Page:Tourist's Maritime Provinces.djvu/401

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GENERAL INFORMATION
339

where tourists may turn anglers without the necessity of roughing it. Adjacent to St. John's are many notable lakes and streams which on the Wednesday half-holiday are frequented by hundreds of excursionists.

The country drained by the Gander River, Triton Brook and Terra Nova River, east of Bonavista Bay, is perhaps the most versatile of all Newfoundland's gamey acres. Trout and salmon are taken in its rivers, and south of the railway big-antlered caribou inhabit vast barrens. Another great caribou district is situated along the base of the peaks called by the sea-faring natives, the Gaff, Mizzen, Main and Fore Topsails, a little west of the central plateau, near Grand Lake. In the fall the deer move across the railway to the south past Red Indian Lake, and in March return to the north again. Caribou is the French transliteration of the Micmac xalibu, "pawer" or "scratcher," so called because the lichen food is uncovered in this way from under the snow. The caribou or American reindeer reach their highest development in Newfoundland and British Columbia. The woodland is larger than the barren-ground caribou, but in proportion to the size of their bodies the latter have the mightier antlers. This species is distinguished from others of the deer family by having brow antlers. The cow caribou also has horns. The stag's horns are at their prime in September and are shed or "dropped"