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.