Fishing in muddy waters By JOHN HARVEY AM SLICK, the Yankee Clockmaker, a _ character created by Thomas. Chan- dler Haliburton, would look like a choir boy if his guile were compared to that of a northern Ontario tourist camp operator. Yankee, don’t go home. Stay here and spend your dough — all 300 million dollars of it each year, is the slogan of the tour- ist industry in Ontario. _And the Yankee, shrewed at home, but gullible abroad, keeps coming up year after year to fish in lakes that are fished out and to hunt in areas where the-game is scarce. How does the tourist indus- try do it? Listen to the operator of a fishing camp in northern Ont- ario as a couple of Yankees ar- rive with their families for two weeks vacation. Tourist camp operator: (shout- ing) Hey, Ed. (Ed looks after his boats and motors). Ed is standing only three feet - from the operator, but in heavi- ‘ly wooded areas you have to shout at people at the top of your lungs so that everyone within half a mile will hear you. TCO: Hey, Ed. Them pickerel _ that went up the Magnetawan are still there. Roy put a gill net across and there ain’t not one of them caught in it yet. At this the Yank’s hands be- gin to twitch for his fishing rod. Eight days later his hands are still twitching, but from the jitters as he pays his bill for board, lodging, boats, motors, fuel, bait, and guide. He hasn’t seen a sunfish let alone a pickerel. As he leaves another party of Yankees arrive to spend their vacation fishing. They’ve also been reading the tourist literature with those four color pictures of Northern Pike Mus- kie and Bass leaping out of the water on the end of a line. “Keep them fish on ice till, you get to Ohio,” the TCO says in a normal voice after the de- parting car so that: only the new arrivals can hear him. They have no reservations. They are “looking for a good spot to do some fishing.” “Well,” the TCO allows, “had a party here from Detroit last week. Took home 40 pounds of fish. ‘Course they was only here for two days. Then there was that old fellow. Hey, Ed, re- member that old fellow from Michigan who was up here last month? Damndest thing I ever seen, “Wouldn’t -fish more than 10 feet from the boat dock. Right about there. Water’s not more than ,20 feet deep. He never come up for breakfast with less than five bass. Hey, Ed. you re- member that?” All Ed can remember is that he is getting 60 cents an hour for working 14 hours a day. He just gives the TCO a fishy stare. “Ed’s a bit slow,’ the TCO explains. But Ed’s fishy stare is as close to fish as the new arrivals get in three days of fishing, “Well, you can’t win ’em all,” the TCO explains to the Yanks. ‘‘Now let’s see. Four of you for three days. That’ll be $120 plus $150 for the boats, the motors, fuel, bait and the guide. By Jesus, I didn’t real- ize our rates was so _ low. Thanks, friend. See you next year. What? Oh, you’re going to Coney Island next year. “Ed, them fellows just wasn’t as friendly as Americans usu- ally are. There’s another car. Ed, get that stuffed Muskie off the fireplace mantle in the din- ing room, and kind of dust it off on the porch will you. You know, the Muskie grandfather caught when he was a tad.” “Well, how are you folks. Pardon my hands. They’s cov- ered with sawdust from the icehouse. We was icing a mess of fish for some folks that just left for Michigan. Darndest luck I ever seen in a fisherman. “Little fellow six years old catching them right off the dock. ’Course the water’s low this year. You read about it I guess. Fishing ain’t as good as last year. ’Course if you know where to go. Oh Ed, take it easy with that Muskie. The var- nish ain’t dry: on it yet from the taxidermist. Six days and 10,000 Yankee frustrations later the TCO has breathed a sigh of relief. The weather held out and he made ° enough money to live modestly for the winter. Ed will go back to cutting pulp, and the dread- ful secret that accessible Ont- ario lakes are fished out will remain a secret. for another year, guarded by the guile of the men who have seen tour- _ists from a population of 190 million fish out a country. with a population of 19 million. Can you blame the tourist operator? - He lives in the north, where there is no manufacturing in- dustry, in a “60 day economy.” If it’s a wet or cold summer he’s dead. If it’s a good one he can pay a bit more off the mortgage, on what he owes for his boats and motors, and new propane equipment. ~ If he is in “deer country” he runs a hunt camp in the fall. But of all the hunters who go north annually only one in 12 comes back with a deer. Since we arrived from the old world we have raped North America. We have polluted its lakes and streams, or fished them out. We have slaughtered _its game. Today we, on both sides of the border, are involved in an elaborate game to.make suck- ers out of one another with tall tales and four-color magazine advertisements about fishing that hasn’t been seen in 50 years. The very nature of our eco- nomies prevents us from ex- tracting ourselves from the role of the gullible and the guileful. Everyone likes a good fishing vacation, and people in the north where there is no winter employment but the bush also have to make a liv- ing. Whose to blame? Us? The Yankees? ‘ Greed is to blame. Greed that coined the phrase, “the fast dollar.” As for the Yankees, they are Our cousins. If we gull them somewhat they’ll forgive us. We have to make a living, too, in a country “that we never have had a chance to fully develop. But if the American people helped us in our efforts to win its development, 10 years from now we could show them fish- ing and hunting that they have never dreamed of in a hospit- able north that would make them as welcome as a can of cold beer at a ball game. How about it, Yank? side by ku _ I.S, Wallace Nightclub Crawler, slapping Harpo Marx a “Hello Harpo’. . . you remember me, of course i Harpo: “I never forget a face. But I am i! make an exception in your case. 7 a! A sea of faces. If afterwards their owners pe to shake hands he is often embarassed by ell able to recall the name of somebody he knows "~~ I thought of all this as I went up to con Wilson MacDonald, the great Canadian poet, : talk on his recent visit to the USSR. Would shook “I’m Joe Wallace” or would that soun ' The problem was solved. , saw Just ahead of me as I approached there We st ret I caught her saying: “I’m Claire Wallace. I’ve JU°" from Russia and I agree with every word you Say: That was my cue: “I’m Joe Wallace. Be: turned from Russia and I agree with every wor What had he said? Mainly I forget but onnstat sticks in my memory like a burr because I am dn’t be reminded of it: In Moscow, for 13 years, there ye ‘he a single bank robbery. Moscow has four ee pulation of Toronto . . . Pause to think that 0Y pauses ... one for you and one for me. : ol MAN SPEAKING from a platform may 5% — ul is} i Be THE FOOT of one page of the Monn 1 News there were a number of classified 4 a Frieda what they were all about. She S4 fo were notices that the advertisers were applying vorce. I was saddened to think they had not Y® the problem of family robbery as well as they 4 ‘2 robberies although Bishop Sheen finally adm > sid as the family is concerned, Russia is now on t® the angels.” ; Even ote rate The divorce rate, Frieda told me, runs at the enol about half that in the United States. Not £00 | 1, But I soon found the main reason the rate is # y ot abnormally high (high for the USSR I mean, lOW fe ’ standards). 4 a Between the ages of 32 and 42 there wer date I inquired, four women to every man. The other three men? Dead on the pattlefielé defending us as well as themselves. Dead defn future from the past. Twenty million dead, ie lion who give the lie to those who sell us Bom ; other death merchandise against ‘Russian ee the Hitler line hung out again without even washed off it.