gamier the fish. It was here that the Doctor had
had an attack of sea-sickness. They were out in
the rapids, anchored, and the canoe was dancing
about in the current, when the Doctor suddenly
lost all interest in everything above his head, and
fastened his gaze upon the bottom of the river.
He heaved well, call it a sigh; now draw the veil.

Our camp was upon the solid rock, but when the
thunder-storm was abroad in the land, that rock
shook and trembled. We shall not soon forget
that, night of storm when our tent seemed a target
for the lightning. In the morning we found two
great pines rent and shivered by the electric bolts.



162 DAYS IN THE OPEN

The Indians have their own explanation of a
thunder-storm. The thunder is the noise made by
a giant bird as it beats its wings against its body;
the lightning is caused by the bird winking its
eye.

The story of those idyllic days would require a
volume for its telling, and the patience of the
reader is probably exhausted long ere this. There
came an evening when Joe placed a dish before us
and announced, " All potatoes." To be sure they
were all potatoes. Did he imagine that we would
take them for billiard balls? But there is a
deeper significance in his words. After a wild
struggle with our language, he manages to say,
" Potatoes all gone." This is the beginning of the
end. A hasty examination of the larder shows
us that we have barely enough provisions to last
until we can reach civilization. It is the Business
Man's appetite that has undone us. He is not
large in stature, but he has developed an appetite
that would paralyze a boarding-house keeper. The
worst of it is that his appetite has gotten away
from him, and goes roaming around among the
victuals seeking what it may devour. Sadly we
pack up and turn our faces toward the south.
Word is brought in that Mary, the little daughter
of our head guide, is dead. We press hurriedly
on, through the sunshine and the beating storm,
and within twenty-four hours from the time when
the tidings reached us, our canoes are before the



CAMPING ON THE NEPIGON 163

little cabin and we watch the sorrowing father as
he enters his darkened home.

" Death comes down with reckless footsteps,
To the hall and hut."

Sitting on the hotel piazza, at Port Arthur, the
Preacher watched the steamer on which were the
Business Man and the Doctor, until it became a
speck on the horizon and vanished from sight. He
said in his heart, " Those are good men and true.
Dear friends before, they are still dearer after
the crucial test of camp life. God bless them
alway."



IN A

HOUSE-BOAT
ON THE
KOOTENAY




To stand within a gently gliding

boat
Urged by a noiseless paddle at the

stern,
Whipping the crystal mirror of the

fern
In fairy bays where water-lilies

float;
To hear your reel's whirr echoed

from the throat

Of a wild mocking bird . . .
This is to live the old days o'er
When nymph and dryad haunted

stream and glade,
To dream sweet happy dreams of

having strayed

To Arcady with all its golden lore.
CHARLES HENRY LUDERS,
Haunts of the Halcyon.





XIII
IN A HOUSE-BOAT ON THE KOOTENAY

LORIOUS Kootenay!" That's
what the folders call it, and if
any more intense adjective could
be found that too would be tacked
on. That Canadian Northwest
strains the English language tre-
mendously. " Magnificent," " splendid," " grand,"
" glorious," are worn to frazzles by constant use,
and were it possible to roll them all into one big
word, it would still be utterly inadequate to ex-
press the native's admiration for his country. The
chances are that the reader does not even know
where the Kootenay is, and, while we have a dis-
tinct aversion to playing the part of a guide-book,
we will go so far as to advise consultation of a good
map of British Columbia. Down in the south-
eastern corner you will find Kootenay Lake and
River, but the map does not reveal the rugged
167



168 DAYS IN THE OPEN

mountains, the wine-like air, the sparkling water,
the sunshine, the peace, the restfulness, the
TROUT that make the Kootenay one of God's
best gifts to man.

The confession may as well be made first as last
that we went to the Kootenay country for the
express purpose of fishing. This is no disparage-
ment to the people or to the scenery, for each
stands at the head of its class. But some philoso-
pher has said (or if he has not he ought to have
done so) : " Count that vacation wasted in which
you do no fishing." Wasting a vacation is sinful;
therefore we fish. Here in the Kootenay are trout
worthy of one's skill; heroes of many battles;
cunning and adroit veterans who know all the
tricks at the command of the enemy.

Just below the point where the Kootenay River
breaks out of the lake is the little hamlet of Proc-
tor. There is not much to the place but the hotel
and the name yes, and the trout. The river is
wide and deep, with swift current and numberless
counter-currents. Where the water rushes around
some rock or point of sand, where current struggles
with current and a great swirl grows out of the
conflict, there the rainbow-trout hold their town-
meetings. We attended some of them and tried
our uttermost to break them up. It was in a visit
to one of these gatherings that the Junior made
his bow to the inhabitants of the Kootenay waters.
Behold the young man (not quite four years old)



ON THE KOOTENAY 169

seated in the stern of the boat, rod firmly grasped,
determination in his eye, while his aged sire works
the oars. To and fro over the waters for a little
time, then the rod bends sharply back, and far be-
hind a quivering mass of colour springs into the air
and falls back with a mighty splash. " I've got
him!" cries the Junior, and "Hang on!" cries
the Senior. And he does hang on. Great boy,
that! He's as quiet and self-controlled as if only
purloining cookies out of the jar in the pantry.
It must be confessed that the fond father gave a
little aid in landing the victim, but what of that?
A noble two-pounder is lying in the bottom of
the boat, and if there is a prouder mortal in
the universe than that boy it is his venerable
father.

But it is the house-boat concerning which we set
out to write. Be it known that the Canadian
Pacific Railway Company maintains a finely fur-
nished house-boat on the Kootenay waters for such
visitors as may desire to realize the utmost of
human happiness. Can you see it in your mind's
eye? Sixty feet long by about twenty in width,
four staterooms with two berths each, servants'
quarters, kitchen, pantry, storerooms, toilets,
cabin. On the upper deck are chairs, and here,
under the shade of the awning, we rest after the
arduous labour of doing nothing. The house-
boat is towed to any point on river or lake which
you may select, and tied up to the shore. The



170 DAYS IN THE OPEN

steamer stops daily on its trips from Nelson to
Kootenay Landing to take your orders for pro-
visions or to bring supplies. A Chinaman does the
" house work," including alleged cooking. Do
you get the picture?

It was five o'clock on a Friday afternoon when
the tug and the house-boat picked us up at Proctor.
By " us " is meant the Preacher and his family,
together with the Doctor and his daughter. The
wind was blowing fresh from the south, and our
destination was twenty miles away. Once out of
the river where the wind could get a fair chance
at us, and that house-boat began to buck. Per-
haps you think there are no possibilities of a heavy
sea on an inland lake. If so, you will do well to
think again. Kootenay Lake is more than one
hundred miles long with an average width of
some five miles. Great mountains guard it on
either side, and up that long tunnel the wind
came with a whoop. The boat was lashed to the
windward side of the tug, and so was in position
to get the full benefit of any slap that the waves
thought best to give. We rose and fell and heaved
about. The hawsers were not absolutely taut,
and ever and again the boat would be knocked
against the tug with a jar that made everything
rattle. It was time for supper, and the potatoes
were on to boil and the tea-kettle was just begin-
ning to sing, when a huge wave lifted us up and
hurled us against the tug. Over went potatoes,



ON THE KOOTENAY 171

tea-kettle, kerosene can and everything else that
was not nailed down, while the dishes flew from
their resting-places and smashed to pieces on the
floor. Who cares? Certain members of the party
did not, at any rate, for they had lost all interest
in the food supply, and were in retirement. Huge
joke, to be sea-sick on a house-boat ! The captain
yells from the tug that we must abandon the
thought of making Midge Creek that night, and
heads for Pilot Bay, across the lake. Blessed
haven ! In a landlocked harbour anchor is dropped
and in a short time order is brought out of chaos,
and the discouraged members of the party regain
their appetites.

At four o'clock the next morning we are awak-
ened by the chugging of the tug. Day is just
breaking, and the lake is as smooth as the floor
of a bowling alley. Three hours later we are tied
up to a sandy beach on the west shore of the lake,
and vacation has really begun. Not a house is to
be seen except two or three in the distance on the
opposite shore. Ten rods away, to the north, a
mountain stream comes rushing down the canon
and goes billowing far out into the lake. At the
south end of the beach a giant mass of bare rock
lifts itself into the air, while the mountains are all
about us. Here and there a snowy peak looms
into the blue. The lake dimples and smiles under
a cloudless sky, and murmurs a gentle welcome as
it laps upon the gravelly beach. This is a beautiful



172 DAYS IN THE OPEN

world, and nowhere more beautiful than on the
shores of the Kootenay.

What about the fishing? In view of the dictum
recently rendered by certain inordinately good
people and recorded in one of our great religious
weeklies, that question is clearly out of order. It
has been decided by those who have no question as
to their infallibility that it is wicked to catch fish.
(Poor Peter! How thoroughly ashamed of him-
self he would be were he living in this day of
ethical enlightenment.) Let it be understood
before proceeding further, that our action has
historic precedent in the well-known case of the
boy and the woodchuck. We had to fish. We
were forty miles from the base of supplies. The
Doctor and the Junior and the girls and the head
of the house and the Chinaman and the Preacher
must eat or perish. As each and all manifested a
strong prejudice against perishing, some one must
fish. The Preacher offers himself as a hesitating
violator of that high-toned, transcendental morality
which places fishing among the mortal sins, and
the Doctor aids and abets him.

Just here listen to a word of advice : If you will
fish, provide yourself with a friend so unselfish that
he will joyously perjure himself by declaring that
he does not care anything about the sport and pre-
fers to row the boat. It is important to have good
tackle, carefully selected flies, a rod that will stand
strain and a line that runs freely; but the sine



ON THE KOOTENAY 173

qua non is a companion whose generosity is so
much greater than your own that he will insist
upon turning himself into a motor for your benefit.
Such a man is the Doctor. May all blessings rest
upon him ! Those golden hours on the Kootenay
were enriched by his companionship, and his un-
selfishness materially increased the Preacher's
score.

Now we are off. The trunks have been un-
packed, the " girls " are tidying up the boat, the
Junior is busy floating his ships from the shore,
and the row-boat, with the Doctor at the oars and
the Preacher waving his rod, is rounding the point
of rocks to the south. Repeated casts of the flies
find nothing doing. At last there is a swirl and a
tug. But what sort of a trout is it at the end of
the line? He pulls and plunges, but there is never
a jump nor any indication of a purpose to break
water. It is not much of a fight, anyhow, and the
net lifts in a fish the like of which neither Doctor
nor Preacher has ever seen before. Large head,
enormous mouth, brownish back and sides with
yellowish belly, he looks something like a salt water
ling. And that was the sum total of the morning's
catch. Not much slaughter of the innocents about
that ! We ventured to cook that unclassified
victim, and he was not bad as food for the starving.
Later on the Doctor learned from the hermit of
course we had a hermit that the stranger is called
a " squaw-fish," although it is said that the proper



DAYS IN THE OPEN

name is " squawk-fish," so called from the noise it
makes when caught.

Is this all that the far-famed Kootenay can
furnish? Must it be told to future generations
that two able-bodied men spent a half -day of
strenuous toil and only captured a plebeian squaw-
fish? Well, tell it if you must, but when you get
started keep right on and tell the whole story.
That afternoon we. deserted the calm water along
the shore and struck out for the tumbling billows
made by Midge Creek as it rushes into the lake.
Then and there the sport began. The trout were at
home and receiving callers. The gaudy " Parma-
chene Belle " had no sooner struck the water than
snap whizz jump splash landing net two-
pounder, and then it all began over again. We
had struck our gait.

What fishing! Did you ever catch a rainbow
trout? If not, you have yet to live. He is a com-
bination of gymnast and dynamo. When com-
munications have been established, he at once
begins a series of acrobatic performances which
leave no doubt as to his agility. The writer
counted twelve jumps made by one fish before he
was brought to net. These were not little dis-
turbances of the surface of the water, just enough
to give notice of his whereabouts but clean leaps.
How high? How would three feet do? If that's
too much, take off an inch. Especially fascinating
was the sport after sundown, when the dusk was



ON THE KOOTENAY 175

upon the face of the waters. Then, with a " white
miller " as lure, we circled the broken water,
knowing not where the fly lighted, but certain that
it would be seen and craved by some hungry trout.

But it was in the early morning that the most
wonderful phenomena were seen. The writer
pledges his word that if he had not been there he
would not believe it (the reader is not expected to
credit the statement), but the Preacher, on divers
and sundry occasions, left his berth before sunrise
and went out to fish. The grey is in the eastern
sky, and the lake motionless. Nothing breaks the
silence but the roar of the creek or the sharp chal-
lenge of a chipmunk. Rowing slowly along the
shore, the world seems as fresh as if newly born.
A tip-up teeters along the beach, a thrush sings
his morning hymn of praise among the trees on
the mountain side, and now the sun peeps over a
notch in the eastern hills. Did you ever see more
exquisite colouring than the brown of the moss
upon that rock, or the delicate shades of green in
that clump of trees? The fish are not early risers,
or, if they are up, have not found their appetites;
but what matters it? Here are peace and beauty;
God's good world at its best.

Just one little story about the big trout. It was
close by a face of rock that rose sheer from the
water for fifty feet or more, that we struck him.
Up and again up, in mighty leaps clear from the
water he flung himself. With great surges he



176 DAYS IN THE OPEN

carried out the line, and then allowed himself to
be coaxed gently toward the boat. When the
Preacher fancied that the fight was well over and
the great fish could be seen plainly but a few feet
from the boat, there was another rush, and this
straight down. There were one hundred and fifty
feet of line on the reel, and the old warrior took
out every inch of it. Where did he go ? To China
for aught the writer knows but he came back.
Slowly and reluctantly he yielded to the steady
strain, and at last lay in the bottom of the boat, a
dream of beauty. Three pounds and a quarter!
The biggest rainbow trout caught in the Kootenay
this summer; so the Nelson fishermen aver!
Hooray ! ! !

By this time, the members of the gentler sex
are saying, " It must have been deadly clull for
the ' girls.' ' Far from it. Ask the Preacheress,
and she will tell you that every moment of every
day was full of happiness. That you may have a
glimpse at some of the experiences which helped
to make the hours pass pleasantly, Irsten to the
tale of the chipmunks. The whole family looked
at us askance when we first tied up near their home.
Just a hurried scamper along the logs, and then
away they fled with a warning chatter. Two days
had not passed before they were eating crumbs
thrown out for them. On the third day their sus-
picions were so far allayed that they ate from the
hand of one of the party. After that, not a day



ON THE KOOTENAY 177

passed, and hardly an hour of daylight, but some
one could be seen holding out a crust at which a
chipmunk was gnawing away. They lost all fear
and would crawl over the knees and sometimes
up on the shoulders in search of rations. They
would allow us to stroke their heads and feel of
the cheek-pouches in which they stored away food,
without raising the slightest objections. When we
left they had come to seem like old friends. They
deserved better treatment at our hands than was
accorded them, and the writer's heart is filled with
self-reproach as he recalls the dastardly act with
which we closed our relations with these little
friends. We gave them Jimmie's pie! (Jimmie
was the Chinese cook.) Near the close of our
stay he manufactured the most wonderful and in
every way impossible pie ever achieved by human
ingenuity. One after another, every member of
the party attacked that combination, only to suffer
defeat. It was still intact when the time came to
leave. It would have had abiding interest as a
specimen, but there was danger that it might be
broken in transit, so we left it for those confiding
chipmunks. One thing is sure, if living, they must
be woefully discouraged.

Jimmie was a character. What he did not know
about the English language was equalled only by
his abysmal ignorance of cooking. Asked to bring
some breakfast-food for the Junior, he disappeared
kitchenward, and when, after a long absence, one



178 DAYS IN THE OPEN

of the party went in search of him, he was dis-
covered proudly bearing toward the table a
canteloupe. But Jimmie did his best, and that was
quite enough to satisfy the happy members of our
little family. He could boil potatoes well, and the
water that he brought from Midge Creek was
always first-class. Then, too, we had cooks of our
own.

" Time to stop," do I hear the weary reader say?
Very likely, but the half has not been told. You
should hear about the " hermit," with his long,
white hair and beard, his piercing eyes, his little
shack and garden and the romantic love-affair
which is said to have driven him into voluntary
exile. You have not heard of the hard tramp up
the canon, past almost innumerable cascades and
rapids, back and upwards until a pool is reached
where a great throng of mountain trout is
assembled. That marvellous rainbow which
followed the Sunday afternoon storm must be
ignored. The Junior's sand-wells, his fall from
the gang-plank resulting in a broken collar-bone,
the fracas with a colony of yellow-jackets, the
night of storm when we feared lest the cables
break and we go drifting at the mercy of wind
and waves but what's the use? You will never
know what you have missed through your insis-
tence that you've had enough. The writer had
intended to tell of the total depravity of those
trout, manifested on the Sundays of our stay with



ON THE KOOTENAY 179

them, as they gathered en masse at the stern of
the house-boat and dared the Preacher to cast a
fly. Perhaps it is just as well to stop right here,
for words cannot be found with which to describe
the ministerial struggle.



SKEGEMOG
POINT




Angling is an art, and an art
worth learning; the question is
whether you be capable of learning
it. For Angling is something like
Poetry, men are to be born so. I
mean with inclinations to it, though
both may be heightened by discourse
and practice. But he that hopes to
be a good Angler, must not only
bring an inquiring, searching, ob-
serving wit; but he must bring a
large measure of hope and patience,
and a love and propensity to the art
itself; but by having once got and
practised it, then doubt not but
Angling will prove to be so pleasant,
that it will prove to be like virtue,
a reward to itself. IZAAK WALTON,
The Complete Angler.





XIV
SKEGEMOG POINT

HAT'S that?"

The elect lady should have been
asleep instead of sitting up in bed,
an animated interrogation point,
for the hour was late and the ride
from Chicago that day had been
hot and dusty and fatiguing.

" What's what? " grunted the sleepy partner of
her joys.

" That noise. Don't you hear it ? It sounds like
a band playing in the distance."

When this suggestion finally penetrated the semi-
conscious mind of the husband, the absurdity of
the idea called forth certain emphatic if not con-
vincing negative arguments, all of which were
met with the puzzling query, " If it's not a band,
what is it?"

"That's what I'll soon find out," answered the
183



DAYS IN THE OPEN

skeptic, as he arose to begin a serious investigation.

The noise was unmistakable; faint but clear, and
from without. Approaching the window the noise
became more distinct, but the character of it
remained a mystery. Bands are not indigenous in
rural districts, and no large town was near. With
nose pressed against the window-screen in a vain
effort to see everything within a radius of five
miles, the explorer suddenly realized that the music
was right at hand, and the musicians, in countless
numbers, were separated from his face only by
the wire netting. Mosquitoes? Exactly, and their
name was legion. If night had suddenly turned to
day one could not have seen anything through that
window for the cloud of mosquitoes. New Jersey
may justly boast of the size and ferocity of her
mosquitoes, but for numbers Skegemog fears no
rival.

It is more than probable that some reader will
say to himself, " I wouldn't stay in such a place."
Well, we stayed, not because of the pests, but in
spite of them, and because they formed the only
drawback to one's enjoyment. The Lodge was on
a point of land with water on three sides, the
table was exceptionally satisfactory, the guests
were congenial and the black bass never failed to
respond promptly to our advances. What are a
few mosquitoes, more or less, when such para-
disaical conditions obtain?

To many people a bass is a bass, and that's all



SKEGEMOG POINT 185

there is to it. To be sure, they recognize the fact
that some bass are larger than others, but the
process of differentiation begins and ends with
the table of weights and measures. Skegemog bass
belong to the small-mouth family, and there is as
much difference between these and the big-mouth
variety as between a split-bamboo rod and a saw-
log. The small-mouth is the aristocrat of the bass
family. He is more dainty in his tastes, more
plucky, and has more brains than his brother of
the more generous facial opening.

And the small-mouth bass are not all alike. The
marked differences seen in children of the same
family are duplicated in the individuality shown
by fish belonging to the same species. The bass
whose home is in swift waters is a stronger, more
tireless fighter than his brother of the lake. Of
two bass living side by side in the same water, one
may be logy and lazy and indisposed to strenuous
exertion when hooked, while the other is brought
to net only after he has tried every dodge known
to fishdom and exhausted every atom of his
strength.

It was while fishing on the reef just west of
the Point that the invalid bass was taken. Each
fisherman has his favourite method of capturing
bass. One uses live frogs and casts close to the
edge of the rushes or weeds along shore. Another
trolls with many yards of line out, and a piece of
pork-rind or a minnow fastened to the spoon.



186 DAYS IN THE OPEN

Still a third anchors his boat and still-fishes with
live minnows. A fourth method, and one which
we prefer to any of the others, is to row slowly
over promising ground, letting the minnow sink
well down and keeping it constantly moving. It