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In the subarctic Canadian shield of the Northern Quebec Territories, I had gone on an excursion through the tundra to pursue migrating caribou and to explore this ecosystem of countless lakes scoured out of the rock by the glaciers that have retreated only relatively recently from this area after having molded it into what we see today. The glacial melt has produced frigid clearwater lakes that are shallow and filled with trout. It was no trouble at all to collect lake trout by casting into the nameless lake a few feet in front of my tent flap. But I had to hike on over to the outlet stream to find the fast water that Brook trout like to ride.
They cannot come more native than this! The "Mrs. Simpson" fly is seen in the Bookie's mouth after he was brought in and lay in this rocky pool to be unhooked before release. We had caribou fillet and lake trout to be eating, and the Brookies were there as the signature species that I wanted to remember passing along those genes after I had left in the first snows. I hope that it was not this brook trout that I later saw being fed upon by a bald eagle!