THE FISHES OF CANADA. RESH salmon at 6d. per lb. is certainly worth an effort to procure, On a previous occasion1 I endeavoured to show how the magnificent rivers that empty themselves into the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and indeed into the Bay of Fundy, are nearly lost to the Dominion of Canada and to the world through the murderous fixed obstacles that prevent the fish from reaching their spawning-grounds. By a coincidence, there appears in the July number of Scribner's Magazine a drawing of St. John's, New Brunswick, disclosing a range of these terrible nets left high and dry at low water. Let any one who feels an interest in the subject turn to page 440 of that magazine, and he will see how hopeless it is to expect fisheries to flourish, or indeed even to survive much longer, where such deadly machines are suffered to exist. The net is certainly a bad one; and, indeed, previous remarks have referred to those of more moderate dimensions, from a desire rather to understate the case than to exaggerate-but, at the same time, such nets as the one alluded to do hurt, and that unhappily in numbers. Mr. Nettle, the late inspector of fisheries in Canada, has written a very interesting work on the salmon fisheries of the St. Lawrence, and confirms in the most emphatic manner all that has been said about the destruction of these splendid fish. As we enter the Gulf of St. Lawrence from the Atlantic, we pass Ance au Sablon ; and the names of the salmon rivers between there and the Sagounay are legion. Mr. Nettle enumerates 23 large ones, all larger than our own Wye; but this would have to be multiplied many times to include all the salmon rivers that could produce enough fish to make a London dealer's fortune in half a season. The Esquimaux, the St. John, the Mingan, the Godbout, the Pentecost, the Trinity, and the Escoumins, are among the best. In one or two rivers the falls are too high to enable salmon to ascend far, but these are generally the best sea-trout rivers, and the fish may be taken in any quantity from four to seven pounds in weight. Of the lands from which these rivers flow, Mr. Nettle says, "but little is known that can be depended on; 1 Gentleman's Magazine, June 1880. the territory is as it were locked up, the feet of few white men have trod its surface, and the Indians (the Montagnards), and a few of the Hudson's Bay Company employés, are the only persons who have traversed its soil." Many of the baneful practices that formerly prevailed have been swept away; it is pleasing to be able to say that "burning the water," as it is called, is no longer legal-that is to say, putting a pine-knot on the bow of a canoe, lighting it to reveal gravid fish on the spawning beds, and then transfixing them with a spear, or as often giving them a deadly wound, and seeing them no more. Mill-dams now, also, must have an opening for salmon to ascend; and it may be well to remark that all "ladders," as a series of little pools or steps are called that enable a fish to surmount a dam, should be as roughly constructed as possible: a squared neatly-built basin would always be avoided by a salmon ; he has an instinctive dread of such a thing. Net fishing also is illegal from the first day of August till the last day of April, in the provinces of Ontario and Quebec, and fishery officers have been appointed at various places to see that the laws are properly carried out. All this is excellent, and in the right direction; but all will be in vain until the whole system of fishing is altered, and assimilated to that of England. The monstrous standing nets and weirs that obstruct the passage of salmon to their spawning grounds must be swept away once and for all, and the approach of the fish to the upper waters of the rivers must be as free as the heavens above are to the skylark. Then, and then indeed, a harvest will appear. Then there will be no toiling all day and taking nothing. The only question will be the capacity of the English markets to find room for the fish on nearly their own terms. There is chapter and verse for every word of this, and even then the vast districts of the southern shore of the St. Lawrence are left out of the calculation, as also is the island of Anticosti. Those who have made a summer passage to Canada will remember steaming along the coast of this uninhabited land. The woods come down to the water's edge, and we may occasionally see a black bear making slowly away, or a deer, startled by the noise of the screw, raise its head, and, splashing out of the salt water, disappear like a shadow into the forest. There are no rivers of any magnitude in this island, which is hardly a hundred miles in length: the largest is the Jupiter; but large and small literally swarm with salmon. No standing nets obstruct them, and their spawning grounds are unmolested by the torch and the spear. A company might easily be started to gather in its harvests, and, unless the price fell very much indeed in England, a golden harvest would crown their efforts; certainly, at d. or 9d. a pound, the supply would justify the outlay even of a new company that had inexperience and its many handicaps to contend with. But till the fishery laws are amended, any company in Canada would be unprofitable. As for the Indians harming the fish when they reach the far-off spawning grounds in the almost untrodden wilderness, that is a chimera. There are no Indians; or, at any rate, their numbers are so few, and their habits so nomadic, that, even if they willed it, they could do no damage. Besides this, the Indian is not the poacher-the poacher is the European. Often and often has an Iroquois or a Micmac told me that the clause in the Act that allowed them to kill game out of season, or gather ducks' eggs, or fish any way "The Indian does not kill a sitting or every way, was unfair to them. duck," they have said, "or take fish that want to spawn. It is the white man does this, and says it is the Indian ;" and indeed I believe there is very much truth in what they said. If we follow up the St. Lawrence to the Sagounay, we shall pass by fishing grounds that were matchless before the settler undertook to destroy their productions. Let one instance suffice of the prodigal wealth of the streams; and this instance is confirmed by Mr. Nettle on page 25 of his interesting little volume. A Hudson's Bay Company schooner was properly fitted out with ice and salt, and made a trip to some of the lower fishing stations, to capture salmon. They expected to remain about a month, and great was their surprise to find that in the first day's fishing, and that only the product of a single afternoon's tide, they had taken between 500 and 600 fish ; and before a week was over they had filled their barrels, consumed all their salt, and the schooner weighed her anchor to return to the port from whence she came. What has been before may as readily be again; and there is no possible reason why such a capture should not once more be the rule. And now I must quote Mr. Nettle's own words on another point; his views seem to be studiously moderate, and, if adopted, would settle the question of supply finally. "Let us suppose that within this vast district there are but 400 breeding fish, which, escaping the fixed nets and spears, deposit their spawn in safety in the sands of the feeders of the St. Lawrence, which would average 15 or 20 fish for each river-a low calculation for this locality. Now, it has been proved that the smallest of the breeding fish deposit 10,000 ova each. Again, nine-tenths are given to destruction, caused by freshets, and by the enemies of their own kind, consequently 1,000 are saved from each fish. We may now presume that they are seeking the briny waters of the ocean-and here again destruction ensues, for, although the thousand to each fish leave the rivers, they do not all return; one in four is lost, or 25 per cent. of the whole: consequently the number and value of the salmon for this district may be thus calculated. The 400 fish give, after the destruction caused in the river, 400,000 (one thousand to each fish); loss while on their emigration tour 25 per cent., thus decreasing the number to 300,000. Persons who understand the subject will say that the estimate is a very low one indeed." Low indeed it is; it is almost a burlesque of an estimate, as compared with what might be done. Instead of 400 breeding fish over this vast district, there should be almost as many thousands—there is room enough; and the result should be in the ratio he speaks of for his 400. The concluding sentence of his estimate is worth recording: "and as few persons would object to give 2s. 6d. for a fine salmon (!), seeing the Hudson's Bay Company charge 5s., the value of the fish within the Ance au Sablon and the Sagounay appears to be, from the calculation, £37,000." This was written in 1857, and there is one thing at least the writer of the book may lay credit to-he does not draw the long bow. A brief sketch is given of the Sagounay in Mr. Nettle's book, but it is quite too short to be as interesting as the subject deserves. The notes taken during several visits are not at present available; but, speaking from recollection, I should think that for sublime scenery the Sagounay has no superior in the world. Cape Trinity and Cape Eternity rise each in one mighty rock a thousand feet high, and the waters at their base are like Chillon's : Lake Leman lies by Chillon's walls; A thousand feet in depth below Thus much the fathom line was sent From Chillon's snow-white battlement. Though it is black to look at, when taken out in a glass the water is as bright as crystal, and intensely cold. And it has always been a puzzle to geologists to discover why a feeder of the St. Lawrence, which is comparatively a shallow river, should be in itself of almost fathomless depths. The Sagounay, which leaves the great circular lake St. John's, has a course of about 175 miles, and receives thirty considerable tributaries, and it could easily supply as many fish, and many more, very many more, than the late Inspector of Fisheries claimed for the whole province ! It is satisfactory also to be able to add that artificial propagation has found favour in Canada. There is an establishment at Newcastle, Ontario, for fish-hatching, and more than a million fry of salmon and trout, and other fish, are raised in a year. Now, salmon are by this means introduced into the rivers which fall into Lake Ontario, and some of them are well stocked with these fish. Here the pernicious standing-nets are not used, but there are difficulties to contend with that do not exist in the Lower Provinces. Salt water is 200 miles distant, and the rivers running into the fresh-water lake are too full of pike and bass for young salmon to have an easy time. If such establishments were only erected at the mouths of the rivers in the Sagounay district, there is no limit to the yield that might be gathered in. There are said to be nearly four millions of acres of inland water in the Sagounay district; but the estimate, which is from the last census, is delusive: it only takes into consideration the waters in the province of Quebec; many of the rivers, however, rise beyond these limits-far away in the north and the west, running through lands of which we know but little. We know, indeed, that they have great reservoirs, and these are often fed from the melting snows of high hills that supply the clearest and the coldest of water, even in midsummer. All these should be added to the fish-producing power of the West, for in the streams of the untrodden forest salmon can spread their ova with hardly an enemy to fear but the otter or the mink. Where there is but one fisherman there might be fifty, and where there is one salmon there should be a thousand. From Labrador almost to Quebec there might be an industrious, wealthy population, storing ice which is far colder than any we ever see in our hardest frosts, all through the weary months of winter, and in the summer all they could store would be wanted. The transport to English markets is all ready to their hands, and the only limit to the yield of the waters would be the demand at home; for if all that could be easily produced were to come forward we should be calling "Quantum sufficit" before very long. One is reminded here of a legend that is repeated in England, and may be relegated, it is to be feared, to fishy stories in general. It is often said that in apprentices' indentures in England a saving clause used to be inserted that apprentices were not to be compelled to eat salmon more than three times in a week. This is told of every river in England; but, unhappily for the truth of legend, one remembers that an apprentice's tastes were hardly consulted in the days alluded to, and Mr. Buckland, who has made the matter a subject of some investigation, says that in no old indenture can any such saving clause be discovered in any part of England, whether on a salmon river or not. Mr. Nettle, as has been said, confirms all that has been urged about the vastness of the capabilities of the salmon trade, and that in |