I would suggest for the preservation of our fast disappearing game(1) that a Government game protector be appointed without delay to patrol this part of the country from Missanabie to Nipigon, during the winter months, especially during the height of the snow or when it is crusted.

   I venture to think the Canadian Pacific Railway Company would give such an authorized official a free pass up and down the line between the points designated if for no other reason than the protection of game for sportsmen yet to come over their line and dropping off at places with a good name for game.

   This game protector could drop off at any place he had suspicions about, question people, get evidence, and when a clear case is made out against any breaker of the law have the magistrate impose the very maximum fine, with imprisonment for a second offense. One or two convictions would have a wholesome and beneficial effect and would go far in deterring the perpetrators to continue this wanton killing.

   One last word or suggestion about such an official  ̶  let him be from a distance. One connected with the people or a resident of that part of the country would be of no avail.

   At a bend of the White River, a couple of miles west of Montizambert, we had some delay crossing a bridge. The middle pier of the new concrete bridge had sunk alarmingly, necessitating the train being pushed slowly over the old discarded bridge alongside of the new. This bridge has been partially demolished when the defect in the new one was noticed.(2)

   Our locomotive was switched to the rear of the train and we were pushed slowly over the structure. I admit a case of nerves and go down on the lowest footstep ready to take a header upstream should a catastrophe take place.

   The Canadian Pacific Railway Company had two divers and a couple of hundred men camped here repairing the fault and when I returned over the line ten days later we dashed over the new bridge with the utmost confidence.

   All along this wonderful railway one passes at short intervals section men’s houses. These men patrol from four to five miles of track each and every day, and put in the proverbial stitch in time to any minor defects. Anything seriously happening to the roadbed or bridges is at once telegraphed from the nearest office and a gang of experienced men immediately rushed to the danger spot.

   We crossed the Pic River about six miles up from its debouchement into Lake Superior and by the same token we are from this forth(sic) rapidly approaching the Great Lake.

   A word however about the Pic. This river flows from the north through high clay banks, from sixty to over a hundred feet high. The same conditions continue up to the first portage, distant inland sixty miles.(3) The water, from the constant breaking away of the banks and the frequent rains is heavily charged clay. When the sediment is allowed to settle in the bottom of a glass the water is clear, tasty and wholesome.

   The Pic carries its breadth of about one-eighth of a mile pretty evenly right up to the first portage. This portage, by the way, is called by the Indians “The Lake Portage”; why I cannot say for there is not a lake near it; probably however, because it is the last portage from the interior to Lake Superior. The Pic is navigable from its mouth to the portage, sixty miles, for small steamboats and in the olden days was the route for transport of supplies for the Hudson’s Bay Company inland posts. There are no fish in this stretch.

   Leaving the Pic the line runs south-west to Heron Bay(4), and here we catch the first glimpse of the noble Superior.

   Huron, Erie and Ontario are wonderful bodies of fresh water, and do not vary much in point of area. Superior stands alone in its vast extent, wonderful coast line, profound depth and crystal clearness of its water.

END NOTES

1  The opinion of T.A. Reynolds is corroborated by an item in The Globe newspaper dated March 6, 1908.  The day before, a member of the Ontario Legislature urged amendments to the Game and Fishing Act. “He pictured the wanton and illegal slaughter which was going on in New Ontario.” Game wardens needed to be well paid. “[He] argued that men could hardly be expected to go out in the woods to enforce the law when there was no remuneration.” He deplored a proposal that deputy wardens and fishery overseers should be appointed without salary. According to the annual report of the Game and Fisheries Department in 1908, there were only six wardens for the whole province, two of them in Northern Ontario. These were permanent, paid positions; other enforcers shared half the fines collected.

2  The last spike of the Canadian Pacific Railway was driven on November 7, 1885. “This was not the end, for the railway was far from finished. It was in fact only the end of the beginning and it had been accomplished in a remarkable time of less than half the ten years it was obligated to. The CPR’s founders saw this haste as necessary to get money coming in to keep things going unlike the government efforts that had dragged on for many years over a much shorter fragmented distance.” For decades after, construction crews would improve the line with features such as filling in sinkholes, building up ballast, and replacing wooden trestles with iron ones.  Credit Old Time Trains .

3  “The Lake Portage” referenced by the author is Middle Falls. Reynolds, as a fur trader residing at Long Lake House in the 1870s, would have been familiar with this portage. Middle Falls is a pair of falls on the Pic River. The falls are quite remote and reaching them takes a bit of effort. Trails will take you to the lower drop, which is the larger of the two. You have to bushwhack to see the upper drop. There are high sand banks below the falls and a large sand bar below the falls. There are also lots of remnants from the logging days. Old broken up bits of logs litter the river around the falls. Credit Middle Falls of the Pic River .

4  The Ojibways of Pic River First Nation describe Heron Bay this way today: “Heron Bay consists mostly of a hotel, a grocery store and a few other small businesses.”  It came to national attention when troops were being transported along the incompleted CPR line in April 1885 to quell the North-West Rebelion. As a construction camp, it consisted of a few shanties. On April 3rd, soldiers had been riding in flat cars in freezing temperature for hours. A diary entry reads, “About 2.30 a.m. we reach a camp called Heron Bay 90 miles  from Camp Desolation and have a meal . . . Many of our poor fellows have to be lifted out of the cars, so stiff with cold are they, but warmth and food soon revive them . . . We leave Heron Bay about 6 a.m., refreshed and cheerful, and soon catch our first glimpse of Lake Superior.” Credit Troop Treks of 1885, William P. Skrepichuk, Thunder Bay Historical Museum Society, 2019.