure amid the green woods, and we halt at North Bay, where a road from Niagara Falls and Toronto terminates and makes a junction with ours. We step out and take a run up and down the long platform. The sunlight seems unusually bright and clear, the breeze from the lake is “nipping and eager”—everything and everybody has an air of alertness and glee which is inspiriting. We have slept well—we are wide awake; this balsamic odor of the woods is appetizing—we are hungry. The dining-car is therefore doubly inviting. Its furnishing is in elegant taste; its linen white as the breaking of the lake-waves; its silver glitters in the sunlight; on every table is a bouquet of wild flowers, masking a basket of fruit. There are tables for two and tables for four. One of the latter holds a family party—father, mother and two young ladies, Vassar girls, perhaps. We seat ourselves opposite, and as the train moves smoothly on, eat and talk with a gusto forgotten since last summer’s outing.
Our vis-à-vis at table proves to be an official of the company, who knows the whole line, as he says, “like the book.” He is going clear through to attend to matters on the western coast. This is great luck, for he seems quite as willing to answer our eager questions as we are to ask them. He is intensely interested in this great achievement, as is everybody connected with it, and wants us to become equally enthusiastic.
“This ought to be a good region for fishing,” we suggest, looking out upon the beautiful lake whose rocky shores we are skirting.
“Excellent,” the official agrees, as he quarters his orange. “Lake Nipissing abounds in big fish, and so does French River, its outlet into Lake Huron. I have had capital sport at the end of the steamboat pier at North Bay, ‘whipping’ with a rod and spoon for pike, bass, pickerel, whitefish, etc. Sometimes muskallonge weighing forty or fifty pounds are caught by trolling from a boat.”
“How about trout?”
“Well, if you’re bent upon trout, and don’t want to go up to the Jackfish or Nepigon River (which we shall cross to-morrow morning), your best plan is to go to Trout Lake and down to the Mattawan. Trout Lake lies four or five miles inland, behind those hills, where the scenery is exceedingly beautiful and the fishing practically untouched. In the lake itself are huge bass, pickerel and muskallonge. I know of one caught there by a lady, which weighed thirty-five pounds. Down to the lake, through tortuous, shady ravines, come cataract-rivers filled with untroubled trout. You can get a boat at a settler’s, or take your own and camp where you please, and fish in a new place every day all summer. Then from Trout Lake you can run a canoe down through a chain of lakes into the Mattawan River. Each of these lakes and streams has plenty of fish of several kinds, and charming camping places. The Mattawan carries you into the Ottawa, which you can descend in a boat—fishing all the way—to the St. Lawrence.”
“That’s an alluring story,” we say.
“It’s literally true; and in the fall and winter, sport with the gun is equally good. Moose, caribou, and deer are plentiful, and the town of Mattawan forms an excellent outfitting place for a shooting trip. Indian and white guides can be got who know the country, and the many lumberers’ roads and camps facilitate the sport. New Brunswick used to be the best place for that sport, but now this part of Canada is far more accessible and convenient.”
At noon we come to Sudbury, where extensive mines of copper and gold are worked, and a brisk village is growing up, with some farming and a great deal of lumbering in the neighborhood. Here branches off the new “Soo” route to St. Paul.