Great new book about non-resident big-game hunting

[SwampDonkey]

'Men of the Autumn Woods: Non-resident big-game hunting in New Brunswick. The Golden Years 1885-1935.'


I have not read this new book, by Gerry Parker, thoroughly yet. But, it looks like a real treat. Alot of folks on hear I'm sure have relatives who where guides in the US or may have been sportsman who came to New Brunswick to hunt big game, such as moose and caribou, during that era. I'm sure quite few folks have attended 'Big Game Shows' and exhibits over the years, this book discusses some of these shows from the 1930's with New Brunswick exhibits in different cities of the US. The book gives a historical sketch with many photos of guides, sportsman, camps and big game hunting in Northern New Brunswick. It concentrates mostly on those guides that worked the area of the province which is the heart of 3 major river systems. Namely the Tobique, Nepisiquit and  Miramachi rivers. The book makes mention of a few famous folks, like Babe Ruth, and writer Edward Samuels of Boston. The book talks about the camp life as well as the wildlife of the area. There are many great photos, mini bio's of the guides and letters from American sportsmen as well. The Irving Mainway stores have this book for sale, and 20% of the sales goes to wildlife conservation in NB. The author can be contacted at autumnwoods@eastlink.ca or 506-536-1867 to order your copy. Oh, forgot to mention that my great great grandfather George Armstrong is mentioned throughout the book as he was a guide on the Tobique-Nepisiquit area, where he has several camps. My great grandfather used to guide for him also and my grandfather and his brother where helping them in the last days of that era in the 1920's.

Well I uploaded an image, then I was thinking copyrights, so no pic. [guides.jpg]

cheers

[SwampDonkey]

Some excerpts from the book

The beginning

....The New England Sportsmen's Show was held in Boston in 1898. The organizing committee of the New England Show solicited exhibits from various states and provinces, promoting the event as an occassion to market opportunities for sportsmen to visit respective states and provinces on hunting and fishing excursions.  .......New Brunswick entered a second exhibit at the 1901 Sportsmen's Show in Chicago....The response was overwhelming. A trickle soon became a torrent of American sports into the forests of New Brunswick- the golden years of big-game hunting were underway.

The guides realized the benefits of forming a united front when lobbying the government in matters of sport hunting, in 1901, officially formed the New Brunswick Guides Association.

The Wildlife

By 1900, caribou in NB had become confined to the remote and mountainous plateau of Northumberland (Grahamn Plains) and Restigouche Counties, Mount Carleton, Bald Mountain (Big South) and the headwaters of Nipisiguit (Bathurst Lakes) and Upsulquitch Rivers. Only a few guides were capable of taking hunters into these remote and rugged lands. ...No animal swims as high out of the water as the caribou, their coats act as a life jacket, owing to the air-filled quill-like hair which supports them.

Female moose were sought for meat and great numbers were killed to feed loggers at lumbercamps.... The Mi'kmaq, in particular, were skilled at luring the rutting bulls within arrow show by imitating the call of a receptive female through a cone of birch bark......Moose were occasionally captured when young and raised in captivity, readily accepting the company of humans and other domesticated animals.

It is the most beautiful of the deer family, and in its graceful carriage, its exquisit agility, and the delicacy and symmetry of its form, no other animal approaches it. The Virginia white-tailed deer is the proudest and handsomest animal of the forest. Over the past several thousand of years the northern limit of white-tailed deer may have experienced periodic north-south shifts as a result of short-term changes in patterns of regional climate.

In 1865 the Act for the Protection of Moose meant the hiring of 'Moose Wardens' to enforce the closed moose season.

.....Lumber camps hired hunters whose sole responsibility was to keep fresh meat on the table....One of the main threats to moose and other game animals was the out-of-province trapper.

Guides

The American sports wished to learn more about New Brunswick, a land they knew little of, and the oppurtunities there for fishing and hunting. When George Armstrong told them that sporting oppurtunities in NB were far greater than in Maine, they encouraged him to return home and open it up for American sports, assuring him that they would be the first to come up and try their luck He took their advice, and with the knowledge and experience gained from guiding in Maine, returned to Perth and guided his first party of sports in early September, 1897. George Armstrong was one of the 'founding nine' of NB guides who met in a Fredericton hotel in January 1901 and formally created the NB Guides Association, and served as its President in 1903. He also joined other early guides such as Adam Moore, Arthur Pringle, Henry Braithwaite, Jim Paul, and Henry Allen in representing the guides Association at the American Sportsmen's Show in Boston, New York and Chicago. Armstrong's territory was the upper Tobique River and Nepisiquit River.

Henry Braithwaite was taught the ways of the woods at an early age by a distinguished Maliceet hunter and trapper Gabriel Acquin. Henry would become the first, and most celebrated non-Aboriginal guide that NB has ever produced, and it has produced many. In 1882, at the age of forty-one, Henry studied surveying and lumber cruising and for a time was manager for the business Guy,Bevan and Company. Henry's territory was the Little South West Miramichi, Sevogle, Nepisiquit, Renous and Dungarvin Rivers. His most distanr camps required four to five days journey by canoe and foot. [I know from experience that is the most rugged and hard walking country I ever been too] Henry Braithwaite should be remembered as the prototype big-game guide in NB, the one who set the standard and raised the bar for those who followed.

The ending of an era

The Great Depression of  1929-30 took its toll-many Americans lost their wealth and a pleasure trip to New Brunswick to hunt big-game was no longer an option......The end of the golden years came with the closure of the moose season in 1937. When the moose season closed, many of the older guides had passed from the scene and the ways of the woods had changed.


cheers

[SwampDonkey]

More excerpts from the book.

...There were sportsmen and there were sportswomen. Miss Hyde and her father hunted with Armstrong on his Wapske district on several occasions. The American sports lived in luxury but found peace and solitude in the backwoods camps and forest trails of northern NB.

Countess Louise Shimmelmann of Lindenburg, Denmark wrote...'In Denmark and Europe we have forests, but for centuries they have known the fostering hand of man; in this country the forest is primeval as it was in the beginning of things. That was the biggest impression left upon me by the NB wilds.' from the Fredericton Gleaner, October 20, 1925.

...Mrs. Poindextor of Reading, Pennsylvania ... was known to travel with a valet. The Poindexters made many friends in NB and spent the winter of 1905-06 in Fredericton.

[SwampDonkey]

Excerpt...

Deer increased so rapidly that by 1910 they were evidendly depleting some of the food neccessary to the diet of the caribou, and disease was taking such a toll of caribou that after the hunting season of 1917 a closed season was declared on them, which never opened after that. Several caribou were found dead in the woods, and I saw the last one north of Nictau Lake in November, 1928. It was in the last stages of tuberculosis and walking in circles. I caught and examined it without difficulty, and the next morning it was dead almost in the camp yard. - Moore, 1940

[SwampDonkey]

Excerpt..

In 1963 a parasitologist at the University of Guelph first made the causative connection between the brain worm and moose sickness.... The parasite is transmitted through the droppings of deer, completing its development in certain land snails and slugs. If the infected snails are then accidentally eaten by deer or moose, the life cycle is completed. In moose, the adult worm behaves abnormally, often causing death. Infected snails and slugs are most abundant in deer yards where droppings accumulate throughout winter. In spring deer leave these areas, the ground dries, snails stay hidden among the bark and debris on the ground, and the chances of deer or moose becoming infected are reduced.

[SwampDonkey]

Grandfather guided back in the 20's and 30's for Dead River on the Restigouche at their lodge. Now owned and operated by the Irvings at Down's Gulch.Irvings have a salmon rearing project at Boston Brook also in the area. Other prime fishing lodges in the area are owned by the Fraser Lumber Co. and the provincial government.

Click Here for info on the Restigouche History

cheers

[SwampDonkey]

An American sportsman, jumps from his canoe onto the back of a swimming moose on the Tobique River.




image taken from Vol 8 (1987) of 'The Tobiquer'

When I saw this picture I said in my mind, this must be a Tobiquer.

[SwampDonkey]

One of Grandfather's first camps when he and his brother first started guiding as a business in 1930.



Camp is on Trout Brook, photo taken from Vol 8 (1987) of 'The Tobiquer'


There were other guides in the business at the mouth of the Tobique River at a time wheb most talk was of guides in the upper reaches of the Tobique. Arnold (granfather) and Lawrence (his brother) started building camps at Tobique Narrows, one at Trout Brook , on the Monquart.  They never took more that 6 sports at a time. My grand father said that at the time of this issue of 'The Tobiquer' there were not enough competent guides to return to a system of one guide per sport. In the later years of his life he said the clear cutting had destroyed the best winter habitat for deer. He had hoped that the deer do not experience many hard winters before new growth had advanced considerably. Now, there are too few deer for the too many hunters coming into Victoria County, especially from counties farther north. From my experiences since those days it has certainly been true what grandfather said. The numbers of deer and especially of dominant bucks has declined dramatically in Northern New Brunswick in my lifetime.