WHERE THE WATER RUNS BOTH WAYS
By Frederic Irland
Illustrations from Photographs by the Author
The greatest glory of Canada is not its modern progress, but its vast and ancient wilderness. If you weary of the sameness and unprofitableness of every thing you know, go where I went last year, to the upper waters of the Ottawa, where the beaver is the master architect and the moose is king of the woods. See for yourself, as I saw, that the Ottawa and the Gatineau, appearing to come from widely distant regions, have their origin close together and are twins. Behold these two children of the lakes, nourished from the same generous breast. Trace their courses, and see that, though journeying far, in widely different directions, they finally arrive at a common destination.
Nobody knows all about that head-water country around the sources of the Ottawa. It is a prolific game region, where sportsmen rarely go, for the simple reason that they can get all the hunting they want nearer to the railroad. There are plenty of deer close to almost any Canadian Pacific station west of Pembroke, and it is not much trouble to get a chance at a moose in two days from Deux Rivières, Rockliffe, or Mattawa. Not many hunting parties start from there either, and I suppose the reason is that for thousands of miles to the west the woods, prairies, and mountains lie close to the railroad and afford almost limitless opportunities.
The territory enclosed by the Ottawa and the Gatineau has been, from immemorial times, the home of the Algonquin Indians, and they still remain there, in such primitive innocence that they receive no annuity from the Dominion Government. In this they are unlike the Indians of the United States or their brother tribes of Canada.
The map which accompanies this article is reproduced from the latest Crown Land Office charts of the Upper Ottawa River. Hundreds of lakes, some of them many miles in extent, are unmarked, because they have never been surveyed. But a glance at the map will give some idea of the flood which is poured out at the feet of Canada's stately capital. As a canoeing country I believe the Ottawa valley to be unequalled anywhere in the world. The dotted line on the map shows the course of a lazy autumn trip which I took around the borders of the great interior island, formed by the streams which fall from a common birthplace in the Kakebonga region and reunite in front of the city of Ottawa.
The coureurs du bois of the old régime have passed away, but the song of their beloved wilderness is as sweet to-day as when they found it irresistible.
At Mattawa I procured the supplies which are necessary for a canoe trip in the woods, and the branch railroad took me to the shore of Lake Kippewa. Then a lumber company's steamer carried me to Hunter's Point, the farthest settlement, eighty-five miles north of Mattawa. From there it was all canoe and portage. Nowhere was there a carry more than a mile long, and generally the distance was only a few hundred yards from one lake to another, or around a rapid. The rivers form a continuous waterway, but we made many short cuts. In five hundred miles of canoeing there were, perhaps, twenty miles of carrying, all told.
Mr. Isaac Hunter, the postmaster at Hunter's Point, has his office in the front room of his house or else in his coat-pocket. He has a large, well-cleared farm, where his father lived before him, and he sells hay to the lumbermen at fifty dollars a ton. Plenty of people in the United States might well want to be in his place. Yet the farm he lives on has no legal status. It has never been surveyed, and the Crown Land Office has no official knowledge of it. So he pays no taxes and he never cast a vote in his life.