How to Really Catch Fish With Dynamite at the Glen Isle Bridge

Bridge across the Mississippi River to Glen Isle- Public Archives- Carleton Place and Beckwith Heritage Museum

 

Glen Isle, Ontario 1897

One day I proposed a fishing trip to my friend Mike who was laid off and went with me in our canoe. The pickerel didn’t show up to suit Mike. So, paddling to a rock entirely bare of vegetation he said,

“Now, John, I ’ll show you how to catch fish.”

He had a dynamite cartridge in a bottle. He inserted a fuse, packed the dangerous stuff tightly in the neck of the bottle and said,

“I ’ll touch this off, toss it in the lake and heaven help the fishes.”

I argued against such unsportsmanlike slaughter, and Mike got rattled.

We were standing on a naked rock by the edge of the water. Mike’s foot slipped, and that infernal bottle dropped from his hand. Thankfully we were not blown to kingdom come as Mike just grabbed the bottle an inch or so from the rock. He threw it as quick as lightening out in the lake. There was a convulsion, a vast jet of water shot up in the air and hundreds of fluttering dead and dying fish lay on the surface.

I couldn’t have touched one to save me from hanging, and Mike simply said,

“That was close enough,” as he suggested returning to town.

From that day on,  I have been just a trifle discreet as you might say. After all, good things come to those who just bait. Well, that’s what they say anyways.

 

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One Day a Long Time Ago on the Glen Isle Bridge

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Glendinning Burial Plot Lot 20, Con 12, Beckwith Twp. Burials – Unknown

Thomas Glendinning lived on Glen Isle near Carleton Place and it is believed that his wife Jane and his daughter are buried here.  They died of Cholera.  There was an iron fence around the site, but it apparently has been ploughed over.  Thomas moved shortly afterwards to Western Ontario.