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Campfire Stories and the Experience of Place

The Stories and Photographs

The sportsmen who made their way to the wilderness areas of northern Ontario at the turn of the nineteenth century wanted to get away from the city, but they were not necessarily looking for solitude. Most arrived in the company of other men, friends, or fellow members of fishing or hunting clubs. These adventures were social in nature, and telling stories around the campfire at night was an important part of the experience. Practical jokes and nicknames for the duration of the trip were common as well. For hunters, bringing home a trophy was important, but fishermen were often satisfied if they could get a photograph of themselves with the “big one” they caught. Their stories continued to be told well after the trip was over. Anticipation and retrospection were as much part of the experience as the trip itself, but it was the actual experience that gave these meaning.[1]

The fishing and hunting stories available to us are not those told around the campfire, but those written by professional sports writers like Ozark Ripley, agents of the railway companies, and members of fishing and hunting clubs, and were published in the sports magazines of the day. These stories might incorporate advice about the supplies required, the best kind of lure to use for a particular fish, and the most modern equipment available, but they also describe actual trips, and the information they provide on the environment and the conditions encountered are accepted here as being reliable. Only a few stories that appeared to be fictionalized accounts written to drive home a point about conservation or sportsmanship were rejected from consideration. The only unpublished account of the time is from the recently published correspondence of Lord Minto. Reading between the lines as much as possible, these stories are used to understand how the sportsmen experienced “place” — in this case, the Nipissing area.

Photographs were an important part of the sportsman’s story. With the advent of the “Kodak” camera, everyone could bring home images of their trips. When they caught the “big one,” these fishermen sent their images in to their favourite sports magazine to be published. The Rest Easy Fishing Club always made sure they had one camera in their party in order to keep a club log of their trips. Some authors brought cameras with them and took photographs to accompany their accounts of their trip. Railway companies and magazines also commissioned professional photographers to accompany hunting or fishing parties in order to get images of particular locations and activities. It is useful to know when examining these photographs that the catch of the entire group was often photographed with each individual fisherman, making the catch appear excessively large. Hunting parties, on the other hand, usually showed the entire party with their trophies, but the absence of one or two members from the photograph would give a distorted impression of their take. Photographs, therefore, incorporate a bias toward showing the abundance of fish and game.

Reuben Sallows, best known for his images of rural Ontario, made at least seven trips to northern Ontario, at least two of which were to the French River, to capture images of sportsmen as well as scenic views of the area.[2] His images appeared frequently in the pages of Rod and Gun in Canada early in the twentieth century, and he was regularly featured on their cover from 1910 to 1912. The images that accompanied an account of a fishing trip to the French in 1910 successfully illustrate his ability to capture not only the natural beauty of the area but also scenes of the sportsmen and their guides in the natural setting.[3] Not surprisingly, many of his views became popular as postcards of the era. The trip to the French was clearly organized to allow him to get a series of photographs of the region, perhaps for the CPR. As well as landscape shots of the region, he shot images of the Wanakewan (sic) House; the CPR bridge; their first camp; their guide, Wellington Madwayosh, carrying a heavy load and an axe; a domestic scene of their second camp; and a night shot of their campfire. His scenic views often incorporated a person fishing or someone canoeing in the distance, thereby placing the sportsman into the landscape. His hunting images, as one might expect, showed hunters with their guns or with their trophies, but he also took photographs of hunters carrying a deer out of the woods or dressing a deer. While a modern urban audience might view such images with distaste, Sallows’s portrayal of the hunters in a favourable light was no different than his positive images of Ontario rural life in this period.[4] Historians have shown that some of these rural images were staged, and it is possible that some of the hunting images were as well, but his characters never appear artificial. In fact, in his “Happily Engaged in his Favorite Recreation,” the fisherman appears completely natural, and this is perhaps the best of his sportsman images. It was published in Rod and Gun as a full-page reproduction, with a credit suggesting that this particular image had not been commissioned.[5] He was the most prominent of the photographers to help paint northern Ontario as a sportsman’s paradise.

The North Bay to Mattawa area

Mattawa, described in a CPR guide as “a favorite centre for moose hunters”[6] was bustling with activity when Frederic Chutney Selous descended onto the railway platform in 1900:

I must confess, that, during my two days’ stay at Mattawa, I had been somewhat taken aback by the number of hunting parties constantly arriving there from all parts of the English-speaking world — the British Isles as well as various parts of Canada and the United States — all intent on securing that much-coveted trophy, a fine moose head.[7]

While this image of bringing a deer back to camp may well have been staged, it is typical of Sallows’s work in that it shows the sportsman actively engaged in the work of play. This image was used as the cover of Rod and Gun in February of 1912.

“The deer hunters,” 1910, photograph by Reuben Sallows, Image number 0155-rrs-ogoh-ph, the Reuben R. Sallows Gallery.

Similarly, canoeists arriving at Mattawa station in the spring of 1904 found themselves in the company of a number of other sportsmen, who were greeted at the platform by “white and Indian and half-breed guides, and discussing with them questions of duffle and the portage.”[8] With a local population of only 1,438 in 1891, the small town of Mattawa must surely have felt the impact of this annual influx of sportsmen.

Selous, whose name is more likely to be recognized in Africa than in Mattawa today, was in quest of his first moose head. Since outfitters could supply most of his needs, he arrived with only his “rifles and ammunition, blankets and clothing.” Anything else he needed was acquired with the “assistance of Mr. E. O. Taylor, the manager of the Hudson’s Bay Company’s store, and Mr. Colin G. Rankin.” The most important requirement for his trip he could only acquire upon arrival — a good local guide. In this case, he obtained the services of one of the best guides in the area, George Crawford, and his son (see page 71). The party boarded the train to Temiskaming, headed for Lake Kippewa with gear, provisions, two small tents, and two birch-bark canoes. There, a steamer used in the lumber industry took them across the lake, and from there they portaged into Lake Bois Franc. An old lumber camp served as a base camp but they went even further inland from there. Their hunting area was therefore in Quebec rather than Ontario, a fact that seemed to have little relevance to their trip.

His account of this trip in Outing magazine ends with the killing of his first moose, a five-year-old bull that weighed in at 394 kilos (862 pounds) and had “a spread of forty-nine inches and eighteen points.” Selous admitted some would get larger, but he concluded, “I was well content with him, nor am I ever likely to forget the memorable day on which he, my first bull moose, fell to my rifle.”[9] This is a fitting ending to a short account, transmitting to the reader his full satisfaction with his trip, which in turn helped to confirm and enhance Mattawa’s reputation as the place to go for hunting moose. In a longer account of the same excursion, we find that Selous continued hunting for another week with no sightings before finally getting his second moose. “George pronounced this moose to be an old bull past his prime, but his horns were quite worth having as they measured just fifty inches in greatest spread and were well palmated with eighteen points.” Having gotten his two legal moose, he then hunted for deer for a few days before leaving for Newfoundland, where he would hunt for caribou.[10]

When Francis H. Gisborne and his friends canoed the Mattawa in 1889, they travelled from Ottawa to North Bay via the CPR in order to begin their trip at Trout Lake and descend the river rather than ascend it. The wilderness began as soon as they left North Bay; the “new road through the woods” was so rough that their canoes were damaged. Their first camp was on Big Island at the mouth of Four Mile Bay. They carried 190 pounds of provisions with them, and supplemented their supplies by fishing and hunting. A large muskellunge, landed while they were still at Trout Lake, was an auspicious start. They spent the day hunting on the mainland before setting out the next day. At the stepping stones, a line of stones that crossed the outlet of the lake, they were able to shoot partridge for their supper. At least one more muskellunge was caught later. Near Lake Talon they saw bear tracks but no bear.[11]

The area was still an active lumbering area. At Turtle Lake they saw evidence of forest fires as the banks were stripped of their pine. At the end of Pine Lake, a log shanty remained at the end of the portage. At Talon Chute the water had been raised several feet by a dam and a timber slide built by the lumber companies. It was being rebuilt by a “large gang of men” when they went through. A timber slide and dam bypassed the Grand Paresseux Falls. The only houses they saw were at MacClou’s Mill, where a dam had been built across “Plain Champ Rapids.” Cutting and forest fires had left behind only “a few small jack pines, silver birches and poplars.” At the head of the Boileau Rapids, they had difficulty finding firewood, as the spot had been used often as a camp. In the process of scouting around, one of them found “a weather-beaten wooden cross on which was roughly carved the name ‘Antoine Joly’. It marked the last resting place of the foreman of a gang of log drivers, who had been drowned in the rapids some years before.” The author noted: “You will find these little wooden crosses near every rapid on the Mattawa, marking the graves of daring lumbermen.”[12]

While this historic route had never gone out of use, the portages were not well marked in 1889. At one, the presence of several logging roads confused them and they had to double back. At the end of Pine Lake they chose the wrong bay and had to go around to the next one. In the meantime, the lake had gotten rougher, and rather than paddle, they waded to the portage over boulders and half-buried sticks, and with water sometimes up to their armpits. They ran all the rapids successfully until they reached “Épine Rapid,” considered to be the worse. On the advice of “an old half breed” they met who had, they thought, told them it could be run, they chanced it, running into serious difficulty when one of their canoes wedged between three rocks where it filled with water and they lost some of their gear. Gisborne wrote: “You might just as well have tried to hold a whale by the tail as hold, or check, or guide that canoe when the water took her.” Luckily the canoe was not damaged. Running the Flat Rapids just after the junction of the Mattawa and 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 “number five spinners baited with six inches of white pike-gut” produced many pike and bass, which were released; a ’lunge that got away; and one 26.5 pound female ’lunge that was landed after a thirty minute “battle royal,” in which twenty years of angling experience was pitted against the “weight and cunning” of the ’lunge. They had a similar success the next day on a wide bay past Fivemile Rapids. The third day, the ’lunge seemed everywhere. The fact that two railways had recently been built across the French, making the area more accessible, could certainly have changed this, as would the projected ship canal to Ottawa if it was built, but, he felt, “the region in general will always remain a labyrinthine wilderness of innumerable rocky islands, hills, bays, rivers, and lakes, a paradise for the sportsman and the nature lover.” Haworth concluded: “For other purposes than sport the country is comparatively worthless.”

For every published account of fishing on the French, many more were told around the campfire or in the clubhouse back home. Friends were aware that the fish got bigger the further from the lake you got. One thing, however, was clear: the French River district had acquired a reputation as a fishing paradise.

South of Lake Nipissing

Early in the twentieth century (just as today), the woods of northern Ontario were not a safe place to be in the fall, particularly if you were a deer or could be mistaken for one, as hunters from near and far invaded the northland. Among them were many farmers from southern Ontario, “many of whom,” Superintendent Tinsley reported in 1908:

have enjoyed these annual outings for forty or fifty years. One grand old man in particular, in his eightieth year, said it was only the anticipation of going the next season that kept him alive from year to year. As a rule, by the first of November farmers have completed their fall work, enabling thousands of them to enjoy their annual deer hunt, and looking forward to it with each recurring year as one of the most enjoyable events of their lives.[22]

Little had changed in 1928 when the “throng flocking to the north,” according to a Windsor newspaper, was “comprised of farmers, artisans, professional and business men and men from practically every walk of life.”[23]

Récollet Falls was one of the spots on the French River favoured by fishermen. It is therefore not surprising that Reuben Sallows used this image as a postcard.

“Recollet Falls, French River,” photograph by Reuben Sallows, Image number 0009-rrs-ogoh-ph, the Reuben R. Sallows Gallery.

The habitat of Ontario’s deer, an area that extended south of the CPR main line to the Severn River, and from Georgian Bay to the Kingston and Pembroke Railroad to the east, was increasingly penetrated by railways, which worried some sportsmen.[24] The Department of Game and Fisheries was more worried that the large number of deer killed each year was not sustainable. While only 4,387 deer were shipped out of Ontario in 1908, this was considered to be less than a third of the deer killed, as “11,353 deer hunters’ licenses and settlers’ permits were issued, holders of each being entitled to kill two deer. In addition to the above, Indians and settlers in unorganized territory were allowed to kill two each without licenses or permits, for their own use, but not for sale or barter.” “It seems incredible,” the report continued, “that our northern districts should continue to supply these immense numbers year after year with no apparent diminution.”[25] Some looked for someone to blame when the deer population declined, and pointed the finger at local inhabitants, including the lumbermen who hunted in and out of season for food. The use of dogs for hunting deer was also much debated.[26] Dire predictions aside, the very high numbers of deer taken in the Nipissing area continued at least into the 1920s. About three hundred deer were shipped out from Trout Creek station alone in the early 1920s[27] and the steamer Kawigamog, which ran from Port Loring to the railhead at Lost Channel, transported more than a thousand hunters and 1,300 deer in 1921. An old railroader working for the Key Valley Railway remembered that, in 1921, 889 deer were handled between Lost Channel and Pakesley, the railway collecting one dollar each, regardless of where they were picked up.[28] Lumbering, by exposing the forest floor and giving rise to second growth, had provided good grazing grounds for deer, which may account for the continued success of the hunt in that area.

When it came to the question of where to go hunting, there was general agreement that the area around Restoule, south of Lake Nipissing, was an excellent choice. Carleton Dyer made his first trip into this area with his father and a few of his father’s friends in the late 1920s. With other hunters from Toronto, they got off the train at Pakesley in the middle of the night and went to a boarding house that was so crowded that there was no place for them to sit. The next morning, they loaded their gear onto a lumber freight train and along with about twenty other hunters journeyed fifteen miles inland to Lost Channel. Then, everything had to be carried to a “little river tug,” which went up the Pickerel River another twenty miles to a place called “The Landing.” From there, they boarded a “Ford” and bumped along a muddy road filled with boulders to Arnstein to a friend’s place. A sled was used to carry their gear to a small lake where the canoes were launched. Being November, there was snow on the ground and the water was freezing cold. Ten miles inland, they set up their campsite. Young Dyer, left alone for two days as the two older men went back for the rest of the party, tells the tale of his misadventures as he coped in the unfamiliar environment. Once the others returned, the hunting began. Again, his inexperience is contrasted with the knowledge of the older men, with the exception of his father getting lost on their return. Hauling their deer out was not only hard work, it was dangerous, as they had to drag their gear across a frozen lake as the ice cracked beneath them.[29] No guides were used, as there were some local men among the party and this was a familiar trip for Dyer’s father. There were no luxuries either, unless a silk tent and a camping stove can be considered as such. The infrastructure that supported the trip was geared to lumbermen and lumbering rather than tourism. For young Dyer, it was an initiation into the world of men.

The Look-Um-Deer Club, hunting in the South River area in 1906, enjoyed much more comfort. They rendezvoused at Wisawasa, and, having been outfitted with the houseboat Wasalily for accommodation, the motor launch Zephyr towed them down South River with the canoes they would be using. From the houseboat, they had only a three-mile portage to get their canoes into Perch Lake, the area in which they would be hunting. This group hunted with dogs and had a guide, Jimmy. They too were in a lumbering environment. “The air along the river smelt of sulphur all day, an ‘alligator’ towing a big scow of lumber went ashore and the language of the engineer was such as no self-respecting superintendent of a Sunday-school would think of using.”[30] The author of this account assured readers that these vacationing deer-slayers were not a serious threat to the game laws: “These men went out, primarily for a holiday, and incidentally to kill a deer or two, if the fates were kind.”[31] He placed considerable emphasis on the “excellent food appetizingly cooked,” but the group nonetheless went home with twenty deer, sixteen of them bucks.

The Nipissing Hunt Club, made up primarily of local hunters, established a hunt camp on Sand Lake, located just west of South Bay on Lake Nipissing, twenty miles from Powassan. It was reached “by the stage ten miles to Nipissing, and ten miles by canoe and wagon to Sand Lake.” The “trail to Sand Lake Mills” was used for part of the trip.[32] R. McDonagh’s account of their annual hunt counters the suggestion that locals were unregulated in their hunting. Tasks around the camp were divided among the members. The hunt captain controlled the hunt. He called a halt by nine o’clock the first day because he had heard so much shooting that he felt they had taken enough for one day. Bucks and larger deer were favoured if at all possible. In the end, they had killed sixteen bucks and eight does. A fawn was captured and let go, being too small to kill. Dogs were used, but each hunter came out with his allotted kill and no more.[33]

Both parties returned with photographs — laden canoes, and a display of their trophies hanging from the houseboat with members of the party lined up in front — that established the bounty of the hunt.[34] It was not just the hunt that mattered, but telling the story of the hunt afterward, in words and in pictures. Margaret Floyd, one of the pioneers in this region, remembered these stories. Hunting provided meat for local families in the winter, but, she added:

the meat supply was only a small part of the venture. The tall tales of the hunters provided entertainment around the stoves all winter. When I read in Longfellow’s Hiawatha of Iagoo the great boaster — He the marvelous story-teller, He was someone I knew well. The best hunter, the best shot and infinitely the most important of all, the best hound.

As she pointed out, this was the only holiday the men took all year and being allowed to go on the hunt was a rite of passage for boys. “Then the outsiders and sportsmen started coming and the trophy and status symbol was a fine set of antlers and the whole picture of the hunt was changed.”[35] Stories of hunting, much more than those of fishing, were coloured by the controversies that raged around issues of conservation, and the very different perspective of those who hunted for food and those who hunted for sport.

The Sportsman and His Guide

Very few sportsmen made their way through the wilderness or the waterways of Northern Ontario without an experienced local guide. There was a good reason for this, and it was not because the guides did the portaging and the cooking. Freedom from those menial tasks added to the pleasure of a trip, but the real need for a guide was safety. An early CPR brochure had this to say about Lake Nipissing:

Lake Nipissing, it must be remembered, is in many places quite shallow, the bottom-rock coming within a few feet of the surface, and now and again a big wind comes sweeping down and lashes the water into a fury that makes sailing an impossibility. If an ordinary boat were caught in such a blow, far out on the lake, the chances of the crew would be something too slim to be worth mentioning, but the visitor can rely upon getting pleasure and sport without running any unnecessary risk. Of course it is taken for granted that all parties not composed of seasoned sailors will always adhere to the golden maxim: “Never stray far upon strange waters of any size, especially sailing, without an experienced guide to direct matters.” With this point kept in mind the dangers of Lake Nipissing amount to very little.[36]

A close call could add spice to a holiday, as Matt Hoover admitted: “The guides duly cautioned us to take no unnecessary chances in dangerous water. Despite this we had one or two narrow escapes, which, however, proving to be escapes, only added zest to our life in the wilds.”[37] But accidents did happen. D.M. Christie and twenty-five-year-old George Rispin of Chatham, Ontario, were “experienced canoeists” who had canoed the French the previous year, when they, with Arthur Northwood, returned for a second trip in 1894. These were not reckless youth, but respectable members of their community. D.M. Christie was a barrister, a forty-year-old bachelor, and senior member of his law firm. Arthur Northwood had just been accepted as science master at Ottawa Collegiate Institute.

Fivemile Rapids, shown on this 1958 topographic sheet, were within easy reach of the camps on Wolseley Bay and the Dry Pine outpost camp of the CPR French River Bungalow on Commanda Island. This was recognized as a good place to fish. In the Grand Trunk guide, Lake Nipissing and the French River, Mathew Hoover noted: “The southern branch, in making one of its numerous excursions deeper into the forest, describes a half-circle, in the course of which are five rapids, one mile apart. The Indians shoot all of them, but the tenderfoot, if wise, walks, around.”

Courtesy of the University of Toronto Map Library, G_3400s_50_1948_41I1e_1.