With a sled to carry his paraphernalia and a cube of frozen salt pork for his luncheon, such a fisherman may skate ten or twelve miles to find a favourable ground, and the fewer his com]:)anions the more he is to be congratulated. But usually the professionals are gregarious in their habits, which is necessary from the methods they employ. A long fissure, cut at right angles with the current of the river, admits the insertion of a weighted net, the upper edge of which is secured to transverse sticks above the opening. Such fishing is serious business and not likely to conduce to levity. The lines of the net freeze rigid as steel rods, the icy water soaks the thickest gloves till they are sodden and cold, the very fish that are drawn out of that dark and mysterious current under the ice are congealed -- stiff as stakes -- the moment they are exposed to the atmosphere, and to handle them is like handling pieces of ice.
In the face of these discomforts the winter fisherman, slapping his legs to restore lost circulation, moving stiffly because of the rheumatism contracted last year, or nursing the cracked and bleeding fingers that were frozen last week, is as cheerful a citizen as circumstances will permit; but it is a far cry from the frozen river as he sees it, a field of labour and a scene of drudgery, to the glittering, joyous plain that the well clad and nourished ice-boatman beholds.