Nipissing. Françoise Noël

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      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.

      Chapter 3

      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 СКАЧАТЬ