CANADIAN FISHING SKETCHES.BY HIRAM B. STEPHENS.II. SPEARING FISH AT THE LACHINE RAPIDS.T
BY HIRAM B. STEPHENS.
II. SPEARING FISH AT THE LACHINE RAPIDS.
T
THE Lachine Rapids are well known to many American tourists, as they are included in a circuit of tourist travel adopted by large numbers, viz.: from Niagara Falls through Lake Ontario, the Thousand Islands, the Rapids of the St. Lawrence, down to the ancient city of Quebec, and on to the mysterious Saguenay. The average tourist’s knowledge of the Lachine Rapids is confined to the personal experience of running them in the steamboat. But few realize that this is historic ground, trod by “the pioneers of France in the New World;” that Champlain endeavored to ascend these rapids in a small boat two centuries and a half ago, and that La Salle built a fort or house here which is still standing, though fast falling into decay. Here have been Champlain, Maisonneuve, Frontenac, Joliette, and La Salle himself, all of whom have left their indelible records, not alone in Canadian history, but in that of America.
The Lachine Rapids rush madly past, whitening with foam in their ceaseless career. The old name of the rapids was the “Sault St. Louis.” The Catholic mission here has been famous; it was situated on the south shore, and has changed its home several times, till now it is located in the Indian village of Caughnawaga. In this village lived La Salle some twenty years previous to the “massacre at Lachine,” perpetrated by the Iroquois on the night of the 4th August, 1689, when, in not more than an hour, over two hundred persons were butchered. In Caughnawaga lived Charlevoix, the author of the celebrated “Histoire de la Nouvelle France,” and his desk is still to be seen there in thePresbytère. Not many months ago, the writer was called upon by two dusky Indians, and asked by them to translate a certain parchment. It was dated early in the seventeenth century, written in old Norman French, and signed “LOUISROY.” It was the deed of theseigneurieto the mission, which these Indians had carefully preserved, without any safe deposit company, through all their wars and massacres, their fires and revolts. But I am not to write historical notes and must cease, much as the subject interests.
Above the villages of Lachine (so named by La Salle, who thought of going to China from this point) and Caughnawaga, the St. Lawrence is wide and forms what is known as Lake St. Louis. This lake narrows very much at the two villages. A few miles below, the river, taking a turn, rushes over a bed of rocks and boulders, forming the Lachine Rapids, and then widens out into Laprairie Bay below, and passes on more peacefully to the good city of Montreal.
The south shore from the Lachine Rapids down past and below Laprairie Bay, is an excellent fishing-ground, and deserves a few notes which it has never yet, to the writer’s knowledge, received in any important publication.
The fish which can be secured here are sturgeon, bass, dory, carp, and mullet of different kinds, and the eel. There are also bream, shad, and a fish known as theloche, and at times whitefish and small perch. The Indians of Caughnawaga devote much of their time to fishing. These Indians, by the way, have intermarried with the surrounding French Canadians to such an extent that the blood is far from pure, if there be even one pure-blooded Indian remaining, except an old squaw 107 years old, who still smokes her pipe and is somewhat active. But theirs is a commercial pursuit and notfor any love of sport. They use nets principally, and in the spring spear the carp and eels in large numbers. Apart from their fishing pursuits, their chief means of livelihood lies in running timber rafts down the rapids. The majority of them speak French, and some of them English. Their squaws are engaged in the making of Indian “curiosities” for sale to tourists.
A visit to the village is interesting in more ways than one. The locality is not an inviting one, as it is rocky and somewhat barren, and if the original intention in placing the Indians here was to instruct them in agricultural pursuits, no more unsuitable locality could have been found. They could drill, and that is all, for there is nothing but solid rock. The houses are all of stone, as might be supposed, with quaint little windows. In some of them the old irons still remain, placed there in colonial days. There is one long street, the houses being built on each side at varying distances. The church is a plain building, very simply appointed, free from the gorgeous elaborateness of more modern Roman Catholic churches, and contains some curious old pictures, more curious than valuable. Last summer, while the floor of the church was being altered, a quantity of bones were discovered; but the Indian workmen were not disturbed, continuing their work, and probably relaying the floor without paying any further attention.
Thepappoosesare worth seeing. They are so old-fashioned and wise-looking that one is tempted to think they are born with all the knowledge and wisdom they ever possess, and merely require time for the purpose of acquiring a larger growth. They never cry, and would probably starve to death without a single whimper. With their dark complexions, jet black eyes and severe expressions, they very much resemble scheming imps of darkness.
The rapids are delightful as an experience of steamboat travel, and a more exciting episode is a descent of them on a raft of timber, and a still more exciting and certainly foolhardy event is to run them in a canoe, as has been done on several occasions. It is, however, regarded in much the same light as an attempt to swim through the Niagara rapids. It is exciting enough, and yet not too dangerous to persons of cool temperament to take what is known as a “dug-out” and a French-Canadianpêcheurand have a day’s bass-fishing in the rapids. The “dugout,” somewhat out of date now, is merely a log hollowed out to form a canoe, and it is fully as treacherous as a bark canoe. No paddle is used; a pole is the arm of progression, and it is really wonderful with what skill one of these French-Canadian fishermen will take you from eddy to eddy, in and out between the rocks and across mad currents. The crude boat seems to be part of himself. Other boats are used ordinarily of a safer description, made more like a punt, from which one can throw a fly with some security and with little fear of taking a “header” and being swept toward the ocean. The bass fishing is excellent, and splendid sport can be had during the proper season. Dory (pickerel) can be caught here with the minnow, and though they are not game-fish, they are excellent eating.
Butthesport at the foot of the Lachine Rapids is spearing fish,i. e., sturgeon, carp and eels.
In June the large red-finned carp, known locally as the “carpes des rois,” weighing from three to fifteen pounds each, ascend the river; the eels are present in large numbers, and the sturgeon come in-shore to feed.
A flat-bottomed boat is secured and an arrangement for the light put in place. This usually consists of an open basket made of a few strips of hoop-iron. In this pine and cedar knots are burned, emitting a pleasant odor and a somewhat fitful glare over the water. Another means of lighting is to split cedar rails in long, thin strips six or eight feet in length, and make them into bundles, a boy in the boat holding them at the required position over the water. The boat is allowed to float broadside on down the river over the best places, the torch of pine burning with its crackling noise. The spear usually consists of either five or seven barbs and those used by the French-Canadian fishermen are frequently made by themselves out of hammered iron, and are clumsy instruments, which when they strike a fish sometimes almost cut it in two.
The best plan is to have one made out of No. 4 wire, or buy one of the light steel spears; and with a light ash handle about one inch in diameter and ten feet in length, an exciting time can be had, especially if one has never been out before. One misjudges the distance so as the boat floats on, and is fortunate if no upset occurs. A waving weed is mistaken for a huge eel, and a frantic dart ends only in disappointment, or an eel is thought to be a useless weed, and annoyances ensue at the mistake. But the art or knack is soon learnt, and then the enjoyment is keen. Round about, on the same purpose bent, are other boats, each with their blaze of light, like some huge red Cyclops.
The night is dark and one floats on, darting at each successive finny denizen, missing some and lifting many a fine fellow with the cruel barb into the boatsans cérémonie. A huge eel, four feet in length, is speared and with some difficulty hauled into the boat, and his wriggling form gives one the shudders.
Then a large sturgeon that appears to weigh thirty pounds is seen lazily moving his tail and merely maintaining himself against the current.C’est un gros—“He’s a big fellow,” and every one is stilled into expectancy. The spear is held in the water till the time for striking is come—down goes the spear, and as you press on it you feel the points are crushing through bone and flesh and are firmly fixed. There is a cruel joy or satisfaction as you thus fix the spear in him; he turns, and you hold on like grim death; the boat swings end on in the struggle; you have to go with the current and the fish, resisting as firmly as you can. And so the struggle continues; your boatman has been gradually poling nearer and nearer to the shore. The water is only two feet deep here, and shouting to you to look out, the boatman is in the water and has the sturgeon by the gills, and with a few steps is onterra firma. You follow, regardless of wet feet, and find you have speared the largest one of the season, so far. Your spear has to be cut out, so firmly are the points imbedded, and the sturgeon’s sufferings are over. He is weighed, and tips the scales at 651⁄2pounds.
This is picturesque work—the swarthy, indistinct forms in a circle of flickering light, looking for all the world, with their spears, like attendants of some fresh-water Neptune. The boats float slowly down stream, the shores are invisible in the gloom, and all is still. A splash, and another fish is secured, and so the night draws on. There is an end to all things, and the evening’s spearing is over.
One drives back to the village hotel in the quaint town of Laprairie, or else “bunks” with a friendly French-Canadian, paying himtrente sousfor the accommodation. In many cases no charge will be made, but some gratuity ought to be given, and for this nothing is better than tobacco.
The fish congregate on these shallows as the water is not deep, and therefore is of a higher temperature, which in the spring months attracts them.
Anal frescolunch on one of these islands at the foot of the Lachine Rapids is a delightful experience on a bright blue sunny day, so happily frequent in the valley of the St. Lawrence. The rushing of the waters and the rustling of the leaves in the trembling silver maples is a sweet chorus of music, ever changing and ever harmonious; thecoup d’œilup the rapids is unequaled in interesting beauty, and there is a sense of communing with Nature entirely different in spirit and feeling to that in the solitudes and hearts of the great forests.
One reads everywhere the records of past winters and of winters to come in the ruggedness of the entire landscape, in the hardy look of the timber, in the robustness more than tenderness of the herbage and signs of latent strength conserved to contend with the mighty snows. The present is the more enjoyable by very reason of this knowledge; and the lunch is a royal repast, made so by the royal appetite which the ozone of the woods and waters always produces. We enjoy our lunch of fish chowder, baked beans, strong tea, and such extras as may be in supply, and look upon these magnificent rapids, the “last escapade” of the St. Lawrence in its eternal march to the sea.
I have written of the spring months and their wealth of fishing. But there are the duck, theoutardesand the snipe to be shot in the fall, when Nature is donning her winter suit and the days are getting shorter and more sombre, when there is a change that renders one thoughtful and pensive, except in the excitement of the chase.
One ponders over this mighty St. Lawrence, one of the grandest highways of the globe.“Its history, its antecedents are unparalleled. The great lakes are its camping-grounds; here its hosts repose under the sun and stars in areas like that of states and kingdoms, and it is its waters that shake the earth at Niagara. It is a chain of Homeric sublimities from beginning to end. The great cataract is a fit sequel to the great lakes; the spirit that is born in vast and tempestuous Superior takes its full glut of power in that fearful chasm.”