THE ST. JOHN RIVER
IN MAINE, 0[JKB]:C, ANT) NEW
BRUNSWICK
t. V
CAMBRIDGE
Prtntels at t^t Eiumiint PteK»
1894
>X--'
THE ST. JOHN RIVER
IN MAINE, QUEBEC, AND NEW
BRUNSWICK
BY
J. W. BAILEY
CAMBRIDGE
Pttnteti at ti)e Ettiercittie Preset
1894
Copyright, 1894,
By. J. W. BAILEY.
5^^^7t
CONTENTS.
CHAFTEB
I. Introductory
Comparison with Other Rivers .
II. The Upper St. John
The Baker and Southwest Branches
The Northwest Branch .
Seven Islands and Vicinity
From the Islands to the AUagash
Big and Little Black Rivers
Lac de L'Est
Drainage Areas .
The AUagash River
From AUagash to St. Francis
The St. Francis River
From St. Francis to Fort Kent
The Great Fish River .
From Fort Kent to Edmundston
The Meruimpticook River
The Madawaska River
From Edmundston to Grand FaUs
The Oroquois River
Green River .
Quisibis River
Grand River .
The Grand Falls .
Colebrooke
III. The Middle St. John
From Grand Falls to Andover
Salmon River
The Aroostook River
PAOB
1
3
7
7
9
11
12
15
17
18
18
26
27
32
33
37
38
41
50
51
51
55
55
56
61
62
62
63
64
IV
CONTENTS.
The Tobique River ....
Statistics ......
From Andover to Woodstock
The Beccag-uimec River
The Meduxnikeag River
From Woodstock to FrediTieton .
Minor Tributaries below AV'oodstock .
Eel River ......
The Shogomoc River ....
The Pokiok River
The Nackavtriek River
The Keswick River ....
The Nashwaaksis River
Fredericton
The Nashwaak River ....
IV. The Lower St. John ....
From Fredericton to Gagetown .
The Oromocto River ....
From Gagetown to Indiantown .
The Drainage Area of the Jemseg River
The Washademoak ....
The Belleisle
The Kennebecasis ....
The Nerepis River ....
The Tidal Fall
V. Various Features of the St. John
Descent of the River ....
Navigation
Bridges and Ferries ....
Denudation of the Forest
The Freshets
The Ice
The Fisheries of the St. John
Insects
The Disputed Territory
In Conclusion
VI. Settlement op the River Valley .
THE ST. JOHN RIVER
CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTORY.
Of the many rivers of Northeastern America,
it would be difficult to find one which, in the
diversity of its natural features, the facilities
afforded for sportsmen, and the interesting his-
tory of its colonization, is more worthy of mention
than the St. John ; and yet this river, viewed in
its entirety, has never formed the subject of any
published work. Possibly the fact that the area
drained by it lies partly in the United States and
partly in Canada accounts for this. The patri-
otic Canadian does not care to eulogize the vast
wilderness of Northern Maine, which, if the as-
sertions of provincial geographers are true, was
unjustly carved out of New Brunswick by the
much abused Ashburton Treaty. The American,
on the other hand, is not very eager to expatiate
upon the natural resoiu^ces of a country that he
might prefer to possess as a fractional part of his
own. Be that as it may, an attempt will be made
THE ST. JOHN RTVER.
in the succeeding pages to give a comparatively
full description of the St. John, with all the larger
tributaries, commencing at the extreme source in
Northwestern Maine, and ending at St. John city,
the commercial metropolis of New Brunswick,
where the river finally unites its waters with those
of the Bay of Fundy.
The principal difficulty to be encountered in a
work of this kind is the mass of detail, and the
necessity of describing fifty or more different
streams in more or less similar terms, without |
omitting facts that are of interest to the tourist, !
or stating them in the monotonous phraseology of I
the ordinary guide-book. Narratives of canoe
voyages, stories of the camp, exploits of well- I
known hunters and fishermen, are but passingly i
touched upon, the design being rather to state, as |
concisely as possible, what objects of interest, i
opportunity for pleasurable " outings," and facili- ■
ties for sport, await those who wish to visit the i
regions of Maine, Quebec, and New Brunswick, !
drained by the St. John, and ii^ more important \
tributaries. *
The plan adopted is to treat the river, first as a ;
whole, and in comparison with other rivers ; and ;
then in detail, by sections, each section including j
some portion of the main river worthy of special i
notice, or a principal tributary, or group of J
smaller ones. Finally, there follow a few general ]
remarks on the action of ice and floods, with other |
INTRODUCTOHY. 6
less important physical i)lieiioiiiena, and a brief
description of the fisheries.
COMPARISON WITH OTHER RIVERS.
As tlie Hudson, the Sa^ienay, and the St.
John present more natural attractions than any
other rivers of correspondin<^' size between the
Atlantic coast and the central plateau of the
North American continent, a few words of com-
parison between them may be appropriate.
The Saguenay, from Chicoutimi to Tadousac,
flows through a caiion, flanked by vast Laurentian
cliffs, that rise, sometimes perpendicularly from
the water's edge, to heights varying between five
hundred and two thousand feet. These mas. Ve
walls of rock are usually bare of all vegetation
except lichens and mosses, but where the inclina-
tion permits, small spruces and firs have gained a
precarious foothold. The scenery is not pretty,
but decidedly impressive. A few years ago some
gentlemen from Ottawa entered the Saguenay in
the night, and anchored at St. Etien, a small vil-
lage below Marguerite Bay. One of the party,
having climbed on deck while the cliffs were
bathed in the weird light of early dawn, and
silently observed the surroundings, remarked,.
" This is gloomy, grand, and peculiar." Possibly
no other sentence could so aptly describe the
scene.
Forty miles from Chicoutimi the river expands
4 ' THE ST. JOHN RIVER.
to form Lake St. John, a larger body of fresh
water than either the Hudson or St. John river
possesses. The lake is fed by the Askaapmou-
chowan, Mistassini and Peribonka rivers, all
great streams, flowing through the unexplored
wilderness of Northern Quebec. Between the
lake and Chicoutimi the descent is considerable,
affording plenty of " rapid-shooting " for ambi-
tious canoeists.
The Hudson is the most, as the Saguenay is
the least, densely populated of the three rivers
under discussion. None of the tributaries, small
or large, are unmapped or unexplored ; and only |
those rising in the Adirondacks attract the sports- '
man and lover of wild life. While almost as |
mountainous as the lower Saguenay, the various I
elevations are much less precipitous, affording I
rarely beautiful sites for residences and summer ]
hotels. Here and there an historic fortress may \
be seen, perched Rhinelike on some beetling crag, \
and near the water's edge, on both sides of the j
river, many tunnels and excavations have been \
made in the construction of the two great rail- \
ways that carry the bulk of traffic between " the \
Empire City " and the West. |
The St. John is less grand than the Hudson, j
less impressive than the Saguenay, but excels |
both in the diversity of its natural features. For |
seventy^five miles, commencing at the source, it j
flows through a great forest, the home of the I
INTRODUCTORY. 5
moose, caribou, deer, bear, and beaver. Then
scattered settlements appear, or isolated houses,
separated from all others of their kind by wide
expanses of woodland and rough water. One
hundred and ten miles from the source, these set-
tlen dnts begin to be connected by a continuous
road, and the valley is good for agriculture, and
peopled almost exclusively by the French. At
Grand Falls, midway between the source and
mouth, the character of the civilization changes,
the French colonists having been gradually sup-
planted by others, chiefly of English, Irish, and
Scottish origin.
The physical features alter in a manner quite
equally marked as the distance from the source
increases. Sluggish waters flowing through des-
olate barrens, or lowlands covered with a dense
growth of spruces and firs, are succeeded by miles
of swift current and rocky rapids. Below AUa-
gash the stream widens, and incloses many allu-
vial islands of great fertility. At the Grand Falls
the water plunges over a precipice nearly eighty
feet high, and careers tumultuously through a
rocky gorge. The current is very rapid below
the falls, and remains so almost to Fredericton,
while the hills surrounding the valley are quite
high, and generally under cultivation. Between
Fredericton and Belleisle the current is sluggish,
and the river broadens and deepens, once more
inclosing a multitude of islands, all of alluvial
6 THE ST. JOHN RIVER.
deposit. Lastly the country assumes a mountain-
ous character, although the elevations cannot
compare with those of the Hudson or the Sague-
nay, and great parallel arms or lakes extend east-
ward, offering almost unrivaled facilities for in-
land navigation. It would be idle to say that the
St. John is more or less interesting than the Hud-
son, or the Hud »on than the Saguenay, as opinions
vary in this regard with the peculiar tastes, or
nativity, of the persons who offer them.
Measured from the St. John Ponds at the
source of the South Branch to the Bay of Fundy,
the St. John is probably four hundred and forty-
six miles long, or a little more than one tenth the
length of the longest river in the world, the Mis-
sissippi, measured from the source of the Missouri
to the Gulf of Mexico. It is one hundred and
fifty miles longer than the Hudson, and somewhat
more than half as long as the Ehine, while the
drainage basin has been computed at twenty-six
thousand square miles, about one ninetieth that
of the Amazon.
CHAPTER II.
THE UPPER ST. JOHN.
THE BAKER AND SOUTHWEST BRANCHES.
Of the two streams which form, by their uni-
tion, the St. John River, one rises in a group of
very small ponds distant one hundred and fifty
miles from the Atlantic coast and eighty-two
miles from the St. Lawrence River, the other in
a small lake, named Lac St. Jean, about twenty
miles farther westward. The first of these,
usually called the Baker, or South Branch, is
somewhat longer than the second, or Boundary
Branch ; but when standing on the point at the
junction of the two streams, it is difficult to deter-
mine which is the larger in volume, by reason of
their close resemblance. Both lie in an absolutely
unbroken wilderness, large tracts of swampy for-
est land and low hills being the characteristic
features of the region. As might be expected,
these forests abound with moose, deer, and caribou.
The deer are rapidly increasing in number, and
one often hears them lowing at night, and splash-
ing about the marshes, or surprises them in the
water, while paddling swiftly and noiselessly
around the many bends of the stream. The
8 THE ST. JOHN RIVER.
moose are diminishing here, as elsewhere, and
must eventually share the fate of the buffaloes on
the Western prairies.
The Southwest or Boundary Branch is impor-
tant as forming for some distance the Interna-
tional Boundary, here dividing the Province of
Quebec from the State of Maine, and there is a
monument on it, erected by the boundary commis-
sioners. Sportsmen seldom visit it, there being
no convenient way of reaching the upper waters
except by ascending the stream. The Baker
Branch, on the contrary, which rises in seven or
eight small ponds (the latter forming the real
sources of the St. John), may be quite easily
reached by a carry of two miles from the North-
east Branch of the Penobscot. The streams
flowing from these ponds unite and empty into St.
John Pond, some two miles and one half long by
one mile broad. Eighteen miles of canoeable
stream connect St. John Pond with Baker Lake,
a rather uninteresting body of water about three
miles long, surrounded by low, thickly wooded
hills, and often inaccurately spoken of as the
source of the St. John River. Above the lake a
large brook enters the Baker stream from the west,
a rough and rocky brook to navigate, but one af-
fording another portage to the Northeast Branch
of the Penobscot, at Abakcotnetick Bog. For a
few miles below Baker Lake the water runs over
a ledge-obstructed, bowlder-strewn bed in a sue-
THE UPPER ST. JOHN. 9
cession of active little rapids ; then begin the
" cleadwaters," ^ so characteristic of the region.
The Southwest Branch is similar to the Baker,
being rapid for several miles above the mouth,
?nd sluggish in its middle course. The distance
to the Bay of Fundy from the head of Baker
Lake, following the river, is four hundred and
twenty-three miles, and from the fork of the two
branches four hundred and two miles.
THE NORTHWEST BRANCH.
The St. John is rapid at first below the forks,
and then flows placidly on to the junction of the
Northwest Branch, twelve miles below the Baker.
This branch is larger than the others, and at the
mouth is very wide and shallow, and strewn with
bowlders. Eight miles from the St. John it
forks, the principal branch being called the Daa-
quam, or Quam, while the smaller one retains
the name of the main stream, — a geographical
misnomer, quite as apparent, although hardly as
important, as the Mississippi-Missouri one. Ca-
noeists may reach the Quam by road from St.
Valier, a station on the Intercolonial Railway,
^ The writer introduces the term " dead water, " as one of
marked local significance, and apologizes in advance for a fre-
quent use of it. When a stream becomes tortuous and deep,
with a current almost imperceptible in the summer months, and
the banks are low and covered with rank marsh grass, or
densely tangled thickets of alder bushes, the natives call it a
" deadwater."
10 THE ST. JOHN lUVEli.
twenty-three miles east of Quebec eity. The dis-
tance is forty-six miles. Then twenty-two miles
of down-stream paddling brings them to the St.
John River, the first fourteen miles being on the
Daaquam, where the water is " dead" (technically
speaking), and the banks richly wooded. Lum-
bermen say that the best timber cut above AUa-
gash comes from the various tributaries of the
Northwest Branch, all of which, excepting the
headwaters of a few small brooks, lie in a wilder-
ness as yet uninvaded by other than the canoeist,
hunter, and woodsman. Small trout are quite
numerous in some of these waters, but the sports-
man is advised to go elsewhere if fishing is his
primary object.
Some years ago the Northwest Branch was
the scene of a mournful tragedy. A Frenchman,
traveling in the wood, stepped suddenly upon a
steel trap, attached by a chain, in the usual way,
to a heavy spruce log, and covered with brush
and moss. His foot was caught, and vain were
all attempts to loosen it. Imprisoned in a track-
less forest, mocked by the echoes of his cries for
help, he met a lingering death by famine and
exposure. Bears are usually caught by steel
traps, and they have been known to drag the
heavy chains and logs for some distance, and
finally gnaw their captured paws off, while strug-
gling savagely for freedom.
THE UPPER ST. JOHN. 11
SEVEN ISLANDS AND VICINITY.
Between the Northwest Branch and Seven
Ishmds, twenty-six miles, the river is wide, shal-
low, rocky, and rapid. The rapids are not bad
enough to worry a veteran canoeist, but the main
St. John, and in fact all tributaries above Alla-
gash, drop so low in occasional dry seasons that
it becomes almost impossible to navigate them at
all. Some gentlemen from Boston — and they
were veterans too, fearing nothing from the moose
to the mosquito — spent eight days in wading
and dragging a canoe from the St. Valier road to
the Islands. At that time, however, the water
was exceptionally low.
Burntland Brook, which enters the river from
the north, six miles below the Northwest Branch,
has a deep pool near the mouth, where, at times,
trout of the first magnitude may be caught in
abundance. The Northwest Rapid, also, is re-
puted to be a good fishing-ground.
Seven Islands, the most remote settlement on
the St. John, was founded about sixty-five years
ago, and named inappropriately from the presence
of thirteen alluvial islands that here obstruct the
channel. It now consists of half a dozen large
and comfortable farms, having no means of com-
munication with the rest of the civilized world
but by the river and a rough wood road leading
to St. Pamphile, a small village of Quebec sit-
12 THE ST. JOHN RIVER,
uated thirty-six miles from the St. Lawrence at
L' Islet. The road travei'ses the most aggravating
sloughs and swamps, and travelers who reach the
Islands that way generidly prefer to return by
water. As a good portage, thirteen miles in
length, connects the Currier farm at The Islands
with Harvey's Depot farm on the Allagash, the
tourist is advised to cross over and enjoy the su-
perior sporting facilities of that stream.
FROM THE ISLANDS TO THE ALLAGASH.
Below Seven Islands, and almost all the way to
Allagash, a distance of fifty miles, the St. John
is shallower, and even more rocky and turbulent
than it is above the Islands, and two rapids, the
most dangerous on the river, are found here.
One, called '•' Big Black River Rapid," where the
water falls for half a mile over ledges of slate, in
a channel plentifully bestrewn with jagged bowl-
ders, is a mile above Big Black River, and twenty
miles below the Islands ; while the other, called
the " Big Rapid," begins about three miles above
Little Black River, and forms a succession of
small cascades and frothy pools, aggregating
nearly two miles in length. Fewer ledges appear
in the " Big " than in the Big Black River Rapid,
but more bowlders obstruct the channel ; both are
very dangerous for other than the experienced
native to navigate. In the spring, when the
waves are heavy, bateaux are often swamped, and
THE UPPER ST. JOHN. 13
occasionally a life is lost ; yet in spite of these
great rapids, and many smaller on'.s, heavy tow
boats, laden with horses, hay, and lumbermen's
supplies, ascend the river, at medium water, to
the Baker Branch. Heavy horses, used to wading
over the roughest river bottom, supply the power,
and the stream-drivers, with ropes and poles,
strive diligently to keep the unwieldy craft in the
proper channel.
Navigation is certainly bad, whether for canoe
or bateau, between the Northwest Branch and
AUagash, and the scenery is, as a rule, monoto-
nous, and nowh'^re very picturesque. A few
scattered settlers are found, principally around
the mouths of the Little Black and Chemquassa-
bamticook rivers, but having no means of com-
munication 'with the outside world, except by the
rough river, their mode of life is very primitive.
One man, the solitary occupant of a frame house
on the left bank, eleven miles from his next door
neighbor, was, a few years ago, forgetting hu-
man speech, and finding it quite a difficult task
to think of words proper for the conveyance of the
most ordinary ideas. Above the Big Kapids
lived a family of which no member had ever seen
a railway or a telegraph wire. Some of the boys
had never seen a photograph, or even an ordinary
highway road. The mother had traveled as far
as Edmundston, or Little Falls, which she impli-
citly believed to be a metropolis of colossal pro-
14 THE ST. JOHN RIVER.
portions. Certainly the education of the " Chem-
quassabamtieookers " has been neglected in some
respects, but they have a vast knowledge of wood-
craft, canoe - polirg and stream - driving, all of
which sciences are sadly neglected in our greater
universities.
Canoe-poling really is a science. The polers
gradually urge the canoe to the foot of the rapid,
where the water tumbles and tosses furiously
through narrow channels, separated by bowlders
or ledges ; and then, glancing hastily up-stream
to determine which of these tortuous channels is
straightest or deepest, they give a sturdy shove,
and the bow of the frail craft is almost buried in
the foaming waters. When the force of the first
push is spent, the bow is often out of water, the
stern deeply sunk in the frothy pool below.
Then the bow-poler digs his pole into some
crevice between the rocks, and there holds it,
trembling with the mighty force of the current,
until the stern man has reset his own pole a few
feet up the stream, and prepared for another her-
culean effort. So great is the power of the water,
that a deviation of but a few inches from the
direction of its flow may cause the canoe to be
swung broadside upon some sharp and jagged
rock. The Indians consider it more dangerous
to descend some of the longer rapids than to pole
up, as in places where unexpected peculiarities
in the channel necessitate a sudden change of
THE UPPER ST. JOHN. 15
course, the canoe iiiiiy have attained a momentum
extremely difficult to check.
niG AND LITTLE BLACK RIVERS.
The Big Black River rises west of St. Pamphile
in Quebec, runs about forty-five miles, and emp-
ties into the St. John twenty-one miles below
Seven Islands. The headwaters of botli the main
stream and Depot stream, or })rincipid western
branch, interlock with the Northwest Branch of
the St. John. The river lies almost totally in
the wilderness, but a few tributaries traverse the
clearings of St. Pamphile, and the road to Seven
Islands crosses the main stream and Depot
Branch. The word "depot," in sylvan dialect,
means a storage camp where lumbermen resort
for supplies. One of these is on the Depot
Branch. The hunters choose various places for
storing provisions, including the hollowed trunks
of old decayed trees. On one occasion a novice
and his guide were lost, and the novice express-
ing anxiety about the meagre food supply, the
guide jocosely remarked : " I can kick bread and
molasses out of most any stump."
At average water the canoeing is good below
St. Pamphile, and the principal branches of Black
River are also more or less navigable. The
Indian name of the river is Chimpassacoutie ; of
its North Branch, Metawaakwamis. Very exten-
sive deadwaters occur both on the main stream
16 THE ST, JOHN RIVER.
and tributaries. The fishing' is poor, but game
quite plentiful, — deer especially so.
The two Black liivers have been named from
the dark color of their waters ; a color i)artly
derived, it seems, from the numerous deadwaters,
where the soft nmddy banks are easily eroded,
and nuich vegetable matter settles and decays.
They are not the sole cause, however, as some
streams are wine-colored from organic or mineral
impurities above the deadwaters, and the little
Oroquois River, below Ednmndston, is quite half
deadwater, yet very clear.
Little Black River, hi^ving the same general
characteristics as Big Black, enters the St. John
three miles above AUagash. A few settlers live
at the mouth, above which the whole river basin
is surrounded by what Thoreau calls " the grim
untrodden wilderness, whose tangled labyrinth of
living, fallen and decaying trees only the deer
and moose, the bear and wolf can easily pene-
trate."
The settlers are very poor. When an explorer
was about to throw away a well-picked ham bone,
the guide arrested his arm, saying that he would
take it to one of the houses, where the gift would
be appreciated, — probably as a suitable ingredi-
^ ent for soup.
THE UPPER ST. JOHN. 17
LAC DE l'EST.
About midway between Big and Little Black
rivers the St. John receives the Chem(|uaHsabam-
ticook, a considerable stream flowing from Lac
de L'Est. The Allagash has a tributary of the
same name, the natives pronouncing it " Se-bam-
se-cook."
Surrounded as it is by lofty forest-clad hills,
that rise quite abruptly from the water's edge,
Lac de L'Est presents more attractions than any
other lake of the St. John system above the Alla-
gash. It teems with mammoth trout, and the tou-
ladi (^salmo ferox) is equally plentiful. July is
the best month for fishing. The only settlement
is the little plantation of the Indian Louis John,
connected by thirteen miles of very rough wood
road with the French settlements southeast of
Kamouraska. The lake measures nine miles
in length, and the international boundary crosses
it two miles above the outlet. Natives say that
the stream would be readily canoeable, at average
water, from Lac de L'Est to the St. John, a dis-
tance of eighteen miles, if the channel was freed
from obstructions ; but a reliable explorer says :
" I have seen the bed of the Chemquassabamti-
cook perfectly dry in the latter part of August."
18 THS ST. JOHN RIVER, \
DRAINAGE AREAS.
The total drainage area of the St. John, with
tributaries, above the Allagash, is 2,950 square |
miles, of Big Black River, about 600 square miles,
of the Northwest Branch, about 550 square miles, I
of the St. John, with tributaries, above the North-
west Branch, 770 square miles, and of Little Black
Eiver, 310 square miles.
The Seven Islands are 365 miles, and the
mouth of the Allagash 315 miles, from the sea at
St. John city.
■ '' ' ' ■ !
THE ALLAGASH RIVER. |
The Aroostook, Tobique, Jemseg, Allagash, and \
Madawaska are the five tributaries of the St. John j
having drainage areas over one thousand square j
miles in extent. That of the Allagash is 1,450 «
. . i
miles, including the basins of the two principal
branches, the Chemquassabamticook and Mus-
quacook. The river is more picturesque, and in|
every way more attractive than the main St. John I
above it ; the waters abound with fish ; the neigh- 1
boring forests with moose, deer, and caribou.
Beaver are found on the small tributary brooks,
but not more frequently than on other remote
watercourses in Northern Maine and New Bruns-
wick.
The source of the Allagash is not over ten
miles, in a straight line, from the junction of the
THE UPPER ST. JOHN. 19
Southwest and Baker branches of the St. John,
and the river flows easterly at first, through Alla-
gash Lake into Chamberlain Lake. AUagash
Lake may be reached by portage from Poland
Brook, a stream flowing indirectly into the West
Branch of the Penobscot, and is quite large, with
precipitous rocky shores on the western side.
Travelers say the fishing is good near the river's
inlet. A courageous canoeist may ascend the AUa-
gash for many miles above the lake and portage
to Lac Yule, the head of the Chemquassabamti-
cook ; but novices are respectfully advised to re-
frain from any such undertaking.
From AUagash Lake to AUagash Pond, a dis-
tance of two or three miles, the current is rapid ;*
and between the pond and Chamberlain Lake
there are two falls, many rapids, and several lit-
tle deadwaters. From Mud Pond, which con-
nects with Chamberlain Lake by a small, sluggish
brook, a well-known portage, two miles in length,
leads to the Umbazookscus Lake and Stream, the
latter waters flowing into the West Branch of
the Penobscot. Many travelers from Moosehead
Lake pass this way, the carry having been much
improved in recent years. Thoreau, who crossed
it in 1857, says : " I would not have missed that
walk for a good deal. If you want an exact re-
ceipt for making such a road, take one part Mud
Pond, and dilute it with equal parts of Umba-
zookskus and Apmoojenegamook ; then send a fam«
20 THE ST. JOHN RIVER.
ily of musquash through to locate it, look after
the grades and culverts, and finish it to their
minds, and let a hurricane follow to do the fen-
eing.
The Fish, Madawaska, Jemseg, and Allagash
rivers probably have more lake surf?ice within
their collective drainage basins, — if we exclude
the bays and fiords of the lower St. John, — than
all other tributaries combined. Over one hundred
lakes and ponds pay tribute to the Allagash, and
of these. Chamberlain Lake is much the largest.
The famous Chamberlain farm, where supplies
may be obtained, is the only settlement to break the
monotony of its forest-clad shores. Eagle Lake,
sixteen miles long, is next below Chamberlain,
and next in size, connecting with Churchill Lake
or Wallagasquequam, the third in the chain, by
a still-water thoroughfare. Several brooks fall
into Eagle Lake, which is irregular in outline,
and very picturesque, inclosing a couple of large
wooded islands. Pillsbury Island is the more
southerly of these, and, almost opposite, Smith
Brook flows in from the east, a stream " canoe-
able " to its source in Haymock Lake. Russell,
Soper, and Snare are three other large brooks en-
tering the Allagash in Eagle Lake ; all fairly good
trout streams, partially navigable for canoes.
Thoroughfare Brook above Churchill Lake is
also a considerable stream, much resembling those
last named.
THE UPPER ST. JOHN. 21
Below the outlet of Chamberlain Lake, the
lumbermen have, for many years, maintained a
dam, by means of which, and a canal connecting
Chamberlain and Telos lakes with Webster
Brook, the most material part of the upper AUa-
gash is turned down the East Branch of the Pe-
nobscot. Thus we have the rare phenomenon of
one stream entering two rivers. Chamberlain
Lake forms the connecting link, and, in the
freshet season especially, flows both east and
north, like the Cassaquiare in South America, a
stream joining the Orinoco River with the Rio
Negro, a branch of the Amazon.
The effect of such a dam upon lake scenery is
truly startling. The sandy beaches disappear, the
waves break rudely on the forest, the stately trees,
beaten by drifting ice, rotted by unnatural sub-
mersion, fall prone upor the water; and their
weakened, sapless trunks are piled in much con-
fusion against the dense green wood behind, form-
ing a tangled maze of stumps, and roots, and
branches, on which the stormy waters vainly
break. So does Nature seemingly resent the spoli-
ation of her works by man.
A few rods below Churchill Lake are the ruins
of another dam, which once stemmed back an im-
mense body of water, and was erected by the Yan-
kee lumbermen in order to drive the St. John
lumber down the East Branch of the Penobscot,
via Telos Lake, the New Brunswick government
22 THE ST. JOHN EIVER.
having levied a duty on logs cut in Maine, in al-
leged violation of the Treaty of 1842.^ The dam
was finally destroyed by a party of men in the
employ of John Glazier, Esq., of Fredericton, and
so great was the volume of water discharged that
the St. John Eiver rose three feet at Grand Falls,
one hundred and sixty-five miles away.
^ Sec. 111. Of the Treaty between the States and Great
Britain, 1842. In order to promote the interests and encourage
the industry of all the inhabitants of the countries watered by the
River St. John's and its tributaries, whether living within the
State of Maine or the Province of New Brunswick, it is agreed
that where, by the provisions of the present treaty, the River St.
John's is declared to be the line of boundary, the navigation of
the said river shall be free and open to both parties, and shall in
no way be obstructed by either ; that all the produce of the for-
est in logs, lumber, timber, boards, staves, or shingles, or of agri-
culture, not being manufactured, grown on any of those parts of
the State of Maine watered by the River St. John's or by its trib-
utaries, of which fact reasonable evidence shall, if required, be
produced, shall have free access into and through the said river
audits tributaries, having their source within the State of Maine,
to and from the seaport at the mouth of the River St. John's, and
to and from the falls of the said river, either by boats, rafts, or
by other conveyance ; that, when within the Province of New
Brunswick, the said produce shall be dealt with as if it were the
produce of the said province ; that, in like manner, the inhabit-
ants of the territory of the upper St. John's, determined by this
treaty to belong to her Britannic majesty, shall have free access
to and through the river for their produce, in those parts where
the said river runs wholly through the State of Maine : Provided,
always. That this agreement shall give no right to either party
to interfere with any regulations not inconsistent with the terms
of the treaty, which the governments, respectively, of Maine or
of New Brunswick may make respecting the navigation of said
river, where both banks thereof shall belong to the same party.
THE UPPER ST. JOHN. 23
For half a mile below the ruined dam there are
rapids, the worst on the Allagash, but pigmies
when compared with those near Black River on
the St. John. In the very midst of one of them,
called the " Devil's Elbow," the canoeist must
cross at a right angle with the current, or be
dashed on jagged rocks, upset, and wrecked.
With a loaded canoe strong hands and steady
nerves are required to avoid some such calamity,
and the novice had better explore the portage
called Chase's carry.
Churchill Lake is a delightful expanse of water,
about six miles long by four broad, receiving,
like Eagle Lake, the contributions of many brooks.
Two of these brooks, called the " Twins," enter
from the southwest, the North Twin being the
outlet of Spider Lake, a dark and deep water,
swarming with different fishes, and named from
its very irregular shore line. A small brook
struggles in at the head of Spider Lake through a
rather grewsome cedar swamp, where a portage
leads to the deadwater of the Munsungan, a
branch of the Aroostook. Indians often passed
this way in former days, and in 1887 the writer
observed a rude picture of a savage chief, carry-
ing a birch canoe, which was carved on a tree
trunk, with certain signs to indicate the portage.
A lone hunter lives on Spider Lake, guarding
a depot camp. His sole companion is a cat, which,
for the sake of increased proficiency in keeping
24 THE ST. JOHN RIVER.
troublesome rodents from the supplies, is com-
pelled to live on what it captures vi et armis.
We saw it pounce upon a mouse, and swallow the
unfortunate animal, yet squeaking, with no more
attempt at mastication than a commercial trav-
eler makes in a railway restaurant.
An interesting trip, through a picturesque, un-
broken wilderness, is that from Spider Lake, via
Pleasant and Harrow lakes, to the Musquacook,
the second in length and volume of the many
tributaries of the Allagash. The portage to Pleas-
ant Lake is a mile and a half long, and that from
Pleasant to Harrow Lake a little over a mile. All
told there are six lakes on the main Musquacook
stream, the uppermost one. Clear Lake, nestling
at the base of Round Mountain, and affording
some strik*T)g scenery. The others are connected
by navigal le thoroughfares, and the old wood
road from Seven Islands to Allagash passes near
the outlet of the first lake, from which point it
is a ten-mile walk to Harvey's Depot farm on the
Allagash. Musquacook stream, below the lakes,
is usually navigable for canoes.
Long Lake, the nucleus of the Allagash sys-
tem, is, like Chamberlain, Eagle, and Churchill
lakes, a mere fluvial expansion. It is ten miles
long and divided by a narrow thoroughfare into
two parts, caUed, respectively. Upper and Lower
Umsaskis. The Chemquassabamticook River
(already mentioned), which unites with the Up-
THE UPPER ST. JOHN. 25
per Umsaskis, is navigable for canoes to Lac
Yule, although, for the most part, a broad and
shallow stream. Lac Yule is one of the largest
lakes of the AUagash country, and was repre-
sented on early maps, when the region was little
explored, as draining into the St. John River
above Seven Islands. Both Upper and Lower
Umsaskis are charmingly picturesque, and afford
excellent opportunities for angler and hunter.
One Harvey, a famous woodsman, thoroughly
conversant with the geographical intricacies of
the region, has a depot farm near the foot of the
lower lake, where the traveler may take the
portage to Currier's farm at the Seven Islands.
It is questionable if a better river for the
canoeist can be found anywhere than the AUa-
gash below Harvey's. Almost everywhere the
current is swift, and ever and anon the water
dashes down a sand-bar, gradually narrowing as
it descends, until a myriad of dancing pyramidal
shaped waves are formed by the action of cross
currents and eddies. These waves have been
rather oddly termed "hay-stacks." The woods
are rich in game, more especially near Petaguon-
gomis, or Round Pond, an oval-shaped fluvial ex-
pansion three miles above Musquacook.
Above the Great Fall, fourteen miles from the
mouth, the water scatters into many channels,
which inclose a cluster of islands very similar to
the Seven Islands on the St. John; and a few
26 THE ST. JOHN RIVER.
pioneer settlers live in this vicinity: The fall is
almost thirty feet high, and second in magnitude
among all waterfalls of the St. John River sys-
tem. Below, the stream is rocky, with many
rapids, of which those at Two Brooks are most
exciting, although not dangerous. The waters
finally discharge by two channels, which inclose
Gardner's Island between them.
The AUagash and St. Francis rivers are the
only large tributaries of the St. John with well-
formed deltas at their mouths.
FROM ALLAGASH TO ST. FRANCIS.
The St. John, as a really large river, com-
mences at the mouth of the Allagash, the latter
stream probably having a volume of discharge
two thirds as great as that of the former above
their junction. During the annual spring freshet
the St. John is very much the larger, there being
few lakes to store flood water ; but as it falls so
low in the dry season, there are undoubtedly times
when the Allagash becomes the greater river. At
Allagash, too, we find the commencement of a
civilization which increases in complexity, gener-
ally speaking, all the way to the Bay of Fundy ;
and at Golden' s farm, four miles below, the na-
tives enjoy no less a luxury than a carriage road.
In the twelve miles between Allagash and St.
Francis some lively rapids appear. Nigger Brook,
Cross Rock, Golden's and Rankin's rapids being
THE UPPER ST. JOHN. 27
most conspicuous ; while a lofty ridge, curiously
serrated along the summit, and denuded by forest
fires, rises abruptly on the north, lending a very
distinct enchantment to the view. All the rapids
are navigable, but, as the guide says: ''^ Prcnez
garde les grandes rocliea,''''
The Cobobscoose or Nigger Brook (the latter
name was given because a negro stream-driver
once found a watery grave there ; Cobobscoose is
not the Algonquin word for " nigger ") enters
near the rapid of the same name. It rises in
Cobobscoose Lake, fifteen miles south of the St.
John, and is, at the mouth, a noisy torrent of very
clear water, giving promise of trout in the more
quiet turns above.
THE ST. FRANCIS RIVER.
The St. Francis well merits description as a
river interesting alike to all classes of sportsmen.
Eising in a small lake of the same name, but
twelve miles from the seacoast east of Riviere du
Loup, the stream actually twists across the water-
shed from the St. Lawrence side. It is about
seventy-five miles long and drains about seven
hundred square miles.
The old Temiscouata portage (a military road)
and the recently constructed Temiscouata Valley
Railway cross the river five miles below St.
Francis Lake, and from there down the canoeing
is continuously good, excepting a few natural
28 THE ST. JOHN RIVER.
dams of logs and drift stuff, all in the first fifteen
miles. In one place, where the stream permeates
such a tangled thicket of alders that the branches
and twigs have knotted in a common mass across
the water, the ^^prenez garde '* of our infallible
guide is intermingled with the more unpardonable
exclamation, " Sucre I "
Pohenagamook, on the western shore of Bound-
ary Lake, a village of two or three hundred souls,
— French souls, — and the first settlement below
the railway crossing, is connected with St. Alex-
andre on the St. Lawrence by a road twenty-six
miles long. The lake is nine miles long, narrow
and deep. Hills uprise on all sides ; the alter-
nation of wooded slopes with patches of cultivated
land and fields of charred stumps adding a variety
to the landscape.
From Boundary Lake to the mouth, a distance
of forty miles, the St. Francis forms the inter-
national boundary. For twenty-five miles, com-
mencing at the lake, Maine is on the west side,
and Quebec on the east ; for the remainder of the
distance Maine still on the west side, but New
Brunswick on the east.
Receiving in Boundary Lake the waters of
Smoke River, and in the deadwater below those
of Sal-way-e-sip,.or Wild Cat Brook, and yet lower
down the addition of Dead Brook, the St. Francis
becomes a much more considerable stream, and
glides so rapidly aroimd a series of sharp turns
THE UPPER ST. JOHN. 29
that a canoe is in danger of being slapped against
the bank, or carried under overhanging brush.
On a late journey both these inisha])s occurred.
Below the round turns come the Kelly Kapids,
which are said to be two miles long, but canoes
have descended in eleven minutes, during high
water, however long they are. The trout-fishing
is very good occasionally, both in the rapids and
in the deadwater below Boundary Lake.
Blue River, the one really larg(3 tributary, enters
from the east, twelve miles below Pohenagainook.
It is the first clear-water stream of the St. John
system that we have yet met, and has two prin-
cipal branches rising near Notre Dame de St.
Louis du Ha Ha, a village on the Temiscouata
road. About forty miles of its waters would be
canoeable but for numerous " jams " of driftwood
and fallen trees. In the summer of 1887 the
East Branch was so choked with lumber, prostrate
trees, old roots, and bushes, that two explorers
were obliged to abandon their canoe and outfit,
walk through the woods to the forks, and descend
the main stream straddled on a cedar log. On
this quixotic voyage they were carried backward
over a smooth rapid, sent crashing through a mass
of brush which overhung the eddying pool below,
stranded on a sunken root, and idtimately over-
turned. Their feet, always in the icy water, were
scraped on sand-bars over which the unmanage-
able log passed with much velocity, and a lack
30 THE ST. JOHN RIVER.
of shelter, warmth, and food achled much to their
diseonifort. While IMiie Kiver is a iimeh purer
stream than the St. Francis, the trout-fishinf>* is
greatly inferior, — a stranj^e faet, considering the
habit of the trout to follow the clearest water.
The region is an excellent one for caribou and
bears.
At the Nadeau farm, three miles below Blue
Kiver, a good portage, also of three miles, leads
to Cabineau Lidic.
Beau Lake is quite what the name implies, — a
beautiful sheet of water, nine miles long by two
broad, surrounded by hills and forests as nearly
virgin as one is apt to find in these days. Below
the lake the river is very peculiar, appearing like
a great stream newly turned down a wooded valley,
no sufficient time having elapsed for the wearing
out of an ordinary river channel. First we find
a pond, then a lively rajnd, then another pond or
lake. The water rushes laterally from Cross Lake
in a rapid called the " Mill Privilege," so close to
the lake as to be easily seen one third way out
from shore ; while the outlet is so narrow that a
canoeist might well pass by, and find himself in a
natural cnl-de-sae at the lower end. Below the
Mill Privilege come the winding ledges, with
more rapids, the stream here being exactly paral-
lel with the lower part of Cross Lake, from which
it has just escaped. Then come more ponds, small
and cup-shaped, then Glazier Lake, or Woolas-
3
a
s
H
o
H
THE UPPER ST. JOHN. 31
tookpectawaagomic, five miles long and very pic-
turesque ; then rapids again to the St. John River.
The greatest depth of Beau Lake is about 150
feet ; of Glazier Lake, 115 feet. A peculiarly
pleasant feature of St. Francis scenery is the ap-
proach of forest growth to the very water's edge ;
but as the scenery is enhanced thereby, so is the
convenience of beaching canoes diminished.
Fall Brook, named from two waterfalls each
twenty or thirty feet high, and flowing from Fall
Brook Lake near the valley of Little Black River,
pours in from the west, one mile below Glazier
Lake. A mile or so above the Second Fall begins
the famous deadwater, where the trout supply,
after many years of fishing, has literally proved
inexhaustible. Very few of the fish are large, but
an occasional one weighs three pounds.
Few canoemen leave the St. Francis without
regret, as it is, par excellence, a river of pretty
lakes and lively rapids. 'The water supply of all
these rivers is largely regulated by the lake ex-
tent within their respective areas. The Allagash,
St. Francis, Fish, and Madawaska rivers have
good water at all times, while the St. John, above
Allagash, and the Aroostook, become very low in
dry seasons. Green River and the Tobique usu-
ally have good water, although their lake areas
are comparatively small ; probably because they
are more largely fed by springs than are the
other tributaries.
32 THE ST. JOHN RIVER.
FROM ST. FRANCIS TO FORT KENT.
Between St. Francis and Fort Kent, a distance
of eighteen miles, the St. John is generally wide
and shallow, the channel often splitting to inclose
a grassy island, fringed with bushes and stately
elm-trees. The water is rapid, or " strong " as
the natives say, and falls with extraordinary ve-
locity and much uproar over numerous sand-bars.
On each side are broad intervales, backed by hills
of uneven contour. Many consider this the most
picturesque portion of the river. The interna-
tional boundary follows the thread of the stream
for seventy-two miles, beginning at St. Francis ;
the first road on the English side begins below
St. Francis stream ; and a one-train-a-day railway
follows the valley from Edmundston. At St.
Francis, also, the character of the colonization
alters greatly, the people above being of English
descent, the people below almost exclusively of
French.
Among the French we find a very peculiar class
called " Jumpers," an unfortunate people afflicted
with an hereditary nervous malady that causes
them to do the most extraordinary things, when
influenced by unusual excitement resulting from
unexpected sensations of touch and sound. A
loud shout, a sudden blow, or a rifle-crack arouses
the latent trouble, which manifests itself for but
a brief interval, leaving its subject a victim to
THE UPPER ST. JOHN. 33
remorse or shame. When some " Jumpers " were
taking their luncheon, while " logging," and a by-
stander shouted " Strike ! " the men are said to
have thrown their knives and platters about most
recklessly, and at a later day one of these un-
happy men is said to have jumped on a revolving
saw when thus unduly influenced. In 1883,
while ascending the Madawaska River, the writer
was requested by his guide, a self-acknowledged
"Jumper," to warn him before loudly calling to
people on the bank, as otherwise he might drop
his pole and overturn the canoe. The " Jump-
ers " seem to have originated in one locality,
which was, we believe, on the American side of
the boundary line and above St. Francis.
THE GREAT FISH RIVER.
At Fort Kent, where stands an old block-house,
a monument of the " bloodless " Aroostook War,
Great Fish River enters the St. John from the
south. It is ninety-five miles long, measuring from
the source of the West Branch, with a drainage
area of nine hundred and fifty square miles, thus
ranking sixth among the tributaries of the St.
John.
The East Branch is a mere succession of great
lakes, with thoroughfares of quick water between,
so little known a half -century ago that a surveyor
remarked : " We are pretty certain that they have
never been explored by any agent of the State,
34 THE ST, JOHN RIVER.
and all that is known respecting them is derived
from the French at Madawaska." Long Lake,
twelve miles in length by two in breadth, is the
head of the chain, and attainable by a portage of
only five miles from the St. John at Frenchville.
Curiously enough, the canoeist, by making this
short carry, can paddle down sixty-five miles of
river and lake to his starting point. Such a cir-
cuitous flow of water forms a not uncommon geo-
graphical feature of the country, a similar voyage
being possible on Madawaska water, as will be
seen hereafter. Mud, Cross, and Square lakes
are other expansions of the East Branch ; Square
probably having as large a superficial area as
Long Lake, although shaped more compactly.
Limestone Point, on its western shore, affords
good camping facilities, and often a refuge from
flies. When one has undergone the torture of
continual poisonous injections, he appreciates the
relief afforded by e^en a temporary cessation of
attacks from those carnivorous outlaws, " les
mouches.^^
The northwestern shore of Long Lake is under
cultivation, but Mud, Cross, and Square lakes are
completely encompassed by those evergreen forests
that seem to exercise an influence similar to that
of the sea ov*^ the habits and thoughts of men,
when once inured to life within their dusky
glades.
" What is most striking in the Maine wilder-
THE UPPER ST. JOHN. 85
ness," says Thoreau, " is the continuousness of the
forest, with fewer open intervals or glades V;han
you had imagined. Except the few burnt lands,
the narrow intervals on the river, the bare top.^ of
the mountains, and the lakes and streams, the for-
est is uninterrupted. It is even more grim and
wild than you had anticipated, — a damp and intri-
cate wilderness, in the spring everywhere wet and
miry.
The woods are most impressive at night, when
one reclines on his somewhat prickly bed of boughs
and hears the wind moaning mournfully among
the treetops, while a deathly stillness prevails be-
neath, broken only by an occasional crackling of
branches, which the imagination oft attributes to
the bear, the bull-moose, or the restless " Indian
devil." The Indian devil is that animal which,
when seen, is never believed to have been seen by
anybody but the person who saw it. It varies in
size, shape, and degree of ferocity.
Many brooks feed the East Branch, at the
mouths of which trout were once very niunerous.
At present all the waters of this system are sadly
overfished.
Eagle Lake, in which the branches of Fish
River unite, is about fifteen miles long, and bent
near the middle at a right angle. The landscape
is very picturesque. The eastern arm, which re-
ceives the East Branch, is wood-surrounded ; while
the northern arm, where the Fish River proper
36 THE ST. JOHN RIVER.
emanates, is thickly settled on the western side.
As a result of the great volume of water poured
in during the freshets, we find a much greater
space between high and low water marks than on
any of the other lakes.
The West Branch of Fish River, originating in
Great Fish Lake, a basin supplied by large moun-
tain brooks that interlock with the Musquacook
and Machias rivers, is longer than the East
Branch, and drains about four hundred and ninety
square miles. The lake is attainable by canoe,
after " portaging " by a small waterfall, and it is
a naturally good water for trout, remote enough
to prevent overfishing. The stately moose, also,
monarch of the woods of Maine, pays frequent
visits there, to wallow in the shallow water, and
browse upon aquatic grasses and buds of water-
lilies. Portage and Nadeau are the other West
Branch lakes, the former seven, the latter nine
miles long. Birch and Eed rivers, both navigable
streams, enter Nadeau Lake, a water fringed by
seemingly interminable forests. The sportsman
should " try a cast " at their outlets, as well as at
the mouths of rivulets. A stage road connects
Portage Lake settlement with Ashland, or "No.
11," on the Aroostook, crossing the West Branch
a mile below Nadeau Lake.
One of the most attractive streams in the coun-
try, from the canoeist's point of view,, is Great
Fish River below Eagle Lake. The volmne of
THE UPPER ST. JOHN. 37
water is heavy, with an average depth of four
feet, and the rapids almost continuous ; not dan-
gerous rapids, nor rocky, but quick " shoots " that
arouse a feeling somewhat like that of falling
through air. The surrounding hills are high, and
afford a pleasing landscape. Unfortunately the
stream is short, and " carries " must be made
around the falls and the dam above Fort Kent.
The natural Fish liiver Fall is about twenty
feet high, and beautified by jutting ledges, that
beat the falling waters till they roar with rage
and seek revenge by trituration.
The AUagash and Great Fish rivers are the
only large affluents of the St. John flowing wholly
within the State of Maine, and Fish River is the
first stream, yet considered, on which a dam may
be found, other than one constructed by lumber-
men to facilitate stream-driving. May the other
rivers remain dam-less for numerous generations 1
FROM FORT KENT TO EDMUNDSTON.
; 4
From Fort Kent to Edmundston (nineteen
miles) the St. John is a swift-flowing river, con-
taining fewer islands and sand-bars than char-
acterize it immediately below St. Francis. An
extensive intervale and low country surround the
mouth of the Meruimpticook, or Baker Brook, but
the valley contracts on nearing Edmundston.
Fish River Rapid, two miles from the fort, is
easy and pleasant to " shoot," and the current
38 THE ST. JOHN RIVER.
frequently breaks over rocks lying wholly or par-
tially beneath the surface. The once beautiful ,
approach to Edmundston is ruined by the numer-
ous railway cuttings. Alas ! railways, wherever
found, seem destructive of natural scenery, and
invariably more useful than ornamental.
Edmundston, or Little Falls, a cosy village of
one thousand people, and the most central start-
ing point for the neighboring sporting grounds, is
situated on both banks of the Madawaska River,
near its confluence with the St. John. It has an
upper and a lower town, a host of indifferent
hotels, a very multitude of whiskey shops. Here I
the St. Francis, Temiscouata, and Canadian Pa- '
cific railways have termini; the latter road fol-
lowing the St. John to Woodstock, one hundred ^
and fifteen miles away, and crossing at Upper
Woodstock, Andover, and Grand Falls. Ed- '
mundston is half English, half French, and was
named after Sir Edmund Head, a former gov- \
ernor of New Brunswick. I
THE MERUIMPTICOOK RIVER. )
The Meruimpticook, or Baker Brook (drainage \
area one hundred and fifty square miles), pours
its pellucid waters into the St. John, with consid-
erable vehemence, at a point thirteen miles above
Edmundston. Meruimpticook Lake, the source
of the north and principal branch, calmly reposes
in a forest wilderness extending from the depres-
THE UPPER ST. JOHN. 39
sion of Cabineau Lake to that of Temiscouata.
It is narrow, but very deep, and surrounded by
hills which rise from the shore to heights varying
between one hundred and fifty and three hundred
feet. Strangely enough, sportsmen seldom visit
this lake, notwithstanding its proximity to a well-
settled country, and its excellent reputation as a
fishing place and caribou ground. The natives
call it " Jerry Lake."
Baker Lake, five miles in length, which is
drained by the west branch of the Meruimpti-
cook, a short stream of rapid water, is well settled
at the southern end, and may be reached from the
St. John River, at Caron Brook, by passing over
five miles of tolerably good road. A portage of
four miles — quite famous for its impassability in
summer — connects the north end of Baker with
the south end of Cabineau Lake ; another connects
Baker and Enoch Baker lakes. Enoch Baker is
a beautiful sheet of water, of considerable depth,
with high hills rising on the western side, imme-
diately from the water's edge.
The Meruimpticook stream is about twenty-five
miles long, measured from the lake of that name
to the St. John River, and for the most part very
rapid. Descending, we find a small fall quite
near the outlet of the lake, where a dam has been
built, and another, three feet high, above the
west branch. Passing the west branch, we
reach the Murray Fall, which may be navigated,
40 THE ST. JOHN RIVER.
and the Ziae Fall, mucl^ the roughest spot on the
Meruimpticook, where a portage must be made.
A few miles above the mouth, and in the low
country, begin the deadwaters, with all their cus-
tomary features. That a stream should meander
a little in sluggish places is not surprising, but
the number of serpentine turns and twists in any
given mile of one of these many deadwaters
makes the weary canoeist despair of ever reach-
ing his journey's end. Mr. Cooney, an early gcD-
grapher of New Brunswick, and one meriting
praise for the animation and originality of his
language, describes these crooked courses as the
result of " a violent collision between impetuous
freshets and strong lateral resistances ; " but his
theory is somewhat incorrect, brooks being ever
most tortuous where they permeate an easily
eroded alluvium bed, and straightest where the
currents are most impetuous.
One large eastern branch enters the Meruimp-
ticook. Who knows but what there may be a
good-sized lake upon it? The region is almost
unexplored.
Trout are plentiful between Lake Meruimpti-
cook and the Ziae Fall, some of them large and
gamey. Altogether the river offers numerous at-
tractions to the various classes of sportsmen.
THE UPPER ST. JOHN. 41
THE MADAWASKA RIVER.
Although the Mtulawiiska River is one hundred
and ten miles long-, when measured up the Squa-
took, the source is only thirty miles in a direct
line from the mouth. In drainage area (eleven
hundred and forty square miles) it ranks fifth
among the St. John's tributaries, and it flows
from many sources, the Squatook being the long-
est branch, the Touladi the greatest in volume of
discharge. The Squatook first runs due south,
and then almost north, turning at a very acute
angle. Beards] ey Brook, which creeps lazily over
a sandy bed overhung by projections and cano-
pied by deflectant alders, enters near this angle,
and forms a part of the well-known portage lead-
ing to the main Madawaska at a point fifteen
miles from Edmundston. Here, as on Fish River,
we may make a short carry and have a down-
stream paddle of seventy-five miles to our starting
point ; to add to which inducement the Squatook
is a surpassingly attractive stream, having pure,
clear water (teeming with fish), exciting rapids,
and beautiful lakes. Big Squatook Lake is nine
miles long, with a few small but high and rocky
islands dotting the surface ; and from there to
Sugar Loaf Lake (eleven miles) the water is al-
most continuously rapid, flowing over a narrow
bed often arched by boughs. Squatook " Fall,"
so called, is a mere navigable rapid, but a canoeist
42 THE ST. JOHN niVKu.
must be on the qui vive when descending it. Not
far below, a natural driftwood dam necessitates a
short portage.
Sugai' Loaf Lake, the third in the Squatook
chain, is named after Sugar Loaf Mountain, an
isolated peak of very curious contour near the
eastern shore. Near its centre, directly o])posite
the mountain, appears an elevated island, famous
as a camping gi'ound, where the most picturesque
views can be obtained. Many trout are captured
annually off the mouths of rivulets entering
Sugar Loaf Lake, while other excellent fishing
grounds, in season, are at the head of Big Squa-
took Lake, and in the rapids above Squatook
Fall. The AUagash is better for large game, but
the Squatook, like Blue River, has an unenviable
reputation for bears.
Bruin is not aggressive in his ordinary moods,
but quite capable of attack when fairly brought
to bay. It was on the Clearwater River that
some explorers met a large she-bear with cubs, at
a place where a circuitous rocky gorge cut off the
beast's retreat. The bear charged ferociously;
but a labyrinth of fallen trees and shrubbery con-
siderably impeding her progress, the explorers
were enabled to escape. The imperturbability of
the guide on that occasion deserves notice. He
looked incredulous at first, as if wondering at the
animal's audacity in attacking so old and tried a
hunter, and then remarked reproachfully, " Well,
THE UPPER ST. JOHN. 43
seein' as this is tho first time we Ve met, you
niiikos yourself (liirii familiar." '
Twenty-five miles below Beardsley Brook port-
age the Squatook and Touladi rivers unite, and
half a mile above this fork the pjaj^le and llorton
branches unite to form the Touladi. How curi-
ously some rivers bunch together ! The Nictaux
or Forks of the Tobique afford a yet n)ore striking
illustration of the same phenomenon.
The branches present a marked contrast. The
llorton Branch is very clear and rapid, the Eagle
Branch vei-y dark and sluggish. In the deep pool
where they meet, a fish, distinctly seen when
swimming in the Horton water, disappears from
view at once on entering the Eagle Branch. The
Horton Branch and Green River have interlock-
ing sources ; but it would be exceedingly difficult,
perhaps impossible, to carry a canoe across the
common watershed, and the former stream faFs so
quickly after a rain that the canoeist wishing to
ascend must choose his time rather carefully. It
widens at one part to form Lac des Outres, below
which there is a gorge containing one fall from
six to ten feet high, with small cascades below,
a portage of half a mile leading from the fall to
the deadwater below the lake. The Big Jam,
a stupendous obstruction, famous throughout the
country, is one mile from the mouth. An extreme
crookedness in the channel, with a comparatively
straight course above, probably fostered its for-
44 THE ST. JOHN RIVER.
mation by allowing large quantities of driftwood
and logs to accumulate freely ; but, however that
may be, the Jam is now a mile long, and ever
increasing. It is full of holes, through which is
seen the gurgling stream beneath, and swarms
with trout. Unfortunately the angler is apt to
lose his tackle in the complex fabric of logs, roots,
and branches on trying to fish there. The lum-
bermen have excavated a flood channel for run-
ning logs around.
The Horton Branch is the first in a belt of
clear-water rivers that extends, we believe, to the
eastern extremity of Gaspe Peninsula, and in-
cludes such famous streams as the Restigouche,
Tobique, and Nepisiguit, with the larger tributa-
ries of the Miramichi. It is a good trout stream,
although deep pools are scarce.
The Eagle Branch, flowing from Lac des Islets,
near the upper waters of the Trois Pistoles River,
is tortuous, narrow, and deep, arched by inter-
locking branches, and kissed by dangling bushes.
The current flows swiftly, eddying around the rich
alluvial banks unbroken by a single rapid. Eagle
Lake, eight miles above the Touladi forks, is
shallow, with low, flat shores, where rushes and
water-lilies grow profusely, and extend far out
into the water. A point on the southern shore,
opposite the inlet, was a favorite camping-place
with the Indians, when accustomed to pass by this
route to the St. Lawrence. Lac des Islets, a
THE UPPER ST. JOHN. 45
shallow water, named from the number of small
islands formed by bowlders and angular blocks of
hard sandstone, may be reached by two portages
from the St, Lawrence side of the watershed. The
outlet, called " Riviere St. Jean," is small, and for
some distance below the lake very tortuous, and
overhung by alders and leaning bushes. Then
the stream spreads, becoming shallow. Numerous
"drift jams" occur; and a mile and a half from
Lac des Aigles there is a fall of about six feet,
with rough rapids above, extending half a mile.
The water flows peaceably between the fall and
lake.
Touladi River proper is sluggish and very deep
for eight miles below the forks, and then it expands
to form the Second and First Touladi lakes, both
shallow and uninteresting. Rapids begin below
the first lake, and culminate in the Touladi Fall,
a rough descent over transverse ledges, where
the unwary canoeist sometimes finds himself in
gurgite vasto, together with his camp supplies.
Such was the experience of two Fredericton college
students a few years ago. The great pool below
the fall, and the water-worn depressions in the
ledges above, are excellent places for trout-fishing
in July, and the angler may capture a five-pound
fish there, if the fates are propitious. Later in
the season the big trout repair to the Madawaska
River, where the sluggish current and soft grassy
bottom afford an exceptionally good spawning
46 THE ST. JOHN RIVER.
ground. The Touladi River finally discharges
into Temiscouata Lake, after draining five hundred
and sixty square miles, and it is the largest river
in the St. John system having no settlement above
its outlet.
Temiscouata (winding water) is the deepest
lake in any way connected with the St. John, and
fully nine times as deep as Grand Lake on the
Jemseg, its only rival in superficial area. It is
twenty-eight miles long by two in average width.
The bottom is almost level at a mean depth of .
about two hundred feet, throughcut the lower and
central portions, the water deepening very quickly
on leaving the shore. The northern arm is shal-
lower. It is a noticeable fact that Temiscouata
Lake, as well as the Madawaska and Ashberish
rivers, lie in an almost direct line with the famous
Saguenay gorge, but fifty miles distant.
Trout and touladi of all sizes abound in Temis-
couata, and are commonly captured with trolling
hooks. The mouth of Mill Brook, four miles from
Detour du Lac, is probably the best place for fly-
fishing.
Numerous settlements skirt the western side ;
on the east we find a few isolated houses uncon-
nected with any road. Notre Dame de Detour
du Lac, a French village charmingly situated on
the hill slope midway down the lake, is, like Ed-
mundston, a rendezvous for sportsmen. The
Temiscouata Railway follows the shore for fifteen
THE UPPER ST. JOHN. 47
miles, disfiguring the otherwise beautiful scenery
with myriads of embankments and rock-cuttings.
The " Chemin Temiscouata," an old military road,
by which the distance to Riviere du Loup is forty
miles, strikes away from the lake above Cabineau,
and near Fort Ingalls, a collection of very ruinous
barracks and guard-houses. Immediately oppo-
site. Big Mountain uprears its shaggy wooded
crest, and tradition says that soldiers of the garri-
son sometimes swam across the intervening water
to alleviate the ennui of frontier life.
Cabineau River is forty-one miles long from
the southern end of Cabineau Lake, and drains an
area of one hundred and ten square miles. The
lake, which occupies the depression between
Meruimpticook and St. Francis, a famous region
for caribou-hunting, is thirteen miles long, with a
width of one mile and less, very irregular in
shape, and dotted with islands. No other lake in
the vicinity has water so pure and transparent,
though we have here a group of clear waters, in-
cluding the Baker Brook and Blue River. Cabi-
neau River flows through a marshy swale for six
miles below the lake, where innumerable sharply
pointed cedar "sprigs extend over the water, and it
is easily navigable for canoes, excepting a fall
about twenty feet high, six miles from Temiscouata.
Above the fall there are extensive deadwaters,
where, five years ago, six or seven natural drift-
wood dams had formed. The lumbermen cleared
48 THE ST. JOHN RIVER.
these dams away, together with numerous beaver
works. The Cabineau trout are small, but the
valley affords an excellent hunting ground for
deer and caribou.
The fallow deer, common as they are to-day,
were never seen in New Brunswick before the
year 1818, at which date also wolves first ap-
peared. As the deer rapidly increased in nmn-
bers the wolves thrived admirably, never hesitat-
ing to devour some domestic animal wiicii weary
of a venison diet. While visiting Eel Riv^r Lake
in 1842, Dr. Gcsner observed the remains of
three deer and a caribou that had been dragged
upon the ice and devoured, a pack of eleven
wolves crossing the lake during his visit. " The
bowlings of these anmials around my camp at
night," he says, " were truly terrific." When in
subsequent years the number of deer diminished,
the wolves gradually disappeared as well, finally
becoming extinct; and, now that the deer are
rapidly increasing once more, an occasional wolf-
howl again breaks the sylvan quietude. It is a
most remarkable synchronism, best accounted for
on the hypothesis that the wolves north of the
St. Lawrence, when famished, cross the ice for
plunder.
The Ashberish River, by which the Indians
formerly crossed from Madawaska to the Trois
Pistoles, enters the northern end of Temiscouata.
It has a picturesque fall six miles above the
THE UPPER ST. JOHN. 49
mouth, and from there down is very tortuous and
deep, although quite rapid in places.
The Madawaska River proper, twenty - two
miles long when measured fi'om Temiscouata
Lake to Edmundston, has almost everywhere an
even width and depth, a peaceful current, and a
grassy bottom. Its valley is thickly settled, the
natives spearing the large trout by the barrelful
when they descend the river to spawn in August.
For two miles below the lake, people say the Mad-
awaska never freezes in the coldest weather, the
village at Pole River being named Degele after
this circumstance. Such a condition might be
caused by the deeper Temiscouata waters circu-
lating upwards by the suction of the river, and
then taking some time to cool after exposure to
the air. The old Canada line crosses the val-
ley twelve miles from Edmundston, and here the
Bossers live, mighty polers, and foremost among
Squatook guides. Trout River is a considerable
stream of clear water, entering from the west.
Near the mouth the customary placidity of the
Madawaska is broken by a few rapids, the Little
Falls, from which the town of Edmundston de-
rived its ancient name, being much the roughest.
A dam has been constructed above with materials
ruthlessly torn from an old stone fort on the hill-
side. Canoes descend the Little Falls occasion-
ally, although the " shoot " is rather too lively for
most people who travel this way.
50 THE ST. JOHN RIVER.
FROM EDMUNDSTON TO GRAND FALLS.
Below Etlmundston the physical features of the
St. John change perceptibly. Although for five
miles, or down to St. Basil, the river incloses
islands, and spreads on bars, the channel soon con-
tracts, becoming deeper and more sluggish. The
glacial action which created the Grand Falls has
in fact stemmed the water for twelve miles, or as
far as Vanburen Village, on the American bank,
the depth varying from fifteen to thirty feet, a
greater average than is found elsewhere above
Fredericton. Green and Quisibis rivers work out
through extensive clay beds, in which fossil trees
have been found. The valley, generally speaking,
is fertile. The merry Frenchman seldom over-
works to earn his daily pork and vegetables, yet
the soft notes of his violin, wafted by an evening
breeze, and the distant tread of dancers, are sooth-
ing to the weary canoeman, if not conducive to the
material prosperity of Madawaska County.
Some of these festivities (among the lower
classes) are extremely hilarious, lasting uninter-
ruptedly for two nights and a day. The male
French often dance with clay pipes in their
mouths, and both arms around the female. It is
usually considered bad taste for any one dancer to
monopolize the floor, and the offender is occasion-
ally ejected from the ball-room, his exit accelera-
ted by a vigorous application of pedal extremities
THE UPPER ST. JOHN. fi|
on the part of jealous ones unable to dance as
well. This is termed " socking the boots."
Little River, a stream with many branches,
enters the St. John at the very brink of Grand
Falls, pouring' at low water into a funnel-shaped
hole or passageway, and spouting forth into the
princij^al fall half way down the cliff.
THE OROQUOIS RIVER.
Two miles below Edmundston the little Oroquois
River unites with the St. John, a stream flowing
parallel with 'the Madawaska, and never far dis-
tant therefrom. It is easy to navigate as far as
the fall, fifteen miles from the mouth, and prob-
ably above the fall for some distance. On it we
find much deadwater, very pure and transparent,
however, and swarming with small trout. Large
fish are seldom or never caught there. The fall is
about twelve feet high, and operates a mill, which
is connected by road with the Madawaska River.
GREEN RIVER.
No tributary of the St. John rivals Green River
in general attractiveness, unless perhaps the To-
bique. The popular impression that it is one long,
tumultuous rapid from source to mouth is untrue ;
for in one place at least, above the old Albert
farm, the current runs most innocently for more
than a mile. Considered as a whole. Green River
is undoubtedly more rapid than any other tribu-
62 THE ST. JOHN RIVER.
tary, and one poler a barely sufficient motive-
power for a canoe, unless the day's journey be
made short. Some of the rapids are straight,
others are on bends of the stream called " round
turns." The most expeditious way of ascending
is by fastening two canoes side by side, but some-
what ajjart, with poles, and procuring a strong,
sure-footed horse to drag by a tow-line.
Although the drainage area is less than five
hundred square miles, and the length but seventy-
five miles, a sufficiency of water for canoeing may
be found at all times, partly because the channel
is narrow, and partly because the valley contains
an astonishing number of rivulets that never dry
up in summer.
About twenty miles from the source the fourth
branch, or Pimouet, enters from the east, — a
stream connected by a difficult portage of seven
miles with the Quatawamkedgwick, the principal
water of the Restigouche.
In the twenty miles between the fourth and
second branches Green River is swift and shal-
low, with occasional good pools above ledges, in
which the trout are exceptionally lively, and very
beautiful in shape and markings. Here is the
best fishing, and huge trout may be seen swim-
ming in and out among the sunken roots far
down in the transparent water. Green River ex-
cels all other St. John waters for trout, although
the mammoth " five-pounder " is not as common as
THE UPPER ST. JOHN, 53
in the few great lakes, like Teiniscoiiata ; and it
is the only tributary leased by the Provincial gov-
ernment for trout-fishing alone. At the Black
Fall, one mile above the second fork, where the
water tumbles down a natural sluiceway, necessi-
tating a carry, a short portage leads to the first
Green River lake.
There are, all told, six lakes upon the sec-
ond fork, or Lake Branch, which drains a valley
parallel with the upper Squatook. The first is
nearly surrounded by hills, long, narrow, and
shallow, and the water has a fall of eight feet a
little below its outlet. Between the first and
second lakes the stream flows principally through
a spruce and cedar swamp, and is without bad
rapids, if we except a small fall three quarters
of the way up. Second or Mud Lake, which
is nearly a mile and a half long, is bounded
westerly by a lofty ridge, while on the east the
water is shallow, muddy, and swampy. The
third and fourth lakes are larger and deeper,
and surrounded by rising gi'ound. The fifth
and sixth lakes, five miles beyond, lie close to-
gether ; the former being very shallow, with a
soft bottom of white mud, which the men call
" paint," from its quality of sticking to the canoe
poles, like white lead. High hills are seen to
the northwestward, from the tops of which the
gi4 des say they can overlook Squatook Lake.
Below the third lake there are three small water'
falls, each three or four feet high.
64 THE ST. JOHN RIVER.
The first fork, or cast branch of Green River,
which has one hirge fall, so the guides 'say,
enters about twenty-five miles from the mouth,
and no settlements are found above it, either on
main stream or tributary. For that matter, a
forest almost primeval extends northward to the
St. Lawrence valley, and eastward to the lower
Restig'ouche, affording ample facilities for the
enjoyment of Nature in her most unadulterated
form.
The Albert farm, easily attained by a portage
of nine miles from St. Basil village on the St.
John, is situated in one of the most picturesque of
valleys, but the Albert family, unfortunately, once
the most experienced Green River guides, are sit-
uated in the Western States. Within the thirteen
miles below the farm the valley is well settled,
and excellent views of Green River Mountain, an
obtuse peak, beautifully forest-clad, may be ob-
tained from the water. We find heavy water-
falls five miles above the farm, and one and one
half miles from the St. John River, where small
milling operations are carried on.
Along the middle portion of Green River high
hills inclose the valley, and, by lifting their ver-
dant tree-clad slopes abruptly from the water,
afford most attractive scenery. Natives and
travelers familiar with the stream assert that the
water is colored by a natural green pigment ; but
the writer strongly suspects that the green pig-
THE UPPER ST. JOHN. 55
mcnt of Green River, the blue pif^ment of Blue
liiver, and the no pigment Jit all of the Tobitpie
are varieties of the same thing, namely a lively
imagination aroused by certain delusive optical
phenomena. That the water is doliciously clear
and cool everybody nmst agree.
QUISIBIS RIVER.
The Quisibis River rises in two streams, which
unite thirteen miles from the St. John, and have
their sources near the valley of the junction
stream, a tributary of Green River's eastern
branch ; drains one hundred and twenty square
miles ; and may be canoed with ease below the
forks, where it is largely deadwater. Its upper
valley is said to be the coldest place in the coun-
try ; but if it is so, the reason is decidedly obscure.
The branches are practically " uncanoeable," and
each has a fall, so the natives say.
GRAND RIVER.
Grand River, a swift and shallow stream, but
one easily navigable by canoe to the Waagan
Brook, eighteen miles from the mouth, enters the
St. John from the east, thirteen miles above Grand
Falls, and drains about one hundred and thirty
square miles. A light birch might be poled much
beyond the Waagan, should a sufficient reason
for so doing be found. The water is compara-
tively impure, the fishing bad, and the stream
56 THE ST. JOHN RIVER.
unimportant, except for the fact that the Waagan
and Waagansis Brooks, often called the Kesti-
gouche and Grand River Waagans, afford a ready
means of reaeliing the u})i)er waters of the Kesti-
gouche. The **■ carry " over this watershed, and
the " carries " between the Umbazookscus and
Mud Pond on the Allagash, and between the
Nictaux and Nepisiguit lakes, are the three most
famous modern i)ortages connecting with the St.
John or its tributaries.
THE GK iND FALLS.
Every traveler should visit the Grand Falls.
As the water in its mad career, although ever
the same in a general way, momentarily changes
as regards the minor movements, and as the chief
beauty of the scene depends upon that constant
change, no photograj)h can represent nor pen de-
scribe it. The main fall is almost perpendicular,
and wider at the top than at the base. The prin-
cipal part of the river flows in a black and oily-
looking mass through a depression near the centre,
and immediately beneath a huge fragment ap-
pears, called the Split Rock, upon which the wa-
ters thunder unceasingly, and rebound with more
than doubled fury. A column of spray ever rises
from this part of the fall, completely obscuring the
Split Rock at moderately high water ; and when
the sun's rays fall upon it, a gorgeous rainbow
floats in mid-air, waving its many colors over the
THE UPPER ST. JOHN. 57
sombre rocks iiiiil f()aniln<j; eddies Distinct lunar
rainbows are often seen. It is not so nuich the
splendor, the speed and energy of the Grand Falls
that impress one, as it is the incessancy of the
dis])lay. For how many ages, we wonder, prior to
man's advent on earth, did tliis vast torrent of
tumultuons water thunder down the cliii' ?
On the right-hand side the stream comes over
the brink in a curtain, which, at average water,
is about a foot in thickness ; and on the extreme
right it falls into a crevice at the base of a jutting
crag, the latter facing the fall. The water is col-
lected in this crevice and thrown sideways, other
waters falling on top ; and when a lot of spruce
logs, passing down the side pitch, runs foul of an-
other lot coming straight over, the spectacle is
inspiring.
On the left a man may climb down to the
water's edge, and there obtain, if not too badly
spray-drenched, a splendid view of the Split Rock.
In seasons of extreme drought the river is said to
contract until the flow is almost entirely within
the depression above this rock, already referred to.
A winding gorge about one mile long, the sides
of which are generally perpendicular, and from
eighty to one hundred and fifty feet in height, has
been formed by the erosive action and recession
of the fall. The rocks are calcareous slates of
the Upper Silurian age, with strata so curiously
twisted and irregularly worn that one may climb
58 THE ST. JOHN RIVER.
everywhere with a firm, safe foothold. Immedi-
ately below the fall the gorge is quite wide, that
is, as wide as the fall, but it narrows gradually to
a point where a suspension bridge crosses, then
widens again, and finally becomes narrower than
ever at the lower end, and continues all the while
to deepen as the distance from the fall increases.
In several places steep ravines afford access to the
bottom, where there are rapids of such a wild
order that any attempt at navigation would prove
fatal, and opposite Pul^Dit Rock a stairway has
been constructed. The cliffs are everywhere
crowned by a thick growth of young spruce-trees.
Pulpit Rock is a colossal mass overhanging the
abyss, where the St. John is narrower than it is
anywhere else between the confluence of the Baker
and Southwest branches and the Bay of Fundy.
The exact width cannot easily be measured, for
the rapid below is the wildest in the gorge. The
whole river seems to throw itself in one seething
and spouting mass over some hidden obstruction,
which is probably a many-ton mass of rock that
has fallen away from the cliff, thereby creating
Pidpit Rock as we now see it. A rocky prom-
ontory, perforated with water-worn wells, extends
from the stairway to the rapid. "The Great
Well " is about thirty feet deep, with a diameter
of sixteen feet at the top, widening at the bottom.
Many others are scattered over the rocks, some
large, some small, and nearly all on this promon-
THE UPPER ST. JOHN. 69
tory. As it is oiily dui'ing very high floods that
the water covers them, they must have been formed
in the post-glacial epoch, when the gorge was in
process of erosion.
Some distance below the wells, on the same side
of the stream, a great cliff overhangs, so that when
standing on the brow the water is hardly discern-
ible at the base. Here the stream is nearly as
narrow as it is beneath the Pulpit, and perfectly
still under ordinary conditions, although dark and
threatening in appearance. Above the cliff we
find the " Coffee Mill," a whirlpool deriving its
name from an extravagant propensity to spin logs
around until they are ground to a point at each
end, and generally rendered unfit for any indus-
trial purpose.
When the annual flood is at the maximum level,
the falls present an appearance exceedingly grand
and impressive. Standing at the water's edge in
the summer season, one sees the flood lines thirty
or forty feet above, and clearly marked by the ab-
sence of all vegetation below their level. During
the famous freshet of May, 1887, the main fall was
said to be for some days simply an enormous
rapid, while at the outlet of the gorge, ordinarily
quiet, the pent-up waters burst forth with the
wildest fury. Once some heavy logs became fas-
tened on the Split Rock ; and so many others fol-
lowed before the first were dislodged, that finally
both the fall and the pool below were covered, so
60 THE ST. JOHN RIVER.
that men could walk anywhere over the dam with
safety. After all human efforts to loosen the mass
had failed, this vast accumulation of valuable tim-
ber was dislodged by a sudden rise in the water.
At the Aroostook Fall, hereinafter described, a
similar " jam " took place. It is no uncommon
thing to see heavy logs, thirty or forty feet in
length, tossed completely out of water in the
rapids of the gorge, while others are sucked into
whirlj^ools formed above projecting ledges, and
spun round for many days without remission.
The St. John River is almost equally divided
by the Grand Falls, they lieing two hundred and
eighteen miles from the source of the Baker
Branch and two hundred and twenty-two from
the Bay of Fundy. Excepting Niagara, and a
possible waterfall or two in the Labrador penin-
sula, these falls of the St. John are the greatest to
be found east of the Mississippi valley, and fully
one third the total drainage area of the river is
above them. A flock of geese is said to have come
over with impunity ; and the story of eighty sf;al-
wart Indian braves, led to their destruction by
the squaw of a hostile tribe, forms a part of the
legendary history of the place. The difference in
level between the upper and lower basins is one
hundred and seventeen feet.
THE UPPER ST. JOUN. 01
COLEBROOKE.
Colebrooke, or Grand Falls Village, which has
ab(3iit one thousand inhabitants, was ambitiously
laid out in wide, regular streets ; but as the growth
stopped shortly afterwards, the streets became
quite as much frequented by pigs as by animals
of the human kind. In the vicinity of the gorge
great patches of turf have been uprooted by the
snouts of those uncomely quadrupeds. A portage
road, less than a mile long, leads around the gorge
and fall, and descends very precipitously into the
lower basin, where a perfectly level tract of
grassy land borders the river on the west, over-
flowed by many springs of icy water that ooze
from the base of the cliffs. Mosquitoes are found
here as late as September (a gaunt and haggard
brood, and venomous), while the neighboring
country is said to yield two strawberry crops in
one year. What magical influence over nature
does the big cataract possess ?
CHAPTER III.
THE MIDDLE ST. JOHN.
FROM GRAND FALLS TO ANDOVER.
At the basin below Grand Falls the river
pauses, as if for needed rest, and then races away
to Andover, twenty-four miles off, at an average
speed of six miles an hour. Here and there some
ledges cross the channel, or loose rocks obstruct
the current, forming the White Rapid, Rapide de
Femme, and Black Rapid, within the first four
miles from Colebrooke ; Frayall's Rapid, near
Little River ; and the Tobique Rips, oj)posite In-
dian Point. These rapids are not dangerous, and
the uniform rapidity of the current makes them less
noticeable than would otherwise be the case. The
valley is narrow and deej), with many well-formed
terraces rising one above another, and marking
former water-levels of geological antiquity. An
excellent field is presented for the study of gla-
cial and post-glacial phenomena, and of surface
geology, as in addition to the numerous terraces
may be seen the drift-filled pre-glacial channels
of the St. John around the Grand Falls, of the
Aroostook around the Aroostook Fall, and of the
Tobique around The Narrows.
THE MIDDLE ST. JOHN. 63
Between Grand Falls and Aroostook the coun-
try is more rugged, and the inhabitants fewer in
number than elsewhere between St. Francis and
the sea, while the railway generally follows the
level table-lands on the natural terraces. On the
Rapide de Femme Brook, two and a half miles
from Colebrooke station, the government main-
tains a salmon-hatchery, above which the water
falls fifty feet in a series of minute cascades.
Little River, which enters the St. John three
miles above Aroostook, is in itself of no impor-
tance, but it reminds one of the blundering bad
taste of the early colonists in calling a dozen or
more streams in western New Brunswick by that
commonplace name, while so many euphonious
Indian words were negligently abandoned and
lost.
SALMON RIVER.
Salmon River rises near the source of Grand
River, runs a course of forty miles, drains some-
thing over two hundred square miles, and dis-
embogues into the St. John six miles below the
Grand Falls. Through a deep valley, encom-
passed by lofty hills clad in a dense spruce forest,
the tributary stream rushes forth with a speed
rarely found in such a small body of water.
Crossing a rich intervale where stately elms are
grouped with other trees in the regularity of an
artificial park, the water of the Salmon River —
and very pure, transparent water, too — dances
G4 THE ST. JOHN RIVER.
and sparkles, and seems momentarily to increase
in speed ; while such is the force of the stream
that, in the course of time, masses of pebbles and
sand have been pushed out, crowding the main
St. John into a comparatively narrow and very
rapid channel. One of the ablest canoe-polers of
the Madawaska valley said that he had never un-
dertaken a more difficult task than that of push-
ing a birch up the first five miles of this mad
stream. " Worse than Green liiver ! '' he re-
marked, wiping the perspiration from his brow.
Salmon River may be ascended for thirty miles
or more, but nothing will be gained by so doing,
unless the explorer desires to penetrate the wil-
derness in a new direction. The water is less
rapid above Foley Brook.
Salmon never resort to this river now, as once
they did, and the trout-fishing is jDOor.
THE AROOSTOOK RIVER.
Six miles above Andover the Aroostook sweeps
into the St. John by a graceful bend around the
base of a lofty ridge, which terminates in a knife-
like point at the very confluence of the two wa-
ters ; and, in length one hundred and thirty-eight
niiles when measured from the source of the
Munsungan, and drainage area two thousand one
hundred and sixty square miles, it is certainly the
largest tributary. Probably the average volume
of discharge is also the greatest, but on no other
THE MIDDLE ST. JOHN. 65
large branch of the St. John does the water fall
so low in dry weather. Even Green River, with
an area less than one fourth as great, is generally
navigable when it would be almost impossible to
work a canoe over the partially dry bed of the
Aroostook. The causes are, probably, the paucity
of large lakes which retain the flood water, the
extensive denudation of forest, and the widening
of the channel by heavy lumber driven from the
upper waters. Once the valley was famous for
white pine, but the larger trees have been pretty
well culled out in recent years. So rich and well-
irrigated is the soil that the region has been called
" The Garden of Maine."
The Munsungan stream, undoubtedly the prin-
cipal branch of the Aroostook, rises near the
sources of the Musquacook Kiver and Spider
Brook, tributaries of the Allagash, and, by uniting
with the Milnikak, Millnokett, or south branch,
forms the Aroostook proper. Both the Munsun-
gan and Millnokett have lakes and deadwaters.
Thirteen miles of stream connect Big Munsungan
Lake with the Millnokett, and one fall occurs,
necessitating a portage for canoes. Above the
lake are deadwaters, fed by small brooks, many
of which flow from very picturesque little ponds
among the mountains.
The Millnokett stream may be reached by por-
taging from the East Branch of the Penobscot to
a small pond above Big Millnokett Lake. Below
66 TUE ST. JOHN RIVER.
the lake the channel widens into another pond,
followed by a few miles of rough water, and the
lower course is also somewhat obstructed by rap-
ids. Deadwaters are found above and below the
mouth of the principal tributary, the Milmigas-
set, a rough brook flowing from Milmigasset Lake,
one of the prettiest little bodies of water in the
Aroostook valley.
The Mooseluc River runs about thirty miles,
drains nearly one hundred and fifty square miles,
and enters the Aroostook from the north, ten
miles below Millnokett. Its various sources inter-
lock with the Munsungan, Musquacook, and Big
Machias rivers ; and the country comprising the
valleys of these streams is one of the best, possi-
bly the very best, of moose grounds in the St.
John River basin, and a locality equally as good
for deer and caribou. The traveler must be con-
tent with the hunt, however, as the fishing is very
inferior. Chandler Brook joins the Mooseluc a
few miles above the mouth, and drains a fair-
sized lake.
A little above Umcoleus st;ream, and ninety-five
miles by water from the St. John, begins that
pioneer settlement called the Ox-bow Plantation ;
then the Aroostook ceases to be a wilderness
river. The banks are generally under cultiva-
tion, although wooded in places ; and the water
glides noiselessly along, unbroken by a single
rapid that the ordinary canoeist would call a bad
THE MIDDLE ST. JOHN. 67
one. The scenery is attractive, although strictly
rural. The Umcoleus stream, which takes its
name, as the Indians say, from a species of wild
duck, may be ascended hy canoe, if the poler's
arm be stronger than the ra})ids ; and at its head
are deadwaters connected by a portage with a
tributary of the East Branch of the Penobscot.
The La Pampeag River, which is said to have
been in early times the principal avenue to the
Aroostook from the Penobscot country, flows be-
tween low banks incumbered with alders and
leaning bushes.
The Masardis, or St. Croix River, probably the
largest tributary, but one uninteresting to sports-
men, as flowing through a partially inhabited
country, enters from the south, twelve miles above
Ashland, and drains two hundred and sixty
square miles. Big Machias River, on the con-
trary, another tributary draining over two hun-
dred square miles of forest and desolate, barren
land between the valleys of the Mooseluc and
Fish rivers, affords an excellent hunting ground
for moose and other large game.
Pending the settlement of the boundary ques-
tion between the United States and Great Britain,
the Aroostook valley became the prey of lawless
trespassers, who removed large quantities of the
most valuable timber. The legislature of Maine,
in secret session, passed a resolve for the protec-
tion of the public lands, and authorized Sheriff
08 THE ST. JOUN lilVER.
Strickland to mustor a company of volunteers for
the su})pression of this illegal traffic. On the
fifth day of February, 1839, two hundred men
were marching through the wilderness, under the
leadershii) of Captain Stover Kines, and on the
eighth of that month they reached Masardis
stream, fell unexpectedly upon the trespassers,
who offered but slight resistance, and ca})tured
their teams and implements. Flushed with suc-
cess the comi)any then advanced to the Little
Madawaska, where they met with a reverse, and
Captain Rines was made a prisoner, and carried
off to Fredericton. These events precipitated the
so-called " Aroostook War," a general call to
arms throughout the Provinces and Maine, for-
tunately unattended with loss of life, and leading
to some curious international complications and
Lord Ashburton's treaty.
Ashland village, forty-five miles by road from
the St. John River, is prettily situated on a hill-
top overlooking the great green forest of the
Machias valley. It is the terminus of a lumber-
men's road that extends almost straight across
northern Maine to the Quebec settlements, cross-
ing the Musquacook and Allagash rivers, and
connecting Seven Islands with St. Pamphile.
Few but Indians can trace it now, so overgrown
has it become in many places \^ith young trees
and dwarfish shrubbery.
Midway between Masardis and Machias the
THE MIDDLE ST. JOHN. 69
Aroostook receives the Squiipan, a ** eanoeable "
strejuii, issuing from a lake nine miles in length,
the largest in the Aroostook vall(?y.
From Ashland to Prescjue Isle the river is shal-
low and very broad, — in phiees as broad as the
main St. John above Echnundston. The town of
Presque Isle, a miniature metropolis of four thou-
sand ])eople, built across the Presque Isle stream,
one mile above its confluence with the Aroostook,
has sprung nuishroom-like, in a few years, from
two houses and a mill ; while the villages of Cari-
bou and Fort Fairfield, the former fourteen, the
latte^ twenty-six miles below Presque Isle, have
also had a rapid, prosperous growth. Presc^ue Isle
stream resembles the Masardis ; and as the upper
waters interlock with those of another Presque
Isle, a tributary of the St. John, the two streams
are called respectively the Aroostook and St. John
Presque Isles by way of distinction. Although
but sixteen miles from Presque Isle town to the
St. John, the distance is thirty-three miles by the
river, which makes a very sharp northward bend.
Below Caribou the Little Madawaska enters the
Aroostook from the north, a large stream drain-
two hundred and thirty square miles south of the
east branch of Fish River, and said to be sluggish,
flowing through swampy forests of spruce and fir.
Four miles from the mouth, the noble Aroos-
took sadly impairs its reputation as a stream of
uninterrupted tranquillity. The water divides at
70 , THE ST. JOHN lilVEIi.
first into little rapid channels, which gradually
contract and unite ; the sl()i)e of the river bed
and th(} force of the current ever increasing,
until the river finally enters a gorge, and tund)les
about in it with a wanton fury only exceeded by
that of the St. John at the (irand Falls. The
walls of the gorge art; low at first, but rise to an
elevation of sixty or seventy feet at the lower
end. Within are five principal cascades aggre-
gating seventy-five feet in height ; the largest a
fall of sixteen feet, at the foot of the gorge,
where a remarkable dike of diorite overhangs
the water. Innncdiately below the dike is the
Split liock, on which lumber once piled, as at the
Grand Falls, until the gorge became completely
choked. Nicely formed wtIIs ai)pear at the
Aroostook Falls, worn out by the grinding lu'tion
of rounded stones, and one especially is very
large, the water within pulsating in correspond-
ence with the ebb and flow of the fall outside,
by reason of some curious subterranean connec-
tion. Dense evergreen woods surround the gorge,
and the scene is })icturestj[ue in the extreme.
The valley of the Aroostook, in the three miles
intervening between the fall and mouth, is very
deep, and in several places the water falls over
ledges and bowlders, forming rough rapids.
Whatson's and Herd's rapids are the most dan-
gerous to navigate, and are already responsible
for one or two canoe wrecks and some loss of
THE MIDDLE ST. JOHN. 71
life. Tn 1842 ii canoo contiiinin^j^ Dr. Gesncr and
his Indians was carried over Whatson's Rapid
and swamped, nuich to the doctor's vexation, as
he had intended to confine his geological re-
searches to snch ledges as ap])eared above? water.
The Angeanepiapsporhcgan, or Limestone River,
enters from the north near Herd's Rapid by
snccessive cascades called '* The Four Falls," hav-
ing a total descent of eighty feet.
Although the Aroostook waters are not well
stocked with fish, the Tobiipie Indians succeed in
spearing a good many salmon at the deep black
pool below the fall. Some idea of that fish's
strength and activity may be conveyed by merely
stating that a few small salmon succeed in as-
cending the gorge. Of late years grilse have
been taken with the fly at the mouth of the Little
Machias River.
THE TOBIQUE RIVER.
Not often does a river like the St. John, consid-
erably exceeding four hundred miles in length, re-
ceive its two principal tributaries within a distance
of four miles ; yet just so far below Aroostook the >
famous Tobique River pours its pure, translucent
waters into the greater stream. The Tobique meas-
ures about one hundred and ten miles to the source
of the so-called Right Hand Branch, and drains .
fifteen hundred and sixty square miles. A gentle-
man visiting the river in 1863 says : " The mouth
72 THE ST. JOHN RIVER.
of the Tobiqiie is exceedingly insignificant, and en-
tirely nnsuggestive of the beautiful scenery which
characterizes the river in every other part. This
unprepossessing appearance is caused by the land
being here quite low, and the channel obstructed by
evergreen intervale islands. One would scarcely
suppose that there was any river here at all, much
less one of the largest tributaries of the river St.
John." To-day the water rushes forth in one
rapidly moving mass, which presents an imposing
appearance, even when viewed from the Andover
bank. Can lumber, swift water, and ice, in so
short a period, have comj^letely eroded these " ever-
green intervale inlands," and scattered them, in the
form of silt, along miles of the river below ?
The Tobique and St. John waters do not thor-
oughly intei' angle where they meet, but even at
Andover, two miles down, the former stream's
proximity is indicated by the transparency of the
river near the eastern bank. Below Green River
the line of demarcation is equally distinct.
On '' The Point," above the Tobique outlet, we
find a village peopled exclusively l^y Maliseet In-
dians, the aboriginal proprietors of both the To-
bique and St. John. There are three principal
Maliseet villages, — one at St. Mary's, opposite
Fredericton; one on the west bank of the St.
John, twelve miles above Fredericton, and the one
under consideration. A family of the Penobscot
tribe has settled at St. Pamphile, near Big Black
THE MIDDLE ST. JOHN. 73
River, and a few scattered Maliseet families live
at Edmundston and other points. Here, as else-
where, these "dusky aborigines are incapable of
thorough civilization, but peaceful and inoffensive
nevertheless. Some of them farm in a small way ;
all have ceased to live in wigwams. The men
build canoes, hunt, and act as guides. The squaws
make baskets and like articles of commerce, and
indeed do all the less interesting work, as no dis-
turbing modern theories of woman's rights have
entered the cerebral cavity of the brawny Maliseet.
In every village the Indians maintain a brood of
ugly, vicious dogs ; but dogs not under their im-
mediate control they greatly fear. The birch-bark
canoe is used invariably, while the French and
English settlers along the Upper St. John prefer
the pirogue, a clumsy-looking craft, shaped, like
that of the ancient Britons, from a single log. In
still water the birch outstrips the pirogue, espe-
cially in running with the wind, but in poling rap-
ids the pirogue keeps the better headway. The
Indians experience some difficulty at present in
procuring suitable bark for canoe-buildirg. The
white or canoe birch is said to attain a diameter
of six or seven feet in some parts of the northern
woods, but so widespread has been its destruction
that the Indian is compelled to seek it in regions
growing ever more remote. Where once canoes
were covered with a single sheet of bark, they now
too often exhibit unbecoming seams and patches.
74 THE ST. JOHN lilVEli.
which, opening from atmospheric change or con-
tact with stones and snags, necessitate a frequent
use of the rosin-pot.
Two lakes resting on the common watershed
between the St. John and Miramichi rivers, and
called respectively " Long " and " Trousers," form
the principal sources of the Tohique. Trousers
Lake, which is five mile» long, has been named
from the similarity in form to a well-known ar-
ticle of male attire. Had nature placed it on
the broad Aroostook they would have calJed it
" Pants." The shores are low and thickly wooded
to the water's edge with black spruce, which im-
parts a weird and gloomy asi)ect. Long Lake,
seven miles in length, is much more beautiful,
with higher shores. Large bowlders, deeply
overgrown with moss, cover the surface of the
country in this vicinity. Both lakes send forth
goodly streams, which, by uniting, create the
" Right Hand Branch," or principal water, of
the Tobique. Geographically speaking, it is the
"left hand branch," but popular names, when
generally accepted, admit of no coriection. From
Long Lake a portage of seven miles leads to the
upper waters of the Little Southwest Miramichi
Eiver ; a very difficult portage to cross, but one
that affords the traveler what is possibly the
longest and most attractive journey through an
unbroken wilderness to be found east of the St.
Lawrence. Britt Brook, a tributary of the Long
THE MIDDLE RIVER. 75
Lake stream, flows froii. a little lake on the same
watershed with the others.
The Right Hand Branch has a rough fall, three
or four feet high, six miles above its junction with
the Left Hand Branch, Little Tobique, or Nic-
taux ; and elsewhere is rapid and ledgy, with high
banks, gradually rising below the mouth of the
Don River, or Long Lake stream. Above the Don
the bowlders make the channel rough and difficult
to navigate.
The Serpentine River enters from the east,
about twelve miles below the Don, and widens at
one part to form Serpentine Lake, a very tortuous
sheet of water, surrounded by hills which decline
to form flat projecting headlands. The channel
is incumbered by bowlders for six miles below the
lake, and then we find a deadwater approached
by lofty ridges which stretch away towards Cow
Mountain, on the southeast. Nine miles below
the deadwater the river cuts through a granite
belt, forming rapids and falls, around which a
portage of a quarter of a mile becomes necessary.
Several large brooks enter, and most of them,
including North Pole Brook, rise near the sources
of the Little Southwest Branch of the Nepisiguit.
The various lakes we have mentioned lie approx-
imately parallel with each other, and are connected
by a series of portages ; that from Serpentine
Lake to Britt Brook Lake being the longest.
The word Nictaux means " Forks," and in no
76 THE ST. JOHN mVEE.
other part of the country do we find such a pecu-
liar eorrivation as the Nictaux or Forks of the
Tohique. Ahnost at the confluence of the two
principal streams, the Mamozekel liiver enters the
Eight Hand Branch ; the Sisson stream, the
Left. The same explorer who noted the islands
near the mouth remarked : '' The two branches
form with the main stream a figure somewhat re-
sembling an italic T."
The Sisson Branch has a fall seven miles above
the mouth, where a j^ortage of more than a mile
nmst be made ; above the fall a tributary enters
from the northeast, flowing from Sisson Lake,
an excellent water for trout. A lessee of the
T^bique, accustomed to hunt around the Nictaux
with John Bernard and " Frank," two of the most
experienced Indians at " The Point," says: "Up
to the present time (March, 189B), no person,
not even a lumberman or Indian, has ever visited
the headwaters of the main Sisson stream."
There can be little question about the accuracy
of his information.
The Nictaux, or Little Tobique, runs about thirty-
five miles and drains, with the Sisson Branch, an
area of three hundred and sev(jnty square miles.
The drainage area of the Right Hand Branch is
slightly greater. All these streams spread out
over the country so as to give a fan-shaped ap-
pearance when viewed on the map, the main To-
bique being the handle of the fan, the various
THE MIDDLE ST. JOHN. 77
branches the spokes. The many lakes, ponds, and
barren hinds around the outskirts of the watershed
afford a hunting ground for moose and other large
game, very little, if any, inferior to that surround-
ing the upper Aroostook.
Nictaux Lake, the most picturesque little wa-
ter imaginable, and the head of the Left Pland
Branch, nestles at the base of Bald Mountain,
the highest peak in New Brunswick. The moun-
tain, which is not, strictly speaking, bald, but
clothed with a stunted vegetation, rises quite
abruptly from the water's edge to a height of 2,240
feet, or a little less than half a mile. The sides
are strewn with large detached blocks of granite,
and the slope has been ascertained, by actual
measurement, to be no less than forty-five degrees.
The view from the summit is so extensive that on
a clear day with a good glass one may on the one
hand see the cliffs of Gaspe to the northv.^ard, and
on the other, in the far-off south, the still more
lofty and snow-crowned peak of Katahdin. The
whole country, as far as the eye can reach, is one
unbroken wilderness, thrown into mountains and
ridges of every variety of outline. A stream having
a few feet of rapid descent divides Nictaux Lake
into two parts, the upper part connecting with Nepi-
siguit Lake by a portage two miles and a half long.
By ascending the Tobique, crossing this portage,
and descending the Nepisiguit River, the traveler
will enjoy a very surfeit of good hunting and fishing.
78 THE ST. JOHN RIVER.
rapid-shooting, l)eautifiil seeneiy, and wild camp
life. The lower lake is two miles long by one
broad, and completely inclosed by hills, except at
the ends. A tiny island, bare of all vegetation,
rises in the very centre of the eastern end, im-
mediately beneath Bald Mountain, affording the
jaded traveler a complete refuge from those
quintessences of wickedness on wings, the black
flies.
The Little Tobique is somewhat obstructc^d by
rapids for a few miles below the lake, and then
becomes narrow, deep, and swift, with many wind-
ings. The Great and Little Cedar streams enter
from the north, their upper waters being probably
as little known as those of the Sisson Branch.
Below "• The Cedars " the stream becomes more
tortuous than ever, the current slower, the banks
thickly overgrown with tangled alders. Had the
ancients been familiar with Northern New Bruns-
wick they might have chosen the Nictaux or
Cabineau, instead of the Meander, as an illustra-
tion of thoroughly aimless crookedness.
The main Tobique measures some sixty-three
miles from the Nictaux to Indian Point, the only
really rough waters occurring at the Narrows and
Red Rapids, although the current is swift in most
places. The valley is one of the most fertile and
beautiful ones in the Province, and on no other
tributary of the St. John, unless it is the Aroos-
took, has the pristine forest so rapidly disappeared
THE MIDDLE ST. JOHN, 79
before the settler's axe. While in 1860 hut a
few scattered dwellings appeared, near the lied
Rapids, the valley is now continuously, in many
places thickly, settled from the Nictaux to the St.
John.
One of the most enchanting* parts of the stream
is the Blue Mountain Bend, where the water is
smooth, deep, and transparently clear, and the
three rao^ed summits of the Blue Mountains rise
abruptly on the east. The soil is reddish below
Two Brooks ; the land alluvial and rich. There
are many islands, low and covered with luxuriant
vegetation. Dr. Gesner estimates their number
in the main Tobique to be no less than seventy,
but it is liable to change from time to time
through natural causes.
The Gulquac enters the Tobique from the
south, about twenty-five miles below the Nictaux,
and Gulquac Lake, the source of the south and
principal branch, is connected with Trousers Lake
by a portage two miles and one half long. The
stream is rather too rough for canoeing, as it
winds around the bases of bold and rugged cliffs,
but the upper waters of both, branches lie well
within the country of large game. In the summer
of 1885 the industrious beaver so far forgot his
constitutional dislike of civilization as to construct
a dam across it, four miles from the settlements
in the Tobique valley, a perfect model of infra-
human architecture by which every drop of water
80 THE ST. JOHN RIVER.
was successfully turned into the adjoining woods,
and the river bed left quite dry for many yards
below. " Beaver like white man," remarked the
delighted guide on first discovering it, '' settles
down and goes to work ; otter like Injun, here
to-day, there to-morrow."
The Au-kee-awe-waps-ke-he-gan, or " River with
a wall at its mouth," is another j)rincipal contrib-
utor of the Tobique, entering from the south,
twenty -eight miles above Indian Point. Its
name, which certainly deserves to have some
meaning, has been successively shortened to
" Wapskehegan" and " Wapsky," while the " wall
at the mouth " consists of a cliff of red and snow-
white gypsum, interstratified with marl and sand-
stone, and often of a pearly whiteness. It is
sixty feet high, and nearly perpendicular, exhibit-
ing a curious and beautiful appearance, from the
alternating bands of gypsum and red sandstone.
The Wapsky, with its tributary the Riviere du
Chute, and the Southwest Miramichi River, have
interlocking waters. Possibly a canoe could be
" portaged" across, although the task would doubt-
less be very difficult.
Three Brooks stream flows from the north, a
few miles below the apex of the Wapsky Flat.
On the east branch we discover an excellent
trout pool. The Otella or Odell River flows from
the south, its two principal branches uniting in a
picturesque ravine, where the country is dotted
THE MIDDLE ST. JOHN. 81
with curious little mounds, almost exactly pyram-
idal in form.
An interesting feature of the lower ToLique is
the almost tropical luxuriance of the vegetation.
On the banks are elms and mountain ash of enor-
mous height, with tall grass, and ferns four or
five feet high. Even the extreme severity of the
winters seems unable to check the natural out-
growth of soils so fertile. At the Red Rapids,
twelve miles above the mouth, where beds of
bright red sandstone cross obliquely the bed of
the stream, we find the only rough water that the
canoeist need encounter, except the rapids in the
narrows ; but while difficult to ascend by poling,
the Red Rapids are not at all dangerous. An
Indian guide, inclined to be lazy, — and how
many Indian guides are not ? — likes to make the
most of them as an excuse for shortening the
day's journey and protracting his employment.
Within a circle, having a twelve-mile radius,
we find the Grand Falls of the St. John, the
Aroostook Fall, and the Tobique Narrows, three
lasting monuments of the glacial era. It is prob-
able that, immediately after the disturbance which
turned the rivers from their respective channels,
three mighty cataracts were formed, situated at
the lower ends of the modern gorges, and equal to
their present massive walls in height. A process
of erosion began, continued through the countless
ages, a very race of waterfalls, a never-ceasing
82 THE ST. niVER JOHN.
struggle to wear away tlie barriers of rock. With
what result ? The Grand Falls have moved one
mile and lost one half their height and majesty.
The Aroostook, moving too speedily, has formed
a series of cascades, which being less in power
will long remain there. The Tobique, least in
volume wliile greatest in erosive might, alone has
conquered the inqjcding barrier, and now it gam-
bols over the vanquished ledges in some rather
lively rapids, the sole remaining remnants of the
gTeat post-glacial cataract. In a few more ages
the narrows will undoubtedly })resent the placid
surface of a lake. The obstruction which created
Grand Falls stemmed back the water above, but
the similar impediment which caused the Tobique
Narrows merely heaped up large quantities of
traveling sand in what is called " The Grand
Bar," the water jilainly increasing instead of di-
minishing in speed. Canoes may descend the nar-
rows with safety, although the novice sometimes
experiences such an uprising of the hair as would
put " the fretful porcupine " to shame ; and the
stream drivers steer small rafts down during the
spring floods. Within the lower and middle por-
tions of the gorge the water is tranquil and very
deep, but so beautifully transparent that the in-
terlacing veins of pure white calcite may be seen
distinctly at a depth of sixty feet, contrasting, as
they do, so strongly with the darker ledges of
slate. . -^.
THE MIDDLE ST. JOHN. 83
The reader may be disappointed to learn that
the public are debarred from using the Tobicpie
as other than a natural highway. Sueh is the
case, however, the local government having leased
it for salmon and trout fishing to the same syndi-
cate that controls Green River. Without discus-
sing the propriety of this mode of raising provin-
cial revenue, we merely remark that the policy
has caused much ill feeling on the Tobique. So
general was the discontent at first, that when some
poachers fired upon a fishing party, instantly
killing the wife of one of the lessees, the sympa-
thetic jurymen could not be convinced th'it the
crime was one of higher degree than manslaughter.
The great salmon pools of the Tobique are dis-
tributed along the river as follows, viz. : Four on
the Serpentine, at distances almost equally apart,
dividing that river into four equal sections ; two
within the first mile and a half of the Right Hand
Branch below the confluence of the streams flow-
ing from Long and Trousers lakes ; one on the
Right Hand Branch about three miles above the
Serpentine ; two close together and perhaps five
miles below the Serpentine ; one, called the Seven
Mile Pool, it being just that distance above the
Nictaux; one about half a mile above the Ma-
mozekel ; one at the Nictaux or Forks ; one at the
mouth of Cedar Brook on the Little Tobique ;
one two miles and one four miles below the Nic-
taux ; one just above Riley Brook, and one a mile
84 THE ST. JOHN RIVER.
and a half below Riley Brook : seventeen in all.
Of course salmon may be taken at many other
places, and in addition to the generally good trout
fishing there are pools of special excellence on
the Serpentine, three miles below the lake, and
on the main Tobique at the mouth of a small
brook entering from the south, a little below
Gulquac. Trousers Lake and another small lake
near by are also considered good waters for trout.
The Tobique salmon is smaller than the Resti-
gouche, and less gamey than the Miramichi
salmon, but affords very good sport nevertheless.
A gentleman when visiting the river in 1863
said : " The trout are so numerous and voracious
as to jump at the canoe paddles;" while in 184 i a
settler living near the mouth killed twelve barrel*
of salmon with a single spear. Those happy days
have long gone by, and with civilization's onward
march the whole basin of the St. John is rapidly
deteriorating as a country for fish and game.
STATISTICS.
The total drainage area of the St. John River
above Andover is about 13,200 square miles.
This estimate is somewhat reduced by excluding
the AUagash above the Chamberlain dam. Con-
sidering the South or Baker Branch as the prin-
cipal source, all the tributaries entering on the
left-hand side drain collectively 7,617 square
miles, all tributaries entering from the right-
THE MIDDLE ST. JOHN. 85
hand side 5,488 square miles. It is a peculiar
feature of the system that fourteen large tributa-
ries enter from the left side, and only three, the
AUagash, Fish, and Aroostook rivers, from the
right. All the streams having pure transparent
water are in the first group.
The basin of the St. John in Maine covers
7,638 square miles, or about one fourth the land
surface of the State.
Mr. Walter Wells, superintendent of the hy-
drographic survey in Maine, estimates the mean
annual discharge of the Aroostook at 81,900,000,-
000 cubic feet, and the discharges of the Great
Fish and AUagash rivers at 34,710,000,000 and
57,720,000,000 cubic feet respectively, while the
whole basin of the St. John in Maine sheds 284,-
000,000,000 cubic feet of water annually. The
Aroostook basin is computed to contain 59.95
square miles of lake surface, Squapan Lake
(superficial area 10 square miles) being the lar
gest body of water; the AUagash basin 120.90
square miles. Chamberlain (20 square miLis)
being the largest lake ; Fish River basin 89
square miles, with individual lake areas as fol-
lows, viz. : Long Lake, 19 square miles ; Square
Lake, 15 ; Eagle Lake, 22 ; Nadeau Lake, 5.50 ;
Portage Lake, 8.50 ; and Great Fish Lake, 7
square miles ; the St. Francis basin, 36.65 square
miles ; and the whole St. John basin in Maine,
350 square miles. By the Chamberlain dam the
86 THE ST. JOHN RIVER.
flowage of 3G square miles of the Allagash lakes
is turned southeasterly into the Penobscot River.
FROM ANDOVER TO WOODSTOCK.
Between Andover and Woodstock (fifty miles)
the St. John winds about from east to west,
and west to east, in a series of gentle curves,
the general course remaining north and south.
It is everywhere a moderately deep and very
swiftly flowing river, not varying greatly in width
except where the channel separates to inclose an
island. Many natural terraces are found, often
forming banks of gravel and sand from thirty to
fifty feet high ; elsewhere the hills slope up from
the water's edge to a considerable height. On
both terraces and slopes the land is fertile and
under cultivation. From the summit of Moose
Mountain, a rugged peak, over eight hundred
feet high, in the vicinity of the Muniac stream,
deriving its name from a resemblance, when
viewed at a distance, to the body and hornless
head of a moose, a magnificent view may be ob-
tained of the river, winding, for many miles, like
a silvery streak, through a country so patched
with dark spruce forest, and cultivated tracts of
a lighter green, as to give the whole scene the
appearance of a gigantic chess-board. A similar
view is obtained from Stickney Brook ridge,
nearly opposite Florenceville.
Andover village, which consists of a long row
THE MIDDLE ST. JOHN. 8T
of pleasant cottages near the brink of a terrace
overlooking the river and the picturesquely wooded
ridge that rises abruptly from the opposite bank,
is the dividing point between the English and
French civilizations of Western New Brunswick.
Having passed it, on our downward voyage, we
find the settled country not so much confined to
the river valley as hitherto, but extending for
many miles to the eastward and westward. A
branch of the Canadian Pacific Railway follows
the east bank quite closely, utilizing the level
table lands on the natural terraces. The princi-
pal villages along the river are Kent, Florence-
ville, Hartland, and Upper Woodstock, while
Glassville, Centreville, and other small distribu-
ting centres are scattered over " the back country."
At the mouth of Hardwood Creek there is a vil-
lage bearing the unpoetical name of " Bumf raw,"
a rather humorous corruption of the French
^'bois francher Upper Woodstock is called
" Hardscrabble," rather ridiculously, because it is
a " hard scrabble," or difiicult and laborious task,
to ascend a rapid below it.
In the first few miles below Andover, large
masses of rock, seemingly detached, rise here and
there above the river's surface, but they are not
surrounded by rough water. The current is swift
everywhere, but most rapid at "Fitz Herbert's
Rips " (between the two Guisiguit rivers), on the
channels surrounding Green Island, above the Big
88 THE ST. JOHN BIVER.
Presque Isle River, and from the Little Presque
Isle to Hartland Bar.
The prinei2)al streams entering from the west
are the Riviere du Chute, the Upper and Lower
Guisiguit, and the Big and Little Presque Isle
rivers ; the principal ones entering from the east
are the Muniac, Monquart, Shikitehawk, and Bec-
caguimec rivers. The Riviere du Chute is a
small stream of very clear water, with a natural
fall at the mouth, the height of which has been
reduced from sixty to eight feet by long-continued
erosive action. The Monquart and Shikitehawk
are also transparently clear, and shoidd be good
for trout, but they rise in a very mountainous
country near the sources of the Odell River
(a branch of the Tobique) and the Southwest
Branch of the Miramichi, and are too shallow and
rocky for a convenient ascent by canoe. There
is a rather picturesque ravine and fall on the
Shikitehawk, and at Kent Station, near its mouth,
an excellent portage road, but sixteen miles in
lenoth, connects the St. John River with the
Miramichi at Foreston. The Miramichi is a
famous salmon stream, and many sportsmen use
this road annually as an easy way of reaching it.
The Big Presque Isle River (not to be confounded
with its namesake on the Aroostook) is a goodly
stream of clear and rapid water, running forty
miles, and more or less navigable by canoe for
half that distance. It winds around Mars Hill,
<
THE MIDDLE ST. JOHN. 89
of international celebrity, which is the highest
mountain on the middle St. »Tohn (1,600 feet),
and commands an unrivaled view of the country.
Two miles below Plartland the Little Pokiok
stream emerges from a cavernous cleft in the
rocks. In fact, many minor brooks along this
part of the river, and Acker Brook especially,
flow for some distance through deep ravines.
Woodstock (4,500) is the third city in size
and comme? cial importance within the St. eTohn
River valley. It contains many pleasing private
residences, but no very noteworthy public build-
ings, and is the trade centre for the populous
agricultural districts of Carleton County.
THE BECCAGUIMEC EIVER.
At Hartland village, twelve miles above
Woodstock, the Beccaguimec River enters the
St. John from the east, a stream, that is, in its
general course, the most crooked of all the tribu-
taries, while having a greater descent between
source and mouth than any other branch of equal
length. It is more or less " canoeable " for sev-
enteen or eighteen miles, the rapid descent being
largely caused by a few falls on the north branch ;
and the Coldstream, a tributary, is also navigable
at medium water. The north and south branches
flow from opposite directions for fifteen miles
above their junction, and then their valleys grad-
ually approach until at their heads they overlap.
90 THE ST. JOHN lilVER.
" Guimoc " Luke, the source of the south branch,
is smuU but picturesque, and most easily reached
from Millville, a station on the Canadian Pacific
Railway.
In 1885 two "cological explorers attempted to
reach *' Guiniec " Lake by wading up the stream.
Toiling onward, now in the water, now in the
neighboring swami)s, wliile the miserable brook
dwindled down to microscopical prv)})()rtions, they
reached a great morass, and still no lake in
sight. A rain came on, no light one, and unable
to return by reason of approaching darkness, sup-
perless, shelterless, wet and worn, they stretched
iil)on a heap of rotten wood, composing their
weary limbs for sleeplessness. When morning
dawned they rose much unrefreshed, and shaking
off the ants and centipedes set forth for Millville.
It was a most inglorious retreat.
The Beccaguimec water is pure and clear, and
the trout fishing on the north branch probably
the best obtainable between Andover and Freder-
icton.
THE MEDUXNIKEAG RIVER.
The Meduxnikeag River (drainage area about
420 square miles), which unites with the St. John
at Woodstock, is formed by the junction of two
streams of nearly equal size twelve miles above
the mouth, one flowing southerly from the Aroos-
took watershed, the other northerly through one
of the richest farming districts of Maine. Houston,
THE MIDDLE i^T. JOHN. 91
an iiinl)Itious rival of Woodstock, and tlie metrop-
olis of Aroostook County, is situated on the south
branch. Its business section is clustered about
an open S(piare, from whi(;h pleasant residential
streets extend in sevciral directions.
In the more remote country districts above
Grand Falls, the watercourses aii'ord the most con-
venient or only routes for travel ; consequently
th'3 degree of each stream's *' navigability " is a
matter of common knowledge ; but below Andover
the country is so covered by a network of roads,
that a person interested in any stream whose cur-
rent it requires a more or less experienced poler
to overcome, rather prefers to walk or drive there
than to incur fatigue and strain his canoe in the
arduous exercise of swinging the pole. Especially
is this true of the Meduxnikeag, but the possible
canoeist may be interested in learning that there
is a waterfall near the forks, and a very pretty
valley from there to Woodstock.
FROM WOODSTOCK TO FREDERICTON.
Quite various are the aspects which the river
presents between Woodstock and Fredericton, a
distance of sixty-three miles. Above Eel River
the current is everywhere swift, the channel often
splitting to inclose an alluvial island. Indeed, we
find no islands in the St. John above Belleisle
Bay which are not composed purely of alluvium,
or glacial drift. The hills reach a considerable
92 THE ST. JOHN RIVER.
altitude on both sides of the valley, although the
immediate river banks are neither as uniforndy
abrupt nor as stony as in the vicinity of Monquart
and Muniac ; hence affording better facilities for
camping. The scenery is decidedly jiicturesque,
especially for ten miles below Woodstock and the
same distance above Fredericton. A granite belt
crosses the valley between the Eel and Nacawick
rivers, and as no geological formation roughens a
country like a granite one, whether granite i?i situ
or granite superficially distributed by glacial ac-
tion, the river becomes obstructed by ledges and
loose lying drift, over which the water pours in a
rapid called the Meductic Fall. Canoes may de-
scend without inconvenience by keeping well to
the right-hand bank, and the Woodstock steamer
ascends at high water. In fact the Meductic is a
mere pigmy when comj^ared with such aquatic to-
boggan slides as endanger navigation above the
AUagash. Below the fall the river is more slug-
gish and much deeper, with a maximum depth of
fifty-four feet at Pokiok Eddy, measured at low
water. There was an ancient fort above Meduc-
tic, on the west bank, and near it an Indian burial
ground, the site of which is now overgrown by
hawthorn-trees.
The sharpest and most peculiar twist in the
river channel below Grand Falls is the Nacka-
wick Bend, after rounding which the stream runs
perfectly straight for eighteen miles in a wide
THE MIDDLE ST, JOHN. 93
and shallow bed filled with islands. People
sometimes call this straight course the Upper
Reach, as it is of e(pial length with the Long
Reach helow Gagetown, although (piite unlike
in every other rc^spect. The shallow waters and
sand-bars, though accompanied by a cpiickening
of the current, allow teams to ford the channel
in various places during the summer months.
Horses would probably have to swim some dis-
tance in crossing elsewhere below Edmundston,
unless at the great bar near Hartland. At the
foot of the Upper Reach the river turns again,
at an exact right angle ; a whirlpool, known
as Burgoyne's Eddy, forming at high water,
near the right-hand bank. The current slackens
very much, and the water for nine miles is as
deep as in the narrow channel below Meductic ;
then the whole appearance of the river changes
once more. The Keswick stream enters from the
north, ten miles above Fredericton, and below it
the river bed is literally choked with islands of
all dimensions, and divided into innumerable
channels of varying width, depth, and rapidity.
High hills, higher than any we have seen below
Eel River, uprise on both sides, their sloj^es be-
ing in great part under cultivation. From the
various summits, and more especially from Rock-
land Hill, a view of the closely clustered Keswick
Islands is obtained, such as is ever appreciated,
and rarely forgotten. At Sugar Is' and, the
94 THE ST, JOHN iuver.
largest of tlio group, the St. John measures two
miles and a half from bank to bank, its greatest
width above Fredericton. Savage Island, the
second in area, was a famous rendezvous of the
Maliseets in early days, and here they are said to
have been attaeked by the restless Mohawks, who
descended the river for scalps and glory. A
bird's-eye view of the island may be had from
Clarke's or Currie's Mountain, a detached pre-
cipitous peak, with a ravine beliind, where many
more of our inoffensive Maliseets became pre-
maturely bald at the touch of the keen-edged
tomahawk, unless tradition lies. All the islands
are low, grassy, and fringed with elm-trees and
bushes, and, excepting a few small portions of
them, annually submerged by the spring floods.
The few dry spots are little hummocks, formed
from nothing more durable than the common
alluvium, on which early settlers and adventurous
farmers built houses occasionally in years gone
by. How they must have enjoyed the spectacle
of the spring ice roaring, grinding, and crunching
on every side, and momentarily threatening to
pile against their little cottages and sweep them
ruthlessly down-stream ! For three days, at least,
these farmers on the knolls, provided they had
missed the last opportunity of reaching the main
land, must have moved in a social circle exclu-
sively confined to members of their own fami-
lies, — a sufficient time to enable our friend, Mr.
THE MIDDLE ST. JOHN. 05
ILirvey, to reach civilization from his log honso
on the Allagash. Between Sugar and Savage
islands the principal body of the water shifts
from the southwest to the northeast side of the
valley, through a channel called the Grand Pas-
sage, but it gradually returns before reaching
Fredericton.
The extraordinary tides of the Bay of Fundy
influence the river as far as Chapel Bar, above
Spring Hill, so we find no more swift currents.
On this account the Fredericton canoeists are
better accustomed to the paddle than the pole.
MINOR TRIBUTARIES BELOW WOODSTOCK.
We now return to Woodstock to see what trib-
utarial contributions the St. J' ' n receives between
that city and Fredericton. The principal ones,
briefly enumerated, are as follows : from the left-
hand side, Gibson's Mill Stream, and the Nack-
awick, Koack, Mactaquac, Keswick, and Nash-
waaksis rivers; from the right-hand side, Bull's
Creek, the Eel, Shogomoc, and Pokiok rivers, and
Upper Garden's and Long's creeks. The highest
fall in the St. John River system, to the writer's
knowledge and belief, is that called Hay's Fall,
on a small brook entering the main river midway
between Bull's Creek and Eel River. Here the
water takes a perpendicular leap of ninety feet
from a rugged cliff, at the brow and base of which
good views may be obtained. A thick growth of
96 THE ST. JOHN BIVER,
tall spruces and firs adds picturesqueness, but the
stream is unfortunately so small as to disappear
entirely in the summer season, when the fall
dwindles gradually down to a collection of wet
and dripping moss.
Gibson's Mill Stream is very much larger, and
the narrows, three miles above the mouth, con-
taining a series of rough cascades flanked by per-
pendicular cliffs of a great but as yet unmeasured
height, will repay a visit at any time. As was
noted of Acker Brook, above Woodstock, a very
small stream may have a very deep valley of ero-
sion, a fact again illustrated by the presence of a
deep ravine midway between Eel and Shogomoc
rivers, where the little Sullivan's Creek trickles
out to the St. John. So the small Koack River
has eroded a chasm so dark and cavernous that
all attempts to take photographs within are said
to fail through insufficiency of light. The shad-
ows of lofty firs and spruces contribute materially
to the gloom of this romantic spot. Within the
chasm there is a fall, perhaps eighty feet in height.
Upper and Lower Garden's and Kelly's creeks
all have picturesque falls, and they were toler-
ably good trout brooks some years ago. The
Mactaquac is somewhat larger, and has two prin-
cipal tributaries, one flowing from Scotch Lake in
Queensbury. Its lower valley presents an attrac-
tive appearance, but the upper waters are rarely
visited by sportsmen, and probably unattainable
by canoe in the fishing season.
THE MIDDLE ST JOHN. 97
EEL RIVER.
Eel River rises in a small pond, called the Third
Eel River Lake, near Skiff Lake, the source of a
branch of the St. Croix. It drains an area of two
hundred and thirty square miles, probably deriv-
ing its name from the crooked course it takes
while doing so. The first of the three Eel River
lakes is the largest, receiving the overflow of the
second through a small unnavigable stream of
very rapid descent. From the first lake to Ben-
ton village navigation by canoe is comparatively
easy, although short portages are necessary around
two waterfalls, one a few miles below the lake,
the other at Dinnen's Mill, above the mouth of a
tributary oddly named Pok'o'moonshine Brook.
Some people say that " Pok'o'moonshine" is of
Indian origin, and others that " pok " is an abbre-
viation of " poke," meaning a ray, as a " poke of
light." The existence of a lake called Sunpoke
on the Oromocto River has a decided tendency to
support the latter view. In early times Eel River
was a much used thoroughfare between the St.
John and the St. Croix, a portage of three miles,
called Metagmuckschesh, connecting it with North
Lake, the head of the Chiputnetecook chain.
Metagmuckschesh has been a great Indian road
for centuries, various reputable writers asserting
that the flat rocks (a coarse granite), over which
the narrow file of Indians passed, have been worn
98 THE ST. JOHN RIVER.
to a depth of several ii 'lies by the tread of moc-
casined feet. Mr. Frederick Kidder, in his work
on "Military operations in Eastern Maine and
Nova Scotia during the Revolution," says of this
pathway: "It has undoubtedly been used for
many centuries, and may be pronounced the most
ancient evidence of mankind in New England."
In 1777, Col. John Allen, attended by about five
hundred Indians and colonists, a majority of whom
were women and children, ascended Eel River and
crossed Metagmuckshcesh to North Lake, depart-
ing from Fort Meductic on the 13th day of July.
The lower course of Eel River is obstructed by
falls and rapids, on which account the Indians car-
ried their canoes overland from Meductic to Ben-
ton (five miles) when journeying westward from
the St. John to the St. Croix and Matawamkeag
via Metagmuckschesh, but frequently descended
the stream when traveling the opposite way.
The pickerel, a veritable fresh -water shark,
seems to have received in the First Eel River Lake
its primary introduc^ion to the waters of the St.
John, whence it has spread over all the lower trib-
utaries, wherever the current is sluggish, proving
an inveterate foe to many other fishes, more espe-
cially to trout. Its fondness for the trout prob-
ably arises from the fact of their being scaleless,
and consequently more " swallowable." Luckily
the pickerel dislikes rapid water, and is seldom
found in the St. John above Eel River.
THE MIDDLE ST. JOUN. 99
THE SHOGOMOC RIVER.
The Sliogomoc River, although within the
region of granite, is navigable from a short dis-
tance above the mouth. At the mouth we find it
a most tumultuous torrent, rushing among, and
tumbling over, a typical collection of ledges and
granitic bowlders. There are innumerable lakes
on the stream (Great Shogomoc Lake being very
much the largest), and several of them are abun-
dantly stocked with trout. The Shogomoc rises
near the Palfrey Mountains, and Canterbury
Station, on the Woodstock branch of the Cana-
dian Pacific Railway, is the most convenient
starting point for persons desirous of visiting the
upper waters.
THE POKIOK RIVER.
The word " Pokiok " is said to mean " narrow
opening," and we certainly find on this river a
very narrow opening. Barely twenty-five feet
apart, but from fifty to seventy feet high, and
accurately perpendicular, are tiie dark red granite
walls that inclose the Pokiok near its confluence
with the St. John. Within this strange chasm
the water makes a series of leaps, aggregating
about seventy-five feet in height, and roars and
foams most furiously. In the flood season the
scene presented is intensely picturesque, more
especially as in driving along the Woodstock road
100 THE ST. JOHN RIVER.
one cannot see the ravine until almost directly
over it. A sluiceway has been constructed for the
passage of planks from the mill, down which an
elderly "Pokiokean," whose valor is at least on a
par with his discretion, rides frequently on floating
timber, for the moderate remuneration of twenty-
five cents per trip. When paddling down the St.
John ill early spring a blast of cold air is felt,
which proceeds directly fro?ii the Pokiok gorge,
and is laden with the peculiar odor of the fall.
The general course of the river, from the source
in Lake George, is almost exactly parallel to that
of the St. John, while the flow is in the opposite
direction. By portaging five miles from Lower
Prince William to the lake, a down-stream cir-
cuit can be made (similar to that of the Fish or
Madawaska rivers, although much shorter), the
stream being readily navigable for canoes, and
quite sluggish in places.
Three " Pokioks " are found in the St. John
River system. Two have the narrow opening
which the name is said to signify, but the third,
a brook entering the Tobique four miles above
Indian Point, and not previously mentioned, has
but a simple fall at the mouth, which I found by
barometric observation to be forty-five feet in
height.
THE MIDDLE ST. JOHN. 101
THE NACKAWICK RIVER.
The Nackawick River (drainage area one hun-
dred and fifty square miles) enters the St. John
from the northeast, three miles below Pokiok.
It has three principal branches, all flowing from
the same watershed that produces the Beccagui-
mee and Keswick rivers. A line of the Cana-
dian Pacific Railway crosses two branches, and
on the southeast or principal one we find Mill-
ville, an important centre for the local lumber
trade. The Nackawick is unadapted for practical
canoeing, and little would be gained by visiting
the upper waters, except for the purpose of hook-
ing small trout, which abound in most of them.
THE KESWICK RIVER.
The valleys of the Keswick and Mactaquac are
separated by Keswick Ridge, which terminates at
the St. John River in a precipitous cliff called
"• The Peddler's Leap." The Keswick stream rises
near Beccaguimec Lake, previously mentioned,
and runs forty miles, emptying into the channel
behind Sugar Island.
So well watered is the basin of the St. John,
that it would be quite impossible to find a tract
of land four miles square not traversed by some
brook or rivulet, and several different rivers
always flow from every well-defined watershed.
Thus, in the case before us, the Keswick, Nacka-
102 THE ST. JOHN RIVER.
wick and Beccaguimec all rise in a locality the
central point of which is twenty-five miles east of
Woodstock, but the mouths of the Keswick and
Beccaguimec are sixty-five miles apart, measured
along the valley of the St. John. The common
watershed is an undulating country, traversed
here and there by well-defined ridges, dotted with
small lakes, and clad in a luxuriant greenwood
forest. It is the border of New Brunswick's
greatest wilderness, a vast region, untenanted by
other than the ferce naturm of our common law,
extending northeastward, without a break, to the
Intercolonial Railway and the valley of the Res-
tigouche River.
The Keswick's principal branches unite twen-
ty-two miles from the mouth of the stream,
and below their confluence the valley gradually
widens, finally becoming a fertile and thickly
inhabited farming country. Two large tributa-
ries enter from the east. The stream is navigable
by canoe, except in the dry season, with just
enough rough water to make things cheerful ; and
the railway follows nearly all its countless mean-
derings. It is not prominent among the fishing
rivers, but small trout abound in the upper
waters. ^
THE NASHWAAKSIS RIVER. r
The Nashwaaksis has three principal branches,
all uniting within a third of a mile, after the fash-
ion of the Touladi and Tobique, and below the
THE MIDDLE ST. JOtlN. 103
forks is navigable, generally speaking, when the
Keswick is. It contains many deep pools, which
would naturally harbor trout of very fair dimen-
sions, but the small-boy crop in this vicinity is
large, and small boys, here as elsewhere, take
much delight in fishing. The east branch has a
very pretty symmetrical fall, about fourteen feet
high, with a deep and thickly wooded ravine be-
low. Above the fall are the wild meadows, where
myriads of small trout are hooked every twenty-
fourth of May. McLeod's Bluff, a bold face of
volcanic rock with a huge talus at the base, over-
looks the stream below the forks, and for an
equal distance above the mouth the water is still,
and the banks overgrown with leafy trees that
cast their perfect reflections upon its surface.
Here the yoimg " Frederictonian " paddles his
" best girl " on moonlight evenings, and the stilly
air is often laden with the murmur of suppressed
voices, blended with, and occasionally interrupted
by, the buzz of the unceremonious mosquito.
FREDERICTON.
Emerging from the narrow opening of the Nash-
waaksis we see before us the roofs and spires of
Fredericton, the political, legal, and educational
centre of New Brunswick, second in industrial im-
portance, and first in natural beauty of location,
of the various communities within the St. John
River valley. The site of the city is a flat dilu-
104 THE ST. JOHN BIVER.
vial plain, two miles in length by one in width,
laved by the river, and backed by wooded hills.
The streets are broad and regular, .iiose parallel
with the water having been named after the reign-
ing sovereigns at the time of the town's rncorpo-
ration. Queen and King streets are nearest the
river bank, Charlotte and George the most remote,
and Brunswick in the centre, the group thus form-
ing the combination: "Queen Charlotte (and)
King George (of the house of) Brunswick."
Fredericton is justly termed '' The Forest City "
from the number and beauty of its shade trees.
The elms attain a loftiness and graceful symmetry
but rarely found, while willows of gigantic size
adorn the water front in many places. Almost at
the upper end of the flat, and opposite the Nash-
waaksis, stands Government House, the official
residence of nearly all New Brunswick's governors,
an historic pile, thoroughly suggestive of the pre-
confederate aristocracy. The cathedral, a beauti-
ful Gothic edifice, modeled after the parish church
at Sandringham in England, is also near the river,
while half way up the hill behind the town stands
the University of New Brunswick, formerly, and
much more appropriately, termed "King's Col-
lege." Among the more historic buildings are the
officers' barracks, which overlook a level willow-
shaded lawn, much used in peace for tennis, and
in war for drill.
The number and beauty of the landed estates
o
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THE MIDDLE ST. JOHN. ' 105
cannot fail to attract attention. Scattered about
on plain and hillside, within the town, without
the town, we find them everywhere : broad acres,
spreading in grassy fields, and lawns, and fertile
garden lots. Some tottering chimneys near the
river bank denote the site of Rose Hall, a transi-
tory asylum of the traitor Arnold subsequent to
his discovery and inglorious northward flight ;
while at the western apex of the city flat, faced by
the water, and shadowed by lofty pines, appears
the ruined Hermitage.
. Fredericton has been visited by several de-
structive conflagrations. In 1825 the Govern-
ment House, with scores of shops and dwellings,
was laid in ruins. The great fire of 1850 proved
equally calamitous.
On the twenty-second day of February, 1785,
Sir Guy Carleton made it the seat of govern-
ment, when the ancient name " St. Anne's " was
changed to "Frederick Town" in honor of His
Royal Highness, the Bishop of Osnaburg.
THE NASHWAAK RIVER.
The Nashwaak, running about seventy-five
miles, and draining five hundred and eighty square
miles, is somewhat larger than any tributary
stream we have passed below the Tobique. It
flows from St. Mary's Lake, a remote little body of
water much more easily reached by a portage of a
few miles from the valley of the Southwest Mira-
lOG THE ST. JOUN lilVER.
miclii than l)y ascending the river to which it gives
rise. Indeed, it has been stated, by one familiar
with the successive explorations of Central New
Bmnswick, that nobody ever succeeded in tracing
the Nashwaak sireani upwards to the lake. This,
if true, is probably because the country in tluj
vicinity of the lake resend)les that surrounding
the sources of the Napadogan stream, a principal
tributary, entering from the east, twelve miles
above Stanley. The writer visited the east branch
of the Napadogan in 1885, and found tliere some
extensive morasses, covered with a thick scrubby
growth, as difficult to walk through as deep snow,
and presenting a weird and gloomy appearance.
The stream was divided occasionally into several
channels, and the various members of the party
became separated, and were only united again
after much shouting and some hours spent in
struggling aindessly through the swamp.
As instances of a curious nomenclature often
found in the St. John River system, we have
mentioned " Bumfraw " and " Pok'o'moon shine "
Brook, and the Nashwaak country is by no means
lacking in odd names. Thus one of the most
northerly tributaries, entering some ten miles
below the lake, is very comically named " Dough-
boy Brook " by the lumbermen, in commemora-
tion of a camp spree, when the men pelted each
other with no less adhesive a commodity than soft
dough. A few miles below this, where the river
THE MIDDLE ST. JOHN. 107
abruptly chanf^cs course from south to east, eutcr
two streams which are s})okeii of coUeetively as
''The Sisters," but individually as '* Miss Nash-
waak" and "Sister Ann."
Fourteen miles above Stanley, a little lake
connects with the main Nashwaak by a short
thoroughfare, and innnediately below the river is
danuiied for Imnbering purposes. In the pool
below the dam small trout are as numerous as
can be. At the Narrows, also, some seven miles
above, we may angle successfully for these sport-
ive speckled beauties. There we find the rough-
est rapids on the river. The Napadogan stream,
which is one of the largest tributaries, flows
entirely within the wilderness, is navigable, but
not easily so, for canoes at medium water, and
abounds with small trout. Rocky Brook rises in
a bleak morass similar to that of the Napadogan.
Grand John Brook, which enters the Nashwaak
from the south, and bears the name of an old
Indian who hunted at one time on all these
waters, literally teems with small trout, but the
narrowness of the channel makes it difficult to
cast a fly with precision.
Civilization, that is to say settlement, has ad-
vanced thirty-four miles up the Nashwaak. At
Stanley village, which is picturesquely perched
on a hill slope, overlooking the valley, we find
some houses partially constructed with imported
timber, the people of old England formerly labor-
108 THE ST. JOHN BIVER.
ing under a slight misapprehension regarding the
extent of available woodland in the New World.
Stanley has a population of five hundred, which
is doubled on election days and other auspicious
occasions.
Below Stanley the stream is everywhere navi-
gable for canoes under ordinary conditions ; the
valley is continuously settled, and fully as pic-
turesque as that of any other tributary of the St.
John. Large trout frequent the stream, an oc-
casional one turning the scales at three pounds ;
but the most experienced angler can never be
sure of a catch, so shy are they. A famous pool
is that at the mouth of Lower McBean's Brook,
The river gradually increases in volume, receiv-
ing from the east the Budogan, or Cross Creek,
the Undenack, or Upper McBean's Brook, Lower
McBean's Brook, Manzer's Creek, and the Pen-
nioc; and receiving from the west Tay Creek
and the Dunbar or Cleuristic stream. The trout
in Cross Creek and the Undenack are numerous,
although quite small, but on the Tay, which is
the longest tributary, and " canoeable " at certain
times, a few large fish may be taken. Precipitate
bluffs of sandstone crop out on the Undenack,
above and below McKenzie's Brook, and in the
talus beneath one of them, large but imperfect
lepidodendrons and other fossilized plants of the
Carboniferous era lie strewn about profusely.
The Cleuristic .divides two miles above the
THE MIDDLE ST. JOHN. 109
«
mouth, the principal branch being called Tin
Kettle Brook, and one mile from the Nashwaak
. ... i
it has a very symmetrical foU, of similar dimen-
sions to that on the east branch of the Nash- •
waaksis. The Pennioc is the most sluggish of all
these waters, and navigable for canoes about eight
miles, where it flows through a thickly-settled !
valley, possessed of much rural beauty. Once '
the stream excelled all others for trout fishing, ^
except perhaps the Tay; and even now, over-
fished as it is, the angler occasionally becomes
the happy possessor of a much larger trout than
he ever even dreamed of catching there.
At the mouth of the Pennioc we find a very
large alluvial island, strangely large to be in-
closed by a river of no greater volume than the
Nashwaak. Marysville, two miles below this,
which is the metropolis of the Nashwaak valley,
is a thoroughly one-man place, as much so as \
Pullman, Illinois, its mushroom growth being en-
tirely due to the enterprise of Mr. Gibson, who
controls the Nashwaak lumber trade and manu-
factures cotton. A strange contrast is presented
by the high brick walls of the cotton-mill, backed,
as they are, by a greenwood forest which extends
without a break to the horizon, a very sea of con-
ical treetops. Indeed, a straight line may be
drawn through this forest from a point two miles
from Fredericton that will not cross any road or
settlement between the St. John River valley and
110 THE ST. JOHN RIVER.
the Intercolonial Railway, and a similar line
from the northwest branch of the Nashwaaksis
to the Restigouche River. It would be interest-
ing to compare the area of this huge wilderness
with that of the similar one surrounding the
sources of the St. John and AUagash rivers.
The Nashwaak was said to be, many years ago,
navigable for wood boats below Marysville, and
subsequently shallowed by deposits of silt and
sawdust. Newspapers of 1860 mourn the deteri-
oration of the once excellent trout fishing off the
bar at the mouth, where now the water is barely
deep enough to float a canoe in midsummer.
Certainly there would be as much wisdom to-day
in trying to shoot a mastodon on the upper Pen-
nioc as in attempting to capture trout with a fly
off Nashwaak Bar.
At Heron Lake, two and one half miles from
Fredericton, some interesting glacial phenomena
may be seen. The water now flows into the
Nashwaaksis, but the lake is merely held in place
by a narrow and steep-sided moraine of glacial
drift, separating it from a deeply-wooded ravine
that extends eastward into the Nashwaak valley.
Probably Heron Lake was once the source of Hot
Water Creek, a tortuous little stream branching
from the Nashwaak half a mile above the mouth,
with deep sluggish water, where perch and pick-
erel roam in shoals, sheltering beneath the grass
and lily-pads.
CHAFTEK IV.
THE LOWER ST. JOHN.
FROM FREDERICTON TO GAGETOWN.
The physical features of the St. John alter
greatly in the thirty-four miles between Frederic-
ton and Gagetown. Nowhere else is the sur-
rounding land so low, and on the east a mere
alluvial flat of great extent separates its waters
from those drained by the Jemseg. Every indi-
cation shows that this country was once the bed
of a great lake, nearly triangular in form, with its
apex at Salmon River and its base line along the
valley of the St. John. The greatest length and
breadth of the lake must have been about the
same, a& the distance from Nashwaak to Jemseg
(thirty-five miles) nearly equals that from Oro-
mocto to the head of the lowland on Salmon
River. A log, in a perfect state of preservation,
was discovered at a depth of twenty-four feet from
the surface of this alluvium bed, about opposite
Oromocto, and, as twenty feet is the difference
to-day between the top of the flat and low-water
mark, it would seem to have been deposited at
a time when sediment first began to form in the
old lake basin. Who can say what portion of the
112 THE ST. JOHN RIVER.
rock eroded from the several gorges of the St.
John, Aroostook, and Tobique now enters into
the composition of the Maugerville flat? There
were a few, if not many, islands in the ancient
lake, including the cup-shaped wooded mound
below the Nashwaak. The currents of the St.
John, flowing southeasterly, met those of the
Grand Lake watershed, flowing southwesterly,
and the most natural place for the deposit of silt
and detritus was along the line of their junction,
where we find the fiuviatile deposits of to-day.
Maugerville^ and Sheffield parishes are among the
earliest settled districts on the St. John ; the land
is exceedingly rich, and annually manured by the
silt-bearing freshets. It is an extraordinary fact
that some of the farmers obtain a crop of vegeta-
bles and a crop of fish from the same piece of
ground annually.
The current is sluggish at low-water, but every-
where perceptible, between Chapel Bar and Gage-
town, and naturally, on nearing the coast, the ebb
and flow of the fresh-water tide increases. In
most, if not all, rivers of any volume, with estuary
mouths, the current is continued much beyond the
point of tide level by the pressure of water above,
and what has been said of the St. John is strik-
ingly true, on a much larger scale, of the Amazon
and Congo.
The village of Oromocto, although small, is the
shire-town of Simbury County. Travelers say
THE LOWER ST. JOHN. 113
that the potato is the current medium of exchange
there, but this is hearsay, and needs verification.
Oromocto was anciently an Indian resort, and
the husbandman sometimes exposes a grave, or
implements of stone and pottery, while working
in the field. The Burton court-house, a few miles
below the village, commands an unrivaled view
of the river, with the great intervale islands, and
the Maugerville flat beyond.
Gagetown, diminutive as it is, was, until re-
cently, one of the largest communities in eastern
North America unconnected with the outside world
by rail or telegraph. In front flows Gagetown
Creek, a sluggish stream connecting Hart's and
Coy's lakes with the river. Grimross Neck, be-
tween the river and creek, has now become Grim-
ross Island by the excavation of a short canal,
which, if we except the canal connecting Telos
Lake with Webster Brook on the Penobscot, and
Morrow's little " dugway " on the Oromocto, prob-
ably forms the only artificial diversion of water,
for the facilitation of navigation, on the St. John
or its tributaries.
THE OROMOCTO RIVER.
The Oromocto (Deep River) has two principal
branches which, emanating from large lakes about
twenty-five miles apart, unite twenty miles above
the mouth of the stream, and it flows almost sixty
miles from the source of the north branch, and
114 THE ST. JOHN RIVER.
drains eight hundred and ten square miles. North
Branch Lake, one of the largest lakes in the St.
John system, is nine miles long by two and one
half broad, a low flat country surrounding it, where
the scenery is not very picturesque. Tweedside
settlement extends along the northwestern shore ;
elsewhere the forest touches the beach. An at-
tractive spot is the White Sand Cove, a shallow
bay of pure transparent water with a bottom and
beach of clean light-colored sand, where clusters
of wild rosebushes grow just above high-water
mark, a tiny rivulet babbling through them on its
way to the lake. Good fishing may be had, at
times, in the White Sand Cove ; for large trout,
while rapidly diminishing in number, still fre-
quent the North Branch Lake. A better place for
small trout is at the southwestern end, where a
deadwater brook enters, navigable for canoes.
All geographers assert that the overflow of tlm
lake found an exit through this brook, pre-gla-
cially, into the Magaguadavic River, but two miles
distant, and that the Oromocto water to-day is on
a level one hundred and twenty feet above that
river's bed. But how can this be so, when the
north branch of the Oromocto is navigable almost
everywhere for canoes, and reaches tide level at
the forks, after running but twenty-five miles;
while the Magaguadavic, below the supposed
brook outlet, is fifty miles long, with two large
falls on it? There is certainly a discrepancy
THE LOWER ST. JOHN. 115
somewhere that local geologists will please ex-
plain.
From the southern end of Oromocto Lake a
portage of three mihis leads to Big Kedron Lake
on the Magaguadavic. The Jaws Basin, where the
north branch emanates, is probably named from
its indented coast line ; and south of this a wooded
peninsula, erroneously called "Kelly's Island,"
connects with the mainland by a narrow isthmus
of sand. The north branch receives the Lyon
Stream, the Yoho River, flowing from Lake
Erina, Hardwood Creek, and Porcupine Brook.
In the bed of the stream a flat rock appears, cov-
ered with ancient Indian inscriptions, similar in
general character to those so commonly foimd at
Fairy Lake in Nova Scotia.
The south branch of the Oromocto issues from
a lake five miles in length, an excellent water for
large trout, situated in the rough wilderness of
northeastern Charlotte County, near the source
of the Lepreaux. It flows in part through an
ancient lake basin, where the soil is a fertile allu-
vium, receiving Sand Brook and Shin and Back
creeks, all goodly streams. Canoes may ascend
at ordinary water, but with some difficulty, and at
least one portage, that around the fall, is neces-
sary.
The northern rivers seem to have a much more
constant water supply than those near the Bay of
Fundy. Such streanas as the Meruimpticook and
116 THE ST. JOHN RIVER.
Quisibis may bo navigated at times when the
South Oromocto and Nerepis, draining equal
areas, have actually dwindled down to nothing.
The deadwater so characteristic of the Oro-
mocto begins, on the north branch, below the nat-
ural fall at Hart's Mill ; on the south branch,
below Back Creek, and extends uninterruptedly
to the mouth. There seems to be something a
little uncanny about this river. The water has
a peculiar warmth, and, although the current is
imperceptible, freezes later than the St. John
River, which it so affects that the ice below the
mouth of the tributary stream makes an earlier
start in spring than the ice above. Instead of the
Oromocto rushing along to unite with the St.
John, like other tributaries in the flood season,
the St. John waters pour up the Oromocto and
flood the lowlands until a lake is formed, thirty
or forty square miles in area. An amusing story
is told of a man, who was " on the limits," being
carried away by this forcible up-current while
standing on a raft insecurely fastened to the bridge
at Oromocto village. " On the limits," in New
Brunswick phraseology, seems to imply a condi-
tion of involuntary retention within certain pre-
scribed boundaries, secured by the obligation of
a bail-bond, and lasting until the lis pendens is
brought before the proper juridical tribunal, or
otherwise disposed of.
When the many-colored autumn leaves are
THE LOWER ST. JOHN. 117
•
reflected in the water, and the air is laden with
the delicious odor of the newly-mown hay, no
more enchanting spot can be found than the
Ororaocto forks. The banks are alluvial, and
lined with bushes, beyond which wide fields
extend, studded with graceful clni-trees. The
scenery becoiues less attractive, however, on de-
scending the stream, and in the wild meadows an
air of loneliness and desolation prevails which is
positively chilling. Here the Kushagonisn, .mIso
deep and dead for many miles, enters from the
west; the principal tributary of the Oromocto,
formed by the junction of two streams that rise
in Kingsclear Parish, above Fredericton. The
upper waters, as indeed the sources of almost
every stream in any way contributing to the
Oromocto, abound in small trout, a rather strange
fact, considering the habit of that fish to seek the
purest and coolest water. It would more accord
with the usual custom if all the trout passed up
the St. John, and ignored "Deep River " entirely.
Three Tree Creek enters the Oromocto four
miles below the forks. The origin of its name is
obscure. French Lake, two miles long by one
broad, is a pretty little water, surrounded by
farm land, and connected with the river by a
deep, sluggish channel. The trout which formerly
frequented it have become as scarce as i^hthyo-
saurs since the fatal day when pickerel were
introduced into the first Eel River lake ; indeed,
118 THE ST. JOHN RIVER,
»
they decrease everywhere in i)r()portion to the
spread and multiplication of those '' fresh-water
sharks." As for the objectionahle pickerel, they
rejoice in the slowly moving Oromocto, with its
rank water-grass and lily-pads, and no other trib-
utary so teems with them.
FROM GAGETOWN TO INDIANTOWN.
Every i)henomenon of the St. John, so far con-
sidered, has its parallel in some other part of
the world. Fresh-water tides are common to the
Amazon, La Platte, St. Lawrence, and many other
rivers. An alluvial deposit where once there was
an inland lake or sea surrounds the lower Missis-
sippi, and the erosive action of the Grand Falls
resembles that of Niagara ; but between Gagetown
and Indiantown (fifty miles) the St. John pos-
sesses certain characteristics not found on any
other river known to man. Most noticeable is
the series of great sinuses or lakes that branch
off eastward, each one almost parallel with the
others. Grand and Washademoak lakes and
Belleisle and Kennebecasis bays are their names,
and they deepen, with the greatest regularity, on
approaching the seacoast. Grand Lake is the
shallowest, Kennebecasis Bay the deepest, and
the average depth of the Belleisle undoubtedly
exceeds that of the Washademoak. We may not
here wade through the depths of geological re-
search to discover the origin of such a strange
THE LOWER ST. JOHN, 119
formation, but will merely observe that these ex-
traordinary fluvial expansions cross the lines of
glaciation with what seems to be an utter disre-
gard of scientific principles.
From Jemseg on the east and Otnabog on the
west the lands begin to rise, until rugged hills,
ranging from two to seven hundred feet in height,
become the common feature of the landscape.
Above Gage town one hundred feet is the almost
uniform elevation along the southwestern side of
the valley, while the river is bounded easterly by
great alluvial flats ; but bulow Otnabog the scenery
partially loses its quiet rural charm, more resem-
bling the mountainous aspect of the Hudson. The
islands remain alluvial as far as the Long Reach,
when they too change, becoming islands of erosion
instead of islands of deposit. The mountainous
character of the valley continues to the Bay of
Fundy. Here and there a very precipitous bluff
crops out on the hillside, but usually the slopes
are not too steep for forest growth and cultivation.
At Jemseg the river makes a peculiarly sharp
bend, called " No Man's Friend," where vessels
must tack laboriously, whether sailing up or down
before a favoring breeze, the narrowness of the
channel making the manoeuvre difficult. At Wa-
shademoak the river is several miles wide, and
clustered with alluvial islands, of which Upper and
Lower Musquash and Long islands are the largest.
Lower Musquash is the most irregularly shaped
120 THE ST. JOHN HIV Eli.
island ill the St. John, doubling to inclose a fresh-
water lagoon of almost e(|ujd area witli its land
sui'faee ; while Long Island contains, in addition
to a lagoon, a shallow, swampy lake. Probably
the ancient lake basin formerly occupying the
present site of the Maugerville flat contracted
below Jemseg, and expanded again at Washade-
moak to a width of five or six miles, measured
from that river's outlet to the head of Otnabog
Lake. Otnabog liiver, which enters here, is a
fairly good trout stream, flowing fifteen or twenty
miles, in one part through a rugged, deep ravine.
Behind the steamboat landing, known as " John
Van wart's," a steep hill, five hundred feet high,
rises abruptly from the water level, the summit
commanding a northward view which many con-
sider the finest obtainable along the St. John River
valley. Fannen's Brook enters close by, a small
stream flowing from a long and narrow lake,
where excellent trout may be caught. Above
Belleisle are two small islands, respectively if not
respectfully called " Pig " and " Hog," unques-
tionably for want of better names.
The Long Reach of the St. John, where the
river flows in a straight southwesterly course for
fifteen miles, is a mere continuation, both geologi-
cally and topographically, of the Belleisle valley.
High hills uprise on both sides, covered with
alternating patches of forest and farm land, while
the vievrs, whether from highland or water level,
THE LOWER HT. JOHN, 121
are very extensive and pieturestiue. At tlie head
of the Keaeh a long and narrow tongue of inter-
vale land extends from the western shore, inelos-
ing an inlet, whieh is ealled ** Mistake Cove,'' or,
colloquially, " The Mistake," from its tendency to
induce strangers to sail in under the im2)ression
that they have found a mere channel around an
island. Oak Point forms the most prominent
projection from the usually regular shore line,
below which Little River (at least the sixth trib-
utary of that name below St. Francis) and tfones's
Creek enter from the west. Little liiver rises in
Long Lake, a considerable body of water over-
looked by a lofty, rugged peak called Blue Moun-
tain. The stream has one fall, perhaps twelve
feet high. Below Jones's Creek, the Devil's
Back, a prominent ridge, uprises on the west.
Next we find the Devil's Brook. A superstitious
person might really suppose, on penetrating the
interior of this region, that His Satanic Majesty
had lent Dame Nature a helping hand in its for-
mation, for there is no rougher country in New
Brunswick than the Nerepis Granite Range.
A stream entering South Bay, and flowing
from Spruce Lake, an irregular water six miles
long, is the last of the St. John's numerous trib-
utaries, and one of the least as well.
The river turns abruptly at the lower end of
" The Reach," runs four miles south west'"Hrdly,
at a right angle with its former course passes
122 THE ST. JOHN BIVER.
Brandy Point, and finally widens to form Grand
Bay. This lake-like expansion is undoubtedly
the broadest part of the St. John; but as the
Kennebecasis branches off to the eastward, one
cannot tell just what proportion of the bay should
be computed in the drainage area of the latter
river. In fact the Bay of Fundy tides often pre-
dominate over both.
THE DRAINAGE AREA OF THE JEMSEG RIVER.
The overflow of the Grand Lake finds an out-
let through the Jemseg, a deep, sluggish channel,
six miles in length, draining at low water an
area of fourteen hundred and seventy square
miles, or more land than any other tributary,
excepting the Aroostook and Tobique. As the
St. John (at high water) covers the lowlands in
many places, Grand Lake and its surrounding
waters then find numerous vents, and it is impos-
sible to estimate the percentage of rainfall car-
ried off by the Jesmeg alone.
Grand Lake, already considered in comparison
with Temiscouata, is twenty-nine miles long, with
an extreme breadth of seven miles at Cumber-
land Bay. The superficial area is said to be one
hundred square miles ; the rise and fall of tide,
six inches. All portions are shallow, the greatest
depths rarely exceeding ten fathoms, and for sev-
eral miles above the Jemseg a channel has been
dredged to facilitate navigation. The shores are
THE LOWER ST. JOHN. 123
low, thereby detracting soinewliat from the beauty
of the landscape. Cultivated lands surround the
lake on all sides, and the canoeist may find
attractive camping grounds at any point or bay,
and may purchase farm supplies that would be
considered rare luxuries on the more northern
tributaries of the St. John. Grand Point, ten
miles above the outlet, is the most prominent
projection from the northwestern shore ; on the
south side, Cox, EUesworth, Fanjoy's, and Rob-
ertson's points are all conspicuous, the bays be-
tween them having the same general trend as the
various branches of the St. John below Gage-
town. At Robertson's Point, a favorite place for
picnicking, there is a curious stone called Table
Rock ; and above Grand Point a small lake con-
nects with Grand by a narrow channel named
" The Keyhole." Coal Creek, a suitable stream
for canoeists, enters the northeastern arm of the
lake, often called " The Range."
Salmon River, being much the largest feeder of
Grand Lake, may be considered geographically a
continuation of the Jemseg. Rising in a level
tract of wilderness land, forty miles eastward in a
direct line of the mouth of Coal Creek, the stream
makes a sweeping bend, known as the Ox Bow,
whence a portage but three miles long leads to the
headwaters of the Richibucto River. Below Ox
Bow the general course is southwesterly. It is a
quiet stream, navigable for canoes except in the
124 THE ST. JOHN RIVER.
extreme droughts of summer. The Lake Stream,
a principal tributary on the south side, must also
be in some degree navigable, as the Indians for-
merly " portaged " from it to the north branch of
the Canaan River. Yet larger is the Gaspereaux,
which, flowing from Gaspereaux Lake and run-
ning about thirty miles in a semicircular course,
enters Salmon River from the north.
Newcastle Creek, another feeder of Grand Lake,
entering six miles below Salmon Bay, has two
principal branches, called the Big and Little
forks, both of which rise near Gaspereaux Lake.
In places the stream has cut through horizontal
rock strata so as to form lofty, precipitous cliffs.
Similar carion-like gorges are found also upon
Salmon River, exposing in places thin veins of
bituminous coal.
We now pass to the southwestern end of Grand
Lake, where, opposite the Jemseg outlet, a deep
channel, two miles in length, connects its waters
with Maquapit. Maquapit Lake is connected
with French Lake by a similar "thoroughfare"
of somewhat greater length, and into French Lake
empty Little River, Burpee's Mill Stream, and
the Portobello.
The Portobello rises in several little rivulets,
which cross the old Richibucto road a few miles
from Fredericton, and unite as they pour down the
hillside upon the upper portion of that great allu-
vial flat before spoken of as bounding the St.
THE LOWER ST. JOHN. 125
John River on the east from Nashwaak to Jem-
seg. The name Portobello, which probably means
" fine portage," or " easy going," has been given
with great propriety, as the water, winding about
through a soft and easily eroded alluvium bed, is
naturally deep and sluggish all the way to French
Lake, a distance of nearly thirty miles by water
from the Richibucto road. The Portobello is a
veritable "meander," even if the Nictaux and
Cabineau rivers are not. No more tortuous stream
can be found anywhere. The banks are often
thickly wooded ; and as New Brunswick possibly
surpasses all other countries in the beauty of its
autumnal foliage, the canoeist should visit the
Portobello in October, when the leaves, almost
meeting overhead, throw dazzling reflections upon
the water. But beware the Portobello in June;
there are mosquitoes there then, in number as the
sands upon the seashore, and words may not be
found infernal enough to describe their depreda-
tions.
Blind Lake, an elongated stagnant pond or
"bogan hole," branching from the Portobello, is
reached by "portaging" one mile from the St.
John River, at a point opposite the middle of
Oromocto Island. The water route thus formed,
through the Portobello, French, Maquapit, and
Grand Lakes, and Jemseg, has been named " the
back way," the ordinary river route being " the
front way," although never so termed. Lunan
126 THE ST. JOHN BIVER.
Brook, another branch of the Portobello, offers
the angler a rough wade and a full fish-basket.
Burpee's Mill Stream, which rises near the Pen-
nioc, and falls into French Lake after running
fifteen or twenty miles, is also a very good trout
stream. The wild country about the sources of
these brooks is little known, although quite near
Fredericton, and small lakes exist there, as yet
unmapped. Moose still frequent the region.
It would be tedious to enumerate all the
streams in the St. John system, and throughout
New Brunswick, that have received no more dis-
tinguishing an appellation than that of "Little
Eiver," but the largest, undoubtedly, is the one
flowing into French Lake, a stream more or less
settled for some distance, and " canoeable " at
ordinary water. Bear Brook, a principal trib-
utary, may be reached by wood-road from the
Nashwaak valley, and whoever delights to catch
very small trout in unheard-of numbers should
thrust that portion of his body which contains the
collected perceptive organs of sense into the folds
of a mosquito netting, and pay the brook a visit.
Maquapit, somewhat larger than French Lake,
is seven miles long by two wide, and continued-
eastward in a small river of the same name.
Loder Creek, a deep and sluggish channel, con-
nects it with the St. John, thereby cutting off
from the Sheffield flat what is virtually a great
alluvial island, larger than any other in the basin
THE LOWER ST. JOHN. 127
of the St. John, thirteen miles in length, with an
extreme breadth of four miles. The island may
soon become mainland, as the creek, once a com-
mon and convenient thoroughfare, is said to be
badly obstructed by logs deposited during the
floods. The southwestern shores ot Maquapit,
and of the channel connecting it with Grand
Lake, were famous Indian camping grounds in
prehistoric times, and the muddy banks contain
bits of broken pottery, stone implements curiously
marked, and flint arrow-heads, which often lie
exposed where the alluvium has been eroded by
ice, and the loose material filtered by flood-water.
Duck-shooting over the marsh lands of the
Jemseg and Oromocto is a favorite sport, and
during a freshet, when French, Maquapit, and
Grand Lakes invariably become one great irreg-
ular sheet of water, the sportsman may lose his
bearings in the excitement of the chase.
THE WASHADEMOAK.
The Washademoak is second in the series of
fluvial fiords having the phenomenal parallelism
already noted ; and the Canaan River, its geogra-
phical continuation, which is separated by a very
low watershed from the sources of the Buctouche
and Cocagne rivers, rises within fifteen miles of
tidewater in the Straits of Northumberland.
Not only these lake-like expansions of the St.
John, but the valleys of their principal affluents,
are ir ariably parallel to each other.
128 THE ST. JOHN RIVER.
Canoes may ascend the Washademoak and
Canaan to the extreme headwaters, the former
being twenty, the latter seventy-'two miles long.
The Canaan closely resembles Salmon River of
Grand Lake in its smooth, swiftly flowing current
and freedom from falls and rapids. The country
about the ujiper portion of the Washademoak
Lake was settled one hundred years ago, when
many northern branches of the St. John were
quite unknown to the invading white man ; but
wilderness land, wide caribou plains, and peat-
bogs still surround the Upper Canaan, no settle-
ment appearing on the stream for many miles.
The moose and caribou hunter may yet enter the
forests here with reasonable expectations of suc-
cess. In average width the lake does not exceed
three quarters of a mile, but at Belyea's Cove it
is three, and at Lewis's Cove four miles from
shore to shore. The Canaan north fork is the
principal tributary on the right-hand side, and
many large brooks enter from the south, often
having picturesque falls where they pour down
into the valley. Cole's Island, one of the few
inhabited islands on the St. John waters, marks
the limit of navigation for steamboats and
schooners.
THE BELLEISLE.
Belleisle Bay, eleven miles in length, reposes in
a deep valley, which is, as usual, continued east-
ward much beyond the head of the bay, and
THE LOWER ST. JOHN, 129
drained by a small stream, likewise called Belle-
isle. The valley is thickly settled, and very
fertile, the soil being a dark red loam; and
the beautiful scenery of the bay may be viewed
from the deck of a steamboat that ascends several
times a week. A singular promontory, twenty-five
miles long by six broad, known as the Kingston
Peninsula, extends southwesterly between Belle-
isle and Kennebecasis bays, and is almost divided
by Kingston Creek, a deep indentation of the
southern shore of the Belleisle. Skaters pass up
this creek on their way from Fredericton to St.
John, to avoid the weak and treacherous ice of
the Grand Bay. Another deep cove is found near
the mouth of the Belleisle, running parallel to the
Long Reach on the St. John, and separated there-
from by a picturesque promontory called Gor-
ham's Bluff, the sides of which are bold and
rocky, the top crowned with woods. The south-
ern terminus of the Kingston Peninsula is called
The Land's End.
THE KENNEBECASIS.
The Kennebecasis River, or rather lake and
river, forms another remarkable fiord parallel to
both the Washademoak and Belleisle. It rises
in the parish of Waterford, near the sources of
Pollet River (a stream flowing northerly into the
Petitcodiac) and the Point Wolf, a small river
falling directly into the Bay of Fundy ; thence it
130 THE ST. JOHN BIVER.
makes a sweeping bend northeast, north, and
west, and, entering one of the parallel valleys,
flows southwesterly to Grand Bay on the St.
John. The river and lake drain eight hundred
and fifty square miles, and their length combined
about equals that of the Washademoak and
Canaan, the lake alone being eighteen miles
long. The Kennebecasis is "canoeable" every-
where, and usually navigable for boats as well.
The principal tributaries are Smith's Creek and
Studholm's Mill Stream, flowing southerly ; and
the South Branch, Trout Creek, and Hammond
River, flowing north and east. Smith's Creek
winds through a narrow valley at the base of
Mount Pisgah, and enters the upper Kennebeca-
sis, more often called Salmon River. Hammond
River is fed by numerous rivulets intersecting a
rugged and highly picturesque country bordering
the northeastern coast of the Bay of Fundy, and
above the cultivated land at the mouth it rushes
through a narrow, rocky gorge. Henry's Lake,
near Quaco, was once famous for trout ; but since
the construction of the St. Martin's and Upham
Railway brought this region within easy access of
St. John, the number of anglers has ever in-
creased, the number of fish diminished. The val-
ley of Hammond River is approximately parallel
to that of the Kennebecasis. Indeed, all the
larger streams hereabout seem unable to run oth-
erwise than parallel to all their neighbors, unless
when making cross-cuts from valley to valley.
THE LOWER ST. JOHN. 131
The largest islands encompassed by any St.
John water, excluding the great alluvial deposit
cut off from Sheffield flat by Loder Creek, are
Long and Darling's islands on the Kennebecasis,
both inhabited and traversed by roads. Dar-
ling's Island connects with the mainland at low
water ; but Long Island, which is the most ele-
vated as well as one of the largest St. John River
islands, stands well off shore. On the east side
a huge precipice, called the Minister's Face, rises
almost perpendicularly from the water's edge.
Probably no other tributary is so well settled
as the Kennebecasis, and on no other can soils of
such fertility be found. Norton and Sussex vales
are, with Sheffield and Maugerville, the gardens
of New Brunswick, and the chances are that no
unopened tracts in the interior will ever equal
them. The Intercolonial Railway follows the
valley for many miles, passing through Rothesay,
Hampton, Sussex, and many other pleasant vil-
lages, famous as summer resorts for the citizens
of New Brunswick's somewhat foggy metropolis,
the city of St. John.
Boar's Head marks the southerly termination
of Kennebecasis Bay. Although this steep and
rugged cape is but fifty feet in height, the water
is computed to be two hundred and twenty feet
deep at the base, the greatest depth yet found in
any St. John water excepting Lake Temiscouata.
132 THE ST. JOHN RIVER.
THE NEREPI8 KIVER.
The Nerepis River, entering from the west at
the foot of the Long Reach, drains a large coun-
try between the valleys of the Oronio(;to and St.
John rivers, and receives ten small affluents. It
becomes considerably developed, as Mr. Cooney
would say, by a gradual expansion, and by the
contributions of a variety of undistinguished rivu-
lets. Marsh lands extend along the lower course
(annually flooded by back-water from the St.
John), where the channel is tortuous and deep,
the current sluggish. At ordinary water canoes
may ascend the stream to Fowler's Fall, sixteen
miles from the mouth. The bridge crossing the
marsh lands above Westfield is the longest over
any branch of the St. John, but its architectural
beauty is somewhat less conspicuous than its
length.
Such brooks as flow westerly into the Nerepis
originate in a myriad of little ponds and lakes,
occupying the depressions in the Nerepis Gran-
ite Range. The country is rough and densely
wooded ; the lakes perfect gems of natural beauty,
often lying in deep, cup-shaped hollows. Granite
bowlders of all dimensions often cover the outlets
and inlets, and over these thick mosses have
grown, so hiding the little rills of water beneath
that it is sometimes difficult to trace the direction
of their flow. Many of the lakes abound with
TUE LOWER sr. JOHN. 133
trout, but a person wishing to angle or explore
must shoulder his blanket and provisions, and
" rough it '' in good earnest.
Near Fowler's Fall the river winds through
a deep ravine between the mountains, rounding
the bases of precipitous cliffs, which confine the
valley for a considerable distance. Douglas
Mountain, the Eagle Cliffs, and other rugged
hills add great sublimity to the Nerepis scenery.
• THE TIDAL FALL.
Two miles from the Boar's Head the river
enters the Narrows, a deep chasm, flanked by
lofty mural cliffs, somewhat resembling those on
the Lower Saguenay, and formed in rocks of sim-
ilar age. Below the Narrows there is an expan-
sion, and then another chasm, shorter than the
first, which contains within its massive walls the
famous tidal cataract, where the fresh waters of
the river daily struggle for mastery with the
phenomenal tides of the bay. The salt water
first rushes in with great velocity until it reaches
Grand and Kennebecasis bays, over which it
spreads quite evenly, losing both speed and
power ; then the accumulated mass of fresh and
salt water pours out again in a rapid that com-
pares with those above Niagara whirlpool. The
speed of the current here has been estimated at
twenty-five knots an hour.
If it were not for the great catch-basin above
134 TUE ST. JOHN IIIVEH.
the Narrows, the full strengtli of the in-rushing
flood would be felt many miles uj) the river, to
the damage of intervales and islands. The eom-
motion at the fall is due to the presenee of ledges
beneath the surfaee, while in the Narrows the
river is always quiet and navigable, but omi-
nously dee}). On the brink of the fall an elevated
rocky island appears, separated from the eastern
shore by a narrow channel, and to many the sight
is more pleasing than that of the Niagara rapids,
the surroundings having a greater diversity and
picturesqueness. The best view is obtained from
the mill on the Fairville side, but the visitor
should also scramble along the cliff between the
susj^ension bridge and Indiantown.
The depth at the fall, between the mill and
island, varies from eight to twenty-two feet;
while in the small basin below, one hundred and
twenty-six feet is recorded, and, in the larger
basin above, from one hundred and twenty-two
to two hundred and four feet. Opposite Indian-
town the river is one hundred and ninety-five feet
deep; and in Grand Bay it continues of great
depth, varying from one hundred and four to one
hundred and sixty feet. The water thus attains
greater depths both above and below the Nar-
rows and fall than in them, a fact favoring the
theoty that the river's passage from Grand Bay
to the lower basin is through a mere valley of
erosion, as at Grand Falls, rather than through a
THE LOWER ST. JOHN. 135
crack or fissure produced by some violent separa-
tion of the rock. The existence of a probable
pre-ghicial channel extending* from the harbor
to Kennebecasis Bay, by way of the ^larsh Creek
and Drury's Cove, is yet more conclusive evidence
in favor of the erosion theory. Professor Ilind
says : " The falls at the mouth of the St. John
are not falls in the ordinary acceptation of the
term ; they result from the narrow and shallow
outlet through which the tide, which rises with
great rai)idity, has to pass. The outlet is not
sufficiently broad or deep to admit the tidal
waters with their rise, hence a fall inwards is
produced during the flow; at the ebb the tide
recedes faster than the outlet of the river can
admit of the escape of the waters accunmlated
within the inner basin, hence a fall outwards.
The following are instructions for gohig through
the falls, which apply, we believe, to no other
' falls ' in the world : The falls are level, or it
is still water, at about three and a half hours on
the flood, and about two and a half on the ebb ;
so that they are passable four times in twenty-
four hours, about ten or fifteen minutes at each
time. No other rule can be given, as much
depends on the floods in the river, and the time
of high water or full sea, which is often hastened
by southerly winds. For a few days in the
spring of the year, the height of the water in the
river renders the passage of the falls extreme ly
136 THE ST. JOHN BIVEB,
difficult." Between the falls and the harbor
the river contracts, at low water, within a deep
and narrow channel between banks of slimy
mud; and thus ignominiously it glides along,
black and foam-flaked, to mingle its waters with
the bay.
CHAPTER V.
VARIOUS FEATURES OF THE ST. JOHN.
DESCENT OF THE RIVER.
The authorities vary so much regarding the
difference in level between various points on the
river, that little reliance can be placed upon their
estimates. Mr. Hind, in his " Preliminary Re-
port on the Geology of New Brunswick," says :
"The St. John (south branch) rises in the
State of Maine (latitude 46° 2") one hundred and
fifteen miles west of the old Meductic Fort, be-
low Woodstock. The head of the south branch is
2,158 feet above the ocean. The source of the
southwest branch, where the monument is placed
under the Treaty of Washington, on the boun-
dary between Canada and Maine, is 1,808 feet ;
and the northwest branch (in Canada) comes from
an elevation of 2,358 feet. St. John Lake, on the
south branch, is 1,075 feet above the ocean ; and
where the river first enters the province, at St.
Francis, its waters are not more than 606 feet
above high tide." The following table shows
some estimated river levels between Fredericton
and Grand Falls: —
138 THE ST. JOHN RIVER.
Distance. Height
Miles. in Inches.
From Fredericton to the confluence of tide
below Chapel Bar 4.47
Confluence of tide to French Bar 3.15 43
French Chapel to Cliff's Bar 7.52 129
Cliff's Bar to the head of Bear Island 5.70
Bear Island to Nackawick 8.54 227
Nackawick to Meductic 4.68 55
Meductic to Eel River 9.25 220
Eel River to Griffith's Island 9.43 168
Griffith's Island to Macmullen's 12.26 ) .^
MacmuUen's to Presque Isle 8.08 )
Presque Isle to Riviere du Chute 14.77 375
Riviere du Chute to Tobique 12.71 ) ^^p,
Tobique to Grand Falls 21.12 J
Feet. Inches.
Height of the basin at the foot of the
Grand Falls above the tide at Chapel Bar. 177 8
Perpendicular height of the Grand Falls .... 74
Descent through the Gorge 45 6
" As the distance," says Mr. Hind, " from
Fredericton to Grand Falls is 125 1 miles, and
the ascent by the river is stated to be only
177 feet 3 inches, according to the levels taken,
this would give a fall per mile of only one foot
five inches." Then he says : " The levels taken
between Fredericton and the Grand Falls are not
accurate. The summit of the Grand Falls is
really more than 400 (419) feet, ascertained by
leveling from Passamaquoddy Bay ; the descent
between the foot of the Grand Falls and Freder-
icton 298 feet instead of 177 ; and the fall per
mile two feet four inches, instead of one foot five
inches."
VARIOUS FEATURES OF THE ST. JOHN. 139
The descent of the St. John between St. Fran-
cis and Fish River is said to be 50 feet ; between
Fish River and Grand Falls, 137 feet ; while the
St. Francis falls 142 feet from the level of Boun-
dary Lake, and the AUagash 308 feet between
Chamberlain Lake and the mouth. The mean
elevation of the basin of the St. John in Maine
is about 850 feet.
Having wandered so far into the statistical
labyrinth, the following table may be added,
showing the river's breadth at different places,
when measured at low water : —
At Fredericton ^ mile.
" Cliff's Bar 700 feet.
" Naekawick 475
" Meductic 550
" Eel River 550
" Griffith's Island 730
" Presque Isle 569
" Riviere du Chute 420
NAVIGATION.
The various waters of the St. John, including
all lakes over ten miles long, or expansions of
navigable streams, are navigable about 2,630
miles by canoe ; about 450 miles by steamboats
aiid sailing craft. Steamboats ply regularly on
the main river between Indiantown and Frederic-
ton, and on the Jemseg River, Grand and Wa-
shademoak lakes, and Belleisle and Kennebecasis
bays. At high water a stern-wheeled, flat-bot-
140 THE ST. JOHN BIVEE,
tomed boat ascends the St. John to Woodstock,
and would proceed to Grand Falls if the swift
current did not make the voyage too slow to be
profitable. Above the falls navigation improves
again, but Edmundston is, for all practical pur-
poses, the uppermost limit of possible locomotion
by steam. The Oromocto is deep enough for
ordinary vessels, but rather too tortuous and
narrow ; so are the " thoroughfares " connecting
Grand, Maquapit, and French lakes. Temiscou-
ata Lake is long enough to warrant steamboat ser-
vice when the surrounding country becomes more
populous, and so deep that vessels drawing twice
as much water as any ever built could safely sail
everywhere. Grand Bay, the Long Reach, and
the great eastern fiords make excellent yachting
courses. Grand liake is rather shallow in many
places, but steamers and wood boats pass regularly
from the Jemseg to Salmon River. Some dredg-
ing has been necessary on the St. John River
above Oromocto.
One afternoon in 1850 a strange sound alarmed
the good citizens of Fredericton. It proceeded
from the water, and was of such unusual char-
acter, so shrill and piercing, that many sup-
posed it to be the war-whoop of a savage foe, or
the snort of some antediluvian monster that had
lain concealed for centuries beneath the river's
mud. Everybody hastened to the water fromc,
where no more terrible object appeared than the
o
H
Q
<
5
VARIOUS FEATURES OF THE ST. JOHN. 141
little steamboat Madawaska, steaming lazily up
the stream. A few valiant citizens carried fire-
arms on that occasion. Several steamboats had
been placed upon the river prior to 1850, but the
Madawaska was the first to carry a whistle ;
hence the unusual sound and the widespread ex-
citement.
Whether we arc on the St. John or any tribu-
tary, the canoe is indispensable to complete and
satisfactory exploration.
Some of the journeys made with the aid of
rapid currents are simply phenomenal. In May,
1887, during that year's remarkable flood, the
Messrs. Straton paddled from the lower basin at
Grand Falls to Fredericton, a distance conserva-
tively estimated at one hundred and twenty-five
miles, in fourteen hours and forty-six minutes,
delaying at Woodstock to dispatch a telegram.
On several occasions camping parties have cov-
ered the sixty-two miles between Allagash Fall
and Edmundston in one day ; and a lessee of the
Tobique, at ordinary water, decamped one morn-
ing ten miles above the Nictaux, and next morning,
but an hour or two later, grounded his canoe upon
the beach at Andover. Several times have Fred-
ericton canoeists, in the freshet season, paddled
home from Shogomoc in four and one half hours,
a distance of forty-five miles, and instances of fast
canoeing over various St. John waters might be
multiplied indefinitely. The statement that un-
142 THE ST. JOUN ElVEB.
wieldy log-rafts leave Tobique at sunrise during
high water, and shortly after nightfall reach
Springhill, one hundred miles below, without other
motive power than the current, would challenge
all belief, if the fact of their annually doing so
was not well known.
Col. eJolin Allen, in his " Rej)ort on the Indian
Tribes " written in 1793, says: " The Indians have
told me, when the stream was rapid, they have
delivered letters to the French commanding officer
at the mouth of the St. John in four days from
Quebec."
BRIDGES AND FERRIES.
Eleven bridges span the St. John River, six
for roads and five for railways. The steel canti-
lever bridge of the St. John Bridge Company
and the suspension bridge at Fairville, both cross-
ing below the tidal fall, nearly one himdred feet
above the water, and the suspension bridge across
the Grand Falls gorge, are the most interesting,
while the Fredericton bridges are conspicuous for
length. The only large tributaries yet unbridged
are the AUagash and Little Black rivers.
A peculiar feature of the upper St. John is the
number of ferries that are worked solely by the
river current. A wire is suspended from bank to
bank fifteen or twenty feet above water, and the
ferry attached at both ends to a rope which
passes over a little wheel, the latter running along
VARIOUS FEATURES OF THE ST. JOHN. 143
the wire. By regulating the position of the rope,
the ends of the ferry are kept at unequal distances
from the wire, and in the direction of that end
which is least distant the said ferry invariably
moves.
Horse ferries are used in a few places, and,
until recent years, three steam ferries, peculiarly
unique in architectural design, carried passengers,
when any offered themselves to be carried, and at
other times their captains and engineers, between
Fredericton and its trans-riparian suburbs.
DENUDATION OF THE FOREST.
Although the only affluents of the St. John yet
totally surrounded by forest are the south and
southwest branches, there is but one settlement in
the basin of the northwest branch, and that con-
sists of a few French farms, near small brooks
entering La Riviere Noire, a branch of the Daa-
quam. On Black River the only settlement is
St. Pamphile, and Little Black River and the
Chemquassabamticook are unsettled above their
mouths. A few isolated farms, unconnected by
road, contain the only lands on the AUagash and
on the St. Francis (between Glazier and Boun-
dary lakes), denuded of natural forest growth.
The Great Fish River region is more or less set-
tled from Portage Lake to Fort Kent, although,
above Nadeau Lake, the cleared lands never ex-
tend to the stream. Above Portage Lake the
144 THE ST. JOHN RIVER.
forests are intact. The main Meruimpticook has
no settlers above th^ intervale land at the mouth ;
and while the Madawaska River and the western
shores of Temiscouata are well settled, the valleys
of the Touladi, upper Cabineau, and Ashberish
rivers are still invested with luxuriant forest
growth. Green River is unsettled above the east
branch, the Aroostook above Ox Bow, the Tobique
above Nictaux, the Nashwaak above Rocky Brook.
While the valleys of the tributaries below Fred-
ericton are more closely populated, it is very
doubtful if even one of these streams has a drain-
age basin less than half clad in a dense growth of
trees.
What will happen when all this territory is
deprived of its present sylvan character? The
annual freshets, already somewhat afdictive, will
undoubtedly increase in proportion to the dimin-
ution of woodland. In the Connecticut valley,
where the forests have been largely cut down or
burned, the floods are said to surpass those of the
St. John, while the average rainfall cannot be
much greater, and may be less ; and on the Ohio
a difference of sixty feet is recorded between ex-
tremes of high and low water. Such a rise on
the St. John at Fredericton would submerge
everything but church steeples. One obvious
reason why forest denudation is followed by an
increased violence in the floods is that snow, col-
lected in severe winters, lies more exposed to the
VAlilOUS FEATURES OF THE ST. JOHN. 145
sun's rays in spring. Tt must be rcmonil)or<'(l
however, that forests themselves induee rainfall,
accoriK^ig to some cooperation of natural causes
not fully understood.
In the St. John valley, where the winters are
almost arctic in severity and snows accumulate
for many months, many people live on intervale
lands, and a satisfactory solution of the various
moot questions relating to forest and flood may
one day become of vital importance. To illus-
trate the rate at which the denuding 2)rocess goes
on, I may state that, in the present year, 1893,
fifty millions of feet of lumber were cut within
the Aroostook valley alone. Forty years ago the
Tobique was almost entirely unsettled, and Mr.
Cooney described it in 1832 as " a river bathing
the unimproved and almost unknown lands of the
county of York," but now there is a road to the
Nictaux, sixty miles above the mouth, and a suc-
cession of prosperous farms. On other tributa-
ries the settler and his axe have advanced almost
as rapidly.
THE FRESHETS.
The highest freshet ever known to occur on the
St. John was that of May, 1887, when the water
covered a considerable portion of the Fredericton
town plot, carried away numerous bridges, and
devastated the lowlands of Sheffield and Mauger-
ville for over a week. As usual, the principal
146 THE ST. JOHN ItlVER.
water came from the upper St. John, the Aroos-
took River prohably being the largest contribu-
tor. So feeble, in comparison, was the stream
of the Madawaska, that the St. John, backing up,
lifted the Edmundston bridge from its abutments
and deposited it on the bank above. The flood
assumed phenomenal proportions at Fredericton
on the fourth of May, and on the thirteenth of
that month a raj)id subsidence' began. The lower
tributaries, especially the Nashwaak, reached their
highest level a week sooner than the St. John at
Fredericton; as the snow above Grand Falls
thaws later, and it takes several days for the
water of the more northerly tributaries to reach
Fredericton. The little village below the Nash-
waak, sometimes called " Tattle town," was in a
bad predicament, the water sweeping through it
very forcibly, and compelling people to evacuate
their shops and interchange visits by boat in a
manner quite idtra- Venetian. As the land was
lower in the Portobello depression than on the
immediate river bank, the current quickened
wherever an inlet that way was afforded. In
Maugerville and Sheffield many farmers fled with
their goods to the highlands, and in a few locali-
ties the water is said to have entered second-story
windows, and there deposited logs, so that their
ends protruded after the subsidence took place.
In some of the barns, floating floors were made for
cattle, but this novel expedient failed to insure
VARIOUS FEATURES OF THE ST, JOHN. 147
their safety in at least one instance, wliero it is
said that a few of the unfortunate animals were
crushed against the stationary floor abovt^ The
flood country presents a somewhat melaniiioly
aspect when houses, barns, haystacks, and leafless
trees arise above a desolate wjiste of turbid wa-
ters ; and in the vividness of his imagination the
spectator is carried back to the coal period, al-
most expecting to see some huge, misshapen rep-
tile emerge above the labyrinths of sunken bushes.
As the tidal inflow through the Narrows above
Indiantown is distributed evenly over Grand Bay,
spending its force less than twenty miles inland,
so does this wide expansion scatter the flood-water,
which might otherwise rise to a dangerous level,
when checked in its outlet by the narrowness of
the channel. The current at Fredericton was
more rapid during the first stages of the flood of
1887 than afterwards, when Grand Bay and the
other catch-basins were filled, and so vast an
amount of water was backed up that the Nerepis
flats were inundated several days after the subsi-
dence above. The unusual outpouring of fresh
water is said to have prevented the tide from
entering St. John harbor, and by all accounts
" the reversible cataract " became a tridy inspir-
ing sight.
Mr. G. F. Matthew, speaking of the remark-
able retention of flood- water by the Narrows in an
article " On the Occurrence of Arctic and Western
148 THE ST. JOHN BIVER.
Plani.» in Continental Acadia," says : " These
pent-up waters are then compelled to spread them-
selves over the lowlands of the valley of the river
and such affluents as the Kennebecasis, Nerepis,
Washademoak, Belleisle, Grand Lake, and the
Oromocto. Two extensive though very irregu-
larly shaped lakes are thus formed, — the lower
one extending, in the form of an oxbow, down the
valley of the Kennebecasis, around Grand Bay,
and up the " Long Reach " and Belleisle Bay ;
the upper one embracing a large area, beginning
at the lower end of Long Island, and extending
upwards over the lowlands lying around the
Washademoak River, Grand, Maquapit, and
French lakes, and all the intervale lands between
Gagetown and the Oromocto, submerging also
the lands on each side of this river for many
miles up. The area of these lake-like expansions
of the St. John River, which lie partly among the
southern hills and partly to the northward of
them, cannot fall far short of 600 square miles."
THE ICE.
Excepting the principal waterfalls and " air-
holes," and possibly the Madawaska River above
Degele, ice forms on all waters of the St. John
above the Narrows. The " air-holes," which are
small open spaces, usually oval-shaped, that
rarely or never freeze over, although surrounded
by strong, thick ice, often appear in the same
VARIOUS FEATURES OF THE ST. JOHN. 149
places winter after winter, and originate from
causes not very well understood. Some are near
the mouths of tributaries, others near springs.
A changeable winter often forms thicker ice
than one of steady cold, as every thaw is fol-
lowed by ft freezing of surface water poured
down from the banks.
Experiments recently made at Fredericton
have again illustrated the fact that solid ice may
move within itself, that is, by an alteration of
the relations of its component particles, without
any fracture, or general movement of the entire
mass. Stakes were placed in a straight line be-
tween the banks, and some months later the line
of the stakes had assumed a curvature down-
stream, the distance from the original line
increasing with the distance from the river
banks.
The average duration of the period when navi-
gation is closed at Fredericton is one hundred
and forty-four days. Once within the memory of
residents now living, the ice ran out in January,
during a midwinter thaw of unusual clemency,
but as a rule the river is solidly frozen over from
the latter part of November until the middle of
April. Even the rough rapids above AUagash
are annually coated with ice, said to be suffi-
ciently thick to support a span of horses and
heavily loaded sled. At times the river affords
imrivaled skating facilities, the part between Fred-
150 THE ST. JOHN RIVER.
ericton and Gagetown being usually the best.
Skaters occasionally quit Fredericton in the early
morning, and reach Clifton on the Kennebecasis
by nightfall, thus leaving seventy-five miles of
glaciated river marked up with their tracks. As
the Grand Bay ice is seldom safe, belause of tidal
fluctuations, the skaters proceed up Kingston
Creek from the Belleisle, and walk to Kenne-
becasis Bay. From Fredericton to Oromocto, and
more rarely to Gagetown, the river surface is
often one continuous ice-sheet, so smooth that it
vividly reflects the surrounding landscape. The
Oromocto stream is not so safe for skaters, being
warmer water ; and the rapid currents above
Fredericton make the ice in that direction rather
treacherous. After the ice has formed, a rise
in the stream often loosens it along the banks,
where flood-water is pressed up, forming, as it
freezes, bands pf yellowish colored ice, called
" shore streaks," which usually have a glassy p-
pearance, and are very pleasant to skate upon.
When well frozen, the St. John affords a com-
mon highway, and several Fredericton streets are
annually continued across the ice and marked by
lines of spruce bushes. Before the bridges were
built, these " street continuations " often changed
places with a partial movement of the ice, allow-
ing people to walk down Carleton Street, for in-
stance, to the water front, and proceed across the
river on what was but one day, possibly but one
VARIOUS FEATURES OF THE ST. JOHN. 151
hour, previously a continuation of York Street.
The general ice-run, which causes much damage,
usually precedes the water-flood by a week or ten
days. Wharves and bridges are liable to be mu-
tilated, or completely demolished ; alluvial banks
eroded, large trees uprooted. In one instance the
upper story of a wooden house, built on a jetty on
the bank, was swept away in toto, the occupants
barely escaping with their lives. On the islands
and intervales, barns are chained to trees, but not
so much for protection against the all-powerful
ice as against the subsequent freshet, when real
estate sometimes travels with a facility usually
accorded to personal property alone.
In years gone by, several bad " ice-jams " have
occurred near Fredericton, damming the water to
a dangerous height. On the 11th of April, 1831,
one of these " jams," at Simond's Point, two miles
below the town, inundated all the front streets ;
and so sudden was the breaking up throughout
the river's course, that immense ice-cakes got
stranded, or upturned like polar bergs, rising even
to the level of the housetops, and threatening the
town with destruction. In 1854, or thereabouts,
an ice-jam raised the water to a level which cer-
tainly equaled, perhaps exceeded, the maximum
flood-level in 1887 ; and cannon were discharged
over it, in order that the concussion might loosen
the mass. The whole plain was swept by water
and ice a short time before the landing of the
152 THE ST. JOHN RIVER.
Loyalists. At another time numerous congealed
fragments of the St. John and its tributaries
formed an incredibly high dam near Keswick ; but
there being no city to submerge above that jDoint,
the accumulated mass was considerately permitted
to disintegrate by natural processes alone. In
April, 1887, another '' jam " occurred in the same
locality, which existed several days, while on the
wharves at Gibson 'ce-blocks were piled thirty or
forty feet high. The rapidly rising water wore
away the Keswick jam, and some of the detached
cakes congealed together, and descended the
stream as bergs, sufficiently large to ground in
deep water opposite Fredericton.
When a severe and snowy winter is followed by
a rapid change in spring, or by heavy rains, the
freshet consequent thereui^on tears the strong ice
from its riparian fastenings, causing a violent
" run ; " but when the thermal change is slow, or
unattended by heavy rainfall, the ice rots gradu-
ally, or melts away without much motion.
Five miles an hour may be considered the max-
imum speed of running ice below the Keswick
islands, and the display generally commences with
the movement of one huge cake extending from
bank to bank, followed by a procession of smaller
ones. The abutments of the bridges cut them like
knives. Later comes the broken ice, affording a
much more curious spectacle. The blocks are of
all shapes and sizes, jumbled together in one
VARIOUS FEATURES OF THE ST. JOHN. 153
great mass, from which a grinding, crunching
sound proceeds, varied at times by the bellowing
of unfortunate cattle contained in some barn that
has been picked up and carried away without the
slightest resulting liability for trespass or larceny.
The ice of this confused mass, having traveled
some distance, is discolored by mud and turf torn
from the banks. The tout ensemble is decidedly
imposing.
In the principal lakes the drifting and expan-
sion of ice often cause peculiar dynamical effects.
On the southern shore of Grand Lake, below
Dykeman's Beach, a ridge of stones and gravel
has been formed, perhaps twenty feet in height.
Trees cluster on top, and behind the land recedes
into a swampy flat. In frosty nights, when the
mercury is many degrees below the cipher, the
g7;eat ice-fields contract so violently that their
mass is fractured; and cracks appear, which rap-
idly extend in all directions, emitting sounds by
no means musical. A rapid rise in the tempera-
ture creates expansion, the ice becoming pressed
up in ridges when unable to overcome the lateral
resistances. On Grand Lake these glacial ridges
are said to attain a height of ten feet, and they
frequently break along their summits, forming
curious faults and overlapping strata. It is but a
miniature of the great terrestrial change by which
the loftiest mountains have been uplifted from the
seas, the continents created, the earth made fit for
human habitation.
154 THE ST. JO UN RIVER.
On the lower waters the phenomena of ice and
flood are especially interesting. After the ordi-
nary freshets of the Washademoak, Kennebecasis,
and Nerepis have subsided, the flood-water from
the upper St. John appears and si)reads up the
depressions of these rivers, causing a second over-
flow of greater magnitude than the first. On the
Kennebecasis this second flood is called the " back-
freshet." So the ice of the upper waters is dis-
charged into the Grand Bay two weeks after the
local ice has passed the Narrows, and there it
drifts about (when the winds are southerly), ex-
erting a chilling influence upon the air, and re-
tarding vegetation.
THE FISHERIES OF THE ST. JOHN.
The subject of the fisheries is too comprehensive
a one to be exhaustively discussed in a work of
the present kind, but the reader is referred to the
reports on the sea and river fisheries of New
Brunswick by the late M. H. Perley, Esq., from
which much of the following information is de-
rived.
Of all fishes found within the waters of the St.
John, the brook trout (^Salmo fontinalis) is the
one most generally distributed. Nearly every
stream and lake is supplied with a greater or less
number of them, and they vary in weight from
one ounce to five and a half pounds. Says Mr.
Perley: "The brook trout is a migratory fish:
VARIOUS FEATURES OF THE ST. JOHN. 155
when in its power, it invariably descends to the
sea, and returns to perpetuate its species by de-
positing its spawn in the clearest, coolest, and
most limpid waters it can find. Various causes
have been assigned for the great variety in the
color of the brook trout. One great cause is the
difference of food ; such as live upon fresh-water
shrimps and other Crustacea are the brightest;
those which feed upon May flies, and other com-
mon aquatic insects, are the next ; and those feed-
ing upon worms, the dullest and darkest of all.
The color and brilliancy of the water has also a
very material effect upon Salmo fontinalis. The
fish of streams running rapidly over pebbly beds
are superior, both in appearance and quality, to
those of ponds or semi-stagnant brooks."
As illustrating these principles, it may be stated
that trout caught in the clear water of the White
Sand Cove, Great Oromocto Lake, are usually
bright and light-colored, while those found in the
sluggish creek at the southern end of that lake
are very dark. The trout of the Tay and Unde-
nack, clear-water tributaries of the Nashwaak
Kiver, are much brighter than those of the Pen-
nioc and Napadogan, where the water is darker ;
and the trout of Green River and the Tobique are
lighter in color than those of Great Fish River
and the Allagash. Mr. William Mclnnes, of the
Canadian Geological Survey, speaking of the trout
on the west or lake branch of Green River, says :
15G THE ST. JOHN RIVER.
" They are very noticeably different from those of
the main stream, heing deeper colored, of great
width in proportion to their length, and more slug-
gish in movement." Nearly all the quiet waters
of the river are on the west branch.
The great gray trout (^Sdlmo forox)., better
known as the *' togue " or " touladi," is found in
great numbers, and of large size, in the lakes of
the Madawaska, Fish, St. Francis, and Allagash
rivers, as well as in Lac de I'Est and elsewhere.
In Lake Temiscouata the fish has been taken of
the weight of twenty-one pounds, and the most
sportsman-like way of catching it is by " trolling '
from a canoe or l)oat in early spring. Mr. Per-
ley thus describes the " touladi : " " When in per-
fect season and full-grown, it is a handsome fish,
though the head is too large and long to accord
with perfect ideas of symmetry in a trout. The
colors are deej? purplish brown above, changing
into reddish gray, and thence into fine orange
yellow on the breast and belly. The flesh is or-
ange yellow, not the rich salmon color of the com-
mon trout, when in good condition ; the flavor
coarse and indifferent. The stomach is very ca-
pacious, and generally found gorged with fish ; it
is very voracious, and well deserves the name of
Salmo feroxr
The salmon (^Salmo solar) enters the St. John
at the latter part of May, or rather the male fish
does ; the female appearing a month later, and the
VARIOUS FEATURES OF THE ST. JOHN. 157
griLse, or young salmon, last of all. It seldom
" takes the fly " on the main river, but, like tlie
trout, becomes tlioroughly sportive on attaining
the clear, cold Tobique. The change of water
both improves its quality and produces a radical
change of habit.
In former years the salmon frequented all the
principal southern tributaries of the St. John,
more especially the Nashwaak, Oromocto, Ca-
naan, and Kennebecasis, with the two Salmon riv-
ers, where now they are virtually extinct. On
the Nashwaak their disappearance is chiefly due
to the construction of dams and mills, — for what
fish will venture up a stream paved several feet
deej) with decomposing sawdust ? — while on the
Kennebecasis and Canaan it has resulted from in-
sufficient protection. Mr. Venning, in a report
to the local government, says with regard to the
Kennebecasis, " The inhabitants seem to be actu-
ated by an insane desire to destroy every salmon
that appears in its waters."
The Tobique, from its swift current, pure cold
water, and favorable situation, is preeminently
the salmon stream of the St. Jolm system ; and
when the fish are prevented by the Grand Falls
from ascending the main river, turned away from
Salmon River by obstructions in the channel, and
disgusted with the Aroostook's impurity, or wea-
ried with unavailing efforts to scale the rapids of
its gorge, they seek this noble stream, where all
158 THE ST. JOHN RIVER.
conditions favor tliom, and no rapacious pickerel
are found to ])rey upon their young.
The American yellow perch (^Perca Jfaves-
cens)^ common in the quieter waters of the St.
John, is greenish yellow above, with golden yel-
low sides, crossed transversely hy seven dark
bands, the broadest upon the middle of the body,
and is white beneath. The back and tail fms are
brownish, the others scarlet. " The general hab-
itat of the perch," says Mr. Perley, " is in lakes
and streams not too rapid. It delights in a clear
bottom, with a grassy margin, or in rivers over-
hung with brush, and widening into some lake-
like expanse. Here the perch roam in shoals, de-
scending and rising while seeking their food, and
shading from the too great heat among the aqua-
tic plants, or under the broad leaves of the water-
lily. The iish spawns in May, then resorting to
the mouths of rivulets in great numbers."
The striped bass, although a salt-water fish,
ascends the fresh-water streams to breed in the
spring, and for a shelter during the winter. In
length it varies from one to three feet, and very
large ones have been taken in the St. John River,
and in Grand Lake, by night lines in the winter
season. It is a good fish for sport, being very
active, and frequently rising to the fly.
The " white perch," so called, is really a small
variety of bass, inhabiting sluggish waters near
aquatic plants and weeds. In weight it varies
VARIOUS FEATURES OF TUE ST. JOHN. 159
from four ounces to a pound, and the flesli, when
in season, is very edible. Pereh sometimes rise
to an artificial fly, but are commonly caught by
bottom fishinn^, with worm bait.
The " pond " or " sunfish," which is not very
eatable, being bony and dry, frc(|ucnts the same
waters as the yellow i)erch. Mr. Perlcy says it
is often caught for amusement, but observation
leads one to believe that it is more often taken
through an inability to keep it off the hook when
fishing for something better, — a variety of sport
that is fully as well calculated to tantalize as
amuse.
. The common sucker, varying in length from
ten to fourteen inches, abounds in all the slug-
gish waters. It is not very good for food, and
the least gamey of all the fishes. Another fre-
quenter of sluggish places is the yellow shiner, a
delicate, finely flavored fish, much too small for
sport. The rdll-fin, roach dace, and shining dace,
or shiner, are three other small fishes often asso-
ciated with trout. They are good for food (the
red-fin especially so), and in the best condition in
May.
No fish is more common than the chub (^Leu-
ciscus cephalus^^ a coarse fish, sometimes weigh-
ing over three pounds. Now and then it takes
the fly, to the disgust of the inexperienced angler,
who fancies he has hooked a handsome trout.
Among the small fishes are the minnows, found in
IGO TIIK ST. JOHN RIVER.
almost every brook, and useful as bait for larger
fish.
The American smelt, a savory fish, sometimes
taken a foot in len<;tli, but generally five or six
inches, is (captured in great nunil)ers along the
lower St. John in early s])ring, before the flood-
waters have subsided. It is named, according to
Mr. Perley, from a peculiar smeil, resembling
that of cucumbers. Smelt feed largely on
shrimps, and a jnece of any crustaceous animal
will answer for bait.
In the gi'eat lakes of the Madawaska, Fish, and
St. Francis rivers we find the whitefish ((7orc-
(jonus alhus)^ called the " gizzard fish " by lum-
bermen, and *' poisson pointu " by the French.
The pool below the Little Falls at Edmundston
was once famous for whitefish, the natives tak-
ing them with dip-nets in large numbers, but the
erection of the dam proved destructive to this
fishery. In Lake Temiscouata • the whitefish
often exceeds three pounds in weight, and is very
delicious, but in the lower waters it seldom ex-
ceeds a pound and a half. Mr. Perley thinks
that the fish of this species found in Grand Lake
and the lower St. John were swept over the
Grand Falls, having ventured too far from the
great lakes on the northern tributaries, and he
gives the following description of their habits :
^'During the summer, the whitefish is not seen
in Lake Temiscouata, and it is then supposed to
VARIOUS FEATURES OF THE ST. JOHN. IGl
retire to the depths of that unusually deep and
cold lake. In October it draws near the shore,
and ascends the Tooladie River during the night
for the purpose of spawning. Having deposited
its spawn, it retires as quickly as possible to the
lake. When the fish draws near the shore, prior
to spawning, the fishery is carried on, chiefly in
a little bay in the lake, where the Tooladie emp-
ties. The great gray trout (^Sabnojcrox^ follows
the whitefish to the shore, and preys upon it.
While the nets are set for the whitefish, the fish-
ermen with torch and sjiear attack and capture
the Salmo fcrox^ frequently of large size ; hence
the latter fish has acquired the name of * toola-
die,' from the river to which it is attracted by
its favorite prey." An early Maine explorer,
speaking of the fish in Eagle Lake, Fish River,
says : " The kind most sought after is the white-
fish. It is the work of but a short time to load a
horse."
Shad ascend the St. John to Fredericton, and
resort for spawning to Grand Lake, Darling's
Lake on the Kennebecasis, Douglas Lake on the
Nerepis, Washademoak Lake, Otnabog Lake, and
the Oromocto River. They vary in length from
one to two feet. The gaspereau ascends the river
to the same localities as the shad.
- In Lake Temiscouata, and the lakes of the Fish
and St. Francis rivers, the fresh-water cusk is not
uncommon. The body of the fish is compressed
162 THE ST. JOHN RIVER.
and somewhat eel-shaped, and it hides under
stones, waiting and watching for prey. Many are
taken near Fredericton, at the beginning of winter,
by night lines dropped through the ice, but the
best fishing ground is said to be on the sand-bars
above Oromocto. The length of the fish varies
from eighteen inches to two feet ; the weight some-
times exceeds six pounds ; and the flesh is white,
firm, and of good flavor.
Fresh-water eels are plentiful in all the more
sluggish waters. They vary in length from six
inches to two feet or more, and may be captured
with hook and line or by spearing. Passing by
the unsightly catfish (^Pimelodus catus) as a nui-
sance to fishermen, we have, for final considera-
tion, the sharp-nosed sturgeon, greatest in size
among the fishes of the St. John. The sturgeon
formerly ascended the river in considerable num-
bers in May, and basked upon the shoals above
Oromocto and southward of Grand Point in the
Grand Lake, but they are now ahnost extinct in
this vicinity, a result of over-fishing. The lam-
prey eel, fastening upon their bellies and eating
into the flesh, caused the big fish to jump high out
of the water in their struggles for freedom, and
they are said to have fallen on canoes in these un-
advised attempts at aerial locomotion. This must
have been embarrassing, especially when the fish
was full-grown, or from six to nine feet long.
VARIOUS FEATURES OF THE ST. JOHN 1G3
INSECTS.
We grieve to say that the beautiful forests of
the St. John are infested by hordes of mosquitoes,
black flies, moose flies, and midges, that lurk
beneath the leaves and copsewood until an unsus-
pecting foe appears, when, less fearful of death
than Zulus on the plains of Africa, they shout
their battle-cry (at least the mosquitoes do, —
black flies are not so civil) and rush to the attack
from all sides.
Midges are called " bite-'em-no-see-'ems " by
the Indians, and worse names by white men.
Certain localities have especially infamous re^ju-
tations for insects, but a difficulty arises in at-
tempting to localize with accuracy the principal
centres of torment. It may be true, speaking
generally, that the country above the Grand Falls
is worse for black flies than that below ; and the
country below, more especially that drained by the
marshy waters of the Oromocto and Jemseg, a
worse mosquito ground than the region above,
midges being a luxury quite evenly distributed.
June is the worst fly season on the lower waters,
but above the falls, where the winters are longer,
the insects seldom attain their fidl numerical
strength before July. They bite very assiduously^
during the earlier weeks of August, but vanish
when September comes. Stories might be told of
these fiendish little invertebrates that would " har-
164 THE ST. JOHN RIVER.
row up the soul," did the design of this work per-
mit.
The temperature has a marked effect upon
insects, as they seldom bite when the mercury is
above ninety degrees, or below fifty degrees.
About seventy-five degrees Fahrenheit may be
considered the favorite biting point. Many con-
coctions are used to repel their sanguinary on-
slaughts, but none more efficacious than " slith-
eroo," a mixture of tar with bear's grease. When
this compound is applied in layers of sufficient
thickness les mouclies never bite through it, sim-
ply because they cannot.
THE DISPUTED TERRITORY.
For many years the region drained by the up-
per St. John and its important affluents, the AUa-
gash. Fish, and Aroostook rivers, was the subject
of serious controversies between the governments
of the United States and Great Britain. By the
treaty of 1783, the northwestern boundary of
Nova Scotia (then including New Brunswick)
was to be "formed by a line drawn due north
from the source of the St. Croix to the higlilands
which divide those rivers that empty themselves
into the river St. Lawrence, from those which fall
into the Atlantic Ocean, to the northwestern-
most head of the Connecticut River." Unfortu-
nately no such division line could possibly be
drawn. The Penobscot, Kennebec, and Andros-
. VARIOUS FEATURES OF THE ST. JOHN. 165
coggin I'lvers, falling into the Atlantic, were
separated by the highlands referred to in the
treaty, not from any rivers falling into the St.
Lawrence, but from the St. John and its tributa-
ries, emptying into the Bay of Fundy. Disputes
arose, attended with much ill-feelini' and under
Jay's treaty, in 1794, a commission was appointed
to establish the line. The commissioners sur-
veyed a boundary which ran due north from
Monument Brook, the source of the St. Croix;
but at Mars Hill, on the Presque Isle stream, the
old trouble arose between them, the Americans
insisting that the north line should extend to the
river Metis in Quebec, the English declaring
that Mars Hill was the true northwestern angle
of Nova Scutia. Work was abandoned. By the
Treaty of Ghent, the king of the Netherlands
was chosen to arbitrate ; whereupon his Majesty
mastered the geography of the Chiputneticook,
Apmoojenagamook, and Woolastookpectawaago-
mic as only such an august personage could, and
prescribed a boundary line which extended due
north from the St. Croix to the St. John river,
followed the "thalweg," or deepest channel, to
the St. Francis, and thence pi oeeeded by various
courses to the northwestern source of the Connect-
icut. The American government refused to ac-
cept the award, and the matter became once more
a fruitful source of strife. In 1839 new commis-
sioners were appointed (Mr. Featherstonhaugh
166 THE ST. JOHN lilVER.
and Lieutenant-Colonel Mudge of the Eoyal En-
gineers), but the time allowed was insufficient for
a satisfactory survey, and the commissioners' re-
port was rejected ; finally the Americans crossed
the watershed, erected Fort Fairfield on the Aroos-
took, and a block-house at Fish liiver, and pro-
ceeded to colonize the country. An agent sent to
Madawaska by the government of Maine was
seized by the British officials and incarcerated at
Fredericton. He had distributed some money
among the j)eople, the Americans calling it " sur-
plus money of the United States ; " the English,
" a bribe to induce the natives to break their al-
legiance to the crown." The Federal government,
anxious for peace, offered Maine 1,000,000 acres
of land in Michigan as a compensation for the
disputed territory. Maine refused to accept this
quid 'pro quo^ but issued a proclamation declaring
that the country had been invaded by a foreign
foe, and ordering the militia to hold themselves in
readiness for active service. The Provincial gov-
ernment issued a similar proclamation. In 1842
the two nations were on the very verge of war,
and Lord Ashburton was dispatched to America,
that it might be forever determined whether
Maine was in New Brunswick, or New Brunswick
in Maine. On this occasion the American gov-
ernment was represented by Daniel Webster, who
remained in office expressly for that purpose, and
the boundary agreed upon ran due north from the
VARIOUS FEATURES OF THE ST. JOHN. 167
source of the St. Croix, passed near Mars Hill,
touched the St. John River three miles above
Grand Falls, followed the thread of the stream to
St. Francis, ascended the St. Francis to Boundary
Lake, and thence ran southwesterly across the
two Black rivers and Lac de I'Est to the south-
west branch of the St. John, which stream it fol-
lowed for thirty-two miles. This line forms the
international boundary of to-day, and varies but
little from that laid down by William, king of the
the Netherlands. The '' disputed territory " con-
tains 12,027 square miles. By the Ashburton
Treaty the United States obtained 7,015 square
miles, England 5,012 ; by the king's line, Eng-
land would have obtained 4,119 miles, the United
States 7,908.
IN CONCLUSION.
The principal subjects of discussion relating to
the geography of the St. John have now been
briefly treated, and the writer regrets that the de-
sign and scope of the present work prevent a more
minute description of the various interesting re-
gions composing that river system. A book might
be written about the Tobique or the Madawaska
river aljne, that would, without digressing from
such matters as are interesting to canoeist and
sportsman, contain much more material than this.
The extent of the country drained by the St. John
has been estimated at twenty-six thousand square
168 THE ST. JOHN BIVER.
miles, an area much larger than that of the
Province of Nova Scotia, and including certain
portions of Dorchester, Bellechase, Montmagny,
L 'Islet, Kamouraska, Temiscouata, and Eimouski
counties in the Province of Quebec ; Aroostook,
Somerset, Piscataquis, and Penobscot counties in
the State of Maine ; and every county in New
Brunswick except Gloucester ; but while it is true
that the river, or some tributary, drains a portion
of each of these counties, it is equally true that
no one county is wholly drained by it.
The two greatest game preserves east of the
Rocky Mountains are the wilderness tracts lying
to the eastward and westward of the middle St.
John. These tracts are of nearly equal area.
One is bounded southerly by the line of the Ca-
nadian Pacific Railway (in Maine), westerly and
northerly by the French settlements in Quebec,
and easterly by settlements bordering the valley
of the St. John ; the other is bounded westerly by
the settlements of the St. John, southerly by the
line of the Northern and Western Railway, and
northerly and easterly by the valley of the St.
Lawrence and the Intercolonial Railway. Both
tracts are covered with a luxuriant forest growth,
traversed by innumerable rivers and brooks, and
dotted with lakes of all sizes. In the Maine
woods the watercourses are more readily naviga-
ble than they are in central New Brunswick ;
but New Brunswick has a decided advantage in
VARIOUS FEATURES OF THE ST. JOHN. 169
natural scenery and in the superior excellence of
its trout and salmon streams.
The St. John is greatest among the many wa-
tercourses by which the product of the eastern
forest is transported to the coast ; and as a stately
tree expands to form branches, twigs, and leaves,
so does this noble river ramify ; permeating the
wilderness in all directions with its many afflu-
ents, its lakes and rivulets.
CHAPTER VI.
SETTLEMENT OF THE RIVER VALLEY.i
There are few places of the same extent in
North America which possess a history so varied
as that of the valley of the St. John. Aside
from its purely local annals and associations,
already rich for so new a country, it offers not
a little of more general interest.
The history of its colonization presents a curi-
ous parallel to the varied movements which have
colonized North America as a whole. In the case
of both continent and valley, the population has
been acquired in a series of waves. First of all,
the St. John possesses a tribe of Indians, once
owners throughout it all, but now forced to a few
grudgingly granted plots, and viewed as aliens, if
not as inferior beings. It has, secondly, an old
and very purely foreign element in the Acadian
French, these likewise now crowded to a corner
of the goodly extent over whi^^h they were once
recognized as rulers. Thirdly, it has a pre-Kevo-
lutionary New England settlement, a product of
1 These notes upon the settlement of the valley of the St.
John have been furnished upon our request by a local histo-
rian.
SETTLEMEXT OF THE RIVER VALLEY, 171
the same adventuring;' spirit which sent their kin-
dred colonizing to the westward. To these follow a
few Englishmen direct from the home land. N(»xt
come the Loyalists, a great nund)er, New Bruns-
wick's priceless accession, her Pilgrim Fathers,
her real foundation. Their coming was one re-
sult of the Revolution, which thus so completely
changed the course of events for New Brunswick
as well as for the continent. Finally, the \.^lley
contains settlements of the best classes of later
European immigrants, — English, Irish, Scotch,
Danish, and others, who have come to the Prov-
ince as their kindred have come to the States in
the present century.
The Indians of the valley form the Maliseet
tribe, of Algonquin stock. They are closely akin
to the Passamaquoddies and Penobscots to the
west, and distantly related to the Micmacs of the
north and east. They are much mixed with white
blood, but are upon the whole superioi' to the ma-
jority of the Indian tribes. They possess a fair
physique, and are generally honest and peaceable.
They live by hunting, acting as guides and supple-
mentary woods trades, but make very poor farm-
ers and laborers. At present they are increas-
ing slowly in numbers, a fact which their dilution
with white blood goes far to explain. They were
friendly to the first explorers, and, except for
minor local hostilities, generally stirred up by
one white race against another, they have been so
172 . THE ST. JOHN niVElt.
to the white inliahitaiits of the valley ever since.
Their most conspicuous appearance in history has
bee^i in connection with their raids, in alliance
witii aiul under command of the French, upon the
New England settlements. They have played
but a small i)art in the history of the valley, and
have produced practically no effect at all upon
the formation of the New Brunswick people.
The principal Maliseet villages are upon reserva-
tions (1) at Apohoqui, (2) opposite Fredericton,
(3) at French Village, a few miles above Fred-
ericton, (4) at Woodstock, (5) at Tobique, (G) at
Madawaska, with smaller and more or less tem-
porary encampments near St. John, at Gagetown
and other places.
Before the coming of Europeans, there is reason
to believe, these Maliseets occupied the river only
from Fredericton upwards, the lower part to the
mouth being in the hands of the Micmacs. Their
principal settlements were upon sites now aban-
doned, at Meductic, a few miles above Eel River ;
and at Auk-pahk, now Spring Hill, five miles
above Fredericton. Their place-names along the
river have happily largely persisted, the names of
nearly every one of its branches being of Indian
origin.
The authentic history of the valley begins with
its discovery by Samuel de Champlain, on St.
John's Day, 1604. It was partially explored by
one of his lieutenants, and more thoroughly a few
SETTLEMENT OF THE RlVEli VALLEY. 173
years later l)y fiHliormen and fur-tradors. About
1G35, Charles de la Tour, under authority of a
grant from the king of France, built a strong
fort at the mouth of the river, ui)on whieli, and
the great fur-trade it controlled, his neighbor
D'Aulnay Charnisay, of Port lioyal (now Anna-
polis) cast envious eyes. The various efforts of
these two men for supremacy in Acadia culmi-
nated in 1645 in the success of Charnisay, wlio
during the absence of his rival captured and d(i-
stroyed his fort. The story of the defense of this
fort is the most picturesque in the hi.story of the
St. John, and a great favorilo with the local
chroniclers.
Towards the end of the century, large tracts of
land along the river were granted by the French
government to various of its favorites as seign-
euries. The seigneurs were, by conditions of the
grants, to bring settlers, clear land, make roads,
etc., but these improvements were rarely or never
made. Some of the seigneurs lived a half -savage
life with the Indians along the river, but their
rights gradually lapsed, and they were in time
replaced by a few French squatters from Port
Royal (descendants of settlers brought earlier in
the century from France), who settled at St. John
and a few other points along the river.
About 1690, a strong fort was built by Ville-
bon, the French governor, at the mouth of the
Nashwaak, opposite Fredericton. From this fort
174 THE ST. JOHN RIVER.
went forth the expedition under Villebon and
Villie/i, which, with the aid of the Indians, carried
such devastation to the New England settlements.
It was here that no less an ambitious plan than
the capture of Poston itself was debated, and some
attempt made to carry it out. To avenge the mur-
derous attacks of the Indians inspired by the
French, in 1696, an expedition from New Eng-
land attempted to capture Fort Nashwaak, but
was repulsed with loss.
The few settlers on the river continued to in-
crease very slowly in numbers until 1755, in
which year the British government found it ne-
cessary to remove the French from Acadia on
account of their continued hostility to the British.
This expulsion presents us with one of the most
pathetic incidents of any history, and one which
has been fully utilized in Longfellow's "Evan-
geline." The settlers on the St. John were not
captured, but fled up the river, and, joined by
other fugitives, attempted to reestablish them-
selves in various sheltered creeks and lakes, and
at Gagetown, Frederiction, and other places. But
from these they were driven, and only secured a
friendly resting-place after the arrival of the
Loyalists. Passing far above these new-comers,
they settled b' low the mouth of the Madawaska.
Lands were soo^i after granted to them, and since
that time they have spread sparingly up the river,
but rapidly down on both banks, almost exclud-
SETTLEMENT OF THE RIVER VALLEY. 175
ing other settlers, to Grand Falls. The most
important event of their subsequent history was
the transference of nearly half of them to the
United States by the Ashburton Treaty in 1842.
They are honest and hospitable, but clannish and
unprogressive, and show many characteristics of
great interest to the student of peoples.
The close of the " French War," in 1759-60,
was followed rather by a spirit of restlessness
than by quiet in New England, and this mani-
fested itself in emigration. Many thousands of
the New En glanders came to Nova Scotia in
1762-64, and a few hundreds of them to the val-
ley of the St. John. They had their choice of al-
most the entire river, and settled upon the rich
intervales of Maugerville, upon the navigable
part below Fredericton. At the breaking out of
the Revolution they showed sympathy, very nat-
ural under the circumstances, with their kinsmen
in the States, but this sympathy they very soon
transferred to the British cause, and have since
been among the most loyal of British subject?.
Possessing the sterling qualities of the New Eng-
landers, they made good settlers, and have given
to the Province some of her best men. Their
descendants still live at Maugerville, probably as
unmixed a pre-Revolutionary colony as exists.
The Englishmen who came during the next
twenty years were very few in number, and never
formed any settlement, but scattered to various
176 THE ST. JOHN RIVER.
points. Their descendants are still to be found
at Oromocto and others of the older villages.
In 1783, there came to New Brunswick many-
thousands of Loyalists. They included those who,
either from duty, from conviction, for gain, or
various other incidental motives, took the side of
the crown in the Revolution. At its close many
of them, for active participation, were officially
banished from the new States ; a few were un-
willing to remain under the new conditions ; while
the remainder, a great majority, were so obnox-
ious to their successful nei^yhbors that thcv were
forced to leave the coiuitry to insure their per-
sonal safety. To these Loyalists was granted the
site of the city of St. John, and as much of the
main river and its branches as was necessary to
supply them all with land for settlement. This
required the unoccupied lands along the main
river as far up as Woodstock, and the accessible
parts of the Kennebecasis, Belleisle, Washade-
moak, and Grand Lake, and in these places
accordingly are their descendants to be found to
this day. The Loyalists included some of the
ablest men of the Colonies, and their descendants
form the largest and best part of the population
of the St. John valley. In the places, outside of
the cities, where they settled, they have received
but little addition from immigration, and conse-
quently are very nearly, in some places entirely,
of the original stock. In city and country they
SETTLEMENT OF THE RIVER VALLEY, 111
are advanced and progressive, and show generally
the best qualities of the Anglo-Saxon race.
During the early years of their settlement
there was some restlessness among the Loyalists,
some friction with the New Englanders, and these
together with other minor causes sent settlers
from both parties to make homes higher up the
river. Gradually the river banks above Wood-
stock, up to Grand Falls, were thus thinly colo-
nized. Early in this century other settlers began
to arrive. A disbanded West India regiment
settled above the Tobique ; Scotch and Irish set-
tlers were brought by the New Brunswick gov-
ernment, or by immigration and land companies,
and, the river bank being occupied, were assigned
the lands back of it, or tracts above the earlier
settlers on the various lower branches. These,
together with settlers from the older settlements,
extended gradually up the Tobique and other
upper branches, and passed above the French on
the main river. The people of Maine extended
into the Aroostook and Fish Eiver valleys ; and
so in this century there has been no new wave
of immigration, but a slow growth by expansion
within and addition from without.
In rapid summary, then, the order of inhab-
itants in ascending the river is as follows: At
its mouth is the Loyalist city, St. John. Then,
upon all of the lower river and its great branches,
as far as Maugerville, are settled the descendants
178 THE ST. JOHN RIVER.
of the Loyalists, commingled with a few New
Englanders and Englishmen and some later im-
migrants, and a few Indians at Apohoqui. At
Maugerville are the New Englanders, above which
occur Loyalists again to Fredericton, itself an-
other city of this people. Hence to Woodstock,
excepting a few Indians at each place and at
French Village, the people are still principally
Loyalist. Beyond Woodstock, excepting the
Indians at Tobique, they are commingled New
England, Loyalist, and later immigrants, the lat-
ter especially back from the river, as far as
Grand Falls. Thence upwards, as far as Mada-
waska, the French occur almost exclusively ; but
beyond Madawaska they become fewer, and are
replaced by settlers of various origin to the St.
Francis, above which they almost cease. At
Seven Islands the last isolated family is passed,
and the river remains a wilderness to its extreme
source. *
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