proprietor did not quite realize the fact that the majority of the guests came for the fishing, and not for the food.
The lady who directed the establishment seemed to think the latter the more important.
The breakfast bell rang at 6 a.m., and breakfast was served from 6 to 8 a.m. Lunch or dinner from 12 to 2 p.m., and supper from 6 to 8 p.m.
Woe betide the guest who broke the rules of the house as regards the hours, for he was expected to lose his meal.
In those glorious autumn evenings when it was light up to 10 o'clock, the manageress forgot that a keen fisherman might stay out till 9 or even 10, if the fish were taking.
Dinner he could not expect, but a cold supper, if ordered beforehand, might have been laid out in the dining-room. Nor could attendance be looked for; servants were few and overworked, and it was but natural they should like to go to bed at 10 o'clock, or be free to wander in the woods or along the foreshore with the special young man of the moment.
By making love to the manageress and the Chinese cook, I generally succeeded in finding something to eat if I was late, but I often had to forage for myself in the kitchen, and on one occasion came back to find a plate of very indifferent sandwiches laid out for supper.
Morning tea in one's bedroom was prohibited. I should therefore advise any one addicted to the habit of early morning tea, to provide himself with a "Thermos" bottle, and fill it overnight—besides which, if very enthusiastic, a start might sometimes be made at 4 a.m., when a cup of hot tea and a biscuit make all the difference to one's feelings of comfort.
The hotel was a strange mixture of civilization and discomfort.
We had written menus of which I give a specimen below, but I had to grease my own boots and wash my own clothes, until I found an Indian squaw in the adjoining village who for an exorbitant charge relieved me of my washing, though I greased my boots till the end of my stay.
THE WILLOWS HOTEL.
Menu. Dinner.
Soup. Purée of Split Pea. Fish. Baked Salmon (Spanish). Boiled Cod. Lobster Sauce. Entrées. Beef Hot Pot. Pig's Head à la Printanière. Macaroni au Gratin. Boiled. Boiled Ox Tongue. Kipper Sauce. Boiled Ham. Roast. Roast Beef. Horse-radish. Roast Pork. Apple Sauce. Roast Mutton. Jelly. Salad. Sliced Beets. Fish Salad. Vegetables. Boiled Mashed Potatoes. Green Peas. Dessert. Snow Pudding. Peach Pie. Apple Pie. Stewed Rhubarb.
The drawback to the hotel was the logging camp in the neighbourhood.
The bar of the hotel was about fifty yards from the hotel itself, in a separate building, and on Saturday night many of the loggers came dropping in to waste the earnings of the week. Drunkenness on these occasions was far too common, and till the small hours of the morning the sound of revelry from the bar was not conducive to a good night's rest.
Some of the characters who frequented the bar were weird in the extreme, and when fairly "full"—as the local expression was—the hotel was not inviolate to them. One who particularly interested me might have been taken out of one of Fenimore Cooper's novels. My acquaintance with him was made on the hotel verandah. With a friendly feeling born of much whisky, he placed his arm on my shoulder, and assured me that although if he had his rights he would be a Lord, he did not disdain the acquaintanceship of a commoner like myself; in fact, that he had seldom seen a man to whom he had taken such a fancy, or with whom he would more willingly tramp the woods, if I would only give him the pleasure of my company in his trapper's hut some few miles inland. His suggestion that our friendship should be cemented by an adjournment to the bar did not meet with the ready acceptance he expected, which evidently disappointed him, for he could not grasp the fact that any one living could refuse a drink.
Poor "Lord B.," as he was called, was only his own enemy. As I always addressed him "My Lord," which he took quite seriously, we became quite pals.
A trapper and prospector by profession, he had a fair education, and when sober was a shrewd man of the local world, which confined itself to prospecting for minerals and cruising timber claims.
Persistently drunk for two or three days at a time, he would suddenly sober down, put a pack on his back which few men could carry, and disappear into the woods to his lonely log cabin, only to return in a few days ready for a fresh spree. At least, this was his life while I stayed at the hotel, for in one month he appeared three times.
No doubt during the winter, when occupied with his traps, he could neither afford the time nor the money for an hotel visit.
He was wizened in appearance and lightly built, but as hard as nails. Dishevelled to look at when on the spree, as soon as it was all over he became a different character, appearing in neat, clean clothes, and full of reminiscences of backwoods life. He was always a subject of interest to me, and, poor fellow, like many others on the west coast, only his own enemy.
Another frequenter of the bar had been on the Variety stage in London, and his step-dancing when fairly primed with whisky was something to see and remember.
We were a pleasant party at the hotel. Some came only for the fishing, some en route for Alaska or elsewhere on the Mainland for the coming shooting season, others returning from sporting expeditions in far lands.
We had J. G. Millais, the well-known naturalist and author of the most charming book ever written on Newfoundland, bound for Alaska in search of record moose and caribou.
Colonel Atherton, who, starting from India, had recently crossed Central Asia and obtained some splendid trophies, the photographs of which made us all envious.
F. Grey Griswold from New York, of tarpon fame, come to try his luck with the tyee salmon, and good luck it was, which such a good sportsman deserved.
Mr. Daggett, an enthusiastic angler from Salt Lake City, who took plaster casts of his fish, and was apparently an old habitué of the hotel.
Powell and a young undergraduate friend Stern, also bound for Alaska, just starting on the glorious life of sport, with little experience—that was to come—but who with the tyee salmon were as good as any of us, and whose keenness spoke well for the future.
It was curious that in such a small community three of us, the Colonel, Millais and I, had fished in Iceland, and many interesting chats we had about the sport in that fascinating island.
As the sun went down, the boats began to come in, and all interest was concentrated on the beach, where the fish were brought to be weighed on the very inaccurate steelyard set up on a shaky tripod by the hotel proprietor.
Any one reading Sir Richard Musgrave's article in the Field, would be led to believe that the fishing was in the Campbell River itself.
Whatever it may have been in his time, the river is now practically useless from the fisherman's point of view. This is due to the logging camp in the vicinity, for the river for about a mile from its mouth is practically blocked with great rafts of enormous logs. The logs are discharged into the river with a roar and a crash, enough to frighten every fish out of the water; the rafts when formed are towed down to Vancouver.
The river no doubt was a fine one till the logging business was established, and it is possible that late in the autumn fish may run up to spawn—but during the entire month of August, I personally never saw a salmon of any kind in the
