the Ottawa Rivers, on the other hand, was very enjoyable: “I never experienced a more delightful sensation than when running that rapid. There are no rocks or broken water, but the river runs like a mill race for half a mile or so. I can only liken the motion to tobogganing down a good slide, but the motion is much smoother.” A few days later they were back in Ottawa, after, he mused, a “long and eventful cruise, in which I trusted each learned some good from his fellow, and each gained three warm and hearty friends.”[13] The social aspect of this trip was largely left out of the account. Perhaps the author felt the problems they encountered made for a better story than the delights of comfort and comradeship around the campfire.
Neighbouring lakes and the Amable du Fond River attracted fishermen who were promised a wide variety of fish, including bass, pickerel, muskellunge, salmon trout, and perch.[14] After looking at railway guides for Maine and Canada, Charles G. Campbell and his friend Drake of New York chose to go trout fishing in the Mattawa area in the spring of 1904.[15] They were looking for a destination that was nearby, not too expensive to get to, and that would provide an extraordinary fishing experience. Their original intention was to canoe down the Amable du Fond River, but because logs were being run down the river when they got there, they were forced to choose an alternative destination. Instead, they went to Smith Lake, one of the mountain lakes north of the Mattawa, advertised for its trout fishing in the CPR guides. Proceeding along Smith Creek to get to the lake, they found considerable evidence of the fact that this creek had been used to run logs: an old log shelter hut they slept in the first night, a log cabin they stayed in the second night, and a long timber slide that followed the creek. The lumbermen had also built three dams on the creek. The slides were dry and could be used as a route through the woods, but they had to portage from the river to the third dam. They set up camp on the shores of the lake where they would spend the next few days fishing. Having two guides, they were free to fish and try to find a moose for the camera while the guides did the portaging, camp preparation, and cooking. They had little luck finding a moose, seeing only tracks, but they found the fishing much to their satisfaction, catching trout that were between one and two and a half pounds. This was trout fishing at its best, and as Campbell pointed out: “a one-pound brook trout in quick water is a mighty lively proposition and worth going the way to get.”[16] When they returned to the Ottawa River, they found that there were even more logs headed downstream, and rather than paddle back to Mattawa, they carefully, and with difficulty, battled a headwind to cross the river and go two miles upstream to Klock Mills, where they took the train to Mattawa. They parted with their guides as good friends and promised to return to fish the Amable du Fond. In his account, Campbell noted the lumbermen’s presence and the problems this created for them, but without complaint, emphasizing instead their delight with the trout fishing and their enjoyment of a few days of rugged outdoor living.
Unlike the voyageurs who had known every rapid and every portage of the Mattawa to North Bay route in intimate detail, the sportsmen who canoed this route for the first time experienced it as a novel adventure, one in which, they too, could overcome hardships. They took their encounters with the lumberman at work, and evidence of his recent presence in their stride, as one more challenge to deal with.
The French River District
As Algonquin Park and the Temagami Forest Reserve gained in popularity, the French River District maintained the distinction of being less well known, but all the more special because of that. It was the place to go for muskellunge, a fish that would test the sportsman to the fullest. Not only was the muskie crafty and capable of snagging your line on a sunken log, the river muskie was strong and had a “kick to the tail that would put a man’s eye out.”[17] Under titles such as “In Search of the Big One,” “A ’Lunge for a ’Lunge,” “A Big Maskinonge from the French River,” and “The ’Lunge of French River,”[18] sportsmen recounted the stories of their battles to outwit this fish, a fight that seldom lasted less than thirty minutes, and did not always end in success. “He who after a fair fight lands a big ’lunge has performed a feat that he will probably tell to his children’s children.”[19] A photograph to prove that this was not just a fish story was essential as well. Pike, pickerel, bass, and other game fish were enticing, but they did not have the cachet of the ’lunge.
To understand the sportman’s idea of a perfect getaway on the French River, one has only to read Matthew Hoover’s account of a fishing vacation by members of the Cataract Club of Niagara County, New York, as recounted in his book Wild Ginger.[20] Hoover describes an idyllic vacation in which several friends wander through the wilderness with the help of their trusty native guides, meeting interesting characters, such as the fire ranger Hayes, who had only his dog Nixie for company; observing wild life and fauna in its natural setting; fishing during the day; and relaxing around the campfire at night. To reach their camp, located north of the main channel of the French River about twelve miles from the Big Chaudière, they travelled via the Grand Trunk railway to North Bay, then by steamer to the French. The portage from the Upper to the Lower French was philosophically put down to “that which preserves the wilderness, and the sauce which heightens the enjoyment thereof.” Fishing for ’lunge was the highlight of their two-week vacation and Hoover happily reported that they caught twenty-four in that time. They fished with little concern for the quantity caught as any fish that was not eaten was donated to the natives who smoked them for winter use. With four canoes and guides, the party often explored different locations, enhancing their sense of being alone in the wilderness. They ate well. A shore lunch at “Delmonico’s rock” featured frog legs, fish, partridge, venison, bacon, potatoes, blueberries, raspberries, and coffee. At Cardinal or Blue Flag Lake they saw masses of these flowers in bloom. At Fivemile Rapids, the bass fishing below the second rapid was so excellent they called the spot the “Banquet Hall of the Fishes.” Their longest trip was a two-day excursion to the Masog-Masing, of interest as the home of the “great black-bodied, red-headed woodpecker [the pileated], who has no song, but a raucous cackle that can be heard a mile.” They saw forty-two deer and met a party of native people from the reserve along the way. Around the campfire at night the cook and the guides entertained them with stories of the north. Their woes were limited to the fish that got away. Theirs was the perfect vacation, the French a sportsman’s paradise.
Paul Haworth’s trip to the French was more challenging, although equally satisfying. This could be because ascending the French from Georgian Bay was more difficult, or because as a historian as well as a fiction writer he omitted fewer of the environmental details.[21] His companions, four professionals from Indiana, were known for the duration only as the Publisher, the Rare Book Man, the Dr. of Philosophy, and the Treasurer. Two guides and a cook completed the party as it travelled up the French in three rowboats. Logging activities impeded their progress; after the first rapid, they faced thousands of logs floating in the water from camps near Lake Nipissing. The guides had to reconnoitre by running along the loose logs — not difficult, but dangerous work. “For two days, trolling from time to time and catching many bass and pike, we battled against logs and current.” The difficulty of the trip, Haworth noted, “partly accounts for the fact that so few sportsmen visit these waters — unsurpassed though they are both for fishing and for natural beauty.” A forest fire had ravaged one section of the river, leaving behind “blasted trunks standing amidst the blackened stumps and prostrate bodies of comrades half consumed,” and his photograph of the Wolseley Bay area shows small second-growth trees along the shore. Despite this, he wrote: “We were passing through a primeval wilderness which changed but little in the three hundred years since Champlain, the Father of New France, passed through it.” Sightings of lynx, porcupine, deer, and loons supported his conclusion that wildlife was abundant.
This photograph of an excursion up the “Masog-Masing” by a party from Matt Hoover’s camp gives the sense that they are exploring unknown territory.
Matt Hoover, Wild Ginger, Wood Sorrel and Sweet Cicely (New York: Broadway Publishing, 1909), 227.
The search for ’lunge began in earnest at Récollet Falls. A morning spent trolling with
