trout. But it is a tedious, expensive job getting into
the heart of the Wilderness, and it is the most costly woodland resort
I know of when you are there. You can keep expenses down (and also have
a much better sport) by avoiding the hotels and going into camp at once
and staying there. The best way is for two men to hire a guide, live in
camp altogether and divide the expense.

All along the Allegheny range, from Maine to Michigan and from
Pennsylvania to the Provinces, numberless resorts exist as pleasant, as
healthy, as prolific of sport, as the famed Adironbacks, and at half
the cost. But, for an all-summer canoe cruise, with more than 600
accessible lakes and ponds, the Northern Wilderness stands alone. And,
as a wealthy cockney once remarked to me in Brown's Tract, "It's no
place for a poor man."

And now I will give my reasons for preferring the clinker-built cedar
boat, or canoe, to any other. First, as to material. Cedar is stronger,
more elastic, more enduring and shrinks less than pine or any other
light wood used as boat siding. As one of the best builders in the
country says, "It has been thoroughly demonstrated that a cedar canoe
will stand more hard knocks than an oak one; for where it only receives
bruises, the oak streaks will split." And he might add, the pine will
break. But I suppose it is settled beyond dispute that white cedar
stands at the head for boat streaks. I prefer it then, because it is
the best. And I prefer the clinker, because it is the strongest,
simplest, most enduring and most easily repaired in case of accident.
To prove the strength theory, take a cedar (or pine) strip eight feet
long and six inches wide. Bend it to a certain point by an equal strain
on each end and carefully note the result. Next strip it lengthwise
with the rip saw, lap the two halves an inch and nail the lap as in
boat building. Test it again and you will find it has gained in
strength about twenty per cent. That is the clinker of it.

Now work the laps down until the strip is of uniform thickness its
entire length and test it once more; you will find it much weaker than
on first trial. That is the smooth skin, sometimes called lapstreak.
They, the clinker canoes, are easily tightened when they spring a leak
through being rattled over stones in rapids. It is only to hunt a
smooth pebble for a clinch head and settle the nails that have started
with the hatchet, putting in a few new ones if needed. And they are