Westward with the Prince of WalesNewton, W. Douglas (Wilfrid Douglas)
History
Westward with the Prince of Wales
Newton, W. Douglas (Wilfrid Douglas)
Canada -- Description and travel; Windsor, Edward, Duke of, 1894-1972
The Prince slept in a tent, rose early, bathed in the river and shaved
in the open in exactly the same manner as every one else in the party.
He took his place in the "grub queue," carrying his plate to the
cook-house and demanding his particular choice in bacon and eggs,
broiled trout, flapjacks, or the wonderful white flatbread, which the
cook, an Indian, Jimmy Bouchard, celebrated for open-fire cooking, knew
how to prepare.
Sometimes before breakfast the Prince indulged his passion for running;
always after breakfast he set out on foot, or in canoe for the day's
fishing, returning late at night hungry and tired with the healthy
weariness of hard exertion to the camp meal. There were spells round
the big camp fire burning vividly amid the trees, and then sleep in the
tent.
The fishing was usually done from the bass canoe, two Indian guides
being always the ship's company. And fishing was not the only
attraction of the stream and lake. There is always the thrilling,
placid beauty of the scenery, the deep forests, the lake valleys, and
the austere, forest-clad hills that rise abruptly from the enigmatic
pools. And there is the active beauty of the many rapids, those
piled-up and rushing masses of angry water, tossing and foaming in
pent-up force through rock gates and over rocks.
He tried the adventure of these rapids, shooting through the tortured
waters that look so beautiful from the shore and so terrible from the
frail structure of a canoe, until it seemed to him as though not even
the skill of his guides could steer through safely. He got through
safely, but only after an experience which he described as the most
exciting in his life.
The fishing itself proved disappointing. The famous speckled trout of
Nipigon did not rise to the occasion, and the sport was fair, but not
extraordinary. The best day brought in twenty-seven fish, the largest
being three and a half pounds, not a good specimen of the lake's trout,
which go to six and eight pounds in the ordinary course of things.
And the disappointment had an irony of its own. The man who caught the
most fish was the man who couldn't fish at all. The official
photographer, who had gone solely to take snapshots, also took the
maximum of fish out of the river. Indeed, he was so much of an amateur
that the first fish he caught placed him in such a predicament that he
did not play it, but landed it with so vigorous a jerk that it flew
over his head and caught high in a fir. An Indian guide had to climb
the tree to "land" it.
Nevertheless, he caught the most fish, and when he returned with his
spoil, the Prince said to him:
"Look here, don't you realize I'm the one to do that? You're taking my
place in the program."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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