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Railways and Sportsmen

The Rise of the Sportsman

The mid- to late-nineteenth century saw a growing interest in nature and outdoor recreation from the middle and upper class population of the United States and Canada. Men in particular were drawn to sports such as fishing, hunting, and canoeing, which allowed them to reconnect with their masculinity. They joined together in clubs and associations and they read emerging sports magazines such as American Sportsman, Canadian Alpine Journal, Canadian Sportsman, Canadian Sportsman and Naturalist, Field and Stream, Forest and Stream, Outdoor Life, Outdoor Canada, Outing, and Rod and Gun in Canada, which catered specifically to their interests.[1] Filled with stories about hunting and fishing adventures in exciting wilderness areas, these magazines were an invitation to travel as well as entertainment. They featured advertisements for resorts and railways, and for sporting gear, such as canoes, tents, guns, fishing gear, and even Kodak cameras. Articles about big game hunting and sports fishing subtly incorporated advice on how to succeed at these sports. Photographs, graphics, and even poetry inspired the sportsman and supported the notion that hunting and fishing were “gentlemen’s” sports.

The guide was a crucial component of the sportsman’s paradise. It was his skills that assured the success of a fishing trip or hunt. This image of a guide calling moose is a good example of Reuben Sallow’s photography in northern Ontario. This is both a scenic image that was used as a postcard and a documentary one that informs us of the dress of the native guides and the type of canoes they used.

“Calling moose, French River,” photograph by Reuben Sallows, Image 0002-rrs-ogoh-ph, the Reuben R. Sallows Gallery.

The sportsman’s code dictated an interest in game fish that would put up a fight and that had a fair chance of getting away. The more skill that was required to catch such fish — the use of fly-casting, for example — the better. A crafty fish was much more appealing than one that was caught easily. The pike became a “fresh water wolf” — a worthy opponent. Large muskellunge were hard to find because they had become wary after years of experience. The French River was an excellent place to fish because it was here that “some of the most active and spirited members of this family of Essox” could be found:

They are full of the real old finny fighting spirit and there is a reason for this, of course. Through living a life, constantly facing the on-rush of water they have become possessed of a great vim and force: they have a kick to the tail that would put a man’s eye out; their fins it may safely be said are two times as strong as the fins of a lake musky.[2]

What better way to make a reader decide on the French for his next fishing trip?

The sportsman saw himself as both a lover of nature and a conservationist. The wilderness and the fish and wild game had to be protected, not from himself — as his sportsman’s code of conduct excluded him from the problem — but from excessive commercial or subsistence harvesting of fish and game.[3] “Elite sportsmen took aim at subsistence and market hunters, labeling them ‘game butchers,’ ‘fish pirates,’ and ‘pot hunters’ in contrast to the ‘gentleman’ who practiced a British-style sportsmanship.”[4] To that end, sportsmen fought for legislation that would protect fish and game. In Ontario, their campaign led to changes in the game laws of the late nineteenth century. Large game, always the most favoured by hunters, was beginning to disappear. “An indiscriminate slaughter of this noble animal [moose] has long threatened the total extinction of the race, and it is probable that the time is not far distant when the moose, like the buffalo, will be seen no more in Canada,” a government report noted.[5] More stringent game laws were instituted and wardens and deputy wardens appointed to enforce them. In 1893, the Game Protection Act (56 Vict. c. 49, O.) closed the season for moose until 1895, and in 1895 it was decided to extend the closed season to October 25, 1900 (Statute of Ontario 1895, c.56, s. I.). As their numbers increased, the ban was replaced by limits instead. Limits were also imposed on the number of deer that could be killed. The unrestricted use of dogs and the killing of deer in the water were of particular concern. The act of 1893 limited the number of deer to two, but dogs were still allowed. In 1896, it became prohibited to kill deer in the water or soon after they left the water (S.O. 1896, c. 68, s. I). A license was also required to transport deer out of the area. Despite these changes, some sportsmen felt that the regulations and the level of enforcement were not meeting their needs. Their chief complaints were directed at the lumbermen and the “Indians,” who, in their view, were killing too many animals.[6]

Of all the game fish sports fishermen were interested in, the prize was surely the muskellunge, shown here in a painting by F.V. Williams, used on the cover of Rod and Gun. Known for its size, strength, and fighting spirit, it was a worthy opponent, and there were many stories of those that got away. Here, Williams refers to it as a “fresh water wolf,” a term that by enhancing the reputation of the fish, also added to the prestige of the fishermen who caught it.

Courtesy of the University of Toronto Library. Used with permission of the Canadian Forestry Association.

The male-only hunting or fishing holiday was the norm but some women enjoyed outdoor life and participated in these activities as well. There was a considerable presence of women in early sporting magazines such as Forest and Stream. Smalley argues that the inclusion of women in hunting as a recreational sport was important to the campaign to turn hunting into a recreational activity and distinguish hunting by sportsmen from hunting by pot hunters and other non-sportsmen. “Outdoor magazines stressed the difference between [a] modern, reformed picture of hunting as a respectable avocation and an earlier view of hunting as a lower-class occupation.”[7] This in turn made it easier to argue for game preservation and the limiting of hunting to recreational hunters. Once their goals were achieved in the 1920s, she argues, women disappeared from the pages of magazines devoted to hunting. Although the Rod and Gun cover for December 1913 showed a woman hunting and ads for rifles sometimes showed men and women hunting together, women more often appeared in the pages of Rod and Gun in Canada with fish or their Kodak camera, or in a canoe, than with game.

Canoeists were growing in number in the late nineteenth century[8] and adult recreational canoeing in Canada reached its pre-1960 peak in the 1920s.[9] Modern canoeing, Kirk Monroe suggested in 1883, was a sport that could be enjoyed in a vigorous manner or more gently, by males and females. It was particularly suitable for those interested in observing and photographing nature, as they would have ample opportunity to do so.[10] Kodak would have agreed. Their ads appeared regularly in sports magazines and as one suggested: “The rod or the gun may be left out, but no nature lover omits a Kodak from his camp outfit.”[11] Canoeists formed canoe clubs and associations, held regattas,[12] and practised their skills close to home, but they also wanted to test their skills in wilderness areas and on rivers such as the Mattawa and the French. An important Canadian manual, which would help them to do so, was published in 1903.[13] Sports magazines responded by advertising canoe trips and maps for canoeists.

F.V. Williams’s artwork for the cover of Rod and Gun sometimes showed women fishing, but as in the image shown here, the fish were usually small. In this case, the image is static and fails to convey the sense that this woman was actively engaged in catching it.

Used with permission of the Royal Ontario Museum © ROM.

This Kodak ad from 1905 takes on hunting terminology but offers an alternative to shooting with a gun: “Hunt with a Kodak.”

Courtesy of the University of Toronto Library. Used with permission of Eastman Kodak Company.

The CPR advertised canoe trips in northern Ontario and Quebec in 1900. In 1907, it advertised summer trips in Eastern Georgian Bay and to the French or Mississauga Rivers as being adventures full of “canoeing, camping, shooting, sailing, motor boating, and all that makes summer outings enjoyable and healthful.” A facing ad announced that it would be opening its “famous new line to the Muskoka Lakes, Georgian Bay and French River,” that season and encouraged readers to inquire about information “for canoe trips, fishing, shooting and summer resort locations.”[14] Canoeists, hunters, and fishermen alike sought to renew themselves through a temporary escape from urban life and civilization, thus making their “anti-modern” holiday a modern phenomenon.[15] As suggested by C.H. Hooper:

It is not the big trips, the wonders of nature, the huge catches, that go to fill the cup of perfect happiness. It is rather the little things, so much more significant, the mere animal pleasures derived from physical exertion amid perfect surroundings, and the resulting satisfaction in having performed daily something difficult, something that required “sand”; the robust health, the tranquil sleep, the vigorous appetite, the nightly renewal of vitality generously expended by day, the gradual readjustment of the system to a natural and rational form of living, until, as Wordsworth puts it, “We recognize a grandeur in the beatings of the heart.” These are the true joys of the open air — these the prompt response of the primitive in us to the call of Mother Nature.[16]

This beautiful scene of the Upper Ottawa River by Frederick A. Verner is considered to be his best painting. It is truly an “imagined geography” in that it was painted in 1882, after he had moved to London, England. Verner had a keen interest in native people, but like many others of his generation, he believed they were destined to disappear. The aboriginal paddlers in this landscape appear in the distance and blend in with their surroundings. They are part of the wildness that drew many to the northland.

Frederick A. Verner, The Upper Ottawa, 1882, oil on canvas, 83.5x 152.3cm. Purchased 1958, National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa. Photo © National Gallery of Canada.

Concentrated in the large industrial cities of the Northeast and with bulky gear and trophies to transport, sportsmen soon became a target market for the railways. Canadian railway companies, already well-linked to the major eastern cities in the United States, were quick to realize that it was to their advantage to convince sportsmen to travel to Canada rather than to Maine or Michigan. It was not long before they began to advertise with the sportsmen in mind. Northern Ontario at the time was neither a “primeval forest” nor a “wilderness.” It was the home of aboriginals, white settlers, and lumbermen. Forest fires and clear-cutting practices had ravaged the landscape and sawdust from lumber mills threatened the fish habitat on Georgian Bay. Such an industrial landscape would have little appeal. Instead, the railway companies eagerly promoted northern Ontario as a pristine wilderness, a “sportsman’s paradise” with abundant fish and game. They were not alone. The landscape artists of the late nineteenth century, and the Group of Seven and Tom Thomson in the early twentieth century, almost always portrayed an empty landscape, devoid of human activity.[17] As a sportsman’s paradise, it could be enjoyed without the social aspects of the resort hotels, which were then popular:

They are not places to which to go, for display of fine clothes or many changes of raiment, to see dusty crowds hurry past in herds, measuring their pleasures by the mileage over which they rush, but they are places where within convenient and cheap distance of the great highways, exist high altitude and pure air, pretty scenes and mingled land and waterscape; where game laws are respected and fishing carefully preserved, as being the greatest source of attraction to the work-worn city man; where rest from the busy whirl can most surely be obtained; and whether it be under the canvas covering of the camp, or in the comfortable bed of an unpretentious hotel, the laden smell of the sighing pine and soft lappings of the little wave lets on the quiet shores will lull the weary brain to sound and unaccustomed sleep.[18]

Railways and Railway Guides

Before 1900

The first railway to reach the Lake Nipissing area was the CPR (Map 2). It followed the Ottawa River and passed through Mattawa. The new settlement of North Bay emerged where the railway reached Lake Nipissing, and was designated as a divisional point. Its arrival stimulated settlement and the population of the Nipissing area increased, particularly to the south of Lake Nipissing, west of Mattawa, and in the agricultural areas to the west of the lake. In 1894, a colonization branch line of the CPR opened to Temiskaming on the Quebec side of the Ottawa River. The second railway to arrive was the Northern Railway of Canada (NRC). Its line to Nipissing Junction, just south of North Bay, was completed in 1886. The Grand Trunk Railway purchased this line in 1888, thereby connecting the CPR’s main line directly to Toronto.

This painting of the Upper Ottawa, like most of the Group of Seven’s images of Georgian Bay and Algonquin Park, portrays a beautiful but empty landscape. There is no evidence of its occupants or their activities.

Frank Carmichael, The Upper Ottawa, near Mattawa, 1924, oil on canvas, 101.5x 123.1cm. Purchased 1936, National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa. Photo © National Gallery of Canada.

Under the direction of Frederick Cumberland,[19] the NRC emphasized local traffic, much of which was generated by the growing popularity of the Georgian Bay and Muskoka regions as summer resorts for Torontonians. As early as 1874, the Northern began to promote the highlands of Ontario as far north as Lake Nipissing as a sportsman’s paradise. An article in the new American sports magazine, Forest and Stream, noted that this region was unknown in the United States, despite it being “the most accessible, the cheapest, and most prolific in genuine sport, of any we have yet had occasion to visit or refer to.” The lakes and rivers of this area, the article continued:

… abound in three pound brook trout, salmon trout, black bass, and pickerel, [and] some of these localities [are] almost virgin in their primitive wilderness, and yet nearly all [are] accessible by railroad and steamboat, in forty-eight hours from New York, via Toronto and the Northern railroad of Canada. Chief among them are lakes Simcoe, Couchiching, Muskoka, Rosseau, Joseph, Nipissing ... and the Muskoka and Magnetewan rivers.[20]

Alexander Cockburn’s Muskoka and Nipissing Navigation Company operated steamships on the Muskoka Lakes that connected to the Northern’s railway line at Gravenhurst. The furthest point reached by the steamers was Rosseau. The Rosseau–Nipissing Road extended from Rosseau to the south shore of Lake Nipissing. When the Northern issued its first guide to this area in 1875, it listed all of the points that could be reached by steamboat or road, starting from its rail line, giving short descriptions of each. Comonda (sic) and Nipissing, settlements that barely existed at the time, were therefore included.[21] In 1886, Barlow Cumberland, son of the general manager of the NRC and founding partner and vice president of the Niagara Navigation Company, published a much more detailed guide of this area, titled Northern Lakes. In it he advertised the Muskokas and beyond as the “new district for sportsmen and canoeists.”[22]

Map 2. The Nipissing Passageway represented a considerable challenge to railway construction. After investigation, the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) chose a route to the north of Lake Nipissing, thereby providing the impetus for the growth of a town at North Bay. The Northern Railway of Canada connected the main CPR line at Nipissing Junction with Toronto. This line was later purchased by the Grand Trunk Railway. A branch of the CPR opened the Temiskaming area to settlement prior to 1900, but much of northern Ontario remained difficult to reach. Competition and optimism led to several more rail lines being constructed in the early twentieth century. The construction of the Temiskaming and Northern Ontario from North Bay cemented its role as the “gateway to the north.” When both the CPR and the Canadian Northern Railway built lines through the French River District in 1908, that area could be reached directly, bypassing North Bay. Canadian Northern and Grand Trunk lines were later assimilated into the Canadian National (CNR) system.

The CPR, as Canada’s first transcontinental railway, and the first Canadian railway to provide access to the Canadian Rockies, focused its early publicity material on the west, with information on the prairies aimed at immigrants and advertising on the Canadian Rockies and Banff, Canada’s first national park, aimed at elite travellers. It continued to promote summer excursions to established destinations such as Montreal and Quebec City in the east. Its guides were directed toward American tourists as well as Canadians. In these early guides, the Lake Nipissing area received only a passing mention. In Summer Tours,[23] for example, Callander was noted in passing as a destination to which tourist tickets were issued for access to Lake Nipissing, and no description of the region was given. As sportsmen’s holidays increased in popularity, however, the CPR decided to create some new publicity material aimed at sports fishermen. To give their guide more credibility, they had it endorsed, if not written, by the “commissioners” of The Canadian Sportsman. The result was Fishing Resorts Along the Canadian Pacific Railway, issued in 1887.[24] As the subtitle indicated, they were particularly interested in trout, bass, and makinonge, all high in the hierarchy of game fish. From that perspective, the Lake Nipissing area fared well and the guide devoted several pages to the area before going on to discuss the famous Lake Nipigon area. The CPR’s 1893 Shooting and Fishing Along the Line[25] was essentially an expanded version of Fishing Resorts, with the addition of information on hunting. The language describing the area and references to fishing remained almost without change.

Guides published in the nineteenth century were very dependent on text to make their point, using wood engravings based on drawings and sketches, often sparingly, to supplement the text. Railway maps showing the routes discussed were commonly added as well. The large colour fold-out map included in Cumberland’s The Northern Lakes of Canada is therefore a very distinctive feature of that guide. Unlike most maps, it has a horizon with blue sky and in the left corner a yellow sun beams, giving the entire landscape a golden glow. The map clearly shows the ease of access to the “Northern Lakes” from Toronto, with Chicago, Detroit, Buffalo, and New York also well within range and with many rail connections to Toronto. As distance from Toronto increases, built-up areas decrease and the number of lakes and rivers increases. Careful selection of geographical information meant the area between Toronto and Lake Nipissing was represented as one easily reached by rail, filled with lakes and connecting rivers, and void of urban interruption — a perfect sportsman’s paradise.

Created to show the Northern Railway’s route through the “New District for Sportsmen and Canoeists,” this map is an excellent example of how extreme the selection of information could be on railway maps. The route of the Northern Railway is promoted by giving it a heavier line than connecting lines and the CPR’s route, as one would expect. Perspective and size is used to emphasize the lakes in the Muskoka area. Lake Nipissing appears on the northern perimeter of the area being promoted. In the far distance, Lake Temiskaming, Lake Wanapitei, and Lake Nipigon can barely be seen. The lakes closer to Ottawa in the Kawartha Lakes region, not being part of the Northern’s sphere of influence, were excluded completely.

Courtesy of the North Bay Public Library.

Fishing, hunting, and canoeing were the three major activities likely to draw the sportsman into the Nipissing area. Railway guides used various approaches to impart information and persuade the reader of the advantages of the area. In Northern Lakes, a factual approach was used much of the time. The La Vase River “is navigable for canoes throughout with the exception of a few portages and with the several streams, tributaries to it, makes a good fishing ground. Bass, pickerel, maskinonge are the principal catch, affording good trolling with butterfly or minnow troll.” In Lake Nipissing “bass, pickerel, and whitefish; and huge sturgeon are to be caught.”[26] Colourful language and comparison was added for emphasis. “The speckled trout in the river are the largest and most plentiful anywhere this side of Nepigon.” In South River, the fish “are the true speckled trout, game as steel and gorgeous in their colouring, the red marks shining on their glistening sides like glittering rubies gleam.”[27] Fishing Resorts claimed that the excellent fishing lived up to the postcard images that many thought exaggerated: up to fifteen bass could be caught in an hour. The angler might well be tested by the “monster lunge,” and the author had seen one hooked by a lady, which came in at thirty-five pounds.[28]

Canoeing in the Nipissing area was often mentioned in these early guides, but only the Mattawa and the French were described in detail. A trip made by the Toronto Canoe Club in 1886 was mentioned, showing that city clubs could manage such a trip. References to the “voyageurs” helped to link the would-be canoeist to the historic figures who travelled the route in the past. The whole made for a “magnificent and adventurous tour.”[29] After describing access to the French River via steamer on Georgian Bay, Cumberland included a full description of the French River canoe route to Lake Nipissing. He recommended ascending the river as safer than descending it and suggested Logan’s map of 1847 be used for guidance. Scenery was not the strong point of this route, “yet it has its beauties to the eye, and a sense of novelty and excitement that, combined with its safety, and its clear un-incumbered river reaches make it a most available canoe route.”[30] Fishing Resorts provided a detailed guide to canoeing the Mattawa, with reference to portages, rapids, and landmarks that would have been very familiar to anyone who had read the published accounts of the fur traders. North Bay was the destination for canoeists wishing to begin their trip at Trout Lake. From there, they canoed into Turtle Lake, Pine Lake, “Lac du Talon,” and down the Mattawa River to Pembroke and beyond, “for he [the canoeist] is upon that highway of waters which ends with the mighty St. Lawrence.”[31]

Fishing Resorts, like every guide, recognized the beauty of Lake Nipissing and suggested that North Bay, located right on the beach, would “yet be a summer resort.” The view from the beach was linked to the traditions of its aboriginal inhabitants:

Looking down the lake the view takes in the mystical Manitou island, where the Indians say dwells the Great Spirit, and as the eye follows along the beach on which the observer stands, one notes picturesque combinations of rock and evergreens, coves and bays, the Indian reservation, and, far beyond, two rocky points abreast of the Spirit island; then beyond this again the great vague horizon where sky and wave appear to meet, for Nipissing is, as the Indians say, “more’n three sight’s long.”[32]

Trout Lake was singled out as a location that was frequented only by a few and recommended for its picturesque scenery:

Numerous picturesque islands of all sizes, from half an acre to nearly a hundred, make portions of the lake appear to be so many deep separate channels, and form a combination of which the eye never grows weary. On every hand is a rugged, rocky country, big hills and deep ravines, alike densely covered with towering evergreens, and among these runs many a good trout stream.[33]

There, visitors would truly find the revitalization they sought in a wilderness holiday:

… [a] climb upon some of the mossy rocks, where the moss forms a resting place fit for a king, gives pleasant relief from the confinement of the skiff, and one can lie here in dreamy comfort, and really find that peaceful rest which is such a delusion upon many holiday trips. Fairer spot could not be chosen for a week or so in camp, and in a short time we hope that the attractions of this neighborhood will be better understood.[34]

Although Northern Lakes mentioned the game available in several places, it is in Fishing and Shooting Along the Line that the abundance of game got the most attention. Along the Mattawa, game included moose and deer, the occasional bear, and birds such as partridge. In the Upper Ottawa River, reached via the CPR’s Colonization Road to Lake Temiskamingue, both caribou and moose could be found. For shooting, the area around Lake Nipissing was considered good, with deer and grouse plentiful and moose, caribou, and bear less so. On the “long arm” of the lake, there was duck shooting in the fall. The area around Sturgeon River, also reached by the railway, was highly recommended. The following account was used to make the point:

A party of Toronto gentlemen, perfect strangers to the place, went in there in the fall of 1887, and got all the deer they wanted, a great bag of grouse; and one of them, who had never seen a moose before in his life, killed two of these grandest of all Canadian deer in one day. In the fall of 1888 some of these gentlemen went again, making their headquarters near Sturgeon Falls, and got five deer the first week, a lynx, and a large number of ruffed grouse, and could have killed a great deal more game had they cared to do so. They broke camp twice, and in changing locations lost time; otherwise, the total of killed would have been much more. In 1889 they were again on the old grounds, and repeated former successes, getting nine deer, to four rifles, in eleven days, and a heavy bag of grouse. Moose signs were plentiful, but, as the big fellows were protected by law, no effort was made to kill one. From this the sportsman can form a rough idea of how plentiful the game is in this highly favored section.[35]

Hunting in the Trout Lake area was praised as well, and articles that had appeared in sporting journals were used to substantiate the claims made: “[T]he tourist can go there satisfied that wonderfully attractive scenery and plenty of sport will make the trip a memorable one.” The guide also noted: “Visitors to the World’s Fair will be able to judge of the wide range of game to be found in this locality. A collection of heads and skins of animals shot in the Nipissing district has been made by Mr. George Lee, of North Bay, and sent to Chicago.”[36] Displays such as this were common at the time and helped to spread the message that a sportsman’s paradise awaited visitors.

After 1900

The early twentieth century saw a flurry of activity in railway construction as the major players vied for transcontinental status. Ontario decided to support the settlement of northern Ontario with its own railway, and in 1903 began the construction of the Temiskaming and Northern Ontario Railway (T&NO); at first, the railway extended from its terminus in North Bay to Cochrane, but it was later extended to Moosonee. This enhanced North Bay’s position as the “gateway” to northern Ontario. In 1908, however, it lost some of that traffic to the competing lines of the CPR and the Canadian Northern Railway (CNoR), which linked southern Ontario with northern Ontario along a route that crossed the Nipissing Passageway at the narrowest point of the French River, thereby bypassing North Bay.[37] Railway construction slowed during the Great War, but the CNoR opened a new line through Algonquin Park and North Bay in 1915. The Canadian economy could not support such an extensive railway infrastructure, however, and from 1916 to 1918 the lines of the Grand Trunk and the CNoR were incorporated into the new amalgamated government railway, the Canadian National (CNR).

By 1900, the French River area was increasingly popular among sportsmen and known primarily for its muskellunge. The Grand Trunk, having taken over from the NRC, was the chief promoter of this area. When it opted to separate the guides for its eastern district into a series of separate brochures, one of these was devoted entirely to the Lake Nipissing and French River area.[38] The large fold-out map included was double-sided, with the Highlands of Ontario on one side and Lake Nipissing and Temagami on the other.[39] Relative to the Muskoka area, Lake Nipissing remained the furthermost lake of Highlands, but relative to the Temagami Forest Reserve, accessed via the Grand Trunk and the T&NO, Lake Nipissing was the most southerly point. An inset on the Temagami map indicates that visitors from the neighbouring American states, from St. Louis to Boston, were targeted. The guide listed agencies throughout the United States on the back cover, and provided instructions for those travelling from every direction.

In the twentieth century, tourist guides made increasing use of photographs reproduced as half-tone images.[40] These images increasingly showed people interacting with the landscape. This helped to shape readers’ perception of the area and made it easier for them to visualize themselves participating in the same activities.[41] The Grand Trunk’s new guide made effective use of this technique. The cover of Lake Nipissing and the French River, for example, displayed an idyllic fishing scene on the French River, with three males fishing from the rocky shore. With a plentiful catch visible and one of the fishermen dipping his net to take another, it suggested not only successful fishing, but the companionship that fishing provided, and the serenity of an otherwise undisturbed landscape. Images of successful hunts were used to relay the message that game was plentiful, alongside information about the railways’ ability to bring these trophies home at a reasonable cost.

Much of the text for the Grand Trunk guide was taken from a first-hand account of a trip to the area by Matt Hoover, described as part of a sportsmen’s party who “annually spend their Summer Outing in that District.”[42] The emphasis was on fishing, the many different excursions available, and points of interest in the French River area. This guide began the process of creating the nodal points that were a “must” to visit when in the area. These included the Wolseley River, the “Gull Rookery,” Fivemile Rapids, the Masogmasing (the “river where the woodpecker sings”), the Little Chaudière, and Indian Rock, a place where ancient native images are preserved on the rocks. The account also indicated that there had been a chance to explore some “Sequestered Lakes,” one of which was a lake “occupying a perfectly round basin on top of a rocky summit.” Combined with its many stories of plentiful fishing, the Grand Trunk guide painted a very positive image of the French River as a destination for both the seasoned and aspiring sportsman.

This cover image for a Grand Trunk guide advertising the French River area shows sportsmen actively engaged in fishing, as well as a picturesque landscape. This helped viewers to imagine themselves engaging in that activity there as well.

Grand Trunk Railway, Lake Nipissing and the French River, 4th ed. (Montreal: Grand Trunk Railway, 1905).

When the CPR opened a new line between Toronto and Sudbury that passed right through the French River District, it increased its advertising on that area. A short item in Rod and Gun in April 1908 noted that the new line would greatly facilitate access to Georgian Bay, and the Magnetawan and French Rivers:

There are stations on the east side of the Pickerel and the west side of the French River. This will enable lunge or maskinonge, and bass fishermen to get into the heart of the very best fishing. Wanup is a station a half mile north of the Wanapitei River. A canoe trip down the Wanapitei River will bring fisherman to where it falls into the French river. There is some splendid fishing there.[43]

The following year, the CPR advertised that it had arranged for an outfitting depot at Pickerel. A motor launch would also be kept there and would be able “to tow visitors and their outfit to various selected points for camping or fishing purposes.”[44] In 1912, they published a map promoting the Murdoch River as a canoe route well worth exploring.[45] This map provided a detailed view of the two branches of the French River and the Pickerel River. Portages, rapids, and campsites were all indicated. Instructions were given on how to follow the Murdoch River upstream and descend the Wanapatei River, but the entire route was not included. In 1922, the General Publicity Department of the CPR prepared a map of the entire area suitable for promoting the area and sending to those who requested information.[46] When it opened the French River Bungalow Camp in the area, a separate brochure was issued for the camp (see page 100). Their 1925 Resorts in Ontario guide included a section on the French River. Fishing and canoe trips were emphasized, including trips to areas that were not well-known, like Trout Lake. Not to be confused with the lake of the same name near North Bay, it could be reached as a side trip from the French via the Wolseley River.

The latter [Trout Lake] is a beautiful sheet of water, eleven miles in length and averaging 3/4 mile in width. Good fishing can be obtained, the lake and tributary waters being plentifully stocked with salmon-trout, bass and muscalunge. The bass fishing is exceptionally good. During the months of July and August, bronze-backed beauties bite well and are often taken weighing 41/2 pounds and over; trout weighing up to 18 pounds have been taken on troll at a depth of from 100 to 150 feet. There are ideal camping sites around Trout Lake.[47]

Although there was still lumbering, and a growing number of resorts and cottages, the impression from reading these guides is that one could canoe and camp through the area freely, and that it was still a wilderness. The railway guides of the period left little doubt that this was exactly the kind of area that sportsmen would enjoy. The following description of the region, taken from a general guide for the Grand Trunk Railway in 1911, is typical of the genre:

The unlimited attractions that are combined in the region known as the Lake Nipissing and French River District are fast becoming known to the sportsman, and each year sees and enormous increase of fishermen and hunters making these confines their objective point. The wild and rugged grandeur of the scenery, the health-giving properties of the atmosphere, the primeval wilderness of the surroundings, and its splendid fishing and hunting grounds are attracting those who do not care for the gayeties of the modern summer resorts, but prefer the untrodden forests and the pleasures to be derived in outdoor life. North Bay, on the line of the Grand Trunk, 227 miles north of Toronto, is the starting point for this magnificent locality, and the splendid train service operated by this company makes the district easy of access. Steamer is taken from North Bay for the head of the French River, twenty miles distant, at which point canoes or boats are taken for the trip down the river as far as the tourist or sportsman desires, even to the Georgian Bay. The fishing in this district is without a peer in the northern country, the gamiest of the gamy species of the finny kingdom simply predominating in the waters of the region. Maskinonge, ranging from fifteen to thirty pounds, black bass running up to six pounds, and pickerel tipping the scales at fifteen pounds are numerous, and at any time during the open season a ‘rattling’ fine day’s sport can be had. During the hunting season, deer and other large game abound.[48]

This text illustrates the contemporary view of a sportsman’s paradise. Historians generally agree that sportsmen were looking for challenges that would test or demonstrate their masculinity. While big game hunting in the west might be the ideal experience, and American President Theodore Roosevelt the ideal sportsman, a holiday in northern Ontario to fish, hunt, or canoe was more attainable, both physically and financially, to the businessmen and professionals who had only a week or two at most to enjoy such a holiday. The railways that would get them there helped to construct the image of northern Ontario generally, and the Lake Nipissing area in particular, as a sportsman’s paradise.