OUT OF THE WOODS--THE THOUSAND ISLANDS--CAPE VINCENT--BASS FISHING
HOME--A SEARCHER AFTER TRUTH--AN INTERRUPTION--FINIS.
We floated quietly down the Rackett, carrying our boats around the
falls, shooting like an arrow down the rapids, or gliding along under
the shadows of the gigantic forest trees that line the long, calm
reaches of that beautiful river. We shook hands and parted with our
boatmen at the pleasant village of Pottsdam, where we arrived the
second evening after leaving Tupper's Lake. We found our baggage, and
it was a pleasant thing to change our long beards for shaved faces,
and our forest costume for the garniture of the outer man after the
fashion of civilization. We took the cars for Ogdensburgh, and the
next morning found us steaming up the majestic St. Lawrence, towards
that paradise of fishermen, the Thousand Islands. We stopped a couple
of days at Alexandria Bay, and passed on to Cape Vincent, a beautiful
village situated a mile or two below where the river takes its
departure from the broad lake beyond. This pleasant little town is
built upon a wide sweep of tableland, overlooking the river in front,
and the open lake on the west. It is accessible both by the lake and
river, having two or three arrivals' and departures of steamboats each
way daily, and being the terminus of the Rome and Watertown Railroad,
the great thoroughfare between Kingston and the central portion of the
Tipper Provinces and the States. It is a delightful place in the hot
summer months, with a climate unequalled for healthfulness, a cool
breeze always fanning it from the water, and in the vicinity the best
bass fishing to be found on this continent.
Opposite, and just below the town, is Carlton Island, on which stand
the ruins of an old French fortification, the walls and trenches and
the solitary chimneys, from which the wooden barracks have rotted or
been burned away, remain as melancholy testimonials of the bloody
strifes between the red men of the forest, and the pioneers of
civilization who were driving them from the hunting grounds of
their fathers.
The black bass of the St. Lawrence and Ontario, are the "gamest" fish
that swim, and they are nowhere found in such abundance as in the
neighborhood of Cape Vincent. On the outer edge of the bar, near the
head of Carlton Island, we caught between seventy and eighty in one
afternoon, weighing from three to five pounds each, every one of which
fought like a hero, diving with a plunge for the bottom, skiving with
a rush down, across, or up the river; leaping clear from the water
and shaking his head furiously, to throw the hook loose from his jaw,
before surrendering to his fate. In Wilson's Bay, a sweet place, three
miles from the village by water, or one and a half by land, we caught
as many more on another afternoon. We took a sail-boat and glided
round Lighthouse Point (a pleasant drive of two miles from the
village), out into the lake, and steered for Grenadier Island, five
miles distant, on which we tented for the night, and the bass we
brought home the next day were something worth looking at. Near the
upper end of Long Island are other prolific bass shoals, where the
fisherman may enjoy himself. Indeed, he can scarcely go amiss in the
surrounding waters.
The black bass of the St. Lawrence are not only game fish, but are, in
excellence of flavor, scarcely excelled by any fish of this country.
Baked or boiled, they have few superiors, and as a pan fish, are
excelled only by the brook-trout of the streams. The season for taking
them commences in July; and continues through September. August is the
best month in the year for the bass fishermen. If, during that month,
he will supply himself with a strong bass-pole, a strong treble-action
reel, stout silk lines, and proper hooks, and visit Gape Vincent, he
will find boatmen with a supply of minnows, ready to serve him; and if
he fails to enjoy himself for a fortnight among the black bass of the
St Lawrence and Ontario, he may count himself as a man who is very
hard to please.
We spent a pleasant week at Cape Vincent, and then turned our faces
homeward, invigorated in strength and buoyant in spirits, to begin
again a round of toil, from which we, at least, could claim no further
exemption.
"H----," said a friend of mine, as he stalked into my sanctum, a few
days after my return, and seated himself at my elbow, as if for a
private and confidential talk, "did Smith really shoot the bear, the
skin of which he brought home, and which he exhibits with such
triumph. Tell me, honestly, as between you and me, did he in fact
shoot him?"
"Smith certainly did shoot that bear," I replied.
"But is the marvellous story he tells about the manner of killing him
really true?"
"That, of course, I cannot tell," I replied, "as I have never heard
the story."
"Why," said my friend, "he tells about a beautiful lake, lying away
back in the northern wilderness, above which Mount Marcy, and Mount
Seward, and other nameless peaks of the Adirondacks, rear their tall
heads to the clouds, throwing back the sunlight in a blaze of glory;
on which the moonbeams lie like a mantle of silver, while away down in
its fathomless depths the stars glow and sparkle, like the sheen of a
million of diamonds. Of the old forests and trees of fabulous growth,
stretching away and away on every hand, throwing their sombre shadows
far out over the water, in whose tangled recesses countless deer and
moose, and panthers, and bears range, and among whose branches birds
of unknown melody carol. That one side of this beautiful lake is
palisadoed by a wall of rocks, stand straight up sixty feet high, near
the top of which is a shelf or narrow pathway, along which two men can
scarcely walk abreast. That he was passing along this pathway one
afternoon, examining the rocks, and looking for geological specimens.
Below him was a precipice of fifty feet, against the base of which the
waves, when the winds swept over the lake, dashed. Around him the
birds that build their nests in the crevices of the rock were whirling
and screaming, while before him lay the beautiful lake, motionless and
calm, as if it had fallen asleep and was slumbering sweetly in its
forest bed. That he was passing leisurely along with his rifle at a
trail, admiring the transcendent loveliness of the scenery around him,
where the rugged and the sublime, the placid and the beautiful, were
so magnificently mingled, when, in turning a sharp angle, a huge bear"
"Copy!" shouted the printer's devil, as he came plunging down three
steps at a bound from the compositors' room above. "Copy!" he
screamed, as he dove into the outer office where that article was
usually kept, but found none.
"Mr. H.," said he, as he opened my door so gently, with a voice so
quiet, and a look so innocent, that one might well be excused for
believing that he had never spoken a loud word in his life, "Mr. H----,
the foreman desired me to ask you for some copy."
"You see, my friend," said I to the anxious inquirer after truth,
"that I am exceedingly busy just now. You will excuse me, therefore,
for referring you to the Doctor and Spalding, who know all about the
matter. Good day." And my friend departed without finishing the story
Smith told him about his killing the bear. I have never heard the
balance of that story yet.
And now, Reader, a word to you, and I have done. When the sun comes
up over the city, day after day, pouring his burning rays along the
glimmering streets, shining on and on in a changeless glare, till he
hides himself in the darkness again; when your strength wilts under the
enervating influences of the summer heats, and you pant for the forest
breezes and the "cooling streams," remember that the same wild region
I have been describing, the same pleasant rivers, beautiful lakes, tall
mountains, and primeval forests are there still, all inviting you to test
their recuperative agencies. The same singing birds, the fishes and the
game are there waiting your pleasure. Visit them when the summer heat
makes the cities a desolation. Give a month to the enjoyment of a
wilderness-life, and you will return to your labors invigorated in
strength, buoyant in spirit--a wiser, healthier, and a better man.
FINIS.