Between the Highland Inn and the Nominigan and Minnesing camps there is daily stage connection, { 114} and it is thus easy to unite both the comfortable living in a well-ordered hotel, in touch with daily papers and several daily mails, with constant excursions into the wild territory, with canoeing, fishing, or walks and tramps through the interminable forests. Of all the Canadian parks, Algonquin Park is the most accessible from the United States and Eastern Canada. At the Algonquin Park station one may take a train in the morning for Rock Lake, a distance of twelve miles, where there is a famous fishing region for black bass, and where boats and canoes and all necessary outfit may be obtained. In Cache Lake the black bass also abound. At White Lake are salmon trout, and a canoe trip over one or two other of the smaller lakes brings the angler to Little Island Lake, noted for its speckled trout. But there are some two thousand lakes in the Park, so your choice of fishing grounds is unlimited.
Not the least among the interests of a sojourn in Algonquin Park is a visit to the home of Mr. G. W. Bartlett, the Superintendent of the Park, whose house is within a stone's throw of the Highland Inn. Among his treasures is a remarkably fine collection of wild animals and birds, prepared by the art of the taxidermist, and the government of Ontario has also inaugurated a "Zoo," which has already a small collection and which will be constantly increased.
The amateur photographer finds great interest { 115} in this Park as the animals, accustomed only to kindness, are easily approached, and the "bits" of forest scenes, of silver-shining waters, of giant rocks jutting out from the hillside, offer unlimited material for the artist to compose. Landscapes for the asking surprise the eye; and if Algonquin Park is the more obviously and more familiarly known as the sportsman's paradise, it is none the less the happy hunting-ground of the artist. The colour effects are something with which to conjure. The scarlet glow of the sunsets suddenly make a towering rock seem to leap into the air to a height undreamed of; while over the still, solemn pine trees the sky turns to flame; rocks and jutting hillsides take on the effect of colossal sculptures; the clouds resolve themselves into spectral angels watching over the world, and the forests take on a grace of line that holds the gazer with its wonderful spell of beauty.