MASKINONGÉ FISHING ON THE FRENCH RIVER
A friend, acquainted with Canada, met me in Toronto, and I told him I
was tired of cities and thought of going to the Muskoka Lakes.
'What do you expect to get there?' he asked.
'Scenery,' I said--'camping, fishing. A Fenimore Cooper existence in
the backwoods. Isn't it to be had there?'
'The scenery's all right,' he said, 'and you can camp out of course,
and there are some fish. But if you mean you want a quiet,
unconventional life----'
'I do for a few days,' I said.
'You'd better go further than the Muskoka district, then,' he said.
'It's beginning to be rather a fashionable camping-ground--quite
pleasant in its way. If you care to see charming American maidens in
expensive frocks falling out of canoes just on purpose to be able to
change into frocks still more expensive, the Muskoka country is the
place for you. If {93} not, you had better come with me and fish for
maskinongés on the French River.'
I did not know where the French River was or what maskinongés were,
or how you caught them; but I said 'Yes,' being very tired of cities,
and we took the night train from Toronto, and at 4.30 A.M. dropped
off it on to a bridge that spanned a deep, big river. The dawn was
exceedingly cold and grey.
Literally we dropped off the train, for it did not stop but only
slowed down, and after us the negro porter dropped our bags and
tackle. A minute later the train had vanished, and we were left
alone on the bridge, staring at the rocky, wooded cliffs that rose on
either bank. Rock, wood, and water indeed met the eye wherever one
looked. It seemed a country where Nature had once built mountains,
savage and sparsely wooded mountains in the midst of a great inland
sea, then in a cataclysmal mood had dashed them to pieces in every
direction. And as the boulders and splinters of boulders flew, some
fell in circles and made little lakes out of the great sea; some fell
in heaped cliffs and banks, between which the sea was squeezed into
winding, forking streams; some fell and sank and left the sea a
shallow swamp above them; some fell and stood up {94} out of the
water and became islands of dry rock. Every splinter that flew bore
in some crack of it a seed of spruce or fir or birch, which grew; so
that all this barren rock and waste of water became crowned with
trees. I dare say any geologist could explain exactly what did
happen. I am merely explaining what appears to have happened, when
you look at it the first time with eyes still full of sleep.
It was the French River at which we were gazing, and it looked at
this point somewhat wider than the Thames at Hammersmith. It was
flat and full with a good current; and my friend made some remark
about never having been given to understand, when he was at school in
England, that there was such a river at all--much less that it was
finer than the Thames.
'I doubt if one would find it marked on an English school map even
now,' he continued.
'I don't know, I'm sure,' I replied.
'Doesn't it show how disgracefully ignorant we are of Canada?' he
demanded in the hollow tones of an Imperial enthusiast.
'Yes,' I agreed. I daresay I should have agreed anyhow. It was
disgraceful that we neither of us had known anything about the {95}
French River. But the reason I agreed so quickly was that, if I had
not done so, he was capable of proving to me that such gross
ignorance, if persisted in, will some day prove fatal to the Empire.
Whereas I merely wanted breakfast. Any one who has been dropped off
a train at 4.30 on a misty morning in the sort of country I have
described will sympathise with me.
Luckily the dawn soon became a little less grey, and presently we
beheld a wooden shack standing on a crag some quarter of a mile up
stream, with a dozen canoes moored below it. Presently also--and
this was more to the point--some one in the shack became aware of us
standing on the bridge, and put out in an old boat fitted with a
motor to fetch us. An hour later we were enjoying breakfast inside
the shack, which is really a hotel of sorts, and its proprietor, Mr.
Fenton, was explaining to us all about the fishing to be had on the
French River. For five dollars--or nine for two persons, he would
supply us with a canoe, an Indian guide, a tent, provisions, and a
hundred miles or so of first-class fishing.
Now for the benefit of all benighted Englishmen who do not know the
French River or Mr. Fenton of Pickerel, but would like to make {96}
their acquaintance and that of the maskinongé, let me enlarge upon my
existence for the next few days.
Let me begin with Bill. Bill was our Indian guide. He was an
Ojibway. Youthful, well built, reserved in manner, he paddled us on
the average eight hours, cooked three meals, and set up or took down
our tent in an incredibly short time every day. When either of us
caught a fish, Bill laughed; when we did not, he stared into space.
He laughed pretty often, for we caught quite a number of fish. It
seemed unavoidable on the French River. Occasionally, in answer to
questions, Bill spoke. He spoke English. Once or twice he spoke on
his own account. I remember his saying that he preferred eggs to
fish. I do not know how much Bill thought. Accustomed to connect
such outward reserve and dignity as Bill showed with a philosophic
mind, I fancied for quite a long time that Bill must think a great
deal. I doubt it now. Those who have studied the Red Indian in his
native haunts have discovered, I believe, that though his mind works
in mysterious ways, it does work; but not quickly, or with superhuman
gravity or discernment. As for that look of reserve--it indicates no
more brain-work or {97} brain-power than the look of reserve on the
face of an alligator. When I read hereafter that the hero of a book
has a reserved face and an imperturbable manner (he so very often has
in the novels of ladies) I shall think of Bill, and be delighted.
Bill was so soothing. So was the French River. It is worth an
Englishman's while to know of it--worth his private as well as his
Imperial while. American sportsmen seem to know it well. They come
fishing up it in fair numbers earlier in the year, and they come
shooting later--deer and partridge and cariboo. The partridge
shooting is said to be some of the finest in Canada.
The French explorers also knew the French River, for it was by this
route that they first found their way to Lake Huron when, by reason
of Bill's ancestors being out on the war-path, seeking scalps, they
found Lake Ontario impossible of crossing. In width it varies
considerably. Sometimes it narrows to rapids, at others it broadens
to over a mile across, and is divided into channels by steep islands.
The scenery of it is as changeful as its channel. Now the banks are
built in sheer stone, a hundred feet high; again they rise terrace by
terrace, smooth as if men had made them; a little later they are
nothing but a {98} chaos of strewn rock. Sometimes the firs
predominate, sometimes the birches, pale green still these latter, or
yellowing in the fall. Then a splash of cherry colour or crimson
shows a maple on its way to winter. There are reedy backwaters where
great pike lie; and natural weirs, below which the rock bass wait for
their food; the deep pools hold pickerel or catfish. Everywhere the
air exhilarates, and along the wider reaches we used to meet a wind
like a sea-wind that put the river in waves and set them tippling
into the bows of the canoe.
For the most part we trolled, six or seven miles upstream from
Pickerel landing, using an artificial minnow or feathered double
spoon, which latter seemed to attract pike, bass, and pickerel,
though the last, like the cat-fish, preferred a worm. However, it is
a dull fish, the pickerel, hardly worth catching. Not so the
cat-fish. A six-pounder of this variety can be very strenuous
indeed, and the only drawback to it is, as an American we met
remarked, you would have to shut your eyes before you could eat it.
Certainly it is one of the most grotesque and hideous of freshwater
fish, having four slimy tendrils growing from the sides of its mouth,
with pig's eyes between. The bass is a fine eater. We got {99} bass
up to four pounds, and if it is not mean to mention such a matter in
connection with so sporting a fish, you know that when you have
landed one you have landed a glorious supper. Those suppers over the
camp fire, which Bill could set roaring within three minutes--so much
timber and touchwood lies everywhere--what would one not give to
enjoy the like in England? In an artificial sort of way you can do
so. Here one is in the wilds as they were from the beginning--except
that the Indian is cooking for the white man instead of cooking the
white man for fun.
What a delight it was, too, to go to bed on a couch of fir boughs,
with the wind rustling through the birches, to the soothing sound of
Bill, stretched at the foot of the tent, spitting gently into the
night. It was a soothing sound, until I awoke one night to find that
Bill had drawn the flap of the tent tight, but was still spitting--I
do not know whither.
We spent four days on the French River, and our catch averaged over
twelve pounds a day. It would have been much more if we had fished
for every sort of fish and taken no photographs. As it was we took a
good many photographs, and spent most of our time trying to lure the
maskinongé. It is {100} the king-fish of these waters--a sort of
pike--but with the leaping powers of a salmon and the heart of a
tiger. Bill used to madden us with tales of how the last party he
had guided had landed twenty maskinongés in three days. We fished
and fished, and then I, trolling with a spoon, hooked one. We saw
him almost instantly take a great white leap into the sun, thirty
yards from the canoe. Then Bill paddled gently for the nearest shore
at which one could land him, and I played him the while with such
care ... Oh, my maskinongé, never to be mine! I got him to the
bank--a flat piece of rock with a kindly slope to the water. Perhaps
he was not more than fifteen pounds in weight. Perhaps he was. Bill
said not. But then Bill had not hooked him; and in fact it was Bill
who lost him. Anyway, fifteen pounds is fifteen pounds, even if they
do run to forty. Yes, it was Bill that lost him. I stick to
that--though I admit that we had all been stupid enough to come out
without a gaff. So it came about that, though I drew him ever so
gingerly to the rock, yet--yet as Bill made a lunge at him to get him
up--my maskinongé leaped once more--and broke the line!
There for a second he lay, all dazed and {101} silvery, in the
shallow water--then woke up and vanished, spoon and all!...
Bill vowed that the line was too weak; but what line would have stood
it?
No matter--though I did not say 'no matter' at the time. Some day
perhaps I shall go back to the French River. For fifty pounds a man
could get there from England, spend three weeks in fishing, and
return again to the old country--a five-weeks trip in all--and know,
maybe, the best August and September of his life. Yes, I hope to go
back and catch maskinongé, and listen once more to the wind in the
birches, and go to sleep again to the sound of Bill spitting--for
choice into the night.
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