Samuel Hume Blake and his family in front of their summer residence of Mille Roches.
© Musée de Charlevoix, Mackenzie coll.
William Hume Blake forged the way for other sportsmen who explored every inch of Charlevoix. He co-founded La Roche Fishing and Hunting Club in 1890, and was closely involved in creating the Parc national des Laurentides in 1895. This territory covered the present-day Réserve faunique des Laurentides and the Jacques-Cartier and Grands-Jardins national parks.
In his books, Blake denounced the impacts of poaching and logging on wildlife but, most of all, he praised the backcountry in his tales that featured nature, fishermen, guides and forest rangers as their main characters.
This photograph shows the La Galette camp in the village of Saint-Urbain and the means of transportation used to negotiate the rough roads that led there