Sault Saint Marie, August, 1846.
One more letter from this place, and I shall take my leave of Lake
Superior. Saint Mary was formerly a trading post of renown: it is now a
village of considerable business; and as the resources of the mineral
region are developed, will undoubtedly become a town of importance in a
commercial point of view; and the contemplated ship canal through this
place (which would allow a boat from Buffalo to discharge her freight or
passengers at Fon Du Lac) ought not to be delayed a single year. There
is a garrison at this point; the society is good, bad, and indifferent,
and in the summer season it is one of the busiest little places in the
country. But I intend this to be a piscatorial letter, and must
therefore change my tune.
The river Saint Mary, opposite this village, is about two miles wide,
and having found its way out of a deep bay of the ocean lake, it here
rushes over a ledge of rocks in great fury, and presents, for the
distance of nearly a mile, a perfect sheet of foam, and this spot is
called the Sault, signifying falls. The entire height of the fall is
about thirty feet, and after the waters have expressed in a murmuring
roar, their unwillingness to leave the bosom of Superior, they finally
hush themselves to sleep, and glide onward, as if in a dream, along the
picturesque shores of a lonely country, until they mingle with the
waters of Lake Huron.
The principal fish of this region are trout and white-fish, which are
among the finest varieties in the world, and are here found in their
greatest perfection. Of the trout, the largest species in Lake Superior
is called the lake trout, and they vary from ten to sixty pounds in
weight. Their flesh is precisely similar to that of the salmon in
appearance, and they are full as delicious as an article of food. The
Indians take them in immense quantities with the gill-net during the
spring and summer, where the water is one hundred feet deep; but in the
autumn, when the fish hover about the shores for the purpose of
spawning, the Indians catch them with the spear by torch-light. They
also have a mode of taking them in the winter through the ice. After
reaching the fishing ground, they cut a hole in the ice, over which they
erect a kind of wigwam, and in which they seat themselves for action.
They attach a piece of meat to a cord as bait, which they lower and pull
up for the purpose of attracting the trout, thereby alluring the
unsuspecting creature to the top of the hole, when they pick it out with
a spear. An Indian has been known to catch a thousand weight in one day,
in this novel manner. But as the ice on Lake Superior is seldom suffered
to become very thick on account of the frequent storms, it is often that
these solitary fishermen are borne away from the shore and perish in the
bosom of the deep.
My mode of fishing for lake trout, however, was with the hook. In
coasting along the lake in my canoe I sometimes threw out about two
hundred feet of line, to which was attached a stout hook and a piece of
pork, and I seldom tried this experiment for an hour without capturing a
fifteen or twenty pounder. At other times, when the lake was still, and
I was in the mood, I have paddled to where the water was fifty feet in
depth, and with a drop-line have taken, in twenty minutes, more trout
than I could eat in a fortnight, which I generally distributed among my
Indian companions.
A fish called ciscovet, is unquestionably of the trout genus, but much
more delicious and seldom found to weigh more than a dozen pounds. They
are a very beautiful fish, and at the present time are decidedly the
fattest I have ever seen. Their habits are similar to those of the
trout, and they are taken in the same manner.
But _the_ fish of this region, and of the world, is the common trout.
The five rivers which empty into Lake Superior on the north, and the
thirty streams which run from the south, all abound in this superb fish,
which vary from ten to forty ounces in weight. But the finest place for
this universal favorite, in the known world, is, without any doubt, the
Falls of Saint Mary. At this place they are in season throughout the
year, from which circumstance I am inclined to believe that there must
be several varieties, which closely resemble each other. At one time you
may fish all day and not capture a single specimen that will weigh over
a pound, and at another time you may take a boat-load of them which will
average from three to four pounds in weight. You may accuse me of
telling a large story when I speak of boat-loads of _trout_, but I do
assure you that such sights are of frequent occurrence at the Sault. My
favorite mode of trouting at this place has been to enter a canoe and
cast anchor at the foot of the rapids, where the water was ten or
fifteen feet deep, but owing to its marvellous clearness appeared to be
about three, and where the bed of the river or strait is completely
covered with snow-white rocks. I usually fished with a fly or artificial
minnow, and was never disappointed in catching a fine assortment
whenever I went out. My favorite spot was about midway between the
American and Canadian shores, and there have I spent whole days enjoying
the rarest of sport; now looking with wonder at the wall of foam between
me and the mighty lake; now gazing upon the dreamy-looking scenery on
either side and far below me; and anon peering into the clear water to
watch the movements of the trout as they darted from the shady side of
one rock to another, or leaped completely out of their native element to
seize the hovering fly. During all this time my spirit would be lulled
into a delightful peacefulness, by the solemn roar of the Sault. I have
taken trout in more than one half of the United States, but have never
seen a spot where they were so abundant as in this region, but I must
acknowledge that there are streams in New England and New-York where I
have thrown the fly with more intellectual enjoyment than in the river
Saint Mary.
But I must devote a paragraph to the white-fish of Lake Superior. They
are of the shad genus, and with regard to flavor are second only to
their salt water brethren. They are taken at all seasons of the year
with gill-nets and the seine in the deep waters of the lake; at this
point, however, the Indians catch them with a scoop-net, and in the
following manner. Two Indians jump into a canoe above the rapids, and
while one navigates it among the rocks and through the foaming waters,
the other stands on the look-out, and with the speed of lightning picks
out the innocent creatures while working their way up the stream
unconscious of all danger. This is a mode of fishing which requires
great courage, immense strength, and a steady nerve. A very slight
mistake on the part of the steersman, or a false movement of the
net-man, will cause the canoe to be swamped, when the inmates have to
struggle with the foam awhile until they reach the still water, when
they strike for the shore, there to be laughed at by their rude brethren
of the wilderness, while the passing stranger will wonder that any men
should attempt such dangerous sport. But accidents of this kind seldom
happen, and when they do the Indians anticipate no danger, from the fact
that they are all such expert swimmers. It took me three days to muster
sufficient courage to go down these rapids in a canoe with an Indian,
and though I performed the feat without being harmed, I was so
prodigiously frightened that I did not capture a single fish, though I
must have seen, within my reach, upwards of a thousand. The white-fish,
ciscovet, and lake trout have already become an article of export from
this region, and I believe the time is not far distant, when the
fisheries of Lake Superior will be considered as among the most
lucrative in the world.