The daily morning journal and courier., 1895-08-28
------------7 A GAME PRESERTE.
The Large Island at the Mouth of the St. Lawrence to be Converted into Private Hunting Grounds
 From tho New York Sun

The Large Island at the Mouth of the St.
 Lawrence to be Converted into Private
 Hunting Grounds
 [From the New York Sun.I
 If Anticosti island, at the mouth of the St. Lawrence, shall be purchased for a game preserve, as reported, 1t will be one of the largest preserves on this continent. It is about as great in area as Delaware and Rhode Island combined. The island was conceded to the Sieur de Joliet in 1880, and since that time it has had many owners, none of whom has found it profitable possession. It has been frequented by trappers and fishermen for many gene rations. The fisheries of salmon hair seal. mackerel and cod are extremely valuable, and early in the present cen- tury 1t was regarded as a good station for shore whale fisheries. French Ca- nadian fishermen and their families take possession of the coast in summer months, fishing and curing their fish At the first sign of cold weather they are up and off, and their villages melt away until the following summer.
 The winter inhabitants of the island are the lighthouse tenders and few trappers The Canadian government long had depots of provisions on the island for shipwrecked seamen The coast is regarded as very dangerous. Thara ara onlv +mn croo1 h o rbops op5 shipwrecks are frequent Each station of provisions used to be furnished for the winter with sixteen barrels of flour, eight barrels of salt pork, and eight barrels of peas, besides what was need ed to support the man in charge Boards nailed to trees on the coast ir- formed mariners where provisions were to be found and gave instructions as to the navigation of the waters.
 Joseph Fraser made a survey of Anti costi in 1799 and reported its area as thirty-three hundred square miles. Subsequent surveyors conjectured that he meant French miles. The island was explored for the proprietor in 1903 by Alexander Morrison, who went to Anticosti with six men in August of that year and remained until Noyem- Der. The next day he had a house built on the island and planted wheat, oats, barley and vegetables common in lower Canada. He found that they all grew luxuriantly and ripened. He went up Salmon river and with small net took two or three hundred fine sal mon. He found an almost incredible number of Holsters at the mouth of that river, and he killed with sticks on the bank enough hair seals to load barge. A fish called the caplin was thrown ashore by the waves in immense num- bers, so that the beach would be a foot deep with them. These were an excel lent food fish and were valuable for oil and manure. The caplin still ire quents the waters of the north in i'm mense shoals and is used as a bait for cod. Morrison was prepared to colonize the island in 1905, when the chief pro- prietor, under whom he worked, died and the colonization scheme was aban- doned. Morrison found marten, silver fox and deer on the island beside great numbers of bears. Cattle imported from Nova Scotia throve on Anticosti There were myrfads of water fowl both on the coast and on the lakes oi the interior.