The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Pioneer Woodsman as He is Related to
Lumbering in the Northwest, by George Henry Warren
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Title: The Pioneer Woodsman as He is Related to Lumbering in the Northwest
Author: George Henry Warren
Release Date: January 26, 2013 [EBook #41925]
Language: English
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[Illustration: To Doctor & Mrs. M. G. Slutter with cordial greetings of
the author, Geo. H. Warren
Minneapolis, Aug. 19, 1919]
[Illustration: Geo. H. Warren]
THE
PIONEER WOODSMAN
AS HE IS RELATED TO
LUMBERING IN THE
NORTHWEST
_By_
GEORGE HENRY WARREN
MINNEAPOLIS
PRESS OF HAHN & HARMON COMPANY
1914
Copyright 1914
By George Henry Warren
I DEDICATE
THIS BOOK TO THE MEMORY OF
WILLIAM S. PATRICK,
GUIDING FRIEND AND HELPFUL COUNSELOR
OF MY EARLIER MANHOOD YEARS.
Foreword.
The aim will be to take the reader along on the journey of the pioneer
woodsman, from comfortable hearthstone, from family, friends, books,
magazines, and daily papers, and to disappear with him from all
evidences of civilization and from all human companionship save,
ordinarily, that of one helper who not infrequently is an Indian, and to
live for weeks at a time in the unbroken forest, seldom sleeping more
than a single night in one place.
The woodsman and his one companion must carry cooking utensils, axes,
raw provisions of flour, meat, beans, coffee, sugar, rice, pepper, and
salt; maps, plats, books for field notes; the simplest and lightest
possible equipment of surveying implements; and, lastly, tent and
blankets for shelter and covering at night to protect them from storm
and cold.
Incidents of the daily life of these two voluntary reclusionists, as
they occurred to the author, and some of the results obtained, will be
told to the reader in the pages which are to follow.
Table of Contents.
Chapter Page
I. Sowing the Germ That I Knew Not. 13
II. Preparations for the Wilds of Wisconsin. 15
III. Entering the Wilds of Wisconsin. 18
IV. Surveying and Selecting Government Timber Lands. 22
V. Gaining Experience--Getting Wet. 28
VI. A Birthday Supper. 33
VII. A New Contract--Obstacles. 40
VIII. A Few Experiences in the New and More Prosperous Field. 47
IX. Tracing Gentlemen Timber Thieves--Getting Wet--Fawn. 56
X. Does It Pay to Rest on Sunday? 63
XI. Indian Traits--Dog Team. 69
XII. Wolves--Log Riding. 73
XIII. Entering Minnesota, the New Field. 77
XIV. An Evening Guest--Not Mother's Bread. 94
XV. A Hurried Round Trip to Minneapolis--Many Incidents. 101
XVI. The Entire Party Moves to Swan River. 117
XVII. Methods of Acquiring Government Land--An Abandoned Squaw. 125
XVIII. United States Land Sale at Duluth--Joe LaGarde. 129
XIX. Six Hundred Miles in a Birch Canoe. 135
XX. Effect of Discovery of Iron Ore on Timber Industry. 142
XXI. Forest Fires. 159
XXII. White Pine--What of Our Future Supply? 174
XXIII. Retrospect--Meed of Praise. 178
Illustrations.
George H. Warren. _Frontispiece_
Facing Page
W. S. Patrick. 16
The "V" shaped baker is a valuable part of the cook's outfit 22
"The almost saucy, yet sociable red squirrel". 28
"I found several families of Indians camping at the end of
the portage." 34
"In the Vermilion country, dog trains could sometimes be
advantageously used." 40
S. D. Patrick. 44
"There were many waterfalls". 52
"We succeeded in crossing Burnt Side Lake". 58
"We started out with two birch canoes". 64
"The party subsisted well, until it arrived at Ely". 70
"My three companions and I ... had gone to survey and
estimate a tract of pine timber." 74
The journey had to be made with the use of toboggans. 82
"Our camp was established on the shores of Kekekabic Lake". 88
"The memorable fire ... which swept Hinckley". 94
"The fire ... destroyed millions of dollars worth of
standing pine timber". 102
This illustration kindly loaned by
Department of Forestry, State of Minnesota.
"One of the horses balked frequently". 106
"Our camp was made in a fine grove of pig-iron Norway". 112
"These little animals were numerous". 118
"We saw racks in Minnesota made by the Indians". 122
"The roots of the lilies are much relished as a food
by the moose." 130
"We have seen the moose standing out in the bays
of the lakes." 136
"White Pine--What of Our Future Supply?" 142
"He motors over the fairly good roads of the
northern frontier." 148
"Friends whom he had known in the city who are ready
to welcome him." 154
"He camps by the roadside on the shore of a lake". 160
The midday luncheon is welcomed by the automobile tourists. 166
"Here he brings his family and friends to fish". 172
"Prepare their fish just caught for the meal, by the
open camp fire." 178
"He continues his journey ... to the very source of the
Mississippi River". 182
THE PIONEER WOODSMAN AS HE IS
RELATED TO LUMBERING IN
THE NORTHWEST.
_By_ GEORGE HENRY WARREN
CHAPTER I.
Sowing the Germ That I Knew Not.
"This superficial tale is but a preface of her worthy praise."
Early environment sometimes paints colors on the canvas of one's later
life.
Fifty years ago in western New York, there were thousands of acres of
valuable timber. The country was well watered, and, on some of the
streams, mills and factories had sprung into existence. On one of these
were three sawmills of one upright saw each, and all did custom sawing.
My father was a manufacturer, especially of carriages, wagons, and
sleighs. There were no factories then engaged in making spokes, felloes,
whiffletrees, bent carriage poles, thills or shafts, and bent runners
for cutters and sleighs. These all had to be made at the shop where the
cutter, wagon, or carriage was being built. Consequently the
manufacturer was obliged to provide himself with seasoned planks and
boards of the various kinds of wood that entered into the construction
of each vehicle. Trips were made to the woods to examine trees of birch,
maple, oak, ash, beech, hickory, rock elm, butternut, basswood,
whitewood, and sometimes hemlock and pine. The timber desired having
been selected, the trees were converted into logs which in turn were
taken to the custom mill and sawed into such dimensions required, as far
as was possible at that period to have done at these rather primitive
sawmills. Beyond this the resawing was done at the shop.
Thus, almost unconsciously, at an early age, by reason of the assistance
rendered to my father in selecting and securing this manufactured lumber
from the tree in the forest to the sawed product of the mill, I became
familiar with the names and the textures of many kinds of woods, the
knowledge of which stood me in good turn in later years.
CHAPTER II.
Preparations for the Wilds of Wisconsin.
In the city of Detroit, early in June, 1871, was gathered a group of
four veteran woodsmen of the lumbermen's craft, and two raw recruits,
one, a student fresh from his father's law office in Bay City, and the
other, myself, whose frontier experiences were yet to be gained.
A contract, by William S. Patrick of Bay City, the principal of this
group, had been made with Henry W. Sage, of Brooklyn, New York, to
select and to secure by purchase from the United States and from the
state of Wisconsin, valuable pine lands believed to be located in the
wilds of northern Wisconsin. Tents, blankets, axes, extra clothing,
cooking utensils, compasses, and other surveying implements were
ordered, and soon the party was ready for the start.
At that time no passable roads penetrated the northern woods of
Wisconsin from the south. The country to be examined for available pine
lands at the commencement of our work was tributary to the head waters
of the Flambeau River. To reach this point in the forest it was thought
best to enter the woods from the south shore of Lake Superior. Also, the
United States land office controlling a part of this territory, was
located at Bayfield, Wisconsin, and at that office must be selected such
township plats as would be needed in the examining of lands in that
portion of the Bayfield Land District.
The quickest line of transit at that date was by railroad to Chicago,
and thence to St. Paul over the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railway,
crossing the Mississippi River at Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin, to
McGregor, Iowa, and thence north to St. Paul. There was no other
railroad then completed from Chicago to St. Paul. The only railroad from
St. Paul to Lake Superior was the St. Paul and Duluth. From Duluth,
passage was taken by steamer to Bayfield. Township plats were here
obtained from the government land office. Provisions of pork, flour,
beans, coffee, rice, sugar, baking powder, dried apples, pepper and
salt, tobacco, etc., for one month's living in the woods for nine men,
were bought and put into cloth sacks. Our original number of six men was
here augmented by three half-breed Indians of the Bad River Indian
Reservation, who were hired as packers and guides over a trail to be
followed to the Flambeau Indian Reservation. A Lake Superior fisherman
was then engaged to take the party and its outfit in his sailing boat
from Bayfield to the mouth of Montreal River, which is the boundary
between Wisconsin and Michigan. The distance was about thirty-five
miles.
[Illustration: W. S. Patrick]
CHAPTER III.
Entering the Wilds of Wisconsin.
The party disembarked at a sand beach, but the sailboat drew too much
water to permit a close landing. Here it was that the two tenderfeet got
their first experience with Lake Superior's cold water, since all were
obliged to climb or jump overboard into three feet of the almost icy
water, and to carry on heads and shoulders portions of the luggage to
the dry land. Here was to begin the first night of my camp life. Dry
wood was sought, and camp fires were kindled to be used, first, to dry
the wet clothing, and second, to cook the food for the first out-of-door
supper.
To avoid mosquitoes, orders were given to prepare beds for the night on
the sand beach away from the friendly tall trees that stood near by. One
mattress served for the whole party and consisted of as level a strip of
the sandy shore as could be selected. Promise of fair weather rendered
unnecessary the raising of tents which were made to serve as so much
thickness to keep the body from contact with the sand.
That night the stars shone brightly above the sleepers' faces, the
waters of Superior broke gently along the beach, and the tall pines lent
their first lullaby to willingly listening ears.
"The waves have a story to tell me,
As I lie on the lonely beach;
Chanting aloft in the pine-tops,
The wind has a lesson to teach;
But the stars sing an anthem of glory
I cannot put into speech.
They sing of the Mighty Master,
Of the loom His fingers span,
Where a star or a soul is a part of the whole,
And weft in the wondrous plan."
The next morning broke bright and clear, and the sun sent a sheen upon
the dimpled waters of old Superior that gave us a touch of regret at the
parting of the ways; for the members, one by one, after a well relished
breakfast, shouldered their packs and fell into single file behind the
Indian guide who led the way to the trail through the woods, forty miles
long, to the Flambeau Reservation.
Two days and the morning of the third brought the party, footsore in new
boots and eaten by mosquitoes, to the end of the trail. Now, lakes must
be crossed, and the Flambeau River navigated for many days. In the
Indian village were many wigwams, occupied by the usually large
families of two or three generations of bucks, squaws, children, from
the eldest down to the liquid-nosed papoose, and their numerous dogs
that never fail to announce the approach of "kitchimokoman," the white
man.
Some of the old men were building birch canoes, and many birch crafts of
different ages and of previous service were to be seen in the camp. From
among them, enough were bought to carry all of the men of the party and
their outfits. The last canoe bought was a three-man canoe, which leaked
and must be "pitched" before it could be used.
At this point let it be explained that every woodsman, trapper, pioneer,
settler, or camper who depends upon a birch canoe for navigation should,
and generally does, provide himself with a quantity of commercial resin
and a fireproof dish in which to melt it. The resin is then tempered by
adding just enough grease to prevent the mixture, when applied to the
dry surface of a leaky spot on the canoe, and cooled in the water of the
lake or river at the time of using, from cracking by reason of too great
hardness. The surface must be dry or the "pitch" will not adhere firmly
to the leaky seam or knot in the bark of the canoe. The drying is
quickly done by holding a live ember or firebrand close to the surface
of the wet bark.
Mr. Patrick had bought the canoes from different owners and had paid for
them all except the leaky three-man canoe. It was the property of a fat
squaw of uncertain age. The price agreed upon for this canoe was twenty
dollars. Mr. Patrick and the squaw were standing on opposite sides of
the canoe as Mr. Patrick took from his pocket a twenty dollar bill to
hand her in payment. Just then he discovered that the pan of pitch
(resin), which had been previously placed over the live coals, was on
fire. He placed the twenty dollar bill on the canoe in front of the
squaw, and quickly ran to extinguish the fire in the burning pitch. When
he returned to the canoe, the bill had disappeared, and the wise old
squaw claimed to know nothing of its whereabouts. A second twenty dollar
bill was produced and handed to the squaw, when Mr. Patrick became the
owner of a forty dollar birch canoe.
CHAPTER IV.
Surveying and Selecting Government Timber Lands.
Our party of land surveyors, or "land lookers" as they were often
called, being thus supplied with water transports, proceeded in their
canoes a short distance down the Flambeau River, where the work of
selecting government or state lands timbered with pine trees was to
begin.
The questions have been so often asked, "How do you know where you are
when in the dense forest away from all roads and trails, and many miles
from any human habitation?", "How can you tell one tract of land from
another tract?", and "How can you tell what land belongs to the United
States and what to the State?", that it seems desirable to try to make
these points clear to the reader.
[Illustration: The "V" shaped baker is a valuable part of the cook's
outfit. (Page 36.)]
The Continental Congress, through its committee appointed expressly for
the work, inaugurated the present system of survey of the public lands
in 1784. For the purposes of this explanation it will be sufficient to
recite that the system consists of parallel lines six miles apart
running north and south, designated as "range lines"; also of other
parallel lines, six miles apart running east and west, designated as
"township lines". Any six miles square bounded by four of these lines
constitutes a "township". The territory within these two range lines and
two township lines is subdivided into "sections", each one mile square,
by running five parallel lines north and south across the township, each
one mile from its nearest parallel line, and, in like manner, by running
five other parallel lines east and west across the township from the
east range line to the west range line, each line one mile from its
nearest parallel line. In this manner, the township is subdivided into
thirty-six sections each one mile square. The four township corners are
marked by posts, squared at the upper end, and marked on the four sides
by the proper letters and figures cut into the four flat faces by
"marking irons", each flat surface facing the township for which it is
marked.
In addition, one tree in each of the four township corners is blazed (a
smooth surface exposed by chopping through the bark into the wood) on
the side of the tree facing the stake, and the same letters and figures
as are on the nearest face of the stake are marked thereon. These
letters and figures give the number of the township, range and section
touching that corner. On another blaze below the first, and near the
ground, are marked the letters "B T", meaning "bearing tree".
The surveyor writes in his field book the kind and diameter of tree, the
distance and direction of each bearing tree from the corner post, and
these notes of the surveyor are recorded in the United States land
office at Washington.
Even if the stake and three of the bearing trees should be destroyed, so
that but one tree be left, with a copy of the notes, one could relocate
the township corner.
The section corners within the township are marked in a similar manner.
Midway between adjacent section corners is located a "quarter corner",
on the line between the two adjacent sections. This is marked by a post
blazed flat on opposite sides and marked "¼ S". There are also two
"witness trees" or bearing trees marked "¼ S".
By running straight lines through a section, east and west and north and
south, connecting the quarter corners, the section of six hundred and
forty acres may be divided into four quarter sections of one hundred and
sixty acres each. These may in turn be divided into four similar shaped
quarters of forty acres each called "forties", which constitute the
smallest regular government subdivisions, except fractional acreages
caused by lakes and rivers which may cut out part of what might
otherwise have been a forty. In such cases the government surveyor
"meanders" or measures the winding courses, and the fractional forties
thus measured are marked with the number of acres each contains. Each is
called a "lot" and is given a number. These lots are noted and numbered
on the surveyor's map or plat which is later recorded.
The subdivision of the mile square section is the work of the land
looker, as the government ceases its work when the exterior lines are
run.
On the township plat which one buys at the local United States land
office, are designated by some character, the lands belonging to the
United States, and, by a different character, the lands owned by the
State.
The country presented an unbroken forest of the various kinds of trees
and underbrush indigenous to this northern climate. The deer, bear,
lynx, porcupine, and wolf were the rightful and principal occupants.
Crossing occasionally, the trail of the first named, served only to
remind us of our complete isolation from the outside, busy world.
The provisions yet remaining were sufficient to feed our party for less
than three weeks. In the meantime two of the Indians had gone down the
river in a canoe with Mr. Patrick to the mouth of the Flambeau, to await
the arrival of fresh supplies which he was to send up to that point from
Eau Claire by team. The experienced and skilled woodsmen had divided the
working force into small crews, which began subdividing the sections
within the townships where there were government or state lands, to
ascertain whether there were any forty acre tracts that contained enough
valuable pine to make the land profitable to purchase at the land
offices. Two thousand acres were thus selected during the first cruise,
but, on our agent reaching the land office where the lands had to be
entered, only twelve hundred acres were still vacant (unentered), other
land lookers having preceded our representative and arrived first at the
land office with eight hundred acres of the same descriptions as our
own.
As there were many land lookers at this time in the woods, all anxious
to buy the good pine lands from the government and the state, conflicts
like the above were not unusual.
Through a misunderstanding of orders, our working party, now nearly out
of everything to eat, assembled at The Forks, a point forty-five miles
above the mouth of the Flambeau, and waited for the Indians to bring up
fresh supplies. They did not come, and, after waiting three days, while
each man subsisted on rations of three small baking powder biscuits per
day, all hands pushed down to the mouth of the river where the Indians
were awaiting us with plenty of raw materials, some of which were soon
converted into cooked food of which all partook most heartily.
Corrected plats, showing the unentered lands of each township which we
were directed to examine, were sent to us.
CHAPTER V.
Gaining Experience--Getting Wet.
Some field experience which I had acquired in surveying when a sophomore
in college, assisted me greatly in quickly learning how to subdivide the
sections, while my knowledge of timber gained at an early age, when
assisting my father in choosing trees in the forest suitable for his
uses as a manufacturer, aided me greatly in judging the quality and
quantity of the pine timber growing in the greater forests of the
Northwest.
Freshly equipped with provisions, and with plats corrected up to date,
we returned to the deep woods. There we divided into parties of only
two--the land looker and his assistant. The latter's duty was chiefly to
help carry the supplies of uncooked foods, blankets, tent, etc., to
pitch tent at night, and, ordinarily, to do the most of the cooking,
though seldom all of it. On some days much good vacant (unentered) pine
was found, and on other days none at all. Several miles of woods were at
times laboriously passed through, without seeing any timber worth
entering (buying). Some portions would consist of hardwood ridges of
maple, oak, elm; some of poplar, birch, basswood; others of long
stretches of tamarack and spruce swamps, sections of which would be
almost without wooded growth, so marshy and wet that the moss-covered
bottom would scarcely support our weight, encumbered as we always were
by pack sacks upon our backs, which weighed when starting as much as
sixty pounds and sometimes more. Their weight diminished daily as we
cooked and ate from our store which they contained.
[Illustration: "The almost saucy, yet sociable red squirrel". (Page
48.)]
Windfalls--places where cyclones or hurricanes had passed--were
sometimes encountered. The cyclones left the trees twisted and broken,
their trunks and branches pointing in various directions; the hurricanes
generally left the trees tipped partly or entirely to the ground, their
roots turned up and their trunks pointing quite uniformly in the same
relative direction. The getting through, over, under, and _beyond_ these
places, which vary from a few rods to a possible mile across, especially
in winter when the mantle of snow hides the pitfalls and screens the
rotten trunks and limbs from view, tries the courage, patience, and
endurance of the woodsman. All of the time he must use his compass and
keep his true direction as well as measure the distance, otherwise he
would not know where he was located. Without this knowledge his work
could not proceed.
Sometimes we would come to a natural meadow grown up with alders, around
the borders of which stood much young poplar. A stream of water flowed
through the meadow, and the beavers had discovered that it was eminently
fitted, if not designed, for their necessities. Accordingly, they had
selected an advantageous spot where nature had kindly thrown up a bank
of earth on each side and drawn the ends down comparatively near to the
stream. Small trees were near by, and these they had cut down, and then
cut into such lengths as were right, in their judgment, for constructing
a water-tight dam across the narrow channel between the two opposite
banks of earth. The flow of water being thus checked by the beaver dam,
the water set-back and overflowed the meadow to its remotest confines,
and even submerged some of the trunks of the trees to perhaps a depth of
two feet. Out further in the meadow and amongst the alders where had
flowed the natural stream, the water in the pond was much deeper.
These ponds sometimes lay directly across the line of our survey and
inconvenienced us greatly. We disliked to make "offsets" in our lines
and thus go around the dam, for the traveling in such places was usually
very slow and tedious. The saving of time is always important to the
land hunter, since he must carry his provisions, and wishes to
accomplish all that is possible before the last day's rations are
reached. It was not strange, then, if we first tried the depth of the
water in the pond by wading and feeling our way. While we could keep our
pack sacks from becoming wet, we continued to wade toward the opposite
shore, meantime remembering or keeping in sight some object on the
opposite shore, in the direct course we must travel, which we had
located by means of our compass before entering the water. Sometimes a
retreat had to be made by reason of too great depth of water. During the
summer months we did not mind simply getting wet clothes by wading; but
once in the fall just before ice had formed, this chilly proposition of
wading across, was undertaken voluntarily, and was only one of many
uncomfortable things that entered into the woodsman's life.
Subjected thus to much inconvenience and discomfort by those valuable
little animals, we could but admire their wisdom in choosing places for
their subaqueous homes. They feed upon the bark of the alder, the
poplar, the birch, and of some other trees. These grew where they
constructed their dam and along the margin of the pond of water thus
formed. They cut down these trees by gnawing entirely around their
trunks, then they cut off branches and sections of the trunks of the
trees, and drew them into their houses under the ice. Most trees cut by
the beaver are of small diameter. I once measured one beaver stump and
found it to be fourteen inches in diameter. I still have in my
possession a section of a white cedar stump measuring seventeen inches
in circumference that had been gnawed off by beavers. It is the only
cedar tree I have ever known to have been cut down by these wise little
creatures.
CHAPTER VI.
A Birthday Supper.
Flambeau Farm was located on the right bank of Chippewa River opposite
the mouth of Flambeau River. There old man Butler kept a ranch for the
especial accommodation of lumbermen and land hunters, who included
nearly everyone who came that way. It was at the end of the wagon road
leading from Chippewa Falls and from other civilized places. Canoes,
dugouts, batteaus--all started from Butler's ranch at Flambeau Farm for
operations up the Flambeau and its tributaries, or for either up or down
the Chippewa and its branches.
One rainy afternoon in October our party of three started from Butler's
ranch in a dugout (a long, narrow canoe hewn out of a pine tree), to
pole down the Chippewa River to the mouth of Jump River, a distance of
about ten miles. Notwithstanding the rain, everything went smoothly for
the first hour, when, without warning, the bow of the canoe struck the
edge of a sand bar which caused the tottlish craft to tip. The man in
the stern jumped overboard to save it from capsizing, expecting to
strike his feet on the sand bar, but, in the meantime, the frail craft
had drifted away from the bar, and we were floating over deep water
which resulted in our comrade's disappearing under the surface. He soon
rose hatless, and with a few strokes swam to where he seized the stern
of the boat to which he was obliged to cling until we could paddle to
the shore, as any attempt on his part to have climbed in would have
resulted in capsizing the boat, and would have cost us all of our
supplies.
We built a fire, and partly dried his wet garments, after which we
proceeded on our journey. Entering the mouth of Jump River, we flushed a
small flock of wild geese, one of which we shot and gathered into our
dugout. A little farther on, we were fortunate in bringing down a fine
mallard. By this time the snow had begun to fall very rapidly, so that
when we had reached a suitable place to camp for the night, the snow was
fully three inches deep. Here, near the bank of the river, we found an
unoccupied claim shanty built of logs, and containing a very serviceable
fireplace. We took possession of it for the night, in consequence of
which it was unnecessary to pitch our tents. We began the usual
preparations for our evening meal and for comfortable beds upon which to
lie. The latter were soon prepared by going outside into a thicket of
balsam fir trees, felling a few with our axes, and breaking off the
soft, springy boughs which were stacked in bunches, carried into camp,
and spread in the convenient bunks to constitute the mattresses over
which the blankets were later laid.
[Illustration: "I found several families of Indians camping at the end
of the portage." (Page 106.)]
While thus busy, an Indian hunter clad in a buckskin suit came down the
trail by the river bank, bringing with him a saddle of venison. Owing to
the Indian's natural fondness for pork, it was very easy to exchange a
small piece of the latter for some nice venison steaks. I remember that
because of the wet condition of the snow, the Indian's buckskin pants
had become saturated with water, causing them to elongate to such an
extent that he was literally walking on the bottom ends of them. His
wigwam was not far down the river, to which point he soon repaired. Then
the cook made a short calculation of the menu he would serve us for our
supper after the very disagreeable experiences of travel during the day.
He decided to broil the mallard and cook some venison steak. Besides
this, he boiled rice, some potatoes, some dried peaches, and baked a few
tins of baking powder biscuits.
The land hunter's or surveyor's outfit of cooking utensils invariably
includes a nest of tin pails or kettles of different sizes fitted one
within the other, and sufficient in number to supply the needs of the
camp; also a tin baker, so constructed that when set up before an open
fire, it is a tilted "V" shaped trough of sufficient length to place
within it a good sized baking tin, placed horizontally and supported
midway between the two sides of the "V" shaped baker, so that the fire
is reflected on the bright tin equally above the baking pan and below
it.
The snow had ceased falling, and, by building a rousing camp fire
outside of the claim shanty, we were soon able to dry our clothing.
Having partaken of a sumptuous meal, we "rolled in", contented and
happy, for a night's rest. To me, this 14th day of October was a red
letter day, and in memory ever since has been because it was the
birthday of my then fiancée, who, not many years subsequent, became and
ever since has remained my faithful and loving wife.
The second and final trip of that season in open water was made several
weeks later when we again poled up the Chippewa River in a dugout,
taking with us our supplies for the cruise in the forest.
The current in that part of the river was so swift, not infrequently
forming rapids, that we were obliged always to use long poles made from
small spruce trees from which the bark had been removed, and an iron
spike fastened at one end to aid in securing a hold when pushed down
among the rocks. The water was so nearly at the freezing point that
small flakes of ice were floating, and the atmosphere was so cold, that,
as the pole was lifted from the water, ice would form on it unless the
pole at each stroke was reversed, thus allowing the film of ice formed
on the pole to be thawed when immersed in the slightly warmer water
beneath. The day spent in this manner was attended with very great
discomfort, and when night came, each man found himself tired and
hungry, and glad that the day had come to an end. We camped that night
at a French-Canadian logging camp. Our party was too fatigued to pitch
its own tents and prepare its own meal, and gladly accepted the
foreman's hospitality at the rate of two dollars a day each, for some of
his fat pork, pea soup, and fairly good bread.
On the morning following, we found the ice had so formed in the river
that further journeying in the dugout was impossible, so the latter was
pulled up on shore, covered with some brush, and abandoned, at least for
the winter, and, as it proved in this instance, for always, so far as
it concerned our party. We finished this cruise on foot, and returned
about two weeks later to Eau Claire.
There were not many men living on government lands in that part of
Wisconsin. Those who had taken claims and were living on them depended
on their rifles for all of their fresh meat. Some of them made a
practice of placing "set guns" pointing across deer trails. One end of a
strong cord was first fastened to a tree, or to a stake driven into the
ground some distance from the deer trail. The cord was then carried
across the trail which was in the snow, for a distance of one hundred
feet or less. Here, the gun was set firmly, pointing directly in line
with the cord or string. The barrel of the gun was sighted at such an
elevation as to send the bullet, when fired, across the deer trail at a
height from the trail sufficient to penetrate the body of the deer. The
string was then carried around some stationary object and fastened to
the trigger of the gun, the hammer of which had been raised. The
pressure of the deer's body or legs against the string would be pretty
sure to discharge the gun, thus causing the innocent and unsuspecting
deer to shoot itself.
While running a compass line one day, we discovered, just ahead of us, a
cord or string at right angles to our line of travel. I stopped
immediately, while my companion, Tom Carney, followed the cord to its
end which he found fastened to the trigger of a rifle. He carefully cut
the cord, raised the rifle to his shoulder, and fired it into the air.
He next broke the gun over the roots of a tree. Further examination
showed that the cord was stretched across a deer trail which we would
have reached in a minute more.
With the return of winter the Sage-Patrick contract was about
completed.
CHAPTER VII.
A New Contract--Obstacles.
"To him who in the love of Nature holds
Communion with her visible forms, she speaks
A various language; for his gayer hours
She has a voice of gladness, and a smile
And eloquence of beauty, and she glides
Into his darker musings, with a mild
And healing sympathy, that steals away
Their sharpness, ere he is aware."
My life, up to the time of my contract with Mr. Patrick to go with him
into the wilds of Wisconsin as an apprenticed land hunter and timber
examiner, had been spent on the farm, in my father's shop, at school and
college, and in teaching. The change of occupation and manner of living
will therefore be seen to have been radical. In six months of contact
with nature, I had been born into a new life, a life of initiative, of
daring, and of hardships, insuring health and inspiring hope of
financial success in a way honorable and helpful. I loved the forms of
nature all about me, untouched by the hand of man. I therefore sought
for and found an associate with capital sufficient to permit me to
continue in the same line of work. The late Robert B. Langdon then
became my partner, and this relationship was most pleasantly continued
to the end of Mr. Langdon's life.
[Illustration: "In the Vermilion country, dog trains could sometimes be
advantageously used." (Page 130.)]
Late in December, 1871, my first trip under the new contract for
securing pine timber, was undertaken. The ice in the rivers and lakes
had now become firm and safe for travel thereon. Considerable snow had
already fallen, and the roads were heavy in consequence.
Our work, as planned, lay many miles up the Chippewa River. In order to
reach the desired locality with sufficient supplies to enable us to be
gone a month or six weeks, it was necessary to take them on a toboggan
made expressly for the uses of this proposed trip. Four men were needed
to push and pull the load. After a week of hard labor, our party arrived
at the point where the work of surveying the lands was to begin. A place
to camp was chosen in the thick woods not far from the river bank, where
water would be near by and convenient for the use of the camp. A small,
but strong warehouse of logs was first constructed, in which to store
the supplies not necessary for immediate use.
Having thus secured the supplies for future use from the reach of any
wild beasts roaming in the forests, we put enough of them into our pack
sacks to last for a ten days' absence from our storehouse camp. We were
about to start, when Abbot, one of our axmen, in chopping a stick of
wood, had the misfortune to send the sharp blade of the ax into his
foot, deep to the bone. The gash was an ugly one and at once disabled
him for further usefulness on this trip. The man must be taken out of
the woods where his foot could receive proper care. How was this to be
accomplished? Two men alone could possibly have hauled him on the
toboggan. The distance to the nearest habitation where a team of horses
could be obtained was seventy-five miles. There was but one tent in the
outfit and not sufficient blankets to permit of dividing our party of
four men. It seemed, therefore, that there was nothing possible to do
but for the whole party to retrace its steps to the point where it had
been obliged to leave the team behind. The wound in Abbot's foot was
cleansed and some balsam having been gathered from the fir trees, the
same was laid on a clean piece of white cotton cloth, which, used as a
bandage, was placed over the wound and made secure. The wound having
been thus protected, Abbot was placed on the toboggan and hauled to the
ranch seventy-five miles down the river.
Cruising in the woods is always expensive, even when everything moves on
smoothly and without accident. The men's wages are the highest paid for
common labor, while the wages of compassmen are much more. The wages of
the man of experience and knowledge sufficient to conduct a survey, as
well as to judge correctly of the quality and quantity of timber on each
subdivision of land selected for purchase, are from seven dollars to ten
dollars a day. He must determine the feasibility of bringing the pine
logs to water sufficient to float them when cut, and the best and
shortest routes for the logging roads to reach the banks of the rivers,
or possibly the lakes where the logs are unloaded; and, in these modern
days of building logging railroads, he must also locate the lines of the
railroads and determine their grades. At the time above alluded to, no
logging railroads were in existence, and that part of the expense did
not have to be borne. The trip proved to be a very expensive one, and
there had not been time before the accident to choose one forty-acre
tract of land for entry.
After arriving at Eau Claire where the land office was located, and
being delayed some days by other business, we found on going to the
land office, that many entries had just been made of lands within the
townships in which we had planned to do our work, when the accident to
Abbot occurred. This fact necessitated the choosing of other townships
in which to go to search for vacant lands on our next trip.
Having acquired from the land office the necessary plats, and having
secured a new stock of provisions, we started again to penetrate another
part of the pine woods. This trip occupied several weeks in which we
were more than ordinarily successful in finding desirable lands, and we
hastened to Eau Claire in order that we might secure these by purchase
at the land office.
Rumors had been afloat for some time previous, that there were
irregularities in the conduct of the office at Eau Claire. These rumors
had grown until action was taken by the general land office at
Washington, resulting in the temporary closing of the Eau Claire land
office for the purpose, as reported, of examining the books of that
office.
[Illustration: S. D. Patrick]
Many crews of men came out of the woods in the days that followed, with
minutes or descriptions of lands which they desired to enter, each in
turn to find the land office closed against them. In this dilemma,
advice was taken as to what course to pursue. After having taken
counsel, I, as well as several others, sent my minutes, together with
the necessary cash, to the general land office at Washington, with
application to have the same entered for patents. Our minutes and our
money, however, were returned to us from Washington with the information
that the entry could not be thus made, and that public notice would be
given of the future day when the land office at Eau Claire would reopen
for the transaction of the government's business. All land hunters of
the Eau Claire district were therefore obliged to suspend operations
until the time of the reopening of the land office. This occurred on the
first of May following.
I was there early and in line to enter the office when its doors should
be open at nine o'clock in the morning, and reached the desk
simultaneously with the first few to arrive. All were told that in due
time, possibly later in that day, they could call for their duplicate
receipts of such lands as they were able to secure. There was present
that morning, a man by the name of Gilmore, from Washington, who, so far
as my knowledge goes, had never before been seen at the Eau Claire land
office. My descriptions which I had applied for at the land office on
that morning had all been entered by the man from Washington, resulting
in the loss of all of my work from January until May. I was not alone in
this unlooked for experience, as I was informed by others that they had
shared the same fate.
Thus baffled, and believing that there was no prospect of fair treatment
in that land office district, I determined to change my seat of
operations and to go into some other district. I did so, going next onto
the waters of the Wisconsin River, the United States land office for
which district, was then located at Stevens Point. Here I remained for
many months, operating with a good degree of success, and found the land
office most honorably and fairly conducted for all.
The registrar of the land office was Horace Alban, and the receiver was
David Quaw. It was always a pleasure to do business with these two
gentlemen.
CHAPTER VIII.
A Few Experiences in the New and More Prosperous Field.
The life of the land hunter is at nearly all times a strenuous one. He
daily experiences hardships such as working his way up rivers with many
swift waters, and crossing lakes in birch-bark canoes, in wind storms
and in rain; fording streams when he has no boat and when the banks are
too far apart to make a temporary bridge by felling trees across the
channel; building rafts to cross rivers and lakes; climbing through
windfalls; crossing miles of swamp where the bog bottom will scarcely
support his weight, and where, when night overtakes him he must
temporize a bed of poles on which to lay his weary body to protect it
from the wet beneath him; and traveling sometimes all day in an open and
burnt country with his bed and board upon his back, the sun's hot rays
pressing like a heavy weight upon his head, while myriads of black flies
swarm about him and attack every exposed inch of his skin, even
penetrating through the hair of his head. These are a few of his
experiences, and, if these had not their offsets at certain times, his
life would become indeed unbearable. His health, however, and his
appetite are generally as good as are enjoyed by any class of the human
family. Possessing these advantages gives him much buoyancy of spirit,
and, when a good piece of country in the timber is encountered, he is
quick to forget the trials and the hardships of the hour before, and to
enjoy the improved prospects.
There is doubt whether or not anything finer enters into the joy of
living than being in the solitude of the great unbroken forest,
surrounded by magnificent, tall, straight, beautiful pine trees, on a
day when the sun is casting shadows through their waving tops, listening
to the whisperings, formed almost into words, of the needle-like fingers
of their leafy boughs, to the warbling of the songsters, and to the
chirping of the almost saucy, yet sociable red squirrel who is sure to
let one know that he has invaded his dominion. Such days, with such
scenes and emotions, do come in the life of the woodsman, the land
hunter, who is alone in the forest, except that if he be at all
sentimental, he approaches nearer to the Great Creator than at almost
any other time in his life's experiences. Those who have read the books
of John Borroughs, John Muir, or Ernest Thompson Seton, may appreciate
somewhat the joy that comes to the woodsman in his solitude, if he be a
lover of nature.
Those only, who have been through the experience, can fully realize how
anxious the land looker is to secure the descriptions of valuable lands
that he has found when out on one of his cruises, for he knows full well
that it is probable that he is not the only man who is in the woods at
that time, for the same objects as his own. Sometimes, but rarely, two
such men may meet in the forest while at their work. When this occurs,
it is a courteous meeting, but attended with much concealed
embarrassment, for each knows that the other has found him out, and, if
either is in possession of a valuable lot of minutes which he hopes to
secure when he reaches the land office, he assumes that the other is
probably in possession of the same descriptions, or, at least, a part of
them. It then becomes a question which one shall outwit or outtravel the
other, from that moment, in a race to the land office where his minutes
must be entered, and to the victor belong the spoils, which means in
this instance, to the one who is first there to apply for the entry of
his land descriptions.
While on one of these cruises on a tributary of the Wisconsin River,
with one man only for help and companion, I had left my man, Charlie, on
the section line with the two pack sacks, while I had gone into the
interior of the section, to survey some of its forties, and to make an
estimate of the feet of pine timber standing on each forty. It was in
midsummer and in a beautiful piece of forest. Thrifty pine trees were
growing amongst the hard woods of maple, birch, and rock elm. Having
completed my work in the interior of the section, and having returned,
as I believed, to a point within a hundred yards of where Charlie was, I
gave the woodsman's call, then listened for Charlie's answer, in order
that I might go directly to the point whence it should come. On reaching
Charlie, I picked up my pack and started following the section line. We
had traveled less than a quarter of a mile on the line, when I saw on
the ground, a pigeon stripped of its feathers. I picked up the bird and
found that its body was warm. Immediately I knew that other land lookers
were in the same field and had undoubtedly been resting on that section
line at the time I had called for Charlie, and they, hearing our voices,
had hastily picked up their packs and started on their way out.
There was much pine timber in this township that yet belonged to the
government and to the state of Wisconsin. I, at this time, had
descriptions of more than four thousand acres of these lands which I was
anxious to buy. My interest and anxiety, therefore, became intense when
I knew that my presence had been discovered by the parties who had so
unintentionally left that bird on their trail. There were no railroads
in that part of the country at that time, and Stevens Point, the
location of the government land office, lay more than sixty-five miles
south of where we then were. Twenty-five miles of this distance was
mostly through the woods and must be traveled on foot. It was then late
in the afternoon and neither party could make progress after dark. The
route through the woods led through a swamp, and, upon reaching it, the
tracks of two men were plainly to be seen in the moss, and in places in
the wet ground. One man wore heavy boots, with the soles well driven
with hobnails, which left their imprints in the moist soil. Coming to a
trail that led off into a small settlement, we saw the tracks of one of
the two men following that trail. The tracks of the man with the
hobnails kept directly on in the course leading to the nearest highway
that would take him to Wausau, a thriving lumber town, forty miles
distant from Stevens Point. We reached this road at about three o'clock
in the afternoon of the next day. We called at the first house
approached, and asked the woman if she could give us some bread and
milk, and, being answered in the affirmative, we sat down for a rest,
and inquired of her if she had seen a woodsman pass. She replied that
she had, and that he had left there within an hour of the time of our
arrival. The tracks of the boots with the hobnails could be seen
occasionally along the road, and, knowing that the stage, the only
public conveyance from Wausau to Stevens Point, was not due to leave
Wausau for Stevens Point until four o'clock the next morning, we had no
further anxiety about overtaking the woodsman who had left there an hour
in advance, since we reasoned that he would probably take the stage at
its usual hour of leaving, the next day.
[Illustration: "There were many waterfalls". (Page 136.)]
From that time on, the journey was leisurely made, and we entered Wausau
at a late hour, when most of the laboring community had retired for the
night. Having gone to my accustomed hotel, and changed my clothes, I
next walked over to a livery stable and hired a team which I drove to
Stevens Point during the night, arriving there in time for breakfast. I
then went to the home of the land officer before eating my breakfast,
told him that I wished to make some entries that morning, and asked him
at what hour the land office would be open; and, seeing that my time
agreed with that of the land officer, told him that I would be there
promptly at nine o'clock, the legal hour for opening the office. I made
entry of the list of lands belonging to the United States government,
and was told to return at eleven o'clock to compare the duplicate
receipts with my application to enter the lands. While I was thus
engaged, the stage from Wausau arrived, and a man came into the land
office, wearing a pair of boots with hobnails that looked very much the
size of the tracks that I had been previously observing on my way out
from the woods to Wausau. He immediately asked for the township plat
which represented the lands which I had been so anxious to secure. He
began reading the descriptions of the lands he wished to enter, and, as
he read them, I heard with much interest, the same descriptions that
were in my own list, but there were some that were different. Whenever a
description was read that checked with one in my list, the land officer
replied that those lands were entered. This occurred so many times that
he soon inquired when the lands had been entered. He was told, "At nine
o'clock this morning." In his perplexity he had also read some of the
descriptions that belonged to the state of Wisconsin and which had to be
purchased at the land office at Madison, the capital of the state.
"Well," he remarked, "this is hard luck, but I may secure my state land
descriptions."
I always kept a balance of money with the state treasurer at Madison,
with which to pay for lands whenever I should send a list by mail or
otherwise, when I did not care to go personally with the descriptions.
The man having left the land office, I repaired immediately to the
telegraph office and wired the descriptions of the lands I wished to
enter, to the chief clerk of the land office at Madison, authorizing him
to draw on my account with the state treasurer, to pay for the same. The
train left Stevens Point that afternoon for Madison, and both interested
parties were passengers. Arriving at the land office, I found the lands
telegraphed for, to have been duly secured.
This instance is given to show by how slender a thread a matter of
great interest sometimes hangs. Had the pigeon not been left on the
section line, or had it not been discovered by the competing land
hunter, the man with the hobnails in his boots would have been the
victor, and his would have been the joy of having won that which he had
striven hard to attain.
CHAPTER IX.
Tracing Gentlemen Timber Thieves--Getting Wet--Fawn.
I have said that the country tributary to the waters of the Wisconsin
River constituted a good field for the selection of valuable government
pine-timbered lands. It is equally true that it was a country where the
custom had grown among lumbermen to enter a few forties of government
land, sufficient at least to make a show of owning a tract of timber on
which to conduct a winter's operation of logging, and then to cut the
timber from adjacent or near by forty-acre tracts of land yet belonging
to the government.
This method of trespassing upon the timber not owned by the operator,
but being the property of the United States, was carried on to a greater
extent there than in any other section of the state in which I was
familiar with the methods and practices of logging pine timber. Many
logging jobbers having formed this habit of helping themselves to
government timber, found it difficult, after the government lands had
been entered by private purchase of others than themselves, to
discontinue their practice of taking timber that was not their own.
Reforms of such habits do not come voluntarily nor easily, as a rule,
but generally under some sort of pressure.
In the years following my purchase of considerable tracts of timber on
these waters, I found it necessary, annually, to make a trip into the
country where our timber lands were situated, to ascertain whether or
not there had been near-by logging camps during the preceding winter,
and if so, to carefully run out the lines around our own timber, to
determine whether or not trespass had been committed on any of them. In
many instances I found that this was the fact. One spring I found a very
considerable number of the best pine trees cut from the interior of
forty acres of excellent timber, so that the selling value of the whole
tract was injured far more than the full value of the amount of timber
that had been unlawfully cut and hauled away. The trespass had been
committed by a man prominent in the community and well-known among the
lumbermen of the Wisconsin River. The late Gust Wilson of Wisconsin, a
fine man, a lawyer of much experience in lumber cases in that state,
and whose counsel was considered of a high order, was retained to bring
suit to recover the value of the timber trespassed. Not only that, but,
annoyed at the boldness of the trespass, I wished also to have him
prosecuted criminally for theft. Mr. Wilson said in reply to the
request, "Now, don't try that. All of those fellows have had 'some of
them hams,' and you can't get a jury in all that country that will bring
you in a verdict of guilty, no matter how great and strong your evidence
may be." There was nothing left to do under Mr. Wilson's advice but to
cool off, keep smiling, and collect the best price for the stumpage
taken (not stolen), so as to be polite to the gentlemanly wrongdoer.
One spring, accompanied by Mr. W. B. Buckingham, cashier of one of the
national banks at Stevens Point, who also owned interests in valuable
pine timber lands adjacent to, or near by those in which I owned
interests, I went into the countries of the Spirit and Willow Rivers.
The snow was melting and the waters nearly filled the banks of the
respective streams. Wishing to cross the Spirit River, we found a point
where an island occupied the near center of the stream, on which was a
little standing timber. A tree was felled, the top of which landed on
the island. Having crossed on the tree to the island, we felled another
tree which reached from the island to the farther shore. It was not
large in diameter, and, under the weight of Mr. Buckingham, who first
proceeded, it swayed until he lost his balance and fell into the water
and was obliged to swim to the opposite shore. I was more fortunate in
this instance, and stayed on the tree until I reached the shore.
[Illustration: "We succeeded in crossing Burnt Side Lake". (Page
146.)]
Swimming in ice water is never found comfortable, and we hurried to a
close at hand, deserted logging camp, where, fortunately, we found a
large heating stove set up and ready for use, and near by a fine pile of
dry wood for the stove, which had been left over from the recent
winter's operations of logging. In a few minutes, a rousing fire was
made, and, after removing his garments and wringing them as dry as
possible, we hung them on lines about the stove and quickly dried them
and made them ready for use. This was necessary, as no change of
clothing had been provided for this intended short excursion into the
woods.
By the time our work was finished, the snow had mostly melted away. The
ice was all out of the rivers, and we found ourselves one morning on
the banks of the Tomahawk River, wondering how we were to cross it, if
possible, without the delay of constructing a raft sufficiently large to
carry us. The tote-road leading to Merrill, which we wished to follow,
was on the opposite side of the Tomahawk from where we approached it. We
finally discovered an old birch canoe hidden in the brush. It was leaky
and in very bad repair, so we set ourselves to work gathering pitch from
the ends of a pile of freshly cut pine logs lying on the bank of the
river, banked there to be pushed into the stream by the log drivers.
This we put into a dish with a little grease and boiled until it was of
the right consistency to stick to the bark of the canoe. Patches of
cloth were laid over the riven places in the bark, and pitched until the
boat was made waterproof--for temporary use at least.
With our small belongings, we got into the canoe and started down the
Tomahawk, intending to stay in it as long as it would hold together and
take us on our journey, saving us that much walking. Unfortunately,
however, for us, we soon came to a long strip of rapids with which we
were not familiar. Selecting what we believed to be the best water, we
permitted the frail craft to float into the rapids, and our fast journey
down stream had begun almost before we realized the fact. All went well
until nearly to the lower end of the rapids, when the old canoe struck a
sharp rock slightly hidden under the water, and split in two. Partly by
swimming and partly by wading, we reached the coveted shore, wetter and
wiser than when an hour before we had taken an old canoe that was not
our own, in which to cross the stream, instead of spending considerably
more time to construct a raft on which we could safely and with dry
clothes, have reached the opposite shore. The usual woodsman's process
of drying clothes was again gone through with, since it was too cold, at
that season of the year, to travel all day in our wet garments.
One early summer day while traveling through a part of this same
country, watered by the Willow River, my companion and I stopped in a
majestic forest of towering white pine trees, interspersed with the more
spreading hemlocks. It was nearing twelve o'clock, and we were both
hungry. While my companion was collecting wood for a fire, I went in
search of water with which to make a pail of hot coffee. Returning, I
climbed over a large hemlock tree that had fallen, probably, from old
age. There, nestled in the moss and leaves, lay a spotted fawn. It made
no effort to get up and run from me, so I carefully approached it and
gently caressed it. Then I lifted the handsome little creature, with its
great, trusting brown eyes, into my arms, and carried it near to our
camp fire. While my helper was preparing dinner, I fondled this
beautiful infant of the forest that yet knew no fear. I sweetened some
water to which I added just a sprinkle of meal, then fed it from a spoon
to this confiding baby animal. After this, when I moved, the trusting
little creature followed me. When it came time for us to resume our work
I carried my little newly found friend back to the spot where its mother
had probably left it and put it down in its mossy, leafy bed, and,
carefully climbing over the log, left it to be better cared for than it
was possible for me to do.
CHAPTER X.
Does It Pay to Rest on Sunday?
"With what a feeling deep
Does Nature speak to us! Oh, how divine
The flame that glows on her eternal shrine!
What knowledge can we reap
From her great pages if we read aright!
Through her God shows His wisdom and His might."
It was in the summer of 1872, while I was at the United States land
office at Bayfield, Wisconsin, and was having some township plats
corrected previous to going into the woods in that district to hunt for
pine timber, that John Buffalo, chief of the Red Cliff band of Chippewa
Indians, a friend of the United States land officers, made his quiet
appearance at the land office. I had asked where I could find a
reliable, trustworthy, and capable man to accompany me on this cruise,
planned to cover a period of not less than two weeks. Captain Wing,
receiver of the land office, asked the Indian chief, "John, wouldn't you
like to earn a little money by going into the woods to help this man for
a couple of weeks or more?" To this the chief gave his consent with the
usual Indian "Ugh."
During that day provisions were bought and placed in individual cloth
sacks. A strong rowboat was secured and the journey begun. Camp was made
the first night on one of the Apostle Islands in Lake Superior. The day
following, our destination was reached at the mouth of the Cranberry
River, where our boat was carefully cached.
It rained for several days, in consequence of which the underbrush was
wet most of the time, and in passing through it we became wet to the
skin. Before leaving home I had bought for use on the trip what I
believed to be a fine pair of corduroy trousers. They looked well, and
the brush did not cling to them, a desirable condition when traveling
through thickets often encountered in the woods. It rained the first day
that we were out. At night we pitched our tent, prepared the evening
meal, and at an early hour retired. On retiring, it is usually the
custom for men camping, to remove their outer garments and put them out
of the way at one side of the tent. Both were very tired and soon fell
asleep. I was awakened by a very disagreeable odor within the tent and
walked out into the fresh air. Returning, I lay down and remained thus
until early daylight, experiencing only a disturbed sleep during the
night. My feeling was that I had chosen an undesirable bedfellow, and,
as later developments proved, it would have been reasonable if the
Indian chief had arrived at the same conclusion.
[Illustration: "We started out with two birch canoes". (Page 148.)]
During the next day it again rained. After the rain the sun came out
bright and warm, causing a rapid evaporation to take place on our wet
garments. It was under these circumstances that the discovery was made
that the very disagreeable odor experienced during the preceding night
was again present, and was emanating from the wet coloring matter that
had been used in the manufacture of the corduroy trousers. The best
possible defense--which I felt it was necessary to make--was to call
attention to the fact that the strong odor was coming forth from the
corduroy cloth. On reaching camp that evening, the new corduroys were
hung out on the limb of a tree where they were last seen by our small
camping party.
It is not customary for land hunters to work less on Sunday than on
other days, for the principal reason that all of their provisions must
be carried with them on their backs, and, that by resting on Sunday, the
provisions would disappear as rapidly, or more so, than they would if
work continued on that day. However, toward the end of our trip which
had been a very successful one in point of finding desirable government
timber lands to enter, we decided that we would rest on the next day,
which was Sunday, just previous to our taking our boat to make our
return trip on Lake Superior waters to the land office at Bayfield. As a
precaution, lest other land lookers should discover our presence, our
camping ground was selected in the interior of the section. We had eaten
our dinner, and were enjoying a siesta when we heard voices. Listening,
we heard men discussing the most direct line to take to reach their
boat, hidden somewhere on the shore of the lake. Time sufficient was
given to allow them to get so far in our advance, that any movement on
our part would not be heard by them. Soon, thereafter, we packed our
tent and all of our belongings and started for our boat. We did not
reach it until nine o'clock the following morning. We were then
forty-five miles from Bayfield by water.
Soon after we had rowed out into the lake, a northeasterly wind began to
blow and did not cease blowing during the entire day. The sandstone
bluffs around that portion of the south shore of Lake Superior in many
places are nearly vertical and rise to very considerable heights,
preventing any possible way of escape from the water's edge for miles in
extent. It was with the greatest effort that we, pulling with all our
might, could keep the boat out into the lake, so powerful was the wind,
and so increasingly great were the waves. Besides, it was not possible
to take a rest from our labors for, the moment we ceased rowing, our
boat began rapidly drifting toward the rocks on the south shore. Thus we
labored until near the middle of the afternoon, when we got under cover
of the first of the friendly Apostle Islands. After resting awhile,
before dark we were able to reach the Red Cliff Indian Agency, where we
spent the night at the chief's wigwam.
The next morning early, we resumed our boat and rowed into Bayfield,
arriving in time to be present at the opening of the land office. With
much anxiety, I made application to enter the vacant lands that had been
selected on this trip, fearing that the men whom we had overheard
talking in the woods two days before, might have arrived in advance of
me and have secured at least a part of the same descriptions. With great
satisfaction, however, I found the lands to be still vacant, and all of
the minutes chosen while on this strenuous cruise, I bought.
A little before noon of this same day, two well-known land hunters from
Chippewa Falls came in, in their boat, off the lake, and, on going to
the land office, applied to enter nearly all of the lands which I had
secured a few hours before.
The moralist might point with justification to the fact that had we not
rested on Sunday, more than likely we should not have known of the
presence of any competitors in the field, and should not, therefore,
have worked so many long hours in our boat on that windy day, nor should
we likely have reached the land office in advance of the two men who
arrived there only a few hours later than ourselves.
"By the shores of Gitche Gumee,
By the shining Big-Sea-Water,
Stood the wigwam of Nokomis,
Daughter of the Moon, Nokomis.
Dark behind it rose the forest,
Rose the black and gloomy pine-trees,
Rose the firs with cones upon them;
Bright before it beat the water,
Beat the clear and sunny water,
Beat the shining Big-Sea-Water."
CHAPTER XI.
Indian Traits--Dog Team.
Chief John Buffalo was a superior Indian, always pleasant,
companionable, and willing to do a full day's work. He seemed to prefer
the society of the white men, and therefore spent much of his time with
them. The Indian grows to manhood schooled in superstition. I recall
that during the first long trip from the mouth of Montreal River to the
Flambeau Reservation, and thence to the mouth of the Flambeau River, on
one evening the party camped near by a natural meadow where the grass
had ripened and was dry. Our three Indians went out with their knives,
to gather armfuls of the grass to spread in our tents to soften our beds
for the night. While thus engaged, Antoine, one of the Indians,
encountered a blow-snake. This reptile, when defending itself, emits an
odor which is sickening, but among white men is not considered very
dangerous. There was no question but that Antoine was made sick for that
evening by the snake, which had not touched him but had been very near
to him. Ed and Frank, the other two Indians of the party, told us that
evening that it was too bad, for Antoine surely would die within the
year as a result of his having gotten this odor from the blow-snake. Two
years subsequently, I landed at Bayfield from a Lake Superior steamer,
and one of the first persons I met on the dock was Antoine, who looked
as hale and hearty and well as he was before his experience with the
blow-snake. On congratulating him for his victory over the dire calamity
predicted, because of his encounter two years previous with the
blow-snake, he was considerably embarrassed, but made no explanation why
he was yet alive.
During the first half of the seventies, there was no railroad to the
shores of Lake Superior in Bayfield County. In January, 1876, it was
necessary for me to reach Bayfield on important business. A very poor
road had been cut through the woods from Old Superior to Bayfield,
crossing the streams running north into Lake Superior. United States
mail was carried on toboggans drawn by dogs, and conducted by Indian
runners.
[Illustration: "The party subsisted well, until it arrived at Ely".
(Page 150.)]
The snow was deep, and no trail was broken on the morning that I arrived
at Superior hoping to secure some kind of conveyance to take me through
to Bayfield, but I found no one who would volunteer to make the journey.
In this dilemma I sought the owners of dog teams, and succeeded in
purchasing two rather small dogs that were young and full of life, as
well as well trained. These I hitched to a toboggan and started on my
journey of ninety-five miles to Bayfield. The morning was mostly gone
when the start was made, and that night was spent in a small cabin on
the Brule River. The cabin had been erected for the use of the Indian
mail carriers, and was unoccupied. It contained a stove, however, and
wood was handy outside. The next morning an early start was made, and
our train reached Bayfield, as I remember, about one o'clock in the
afternoon.
The return journey was made by the same route. I had become acquainted
with the smart dog team, so that the return journey was rather enjoyable
than otherwise. I took advantage of the down grades to get a little rest
by throwing myself flat upon the toboggan, dismounting as soon as the up
grades were reached. I had become greatly attached to the dogs,
therefore I put them in the express car, on my return from Duluth, and
brought them with me to Minneapolis. The thought to do this was prompted
by thinking of the little daughter at home, then two and one-half years
old, and of her baby brother, yet in arms. A suitable sled was at once
ordered made, with a seat for little sister. To the sled, the dogs were
harnessed abreast, and the dogs and child were never happier than when
out on the streets for exercise.
There were only two miles of street car track in Minneapolis at that
time, and that little track was remote from the family home. The city
was then small. Passing teams on the streets were infrequent, so that it
was perfectly safe for her to be out in her tiny conveyance, accompanied
always either by her father or by her admiring uncle.
CHAPTER XII.
Wolves--Log Riding.
Many experiences of meeting or seeing the more dangerous of the wild
animals have been related by men whose occupation as woodsmen has made
it necessary at times to go for days, unaccompanied into the woods, and
miles distant from any human habitation. Personal experience leads me to
believe that man is safe, nearly always, except when such animals are
suffering from hunger.
Early one spring, while the snow was yet deep in the woods, I was
scaling some trespass of timber that lay about three miles away from my
headquarters camp. In going to my work, mornings, I passed along a trail
near to which, in the deep snow, was the carcass of a horse which had
belonged to the owner of a near-by lumber camp. I noticed, one morning,
that it had been visited during the night by a pack of wolves that had
fed upon it and had gone away, using the trail for a short distance and
then leaving it, their tracks disappearing into the unbroken forest. The
following morning, having gotten an early start, on passing this same
place, I saw the wolves leaving their feeding place and disappearing by
the same route as the tracks indicated on the preceding morning. The
animals seemed to be as anxious to get out of my sight, as I was willing
to have them. Had it not been for their full stomachs, their actions,
likely, would have been different.
Returning, on a subsequent day just before nightfall, tired from a long
day's work, and, probably, because of the late hour, thinking of my near
by neighbors, the wolves, I committed an act that came near costing me
my life. The ice had gone out of the streams, and the spring drive of
logs was at its height. To reach camp by the usual way, it was necessary
to follow up the stream one mile and cross on a dam that had been
constructed by the lumbermen to hold back water to use in driving logs
out of this stream, which at this point was about two hundred and fifty
feet wide. The gates were open, and the water was running high within
the banks of the stream. Seeing, in the eddy close to the bank of the
river, a large log that would scale at least one thousand feet board
measure, I was seized with the idea that I could, with the assistance of
a pole, step onto that log, push it out from shore, and guide it across
the stream to the opposite shore. It was a log that had been skidded to
the bank of the river and rolled in. On such logs, the bark on the under
side is always removed to reduce the amount of friction produced by one
end of the log dragging, while it is being hauled to the water's edge.
The "log driver" belongs to a class of men that has produced many
heroes, and some of their exploits are among the most thrilling recorded
among the exigencies of a hazardous occupation. I never was of that
class, and was almost entirely without experience in trying to ride logs
in open water. I had pushed the log out into the stream some distance
and all was lovely, as every minute it was approaching nearer to the
opposite shore. Suddenly it entered the current of the river which
quickly revolved the log under my feet, bringing the peeled side
uppermost, at which instance I was dropped into the stream. The first
thing I did on rising to the surface, was to swim for my hat, which had
been pulled off as I sank under the water. Having secured it, I
commenced swimming for the opposite shore. My clothing was heavy and
grew more so as it became soaked with water, so that by the time I had
attained the further shore--in the meantime watching constantly to see
that no floating log bumped me, thereby rendering me unconscious--I was
nearly exhausted.
[Illustration: "My three companions and I ... had gone to survey and
estimate a tract of pine timber." (Page 150.)]
During these years from 1871 to 1874, the woods of Wisconsin were
thoroughly traveled over by land hunters, and nearly all of the
desirable timber was entered at the respective land offices, so that
there remained no further field for exploit. A new field was therefore
looked for, and this I found in Minnesota.
CHAPTER XIII.
Entering Minnesota, the New Field.
In the summer of 1874, I went to the head waters of the Big Fork River
with a party of hardy frontiersmen, in search of a section of country
which was as yet unsurveyed by the United States government, and which
should contain a valuable body of pine timber. Having found such a tract
of land, we made arrangements through the surveyor-general's office,
then located in St. Paul, to have the land surveyed. The contract for
the survey was let by the United States government to Mr. Fendall G.
Winston of Minneapolis.
The logging operations on the Mississippi River in Minnesota at this
period extended from a short distance above Princeton on the Rum River,
one of the tributaries of the Mississippi River, to a little above Grand
Rapids. To reach Grand Rapids from Minneapolis, the traveled route was
by way of the St. Paul and Duluth railroad to Northern Pacific Junction,
thence, over the Northern Pacific Railroad, west to Aitkin. From this
point the steamboat Pokegama plied the Mississippi to Grand Rapids, the
head of navigation at that time. For many years this steamboat was owned
and operated by Captain Houghton, almost wholly in the interest of the
lumber trade. Later, Captain Fred W. Bonnes became its owner.
Subsequently, the old Pokegama burned, when Captain Bonnes built a new
boat, using the machinery of the Pokegama, and naming it Aitkin City. At
a still later period he built the larger steamer, Andy Gibson.
In those days, the lumber-jack was a very interesting type of man. Men
from Maine and New Brunswick were numerous. Scotchmen, Irish-Americans,
and French-Canadians constituted a considerable portion of all the labor
that went to the logging camps of Minnesota. As early as the month of
July, they began their exodus from Minneapolis to the woods for the
purpose of building new camps, cutting the wild grass that grew along
the natural meadows, and making it into hay for the winter's use for
oxen and horses. Some of these men worked at the sawmills in summer, but
there was not employment for all at this work, and many spent their time
in idleness and not infrequently in drunken carousal. On leaving the
city for the logging camps, they were pretty sure to start out, each
with one or two bottles of whiskey stored away in his tussock, which was
ordinarily a two bushel, seamless sack, with a piece of small rope tied
from one of its lower corners to the upper end of the sack. In this were
placed all of the lumber-jack's belongings, except what were carried in
his pockets, including one or two additional bottles of whiskey. Not all
of the lumber-jacks drank whiskey, but this was the habit of very many
of them. By the time the train had arrived at Northern Pacific Junction,
where a change of cars was made, and where the arrival of the Northern
Pacific train from Duluth, west bound, was awaited, many of our
lumber-jacks were well under the influence of John Barleycorn. Disputes
would frequently arise while waiting for the train. These would be
settled by fist fights between the disputants, their comrades standing
about to see that each man had fair play.
On one of our trips to the pine forests north of Grand Rapids, we
arrived at Aitkin on a train loaded with this class of men, as well as
their bosses, and proprietors of the lumber camps. Aitkin at that time
was not much more than a railroad station for the transfer of the
lumbermen and merchandise to the steamboat. A few men had preempted
lands from the government and had made their homes where now is the city
of Aitkin. The late Warren Potter was one of them. He kept a large store
which was well stocked with lumbermen's supplies, and which was the
rendezvous for the lumbermen. His preemption claim was only a short
distance in the woods from his store. He had been East to buy goods and
had returned by train that day. He found that his preemption claim had
been "jumped" by one, Nat Tibbetts, whom he found occupying the Potter
cabin. An altercation took place between the two men, resulting in
Tibbetts blacking Potter's eye. The only representative of the law was a
justice of the peace, a man whose name was Williams. Before him, Potter
swore out a warrant for the arrest of Tibbetts, charging Tibbetts with
assault with intent to do bodily harm. Potter asked me to act as his
attorney to prosecute his case. This honor was politely declined, and I
assured him that he would find a better man for the occasion in the
person of S. S. Brown, the well-known log jobber, who was in town.
Mr. Brown having consented to act in the interest of Mr. Potter, and Mr.
Tibbetts having secured some other layman to defend his case, all
parties repaired, as I remember, to an unoccupied building which was
temporarily used as a court of justice. As almost the entire community
that evening was a floating population of lumbermen of various sorts,
waiting for an opportunity to start up the river on the steamboat the
following day, it will readily be seen by the reader that this occasion
was one of unusual interest and bade fair to furnish an interesting
entertainment for a part of the long evening.
Tibbetts demanded a jury trial. The jury was chosen, and the prosecution
opened the case by putting on the stand, a witness who had seen the
encounter, and who proved to be a good witness for Mr. Potter. The case
proceeded until the evidence was nearly all presented. At this juncture,
in the back end of the improvised court room, a tall lumber-jack who was
leaning against the wall, and who was considerably the worse for
whiskey, cried out, "Your honor! your honor! I object to these
proceedings." Everything was still for a moment, and all eyes turned
toward the half drunk lumber-jack. Justice Williams attempted to
proceed, when the lumber-jack repeated his calls and his demands to be
heard. Every one present knew that any attempt on the part of the
constable to quiet this man would have resulted in starting a general
fight, where there were so many who were under the influence of liquor.
Some one, therefore, said to the justice, "Your honor, you had better
hear the man's objections." Justice Williams then said, "You may state
your objections, sir." The lumber-jack replied, "I object, your honor,
because that jury has not been sworn." This was true. The jury was then
sworn, and the trial of the case was begun anew. The witnesses having
again given their evidence under oath, the case was soon argued by the
improvised lawyers. The justice gave a short charge to the jury, and,
without leaving their seats, and while the spectators waited, they
notified the justice that they had agreed upon a verdict of guilty. The
justice fined Mr. Tibbetts one dollar, and this frontier court of
justice adjourned.
The question of the ownership of the claim was not before the court. My
recollection, however, concerning it, is that Mr. Potter ever after had
peaceful possession of the land.
[Illustration: The journey had to be made with the use of toboggans.
(Page 150.)]
The ride up the Mississippi to Grand Rapids on the steamer Pokegama,
which tied up each night, occupied two days and a half. The distance was
one hundred and ninety-five miles. The steamer was crowded, and men
slept everywhere on the deck, on their blankets or without them, as best
fitted their condition. Whiskey and cards were plentiful. The table was
well supplied with good things to eat. Grand Rapids at that time
consisted of a steamboat landing, a warehouse, and a ranch or stopping
place kept by Low Seavey, whose wife was a half-breed. These were on the
left bank of the river just below the falls or rapids. On the opposite
side of the river was a small store, a new enterprise, and owned by a
man whose name was Knox.
I met Mr. Winston and his assistant surveyors at Grand Rapids about the
middle of August. There were no roads leading into the country that we
were to survey, and, as our work would extend nearly through the winter,
it was necessary to get our supplies in sufficient quantity to last for
our entire campaign, and take them near to our work. This was
accomplished by taking them in canoes and boats of various sorts. Our
first water route took us up the Mississippi River, into Lake
Winnibigoshish, and from that lake on its northeasterly shore, we went
into Cut-foot Sioux, or Keeskeesdaypon Lake. From this point we were
obliged to make a four mile portage into the Big Fork River, crossing
the Winnibigoshish Indian Reservation. From an Indian encampment on
this reservation, at the southwest shore of Bow String Lake, we hired
some Indians to help pack our supplies across the four mile portage.
Before half of our supplies had been carried across the portage, the
Indian chief sent word to us by one of his braves, that he wished to see
us in council and forbade our moving any more of our supplies until we
had counseled with him. Although the surveyors were the agents of the
United States government, for the sake of harmony, it was thought best
to ascertain at once what was uppermost in the chief's mind.
That evening, a conference was held in the wigwam of the chief. First,
the chief filled full of tobacco, a large, very long stemmed pipe, and,
having lighted it with a live coal from the fire, took the first whiff
of smoke; then immediately passed it to the nearest one of our delegates
to his right, and thus the pipe went round, until it came back to the
chief, before anything had been said. The chief then began a long
recital, telling us that the great father would protect them in their
rights to the exclusive use of these lands. The chief said that he was
averse neither to the white man using the trail of his people nor to his
using the waters of the rivers or lakes within the boundaries of the
reservation, but, if he did so, he must pay tribute. In answer to his
speech, the chief surveyor of our party, Fendall G. Winston, replied
that he and his men had been sent to survey the lands that belonged to
the great father; and, that in order to reach those lands, it was
necessary that his people should cross the reservation which the great
father had granted to his tribe; nevertheless, that they felt friendly
to the Indians; that if they were treated kindly by himself and his
tribesmen, they should have an opportunity to give them considerable
work for many days, while they were getting their supplies across his
country to that of the great father, where they were going to work
during the fall and winter; and that they would also make him a present
of a sack of flour, some pork, some tea, and some tobacco. He was told,
too, that this was not necessary for the great father's men to do, but
that they were willing to do it, provided that this should end all
claims of every nature of the chief, against any and all of the great
father's white men, whom he had sent into that country to do his work.
This having been sealed with the chief's emphatic "Ugh," he again
lighted the pipe, took the first whiff of smoke, and passed it around.
Each, in token of friendship, did as the chief had already done. This
ended the conference, and we were not again questioned as to our rights
to pass over this long portage trail, which we continued to use until
our supplies were all in.
As nearly as I can now recall, our force was made up of the following
men: Fendall G. Winston, in whose name the contract for the survey was
issued; Philip B. Winston, brother of Fendall G. Winston; Hdye, a young
engineer from the University of Minnesota; Brown, civil engineer from
Boston; Coe, from the Troy Polytechnic School of Engineering; Charlie, a
half-breed Indian; Franklin, the cook; Jim Flemming, Frank Hoyt, Charlie
Berg, Tom Jenkins, George Fenimore, Tom Laughlin, Joe Lyon, Will
Brackett, Miller, and myself.
Flemming, poor fellow, was suffering with dysentery when he started on
the trip. On reaching Grand Rapids, he was no better, and it was thought
best not to take him along to the frontier, so he was allowed to go
home. Miller was not of a peace loving disposition, and, having shown
this characteristic early, was also allowed to leave the party. It was
best that all weaklings and quarrelsome ones should be left behind,
because it was easily foreseen that when winter closed in upon the band
of frontiersmen, it would be difficult to reach the outer world, and it
would be unpleasant to have any in the party that were not, in some
sense, companionable.
Considerable time was consumed in getting all of our supplies to
headquarters camp, which consisted of a log cabin. The first misfortune
that befell any one of our party came to Frank Hoyt, who one day cut an
ugly gash in the calf of his leg with a glancing blow of the ax. The cut
required stitching, but there was no surgeon in the party. Will
Brackett, the youngest of the party, a brother of George A. Brackett,
and a student from the university, volunteered to sew up the wound. This
he did with an ordinary needle and a piece of white thread. The patient
submitted with fortitude creditable to an Indian. Some plastic salve was
put on a cloth and placed over the wound, which resulted in its healing
too rapidly. Proud flesh appeared, and then the wisdom of the party was
called into requisition, to learn what thing or things available could
be applied to destroy it. Goose quill scrapings were suggested, there
being a few quills in the possession of the party. Brackett, however,
suggested the use of some of the cook's baking powder, because, he
argued, there was sufficient alum in it to remove the proud flesh from
the wound. "Dr." Brackett was considered authority, and his prescription
proved effectual. Hoyt was left to guard the provision camp against
possible visits from the Indians, or from bears, which sometimes were
known to break in and to carry away provisions.
It is never necessary for surveyors whose work is in the timber, nor for
timber hunters, to carry tent poles, because these are easily chosen
from among the small trees; yet nine of our party one time in October,
with the rain falling fast and cold, found themselves, at the end of the
four mile Cut-foot Sioux Portage, on a point of land where there were no
poles. All of the timber of every description had been cut down and used
by the Indians. The Indian chief and several of his family relations
lived on this point. They had built the house of poles and cedar bark,
in the shape of a rectangle. Its dimensions on the ground were about
twelve by twenty feet; its walls rose to a height of about five feet;
and it was covered by a hip roof.
[Illustration: "Our camp was established on the shores of Kekekabic
Lake". (Page 151.)]
Our party must either obtain shelter under this roof or must get into
the canoes and paddle nearly two miles to find a place where it could
pitch its tents. At this juncture the hospitality of the Indians was
demonstrated. The chief sent out word that we should come into his
dwelling and remain for the night. The proffer was gladly accepted. When
we had all assembled, we found within, the chief and his squaw, his
daughter and her husband, the hunter, his squaw and two daughters,
besides our party of nine, making a total of seventeen human beings
within this small enclosure. A small fire occupied a place on the ground
at the center of the structure, an ample opening in the roof having been
left for the escape of the smoke and live sparks. Indians can always
teach their white brothers a lesson of economy in the use of fuel. They
build only a small fire, around which, when inside their wigwams, they
all gather with their usually naked feet to the fire. It is a
physiological fact that when one's extremities are warm, one's bodily
sufferings from cold are at their minimum. Our party boiled some rice
and made a pail of coffee, without causing any especial inconvenience to
our hosts, and, after having satisfied hunger and thirst, the usual camp
fire smoke of pipes was indulged in, before planning for any sleep. Our
party had been assigned a portion of the space around the open fire,
and our blankets were brought in and spread upon the mats that lay upon
the earth floor.
The additional presence of nine Indian dogs has not previously been
mentioned. Before morning, however, they were found to be live factors,
and should be counted as part of the dwellers within the walls of this
single room. They seemed to be nocturnal in habit, and to take an
especial delight in crossing and recrossing our feet, or in trying to
find especially cozy places between our feet and near to the fire, where
they might curl down for their own especial comfort. It was not for us,
however, to complain, inasmuch as the hospitality that had been extended
was sincere; and it was to be remembered by us that it was in no way any
advantage to the Indians to have taken us in for the night. Therefore,
we were truly thankful that our copper colored friends had once more
demonstrated their feelings of humanity toward their white brothers.
They had been subjected to more or less inconvenience by our presence,
but in no way did they make this fact manifest by their actions or by
their words. The rain continued at intervals during the entire night,
and it was with a feeling of real gratitude, as we lay upon the ground,
and listened to it, that we thought of the kindly treatment we were
receiving from these aborigines. In the morning we offered to pay them
money for our accommodations, but this they declined. They did, however,
accept some meat and some flour.
While we were crossing the lake, one day, in canoes loaded with supplies
of various descriptions, an amusing, yet rather expensive, incident
happened in connection with one of the canoes. Its occupants were George
Fenimore, a Mainite Yankee, and Joe Lyon, a French-Canadian. Both were
good canoemen, but only Fenimore knew how to swim. They had become
grouchy over some subject while crossing the lake, and, as they neared
the opposite shore from which they had started, in some manner which I
have never understood, the canoe was overturned. Little of its contents
was permanently lost, except one box of new axes. The water was about
eight feet deep under them. Each man grasped an end of the overturned
canoe, and clung to it. Then an argument began between the two
disgruntled men, about getting to shore. Lyon wanted Fenimore to let go
of the canoe and swim ashore; but this, the latter refused to do.
Finally, after considerable loss of time, Joe Lyon, who was nearest to
shore, turned his body about, with his face toward the shore, and,
letting go of the canoe, went to the bottom of the lake and floundered
to gain the shore. He had only to go a short distance before the water
became sufficiently shallow for his head to appear, but he was winded,
and thoroughly mad. I have always believed that Fenimore purposely
overturned the canoe, but if so, he never admitted the fact.
The pine timber lying east of Bow String Lake, and included in the
survey of 1874 and 1875, was all tributary to waters running north, into
the Big Fork River, which empties into the Rainy River. Levels were run
across from Bow String Lake into Cut-foot Sioux River, and considerable
fall was found. The distance, nearly all the way, was over a marsh. It
was shown that a dam could easily be thrown across from bank to bank of
the river at the outlet of Bow String Lake, and by thus slightly raising
the water in the lake, plus a little work of cleaning out portions of
the distance across the marsh, from Bow String Lake to Cut-foot Sioux,
the timber could be driven across and into the waters of the Mississippi
River. All of this engineering was before the advent of logging
railroads. However, before the timber was needed for the Minneapolis
market, many logging railroads had been built in various localities in
the northern woods, and their practical utility had been demonstrated.
When the time came for cutting this timber, a logging railroad was
constructed to reach it; and over its tracks, the timber was brought
out, thus obviating the necessity of impounding the waters of Bow String
Lake.
CHAPTER XIV.
An Evening Guest--Not Mother's Bread.
I have previously mentioned the presence of nine dogs at an Indian camp,
where members of our party spent a night. One of these animals is
deserving of special mention, for the reason that he was a stranger
among a strange people, and he was evidently so against his own choice.
He had at one time been a fine, large mastiff. His history was never
learned in full, but from an account of the animal, gained by
questioning the Indians who had him in captivity, it was learned that
the dog had belonged at some lumber camp. It often happens that the
midday meal for most of the men in a large logging crew must be taken
out on a sled, usually drawn by a single horse, for a distance of not
infrequently three or four miles from the cook's camp. This is the work
of the cookee; and, at the logging camp where the mastiff had belonged,
the animal had been used instead of a horse, to pull the load of the
midday meal out to the men at work. In what manner he had been left
behind when the camp broke in the spring, was not learned.
[Illustration: "The memorable fire ... which swept Hinckley". (Page
160.)]
He was about the size of two or three ordinary Indian dogs, and was
correspondingly less sprightly in his movements. He was very poor when
members of our party first saw him. Indian dogs never get enough to eat,
and this poor fellow with his large frame, had the appearance of not
receiving any more for his portion of food than an average Indian dog,
if as much. He looked as though he were hungry, and probably was, every
day. The particular action that impressed itself upon every member of
our party, was this animal's almost human desire for sympathy that he
sought from this party of white men, when he and they first met at the
Indian camp. He wagged his tail and passed from one member of our party
to another, with an expression of unusual joy. He rubbed against us and
almost begged to be caressed. Every man of our party pitied him and
would gladly have sent him out to the white man's country, had it been
at all practicable to have done so.
Later in the fall, I was camped for a single night, some three hundred
yards distant from the Indian encampment, on the shore of a lake that I
must cross the following morning. While I was preparing my evening
meal, this mastiff made his appearance, wagging his tail, and wishing by
his actions to say, "I am glad to see you, and have come to call on
you." It is the custom of the land hunter, as well as other
frontiersmen, when paddling his canoe across a lake, to throw out a
trolling line; and not infrequently, in those northern lakes, a catch of
several fish may thus be made. On that day, such had been my experience,
and I had in my possession, several fine wall-eyed pike that I intended
to take through to the main camp, which I should reach on the following
day. I also had a small bag of corn meal, which I sometimes used as a
substitute for oatmeal, in cooking a porridge for my own use. While
preparing my supper, I took the largest kettle, filled it with water,
and placed it over the fire. I then cut into small pieces, a number of
the fish, and put them in the kettle to boil. Later I added some corn
meal and cooked all together. When it was sufficiently done, I removed
one-half of the pail's contents and spread it out on a large piece of
birch bark to cool. When it had cooled sufficiently, I invited my
welcome guest, the mastiff, to partake of the food. Every mouthful eaten
was accompanied by a friendly wag of the animal's tail. The portion
remaining in the pail I hung on a limb, high enough up in the tree to be
out of reach. The dog remained about the camp, and when I lay down in my
blankets for the night, he curled down at my feet and there remained
until morning.
While I was preparing my own breakfast, I took the pail from the tree
and placed it over a small fire, that I might give my guest a warm
breakfast. I spread out on the same birch bark, all that remained in the
pail, and it was eaten to the last morsel by the grateful animal.
Having placed all my belongings in my birch canoe, I pushed out into the
lake without the dog, who tried hard to follow, and, as the canoe went
farther from the shore, the homesick animal commenced to whine at his
loss of companionship. By every means possible to a dumb beast, this dog
had expressed his dislike for his enforced environment and his longing
to be back with the white man. I could not help but believe that the
feelings expressed by this dog were akin to those of many a captive man
or woman who had fallen into the hands of the aborigines.
Our frail birch canoes had been abandoned as cold weather approached,
and we had settled down to the work of surveying. Sometimes, however,
we came to lakes that must be crossed. This was accomplished by cutting
some logs, and making rafts by tying them together with withes.
Sometimes these rafts were found insufficiently buoyant to float above
water all who got onto them, so that when they were pushed along there
were no visible signs of anything that the men were standing on. When on
a raft, Hyde was always afraid of falling off, and would invariably sit
down upon it. This subjected him to greater discomfort than other
members, but as it was of his own choosing, no one raised any objection.
One day, several of the party had gone to the supply camp to bring back
some provisions which the cook had asked for. Returning, not by any
trail, but directly through the unbroken forest, we found ourselves in a
wet tamarack and spruce swamp; and, although we believed we were not far
from the camp where we had left the cook in the morning, we were not
certain of its exact location. Mr. F. G. Winston said he thought he
could reach it in a very short time, and suggested that we remain where
we were. He started in what he believed to be the direction of the camp,
saying that he would return in a little while. We waited until the
shades of night began to fall; and yet he did not come. Preparations
were then made to stay in the swamp all night. The ground was wet all
around us, nor could we see far enough to discern any dry land. We
commenced cutting down the smaller trees that were like poles, and with
these poles, constructed a platform of sufficient dimensions to afford
room for four men to lie down. Then another foundation of wet logs was
made, on which a fire was kindled, and by the fire, we baked our bread
and fried some bacon, which constituted our evening meal. A sack of
flour was opened, a small place within it hollowed out, a little water
poured in, and the flour mixed with the water until a dough was formed.
Each man was told to provide himself with a chip large enough on which
to lay the piece of dough, which was rolled out by hand, made flat, and
then, having been placed in a nearly upright position against the chip
in front of the fire, was baked on one side; then turned over and baked
on the other. In the meantime, each man was told to provide himself with
a forked stick, which he should cut with his jackknife, and on it to
place his piece of bacon and cook it in front of the fire; thus each man
became his own cook and prepared his own meal. There was no baking
powder or other ingredient to leaven the loaf--not even a pinch of salt
to flavor it. But the owner of each piece of dough was hungry, and, by
eating it immediately after it was baked and before it got cold, it was
much better than going without any supper. The following morning, the
party resumed its journey, and met Mr. Winston coming out to find it. He
had found the cook's camp, but at so late an hour that it was not
possible for him to return that night.
CHAPTER XV.
A Hurried Round Trip to Minneapolis--Many Instances.
After leaving Grand Rapids about the middle of August, we saw very few
white men for many months following. In October, on our survey, local
attraction was so strong on part of our work, that it was necessary to
use a solar compass. This emergency had not been anticipated; it,
therefore, became necessary to go to Minneapolis to secure that special
instrument. Philip B. Winston, afterwards mayor of Minneapolis, and I
started in a birch canoe, and in it, made the whole distance from our
camp on Bow String Lake to Aitkin, Minnesota, on the Mississippi, the
nearest railroad station. We were in Minneapolis but two days, when we
returned, catching the steamer at Aitkin, and going up the Mississippi
to Grand Rapids, the head of navigation for steamboats.
Captain John Martin of Minneapolis, the well-known lumberman and banker,
wished to return with us for his final fishing trip in open water, for
that season. He fished successfully for a number of days, and, at the
end of each day, personally prepared and cooked as fine a fish chowder
as anyone would ever wish to eat. On the day of his departure, I took
the Captain in my canoe, and landed him on the four-mile portage with an
Indian escort who was to take him to Grand Rapids, whence he would
return by steamer to Aitkin, a station on the line of the Northern
Pacific Railroad.
I was left alone in my canoe and must return to camp, crossing the open
water of Bow String Lake. On my arrival at the main lake, the wind had
increased its velocity, and the whitecaps were breaking. I hired an
Indian, known as "the hunter," to help me paddle across the lake and up
a rapid on a river flowing into Bow String, up and over which it was not
possible for one man to push his canoe alone.
The annual payment to the Indians by the United States government was to
occur a few days subsequently, at Leach Lake, and the Indians were busy
getting ready to leave, to attend the payment. The hunter's people were
to start that day, and he seemed to realize when half way across the
lake, that, owing to our slow progress, because of the heavy sea, he
would be late in returning to his people at camp. He said so, and wished
to turn back, but I told him that he must take me above the rapid, which
was my principal object in hiring him. After sitting stoically in the
bow of the canoe for a few moments, he suddenly turned about, and,
drawing his long knife, said in Chippewa, that he must go back. I drew
my revolver and told him to get down in the canoe and paddle, and that
if he did not, he would get shot. There was no further threat by the
Indian, and we made as rapid progress as possible over the rapid,
landing my canoe--his own having been trailed to the foot of the rapid.
Both stepped ashore. Then he said in Chippewa, "Me bad Chippewa; white
man all right"; and bidding me good-by, hurried off to his canoe at the
foot of the rapid.
[Illustration: "The fire ... destroyed millions of dollars worth of
standing pine timber". (Page 160.)]
Once more, during the fall of 1874, I had to reckon with this wily
Indian, the hunter, as will soon appear in this narrative.
Perhaps the most convenient pack strap used by the woodsman when on an
all day's tramp, is one that is commonly known as the Indian pack strap.
It consists of a strap of leather about three inches wide and about
three feet long, from each end of which, a tapering piece of leather,
either sewed or buckled to it, extends finally to a narrow point no
wider than a whip-lash. Each of these added narrow strips is from five
to six feet in length, so that the whole strap is about fourteen feet
long when straightened out. A blanket or a tent is folded into shape,
about four feet by six feet. This is laid on the ground, and the strap
is folded double with a spread at the wide part, of about three feet,
which is the length of the wide strap. The narrow ends are then drawn
straight back over the blanket, across its narrow dimension, leaving the
wide strap, which in use becomes the head strap, at the outer edge of
the blanket. Then the blanket is folded from each end over the narrow
straps, the two ends of which project out and beyond the blanket at the
opposite side from the head strap. The articles to be placed within the
blanket, which generally consist of small sacks of beans, flour, pork,
sugar, coffee, and wearing apparel, and blankets, are then carefully
stacked upon the blanket, within the spread of the two narrow lines of
the pack strap. When this is done, the blanket is folded over, and the
two outer edges are brought as near to the center of the pile of things
to be carried within it, as is possible. Then the two tapering ends of
the pack strap are brought up and over, to meet the opposite ends of the
narrow straps, which, as has been explained, are either sewed to, or
buckled onto the wide head strap. Drawing these ends firmly together
puckers the outer edge of the blanket on either side, and draws the
blanket completely over the contents piled in the center, and makes,
ordinarily, nearly a round bundle. This load, or pack, the man then
throws over his shoulder, onto his back, and brings the wide strap
across his forehead, or across his breast, or across the top of his
head, when he is ready to begin his journey. Before he has traveled long
with this load, which weighs ordinarily from fifty to one hundred
pounds, according to the ability of the man to bear the burden, he will
be found shifting that wide strap to any one of the three positions
named, and will have used all of those positions many times before the
party as a whole, stops for a moment's rest.
I had taken with me, on going north on this long campaign, an extra fine
red leather pack strap that I had had made to order at a Minneapolis
harness shop. I had kept it coiled up, and carefully stored in my
belongings, waiting for an emergency when the more common straps would
no longer be of service. A number of times the Indians had seen this
strap and had admired it, and, as it later proved, not always without
envy.
One day the strap was missing, and I could find it, neither by
searching, nor by open inquiry of my fellow white men, nor of the
Indians, whom I occasionally met. On one occasion, while portaging my
canoe to another lake, I found several families of Indians camping at
the end of the portage. Among them was the hunter who has been
previously mentioned. While stopping a moment for a friendly talk with
the Indians, I saw protruding from under the coat of the hunter, nearly
two feet of one end of my missing pack strap. I knew it so well that I
was sure that it was no other pack strap. Nevertheless, I deliberated
slowly what action I should take to recover the strap, not wishing by
any possibility to make a mistake. Having surely concluded that the
strap was mine, and that the hunter had not come into possession of it
honestly--he having previously denied, when questioned, that he knew
anything of the whereabouts of the strap--I decided upon a course of
action. Going up quietly behind the hunter, and twisting the end of the
protruding strap twice around my wrist, and grasping it firmly in my
hand, I started with all my might to run with the strap. The effect was
to make a temporary top of my friend, the hunter, who whirled about
until the other end of the pack strap was released from his body. It was
too good a joke, even for the Indians to remain unmoved, and the
majority of them broke into merriment. The hunter at first was disposed
to take it seriously but soon looked sheepish and ashamed, and tried to
smile with the rest of his tribe, as well as with myself.
[Illustration: "One of the horses balked frequently". (Page 167.)]
Having wound the strap carefully around my own body, and having made
sure that the ends did not protrude, I bade my friends, including the
hunter, good day, got into my canoe and pushed out into the lake. This
proved to be the last time I ever saw the hunter, but it was not the
last time that I ever thought of the incident.
In justice to the Indians as compared with white men, I am glad to be
able to say, that, after mingling with them more or less for many years,
and becoming sufficiently familiar with their language to be able to use
it on all necessary occasions, I believe that the Indians are as honest
and as honorable as the men with whom they mingle, who have not a copper
skin.
Captain Martin was the last white man whom any one of our party saw for
four months. Winter closed in on us before the beginning of November.
The snow became very deep, so that it was absolutely necessary to
perform all of our work on snowshoes. The winter of 1874 and 1875 is
shown to have been the coldest winter in Minnesota, of which there is
any record, beginning with 1819 up to, and including, 1913.
The party was mostly composed of men who had had years of experience on
the frontier, and who were inured to hardship. With a few, however, the
experience was entirely new, and, except that they were looked after by
the more hardy, they might have perished. As it was, however, not one
man became seriously ill at any time during this severe winter's
campaign.
All of the principal men of the party wore light duck suits, made large
enough to admit of wearing heavy flannel underwear beneath them. Either
boot-packs or buckskin moccasins, inside of which were several pairs of
woolen socks, composed the footwear. Boot-packs or larigans, as they are
commonly called by the lumber-jack, are tanned in a manner that makes
them very susceptible to heat, and the leather will shrivel quickly if
near an open fire. It cost one of the party several pairs of boot-packs
before he could learn to keep sufficiently far away from the open fire,
on returning to camp from his work. It will be surmised by the reader
that he was one of the inexperienced of the party.
Many incidents, amusing to others, happened during the winter to this
same man. He had started on the trip in the summer months, with a supply
of shoe blacking and paper collars. The crossing of one or two portages
with his loaded pack sack on his back was sufficient to convince him
that there was no need of carrying either shoe blacking or paper
collars, and they were thrown out to reduce weight. Each man carried a
hank or skein of thread, a paper of needles, and a supply of buttons.
Soon after winter set in, this man, who might ordinarily be termed a
tenderfoot, complained of lameness in one of his feet. As the weather
became more severe, he added from time to time, another pair of socks to
those he already had on, never removing any of previous service. This
necessitated, not infrequently, his choosing a larger sized boot-pack.
Before the campaign was over, although he was a man of low stature and
light weight, his feet presented the appearance of being the largest in
the party. Still he complained of lameness in the hollow of his foot,
and no relief came until March, when the work was completed. Arriving
once more back in civilization, he removed his much accumulated
footwear. There, under this accumulation of socks, and against the
hollow of his foot, was found his skein of thread, the absence of which,
from its usual place, had necessitated his borrowing, whenever he had
need of it, from some one of his companions. Before starting out on this
campaign, he had been one of the tidiest of men about his personal
appearance.
One evening in midwinter, when sitting around the camp fire, by reason
of the pile of wood for the evening being largely composed of dry
balsam, we were kept more or less busy, extinguishing sparks that are
always thrown out from this kind of wood when burning. Sometimes one
would light on the side of the tent near by, and unless immediately
extinguished, would eat a large hole in the cloth. That evening, Fendall
G. Winston and I were sitting side by side, when we saw a live spark
more than a quarter of an inch in diameter light in the ear of our
friend who sat a little way from, and in front of us. It did not go out
immediately, neither did it disturb the tranquillity of the young man.
Mr. Winston and I exchanged glances and smilingly watched the ember
slowly die. The time to clean up had not yet arrived for at least one of
the party.
The compassman's work that winter was rendered very laborious from the
fact that his occupation made it necessary for him, from morning until
night of every day, to break his own path through the untrodden snow,
for it was he who was locating the line of the survey. I was all of the
time running lines in the interior of the sections, following the work
of the surveyors, and choosing desirable pine timber that was found
within each section. I had no companion in this work, and thus was
separated most of each day from other members of the party, but returned
to the same camp at night.
In the morning, each man was furnished by the cook, with a cloth sack in
which were placed one or two or more biscuits, containing within, slices
of fried bacon and sometimes slices of corned beef, also, perhaps, a
doughnut or two. This he tied to the belt of his jacket on his back and
carried until the lunch hour. Ordinarily a small fire was then kindled,
and the luncheon, which generally was frozen, thawed out and eaten.
Under such mode of living, every one returned at night bringing an
appetite of ample dimensions.
One of the most acceptable of foods to such men at the supper hour was
bean soup, of a kind and quality such as a cook on the frontier, alone,
knows how to prepare. Plenty of good bread was always in abundance at
such time. Usually there was also either corned beef or boiled pork to
be had by those who wished it; generally also boiled rice or apple
dumplings, besides tea and coffee.
In a well-regulated camp, where men are living entirely out of doors in
tents, a bean hole is pretty sure to be demanded. The bean hole is
prepared by first digging a hole in the ground, sufficiently large, not
only to make room for the pail, but also for several inches of live
coals with which it must be surrounded. After supper is over, the beans
are put into a large pail made of the best material, with ears always
riveted on, so that the action of heat will not separate any of its
parts. The beans are first parboiled with a pinch of soda in the water.
As soon as the skins of the beans become broken, the water is poured
off; then the beans are placed in the bean pail, a small quantity of hot
water is added together with a sufficiently large piece of pork; and,
when a tight cover has been put on the pail, it is placed in the bean
hole. The live coals are placed around it, until the hole is completely
filled and the pail entirely covered several inches deep. Then ashes or
earth are put on the top of it all, to exclude the air. Thus the pail
remains all night, and, in the morning when the cook calls the men to
breakfast, the beans, thoroughly cooked and steaming, are served hot and
furnish an acceptable foundation for the arduous day's work about to
begin.
[Illustration: "Our camp was made in a fine grove of pig-iron Norway".
(Page 167.)]
The work of the frontiersman is more or less hazardous in its nature,
and yet bad accidents are rare. Occasionally a man is struck by a
falling limb, or he may be cut by the glancing blow of an ax, though he
learns to be very careful when using tools, well knowing that there is
no surgeon or hospital near at hand. Sometimes in the early winter, men
unaccompanied, yet obliged to travel alone, drop through the treacherous
ice and are drowned. Few winters pass in a lumber country where
instances of this kind do not occur. One day, when alone, I came near
enough to such an experience. I was obliged to cross a lake, known to
have air holes probably caused by warm springs. The ice was covered by a
heavy layer of snow, consequently I wore snowshoes, and before starting
to cross, cut a long, stout pole. Taking this firmly in my hands, I made
my way out onto the ice. All went well until I was near the opposite
shore, when suddenly the bottom went out from under me and I fell into
the water, through an unseen air hole which the snow covered. The pole I
carried was sufficient in length to reach the firm ice on either side,
which alone enabled me, after much labor, impeded as I was by the
cumbersome snowshoes, to gain the surface. The next absolutely necessary
thing to do, was to make a fire as quickly as possible, before I should
become benumbed by my wet garments.
The survey went steadily on, the snow and cold increased, and rarely was
it possible to make an advance of more than four miles in a day. Frank
Hoyt remained at the warehouse and watched the supplies which were
steadily diminishing. One day, Philip B. Winston, two men of the crew,
and I, set out to the supply camp to bring some provisions to the cook's
camp. The first day at nightfall, we reached an Indian wigwam that we
knew of, situated in a grove of hardwood timber, near the shore of a
lake, directly on our route to the supply camp. Our little party stayed
with the Indians and shared their hospitality. It was a large wigwam,
covered principally with cedar bark, and there was an additional smaller
wigwam so close to it, that a passage way was made from one wigwam to
the other.
In the smaller wigwam lived a young Indian, his squaw, and the squaw's
mother; in the larger wigwam lived the chief, his wife, his daughter,
son-in-law, and the hunter, his wife, and two daughters, all of whom
were present except the hunter. There was an air of expectancy
noticeable as we sat on the mats around the fire in the wigwam, after
having made some coffee and eaten our supper outside. Presently the
chief informed us that an heir was looked for that evening in the
adjoining tent. Before nine o'clock it was announced that a young
warrior had made his appearance, and all were happy over his arrival.
The large pipe was brought forth, filled with tobacco, and, after the
chief had taken the first smoke, it was passed around to their guests,
and all the men smoked, as well as the married women.
The next morning, we continued our journey across the lake and on to
Hoyt's camp, where, it is needless to say, he was glad to see some white
men. Their visits were rare at his camp. Filling our packs with things
the cook had ordered, we started on our return journey, arriving at the
Indian camp at nightfall. As we left the ice to go up to the wigwams, we
met the mother of the young warrior who had made his first appearance
the preceding night, going down to the lake with a pail in each hand to
bring some water to her wigwam. The healthy young child was brought into
the wigwam and shown to the members of our party, who complimented the
young mother and wished that he might grow to be a brave, worthy to be
chieftain of their tribe.
That evening a feast had been prepared at the chief's wigwam, in honor
of the birth of the child, to which our party was invited. The menu
consisted principally of boiled rice, boiled muskrat, and boiled rabbit.
The three principal foods having been cooked in one kettle and at the
same time, it was served as one course, but the guests were invited to
repeat the course as often as they desired. This invitation was accepted
by some, while others seemed satisfied to take the course but once. I
have always found the hospitality of the Chippewa Indian unsurpassed,
and more than once, in my frontier experiences, I have found that
hospitality a godsend to me and to my party.
CHAPTER XVI.
The Entire Party Moves to Swan River.
It Was in the month of February, 1875, when the surveying party
completed its work east of Bow String Lake, and finished, one afternoon,
closing its last lines on the Third Guide Meridian. At the camp, that
afternoon, preparations were being made for a general move of
considerable distance. It is not always possible for the frontiersman to
reach his goal on the day that he has planned to do so. An instance in
point occurred next day, when our surveying party was moving out to
Grand Rapids. The snow was deep and the weather intensely cold when we
broke camp that morning, hoping before nightfall to reach one of Hill
Lawrence's logging camps. Some Indians had been hired to help pack out
our belongings. Our course lay directly through the unbroken forest,
without trail or blazed line, and the right direction was kept only by
the constant use of the compass. All were on snowshoes, and those of the
party who could be depended upon to correctly use the compass, took
turns in breaking road. Each compassman would break the way through the
snow for half an hour, then another would step in and break the way for
another half hour, and he in turn would be succeeded by a third
compassman. This change of leadership was continued all the way during
that day.
About the middle of the afternoon, the Indians threw down their packs
and left our party altogether, having become tired of their jobs. This
necessitated dividing up the Indians' packs and each man sufficiently
able-bodied taking a part of these abandoned loads in addition to his
own pack; and thus we continued the journey.
Night was fast approaching, and the distance was too great to reach the
Lawrence camp that night. Fortunately, there were some Indian wigwams
not far in advance. These we reached after nightfall, and, as our party
was very tired and carried no prepared food, we asked for shelter during
the night, with the Indians. They soon made places where our men could
spread their blankets around the small fire in the center of the
wigwams. Then we asked if we could be served with something to eat. We
received an affirmative "Ugh," and the squaws commenced preparing food,
which consisted solely of a boiled rabbit stew with a little wild rice.
It was once more demonstrated that hunger is a good cook. After having
partaken of the unselfishly proffered food, and, after most of our party
had smoked their pipes, all lay down about the fire, and fell asleep.
Even the presence of Indian dogs, occasionally walking over us in the
night, interfered but little with our slumbers. The next morning our
party started out without breakfast, and by ten o'clock reached the
Lawrence camp, where the cook set out, in a few minutes' time, a great
variety of food, and an abundance of it, of which each man partook to
his great satisfaction.
[Illustration: "These little animals were numerous". (Page 169.)]
From Lawrence camp we were able to secure the services of the tote team
that was going out for supplies, which took our equipment through to
Grand Rapids. From that point, we were able, also, to hire a team to
take our supplies to the Swan River. Crossing this we went north to
survey two townships, which would complete the winter's contract.
It has been stated that this winter of 1874 and 1875 was the coldest of
which the Weather Bureau for Minnesota furnishes any history. Besides
the intense cold, there were heavy snows. Nevertheless, no serious
injury or physical suffering of long duration befell any member of our
band of hardy woodsmen. Not one of our number was yet thirty years old,
the youngest one being eighteen. Two only of the party were married,
Fendall G. Winston, and myself. On leaving Grand Rapids in August, we
separated ourselves from all other white men. The party was as
completely separated from the outside world as though it had been aboard
a whaling vessel in the Northern Seas. No letters nor communications of
any kind reached us after winter set in, until our arrival in Grand
Rapids in the month of February following. Letters were occasionally
written and kept in readiness to send out by any Indian who might be
going to the nearest logging camp, whence they might by chance be
carried out to some post office. Whether these letters reached their
destinations or not, could not be known by the writers as long as they
remained on their work, hidden in the forest.
I had left my young wife and infant daughter, not yet a year old, in
Minneapolis. Either, or both might have died and been buried before any
word could have reached me. It was not possible at all times to keep
such thoughts out of my mind. Of course every day was a busy one,
completely filled with the duties of the hour, and the greatest solace
was found in believing that all was well even though we could not
communicate with each other. As I recall, no ill befell any one of the
party nor of the party's dear ones, during all these long weeks and
months of separation. Every man of the party seemed to become more
rugged and to possess greater endurance as the cold increased. It became
the common practice to let the camp fire burn down and die, as we rolled
into our blankets to sleep till the morning hour of arising.
Not every night was spent in comfort, however, though ordinarily that
was the average experience. The less robust ones, of whom there were
very few, sometimes received special attention.
It was during the arduous journey, getting away from the scene of our
first survey to that of the upper waters of Swan River, that one of our
men fell behind all of the others, on a hard day's tramp. P. B. Winston,
who had all the time been very considerate of him, observing that he was
not keeping up to the party, but was quite a long way back on the trail
which the men were breaking through the snow, said that he would wait
for him until he should catch up. Concealing himself behind a thicket
close to the trail, he quietly awaited our friend's arrival. He told the
following incident of the poor fellow's condition:
Mr. Winston allowed him to pass him on the trail, unobserved, and heard
him saying, as he rubbed one of his legs, "Oh Lord, my God, what ever
made me leave my comfortable home and friends, and come out into this
wilderness!" At this instant Mr. Winston called out, "What is the matter
----?" "Oh, I'm freezing, and I don't know that I shall ever be of any
use if I ever get out," he replied. He did live to get out and to reach
his friends, none the worse for his doleful experience. He did not
again, however, go north into the forest, but tried another portion of
the western country, where he became very prosperous.
Long living around the open camp fire in the winter months, standing
around in the smoke, and accumulating more or less of the odors from
foods of various kinds being cooked by the open fire, invariably result
in all of one's clothing and all of one's bedding becoming more or less
saturated with the smell of the camp. This condition one does not notice
while living in it from day to day, but he does not need to be out and
away from such environments for more than a few hours, before he becomes
personally conscious, to some degree, that such odors are not of a
quality that would constitute a marketable article for cash. On arriving
in Minneapolis at the close of the winter's campaign, without having
changed our garments--as we had none with us that had not shared with us
one and the same fate--Mr. P. B. Winston and I engaged a hack at the
railroad station, and drove to our respective homes.
[Illustration: "We saw racks in Minnesota made by the Indians". (Page
172.)]
It was Mr. Winston's domicile that was first reached, and it happened,
as the driver stopped in front of his house, that his fiancée, Miss
Kittie Stevens (the first white child born in Minneapolis), chanced to
be passing by. Of course their meeting was unexpected to either, but was
a pleasant and joyous one, though somewhat embarrassing to Mr. Winston.
The wind was blowing, and I noticed that he took the precaution to keep
his own person out of the windward. He had been a soldier in the
Confederate Army, and I smiled with much satisfaction as I observed his
splendid maneuver.
On meeting me next day, Mr. Winston inquired whether his tactics had
been observed, and, being assured that they had, he said that that was
the embarrassing moment for him, for he did not know but that the young
lady might have considered that she had just grounds for breaking the
engagement. Both of us, however, knew better, for she was a young lady
possessed of a large degree of common sense and loveliness. The young
people later were married, Mr. Winston becoming mayor of Minneapolis,
remaining always, one of its best citizens. Often, afterwards, incidents
of that winter's experience, a few of which have been herein recorded,
were gone over together with great pleasure by the parties interested.
CHAPTER XVII.
Methods of Acquiring Government Land--An Abandoned Squaw.
For many years it was the practice of the United States government,
after its lands had been surveyed, to advertise them for sale at public
auction on a date fixed by the government. Time sufficient was always
given to allow parties interested to go themselves, or send men into the
woods, to examine the lands, and thus to be prepared on the day of sale,
to bid as high a price on any description as each was willing to pay.
After the time advertised for the lands to be thus offered, had expired,
and after the land sale had been held, all lands not bought in at that
sale became subject to private entry at the local land office. It was
this class of lands that I bought in Wisconsin.
After the Civil War, by act of Congress, each Union soldier was given
the right to homestead one hundred and sixty acres of land, the
government price of which was one dollar and twenty-five cents per acre.
It sometimes happened that the soldier found only forty acres, or
possibly eighty acres, or one hundred and twenty acres, lying
contiguous, that he cared to take as a homestead. Later, Congress passed
another law enabling the soldier, who had thus previously entered fewer
than one hundred and sixty acres, to take an additional homestead claim
of enough acres, which, when added to his previous homestead, would make
a total of one hundred and sixty acres. The soldier was not obliged to
live on this additional piece of land, but had the right to sell his
certificate or scrip from the government, to anyone who might choose to
buy it, and the purchaser, by power of attorney from the soldier, could
with this scrip, himself enter the land. This became a common practice,
covering a period of several years, and it was with the use of this kind
of scrip that very much of the land that was surveyed about the time I
have been describing, was entered.
In the following winter--that of 1875 and 1876--I was in the woods of
Minnesota west of Cloquet, accompanied by an Indian named Antoine, and,
while breaking trail on snowshoes in the deep snow along an obscure road
that had been cut through to Grand Rapids, on the Mississippi, I came to
a small Indian tepee close by the side of the road. A little smoke was
curling from its peak, and a piece of an old blanket was hanging over
its entrance. Calling aloud, I heard a faint voice of a woman answering
from within. Entering the wigwam, we found there an impoverished,
half-clad, half-frozen, perishing squaw. She told us that her feet had
been frozen so that she could not walk, and that her family had left her
to die. She had food enough, and possibly fuel enough, to last her about
two more days. I was at a loss to know what was the wisest and most
humane thing to do. We were far in the woods, and away from every human
inhabitant. It was as easy to proceed to Grand Rapids as it was to
retrace our steps to Duluth. A decision was soon made, and that was,
that we would cut and split, and bring inside the wigwam a large pile of
good wood, with plenty of kindling, and would leave the poor woman
supplies from our pack sacks, of things most suitable and most
convenient for her to use, as whatever she did, must be done on her
hands and knees.
Having provided her with a liberal supply of rice, pork, crackers, some
flour, sugar, tea, and a package of smoking tobacco--for all squaws
smoke--besides melting snow until we had filled an old pail with water,
we felt that she could keep herself alive and comfortable for several
days, at least. I then took out of my pack, a new pair of North Star
camping blankets, and cutting them in two, left one-half to provide
additional warmth for the unfortunate squaw. As is the custom of her
people when something much appreciated has been done for one of them,
she took my hand and kissed it. Leaving her plenty of matches, we bade
her good-by, and resumed our journey toward Grand Rapids.
Once more on the trail, I asked Antoine how old he believed the squaw to
be. He said maybe forty; I should have judged her to have been seventy,
but no doubt I was mistaken, and the Indian's judgment was far better.
Arriving at Grand Rapids, I wrote the authorities at Duluth, and at Fond
du Lac Indian Reservation, telling them of the poor woman's situation
and where she was located. I afterwards learned that she had been sent
for, and brought out by team, and that she had been subsequently taken
to her band of Indians.
I have been told by different Indians, that the sick and the aged are
sometimes abandoned when the band is very short of provisions, and when
to take the helpless with them, would prove a great burden.
CHAPTER XVIII.
United States Land Sale at Duluth--Joe LaGarde.
During the summer of 1882, the United States government had advertised
that it would offer at public auction, many townships of land lying
along the border between Minnesota and Canada, in Cook, Lake, St. Louis,
and Itasca Counties. This country was difficult to reach. The distance
from Duluth to Lake Vermilion was upwards of ninety miles. There was not
even a road through the woods, over which a loaded team could be driven.
Men were obliged to take their supplies upon their backs and carry them
over a trail, all of this distance. From Lake Vermilion, it was possible
to work both eastward and westward, by using canoes and making numerous
portages from one lake to another, and so on for seventy-five miles in
either direction along the boundary. Supplies were soon exhausted, so
that it was necessary to keep packers on the trail, bringing in on their
backs, fresh supplies from Duluth to Vermilion, where now is located the
city of Tower. In the Vermilion country, dog trains could sometimes be
advantageously used.
Estimators of timber were employed either for themselves or for others,
in surveying the lands, and in estimating the pine timber in these
various townships that were to be offered at public sale in the month of
December. This work continued almost to the day when the sale was to
begin. That sale was held at the local land office at Duluth, and there
were present men interested in the purchase of pine timber, from Maine,
Pennsylvania, New York, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and some men
representing Canadian capital. The competition was vigorous, and Uncle
Sam's lands were bid in at a round price.
During the fall of 1882, while preparing for the approaching land sale
at Duluth, the only son of William S. Patrick, Simeon D. Patrick, a
veteran land examiner in my employ, and I, made a short trip west of
Duluth, exploring a section of country south of where now is the station
of Cornwall, on the Northern Pacific Railroad. Our packer and handy man
who carried part of our supplies, was an Indian of considerable note, by
the name of John LaGarde, familiarly known as Joe LaGarde. He was a fine
specimen of Chippewa Indian trapper, tall, straight, muscular, and a
good burden bearer, but rather averse to long days' work. He was handy
about camp, but, being an Indian, and accustomed to lying down at night
with his feet close to a few live embers, he did not share with the
white man the wish for large piles of wood to last through the cold
nights that prevailed during this trip.
[Illustration: "The roots of the lilies are much relished as a food by
the moose." (Page 172.)]
It happened that one evening we pitched our tent near a small stream, in
a grove composed principally of young birch, but interspersed with large
and shaggy ones. Everyone at all familiar with the birch knows there is
much of it, on which the outer bark peels naturally, and it is no
uncommon thing to be able to peel, with the use of the hands only, large
quantities of the bark. There was almost an inexhaustible supply of just
such bark near this camping ground. Joe was either tired or indisposed
to work that evening, and when bedtime arrived, the pile of wood looked
very scant for the long hours of the night. No one likes a little
innocent fun better than my friend Patrick. Looking at the small
woodpile, then at Joe, Patrick gave me a twinkle of his eye, started out
into the semidarkness, and commenced peeling bark off the birch trees.
He busied himself thus, until he had peeled off and brought in near our
tent, a huge pile of this beautiful birch bark.
No matter how rainy the weather may be, or how deep the snow in winter,
if the frontiersman is fortunate enough to be camped in a grove of live
birch, he knows that this ever friendly and useful birch bark will
afford him a sure means of kindling a fire. It carries much oil and
burns readily when a match is applied to it. The fire was fixed for the
night, and Patrick and I lay down in our tent under our blankets to
sleep. Joe, as was his custom, curled up at the foot of the tent and
left his bare feet sticking out toward the fire. His requirement of
blanket was less than half of what would satisfy a white man. As long as
his feet were warm, the Indian did not suffer from cold. About midnight
the fire had burned very low, when Patrick emerged from the tent and
commenced dropping pieces of birch bark on the fast consuming fire logs.
I was well back in the tent, propped up a little on my elbows, enjoying
the glow of the fire, and watching it, as well as watching the Indian.
As the fire increased and the flames rose higher, the Indian's feet
began to twitch, and to draw up closer to his body. Soon the heat was so
tremendous that the tent was in danger, when, like a missile, thrown by
a strong spring, the Indian shot out of his blanket and into the woods,
muttering his imprecations in Chippewa. He did not swear, for praise be
to the Chippewa language, it contains no such words; but a madder Indian
and a happier white man are seldom seen. The sequel to this episode was
plenty of good fuel to burn during all of the following nights of this
cruise in the forest.
We employed LaGarde on other and later trips, and his services were
always satisfactory. He has since gone to the happy hunting ground, and,
with his passing, a tinge of sadness steals over us, for his memory is
dear, and we have no right or wish to count him as other than our
brother. He was always true to the white man, and deserves his meed of
praise.
An account of his death appeared in the Duluth Herald, February 28th,
1911, from which the following summary is gathered:
His age is given in the death certificate, as one hundred years. He was
born on the Red Lake Indian Reservation, near Thief River Falls. His
mother was a full-blooded Chippewa, and his father a half-breed with a
French-Canadian name. In 1834, when about twenty-four years old, he came
with his mother, to the Head of the Lakes, and settled at the historic
John Jacob Astor Trading Post, at Fond du Lac. Three years later, while
trading at Madeleine Island, near Bayfield, he met Liola Chievier, a
half-breed, whom he afterwards married and brought to Fond du Lac. There
were seven children to this union, but only three are now living. The
youngest, aged fifty-five, lived at Fond du Lac with his father. The
other two were located on the White Earth Reservation. They were Moses
and Simon. The old man's wife died about thirty-eight years ago. LaGarde
lived in Fond du Lac about seventy-seven years. He possessed a
remarkable physique. His chest was well developed, his body straight as
an arrow, and he stood six feet two inches in height. Being a Chippewa,
LaGarde loved peace more than war, and he never took part in any Indian
outbreak. As far back as the memory of any white man of the suburb goes,
he had a reputation of being honest in all his transactions with the
white traders. His body was buried in the Indian burying grounds, at the
Fond du Lac Indian Reservation near Cloquet.
CHAPTER XIX.
Six Hundred Miles in a Birch Canoe.
The following summer, I hired a number of men to pack some supplies from
Duluth to the shores of Lake Vermilion. I had with me one white man to
assist me in a reestimate of the pine timber that I had bought at the
land sale in December. Canoes were purchased of the Indians, and I
employed some of them to go as packers and canoemen.
The work first took the party eastward a distance of fifty miles. Not
only was the timber reexamined, but the character of the streams was
carefully noted, with reference to their feasibility for floating out
the timber, whenever the time should come for it to be cut and brought
to market. All of that country is very rugged and much broken. The
shores of the lakes are bold and rock-bound. Islands exist in nearly all
of the lakes, and at that time they were thoroughly wooded, many of them
containing fine bunches of pine timber. The country was picturesque and
the scenery most enchanting. Aquatic birds of various species were
frequently startled from the water as our canoes came in sight of them.
Fish were abundant and could be taken in almost any one of the lakes, by
throwing out a line. There were caribou and moose in the country, but no
deer at that time.
Bands of Indians were living along these waters, most of them belonging
to the United States, but, as we turned and went westward, on the waters
of Lake La Croix we met many Canadian Indians. They all spoke the same
language, though sometimes with great difference in accent. There were
many waterfalls, and around these, in every instance, a portage had to
be made of all our supplies and of our canoes. One day's experience was
much like that of its predecessor or like that of the one to follow. On
the whole, the work was less arduous than that in a country which is
mostly land and not cut up by numerous lakes, as is the condition in all
of the northern woods in Minnesota. A camping ground would be selected
on a shore of a lake, and, from this one camp, it was often our
experience that several days' work could be economically accomplished
before it was necessary to again move. The timber that we wished to
examine often lay on either side of the lake on the shore of which the
camping ground had been selected. Thus the work continued until the
party reached Rainy Lake. This lake is fifty-five miles long, and at its
foot, at that time, on the Canadian side, was Fort Francis. Much of this
water route was then known as the Dawson Route. It had been used by the
Canadian government to reach the Canadian Northwest with its soldiers,
at the time of the Riel Rebellion. The shattered remains of a number of
French batteaus were seen on the rapids between different lakes, where
an attempt had been made to navigate the waters, which had disastrously
failed.
[Illustration: "We have seen the moose standing out in the bays of the
lakes". (Page 172.)]
Just below Fort Francis, which is at the beginning of the Rainy River
which flows into Lake of the Woods, we found a Canadian farmer. He had
been an engineer on board a Canadian steamer that plied from Rat Portage
to Fort Francis. When the rebellion was over, and there was no longer
use for steamboating, this man determined to take a homestead under the
Canadian land laws. This was at the latter end of July. While our party
was preparing dinner on the bank of the river at the edge of the
settler's meadow, he came down to see us. It was seldom that he saw any
of the white race, and, when one chanced to pass by, he was always glad,
he said, to see him and learn something of the outside world. He
invited us to go back into his meadow where, he assured us, we should
find an abundance of ripe, wild strawberries. This we found to be true,
and the berries were indeed a luxury to a lot of men who had been living
on nothing better than dried peaches or dried apples, stewed and made
into sauce.
The work of examining lands was now completed for this trip, but the
easiest way out was to continue down Rainy River into Lake of the Woods,
and across Lake of the Woods to Rat Portage, where a train on the
Canadian Pacific could be boarded and the journey continued to Winnipeg,
and from thence by rail back to Minneapolis. At that time no logs had
been driven down the Rainy River to mar the beauty of its shore lines
which were the most beautiful of any river I have ever seen in Minnesota
or in Canada. In some places for half a mile at a stretch there would be
a continuous gravel shore. Its waters were deep and clear.
Near the mouth of Rainy River, our party overtook Colonel Eaton and his
helper, a man from Wisconsin, whose name, I believe, was Davis. Colonel
Eaton was United States government inspector of lands, and was on a
tour of inspection to ascertain to what extent the land laws relating
to homestead entries were being complied with. Each was glad to meet the
other, and in company, we traveled from that time until we finally
arrived at Rat Portage.
Lake of the Woods is a very large body of water, and not everywhere is
it safe to venture out upon it in small boats or canoes. Colonel Eaton
had a staunch rowboat. At Rainy Lake I had paid off and dismissed most
of my helpers, so that I had but one canoe remaining. This was occupied
by myself and the white man, my assistant, whom I had taken at the
beginning of the journey. For a considerable distance, the party was
able to keep behind the islands and away from the open lake, until it
arrived at a point that is known as a traverse, a wide opening between
islands, where the westerly winds, if blowing heavily, have a tremendous
sweep. Our party found the whitecaps rolling in across this traverse, on
the top of waves so high that neither of our crafts could possibly live,
if out in them. Here, on this island, we went ashore and made our camp
as comfortable as possible while waiting for the wind and waves to
subside.
Both parties had been long from home, and were practically without food
to eat. We were obliged to stay on that island three nights and two days
before the water had calmed sufficiently for us to cross the traverse.
In the meantime, we had eaten the last of our supplies, and were
subsisting wholly upon what blueberries we were able to find growing on
the island. Some public work was about to begin up the Rainy River, and
we had been informed that a steamer from Rat Portage, loaded with
various articles of merchandise, was liable to come up the lake to enter
the river at almost any time; consequently we were continually on the
lookout for the steamer, it being the only source from which we could
hope to get anything to eat, before we should arrive at Rat Portage.
Finally the steamer was spied on the afternoon of the second day of our
unforeseen residence on the island. With towels tied to poles, our
party, hoping to be able to signal the passing steamer, went to the
shore of the island. It was well out on the lake from our shore, and our
hopes began to wane as we saw it steam by us, not having given us any
indication that it had seen our signal. Suddenly, however, our fears
were turned to hope and joy as we saw its bow turning in our direction.
It made a long sweep on account of the high sea, and came in behind our
island where the water was deep, and the nose of the steamer was brought
almost to our shore. We quickly told the captain our plight, and asked
only that we might purchase of him a little flour and a little meat, a
little tea and a little coffee, sufficient to take us to Rat Portage,
including a possible longer delay on the island because of the wind that
was yet blowing. This he gladly gave us, refusing to accept any
compensation; and with grateful hearts, we waved him adieu as the boat
resumed its course. The following morning, early, the lake was quite
calm; and, after a hasty breakfast, we pulled out from shore, crossed
the traverse, and once more got behind the friendly islands. From this
time on to Rat Portage, our journey was without special interest, the
party returning together by rail to Minneapolis.
CHAPTER XX.
Effect of Discovery of Iron Ore on Timber Industry.
During the same year that the United States government offered its lands
in the northern counties of Minnesota at public auction, new interests
effecting the market for pine timber were created by the discovery of
iron ore of a marketable quality, near the south shore of Lake
Vermilion, where now is the city of Tower, Minnesota.
Historically, the first mention of iron ore in northern Minnesota dates
back to the report of J. G. Norwood, made in 1850, in which he mentioned
the occurrence of iron ore at Gunflint Lake, but claimed no commercial
importance in his discovery. The Geological and Natural History Survey
of Minnesota, Volume 4, page 583, records the following: "H. H. Eames,
state geologist of Minnesota in 1865 and 1866, was the first to observe
and report iron ore on both the Vermilion and Mesabi ranges, and to
consider it of any value. In his report for 1866, he describes the ore
outcroppings near the southern shore of Lake Vermilion, and in his
report, published the following year, is an account of the ore at
Prairie River Falls, on the western end of the Mesabi, and several
analyses showing it to be of good quality."
[Illustration: "White Pine--What of Our Future Supply?" (Page 174.)]
As early as 1880, Professor A. H. Chester, in the interest of private
parties, made a personal examination of the Vermilion Iron Range, and
predicted that an iron ore district of immense value and importance
would be found to exist on that range. George C. Stone of Duluth, one of
the parties who had employed Chester to make the examination for iron
ore, was elected a member of the Minnesota legislature, and, through his
instrumentality, in 1881, a law was passed, "to encourage mining in this
state, by providing a uniform rate for the taxing of mining properties
and products." This law provided for a payment of a tax of fifty cents
for each ton of copper, and one cent for each ton of iron ore, mined and
shipped or disposed of; each ton to be estimated as containing two
thousand two hundred and forty pounds. The Duluth and Iron Range
Railroad was constructed from Two Harbors, on Lake Superior, to Tower,
Minnesota; and in August, 1884, the first shipment of iron ore was made
from the Minnesota Mine at Tower.
Promising outcrops of iron ore bearing rocks were found east of Tower,
where now is the flourishing town of Ely. Work was begun on these
outcrops, resulting in the finding of the Chandler Mine, by Captain John
Pengilly, from which, in 1888, the first shipment of iron ore was made,
the railroad having been extended from Tower to Ely, for the purpose,
primarily, of shipping the iron ore to Two Harbors, and thence to the
eastern markets. Other mines were later found in this vicinity. The
building and equipping of this railroad created a demand for
manufactured lumber, for railroad ties, and for telegraph poles.
Sawmills were built at different points along the line of the railroad
and at its terminals, so that the years immediately following were busy
ones for those dealing in standing timber and its manufactured products.
My associates and I had acquired interests in these localities, so that
much of my time for nearly a decade, was actively employed along the
line of the Vermilion Range. During these years from 1882 to 1888, the
most practical modes of travel, and almost the only ones, were either by
birch canoe and portaging from lake to lake in summer, or by dog train
during the winter. Sometimes these trips were pleasant ones, but quite
as often they were attended by incidents not always agreeable.
On one of these occasions late in October, accompanied by one white man
known only as "Buffalo," I started to travel east from Tower, on Lake
Vermilion, along the route followed by the Indians, to the foot of Fall
Lake, a distance of forty-five miles. It was some time after noon when
we pulled out from shore in our two-man canoe, a small craft, affording
just room for two men to sit, and to carry their pack sacks and scant
supplies. Soon it began to rain, and the wind commenced blowing. We were
approaching an island, when Buffalo, who had had much experience on the
Great Lakes as a sailor, insisted that we could not reach our landing at
the easterly end of the lake, before dark, without the use of a sail.
Arriving at an island, we pulled our canoe ashore, and Buffalo quickly
improvised a sail, which was hoisted in the bow of the canoe and the
boat was again launched. In this manner we sailed and paddled at a much
accelerated speed, but all of the time we were in imminent danger of
being capsized, it being my first experience of riding in a birch canoe
carrying a sail. Fortune favored the undertaking, however, and we made a
safe landing in time to pitch our tent and make our camp for the night.
During the night the cold increased, and when we arose in the morning,
we found that ice had formed on the water in the little bay of the lake.
We made a number of portages that day, the cold increasing so that in
all of the little bays, ice was forming. We succeeded in crossing Burnt
Side Lake and entering the river leading to Long Lake as it was getting
dark. We were then six miles from what we knew to be a comfortable ranch
near the lower end of Long Lake, which Buffalo strongly urged we should
try to reach that night, although to do so meant that we must pass
between some islands where, in places, we knew the rocks projected out
of the water, and therefore were perilous to our birch canoe. We decided
to make the effort, and soon after pushing out from shore, we were only
able to faintly discern the outlines of the islands that we must pass.
Fortunately, these were soon alongside of us, and we had passed the last
dangerous reef of rocks. Then, to our great satisfaction, we saw the
light from the lantern which had been hung out on a pile driven close by
the outer end of the dock at the foot of the lake, about four miles
distant, where the ranch, that we hoped to reach that night, was
located. The wind had died down so that the surface of the lake was
comparatively smooth, but we noticed that our mittens, which had become
thoroughly wet, were freezing on our hands. For one hour we paddled in
silence, when the light toward which we had been steering, became much
more visible, and soon we landed at the little dock, thankful that we
had made our journey safely. Our appetites were keen for the good,
broiled steak and hot potatoes that previous experience had taught us we
were pretty sure to receive, and in this we were not disappointed.
The following summer, I passed over this same canoe route under quite
different circumstances. My work of examining lands and timber all lay
near to the shores of several lakes. My wife's father, J. H. Conkey, and
her brother, Frank L. Conkey, had often expressed a wish to see that
northern country. Accompanied by them and also by my son, Frank Merton,
who was then a boy in short pants, we journeyed by rail to Tower. Before
leaving Duluth for Tower, Mose Perrault was added to our number.
Perrault was a fine specimen of man, six feet in height,
well-proportioned, of middle age, and thoroughly familiar with frontier
life. At Tower, we started out with two birch canoes, and after dinner,
on a pleasant afternoon in August, we pushed our canoes out into the
waters of Lake Vermilion, from the same point from which we had left in
the rain, the previous October. We reached the east end of Vermilion
early, portaged into Mud Lake, went up the river, and camped on the high
ground west of Burnt Side Lake, in a pine grove where we were surrounded
by blueberry bushes laden with their large, ripe fruit.
[Illustration: "He motors over the fairly good roads of the northern
frontier." (Page 180.)]
Our party was made up of two classes of people; one out to examine
timber, the other, to fish and have a good time. While crossing one of
the portages, my brother-in-law, Frank L. Conkey, who knew almost
nothing about canoeing or portaging, but was willing, and full of hard
days' work, picked up two pack sacks, one of which was strapped to his
shoulders, and the other was placed on top of his shoulders and the back
of his head. Thus burdened, he started across Mud Portage, the footing
of which, in places, was very insecure. At an unfortunate moment, he
caught his foot in a root and tumbled, the top pack sack shooting over
his head and breaking open at its fastenings, thus spilling its contents
on the ground. All that could be found of these, were gathered together
and replaced in the pack sack, and the journey was resumed. Mose
Perrault was the cook, and on arriving at the camping ground at night,
he began preparations for making bread and getting the evening meal. The
pack sack that had broken open, originally contained two tin cans, one
filled with baking powder, and the other, with fresh live worms buried
in earth, that had been gathered for bait for the fishing party.
Perrault wanted the baking powder with which to leaven the dough. The
fishermen wanted their worms with which to bait their hooks. The latter
were gratified, but nowhere could the baking powder be found, and we
were forced to the conclusion that it was one of the lost articles on
the portage. That night and the next day, we lived on bread made without
any leaven, which from a number of experiences, I feel competent to
state, is never a great success. The fishing, however, was good, and on
the portages enough partridges were shot within revolver range to afford
plenty of good meat for the party. These we cooked with bacon and
dressed with butter, of which we had a goodly supply. There were plenty
of crackers and Carolina rice, with blueberries close at hand for the
picking, so that the party subsisted well, until it arrived at Ely,
where the three fishermen bade Perrault and me farewell, returning to
their homes by railroad train, after a pleasant outing.
In February, 1891, my three companions and I had a very different
experience, away east of Ely, where we had gone to survey and estimate a
tract of pine timber. The snow was deep, and the journey, which had to
be made with the use of toboggans, was a hard one. I had, as my
associate and chief timber estimator, S. D. Patrick. In addition were
the cook, and Buffalo, a man whose name has appeared on a previous page.
This man is worthy of more than passing notice. His true name I never
knew. He always said, "Call me 'Buffalo'." He claimed to have been born
at Buffalo, New York, and to have spent his childhood and early youth in
that city. He was an Irish-American and was possessed of the typical
Irish wit on all occasions. He was never angry to the extent of being
disagreeable, but he had no patience for any man in the party who
refused or neglected to do his full share of the work. He claimed that
when a boy, he had earned money at the steamboat landings at Buffalo, by
diving under the water for coins thrown to him by passengers on board
the ships at anchor in the harbor, as did also the late Daniel O'Day of
the Standard Oil Company. He too, was an Irish-American, born and raised
near Buffalo, and at his death left millions of dollars. He once told me
that when a youth he had earned many dimes and quarters by diving for
them alongside the passenger ships in Buffalo Harbor.
Buffalo was always ready to act promptly and to do, or to undertake to
do, anything that was requested of him. On this occasion he had an
opportunity to demonstrate these good qualities. The trip was attended
with the greatest of hardships, of heavy work, and of exposure to
intense cold. Buffalo was a good axman, and not one night did he fail to
cut and pile near to the camp, enough wood to last until after breakfast
the next morning.
Our camp was established on the shores of Kekekabic Lake, in Township 64
N., Range 7 W., for several days and nights. There were many partridges
in this section of the forest. They would come out on the borders of the
woods next to the lake. It was possible to shoot one or more nearly
every day, so that the camp was supplied with fresh game. The cook and
Buffalo remained at the camp, while Mr. Patrick and I went out each day
to examine timber, returning at night. The daylight covered none too
many hours, so that we arose early and started on our journey after
breakfast, as soon as we could see to travel, in order that the day's
work might be accomplished, and the return to camp made before dark. It
was not possible to calculate the day's work so as to be sure that we
could reach camp before nightfall, but, owing to the intense cold that
prevailed at this time, it was only the part of wisdom to plan so as to
return to camp while we could yet see where to travel. Nearly every
day's work was, in part at least, over a new tract of land, to which a
new trail must be broken in the morning as we went out to the work.
One day our work lay directly north of our camp, through the woods, out
onto a small lake, and again into the woods. We knew, before leaving
camp in the morning, that it would require our best efforts to
accomplish the work and to return before nightfall. For this reason, we
started at daybreak, and, after having done our best, it was night
before we commenced to retrace our steps. The cold had increased all
day, so that we were obliged to summon our courage at times, to keep our
feet and hands from freezing. We were only two miles from camp when our
return journey began; but two miles in an unbroken wilderness, in deep
snow, with the only path to follow being the tracks made by two men
passing once over it, is a long distance to travel when daylight has
disappeared, and when to leave those tracks at such a temperature, would
probably prove fatal.
Within a few minutes from the time of our beginning to retrace our
steps, each step was taken by the sense of feeling. We were both clad in
moccasins, which made it possible, through the sense of feeling, to
distinguish between the unbroken snow and that which had been stepped
upon during the morning hours of that day. Being in darkness, we dared
not proceed whenever we were not certain that our feet were in the path
that we had made on going out to our work. A few times we lost the path.
Immediately we stopped, one man standing still, in order that we might
not lose our location, while the other felt around until the path was
regained. We knew that if we should lose it, the one thing remaining for
us would be to walk around a tree, if it were possible to do so, until
morning light should appear. We went slowly on, never giving up hope.
It was getting late in the evening, so that Buffalo, at camp, became
alarmed for our safety. His wits were at work, and he commenced to build
a large fire. Then he found, near by, a dead pine stub. About this he
piled kindling until he got it on fire. It is not possible to write
words describing the satisfaction and joy with which we two lonely
travelers finally spied the illumination, penetrating the dark forest
for a short distance only, it is true, yet far enough. Soon we walked
into camp, to the joy of all of the party, and there we found an
excellent supper awaiting us. Buffalo's big wood pile was in waiting at
all the hours of that night, and some one was astir to keep the fire
going. It was the only night of my long experience of living in the
woods, when it was impossible, for more than a short period, to be
comfortable away from the fire, and even then, we each in turn revolved
our bodies about the open fire, first warming one side, and then the
other, and slept but little.
After our work was completed, and we had gotten back in touch with the
civilized world, we were told by residents at Tower, that the
thermometer on that night, had indicated from 48° to 52° below zero.
[Illustration: "Friends whom he had known in the city who are ready to
welcome him." (Page 180.)]
The following summer, on one of my trips to this then picturesque
country in northeastern Minnesota, I tried the experiment of taking my
wife, who had long been an invalid, and my son, Frank Merton, then a boy
in his early teens, with me, in the hope that the trip would prove
beneficial to the wife and mother. The experiment was in no way
disappointing, although on one occasion when the rain had poured
incessantly, leaving the woods drenched, in crossing a rather blind and
unavoidable portage, Mrs. Warren's clothing became thoroughly wet. In
the absence of a wardrobe from which to choose a change of garments, the
expedient was resorted to of requesting her to remove one garment at a
time, which Vincent De Foe, a half-breed, and James O'Neill, an old and
trusty friend, held to the open fire, until it was dry. This she
replaced, when another wet garment went through the same process, until
all had been dried. No ill effects followed; on the contrary, Mrs.
Warren's health continued to improve.
At the end of the trip I was so happy over the results that I sent the
following account of some of its incidents to Dr. Albert Shaw, then of
the Minneapolis Tribune, and at present, editor of the Review of
Reviews. This little account appeared in the Tribune of Saturday,
September 6, 1890:
"IN THE WILDS OF MINNESOTA.
Mrs. G. H. Warren's Travels in the Northeastern Part of the State.
Mrs. G. H. Warren and her son Frank returned to the city Monday from a
two weeks' tour of the Vermilion Iron Range, north of Lake Superior.
Their trip was both interesting and novel. From Ely, the eastern
terminus of the Duluth & Iron Range Railroad, they embarked in birch
canoes, traversing ten lakes, thirteen portages and three small rivers
as far as they were navigable for birch canoes. The whole distance thus
traveled included over one hundred miles. Pike, pickerel, bass, white
fish, or landlocked salmon abound in all these lakes of rugged shores.
Master Frank reports the capture of a twenty-seven inch pike and a
thirty-seven inch pickerel. In one of the bays of Basswood Lake--a
beautiful body of clear water thirty miles in length and extending
several miles into Canada--the Indians were seen gathering wild rice.
This is accomplished by the male Indian standing upright in the bow of
his canoe, and paddling it forward through the field of rice, the stalks
of which grow from three to four feet above the water; while his squaw
sits in the stern of the canoe, and with two round sticks about the
size, and half the length of a broom handle, dexterously bends the long
heads of the rice over the gunwale of the canoe with one stick, while at
the same instant, she strikes the well filled heads a sharp, quick blow
with the other, threshing out the kernels of rice, which fall into the
middle portion of the canoe. This middle portion is provided, for the
occasion, with a cloth apron, into which the rice kernels fall. The
apron will hold about two bushels, and is filled in the manner above
described in less than three hours' time. The rice is next picked over
to free it from chaff and straw, after which it is placed in brass
kettles and parched over a slow fire; then it is winnowed, and is ready
for future use.
Mrs. Warren is the first white woman to penetrate so far on the frontier
of wild Northeastern Minnesota, and though never before subjected to
uncivilized life, or the primitive mode of travel, she endured the walks
over the portages, slept soundly on beds of balsam fir boughs, ate with
a relish the excellent fish and wild game cooked at the camp fire, and
returns to her home in the city with health much improved, and
enthusiastic over the many beauties of nature in this yet wild, but
attractive portion of Minnesota."
CHAPTER XXI.
Forest Fires.
The terrible forest fires that swept over much of Wisconsin and
Minnesota during the summer of 1894, resulting in such an appalling loss
of life at Hinckley and vicinity, will always be remembered by the
people living in the northern half of Minnesota.
One who has never been in the forest at a time when the fires within it
extended over many miles of area, cannot appreciate the danger and the
anxiety of those who are thus placed. I vividly recall two days during
the summer of the Peshtigo fire, when I was in the burning woods of
Wisconsin. The sun was either entirely obscured, or it hung like a red
ball above the earth, now penetrating the clouds of smoke, now again
being hidden by them. The smoke came at times in great rolls at the
surface of the earth, then was caught up by the breeze and lifted to
higher altitudes, and at all times was bewildering to those whom it
surrounded.
No one could tell from what point of the compass the distant fire was
most dangerous, nor in what direction it was making most rapid progress
toward the point where he was located. At times one became choked by the
thick smoke. For many hours, during one of these days, I moved with my
face close to the ground, that I might get air sufficient to breathe.
When finally I came to an open country where the currents of wind could
lift the smoke, I experienced a feeling of the greatest thankfulness
that I was delivered from the condition of the two last days, surrounded
with so much uncertainty as to my safety.
The memorable fire of September 1st, 1894, which swept Hinckley and all
its surrounding country, resulted in the death of four hundred and
seventeen human beings, left destitute two thousand two hundred, and
extended over an area of four hundred square miles. The financial loss
was upwards of one million dollars.
That loss does not include the great losses of timber situated in the
northeastern part of Minnesota, extending all along its boundary and
reaching into Canada. The fire in northeastern Minnesota destroyed
millions of dollars worth of standing pine timber, much of which was
entirely consumed, while portions of it were killed at the root. Such
timber as was thus killed, but not destroyed, had most of its value yet
remaining, provided that it were cut and put in the water, during the
first one or two seasons following. Later than that, most of its value
would have been destroyed by worms boring into the dead timber. On
account of these fires, it was necessary for all timber owners to make a
careful examination of all timber lands within the burnt district. For
this purpose, accompanied by S. D. Patrick, and E. A. White, timber
examiners to assist in the work, and my son, Frank Merton, then a senior
in the University of Minnesota, besides packers, I went, in 1897, into
the burnt districts in northeastern Minnesota.
[Illustration: "He camps by the roadside on the shore of a lake." (Page
180.)]
As a result of these forest fires, one of the worst pests that the
frontiersman meets is the black fly, which flourishes in a burnt
country. This little insect is apparently always hungry, is never tired,
and wages a relentless fight upon every inch of the white man's
epidermis that is exposed to its reach, even penetrating the hair and
beard of a man, and leaving the effects of its poisonous bite. So
terrible were these little pests, and so numerous were they on two days
of the excursion, that one eye of each of three of the white men in the
party was so badly swollen by the bites of the insects, that it was
closed. No remedy has ever been offered that effectually protects the
woodsman from injuries inflicted by this insect.
While our party was on that expedition that summer, reestimating the
timber in the burnt district, Mr. Patrick came close to a large bull
moose standing in some thick woods. The animal had not yet discovered
Mr. Patrick's presence, consequently he was able to carefully examine
and study this great beast of our northern woods. Below the animal's
hips, on either side, at a point where he could in no wise protect
himself from the ravages of this insect pest, the poor beast's flesh was
raw and was bleeding. The Indians claim that their dogs frequently go
mad and have to be killed as a result of the bites inflicted by these
insects.
In proof of the wide range of their activities I will briefly relate one
experience with them in Wisconsin. Joseph McEwen and I left Wausau one
morning, riding out behind a livery team twenty miles to the Big Eau
Plaine River, in search of desirable cranberry marsh lands. The country
we traveled over was flat. Fires had recently killed the timber, and
black flies formed one vast colony over this territory.
Our driver had trouble controlling the horses, so fierce was the attack
of the black flies upon them. We arrived at the nearest point of our
work that could be reached by team about ten o'clock in the forenoon,
and dismissed our driver. We then proceeded on foot into this burnt,
marshy country, attacked continuously by swarms of flies. They
penetrated our ears, our noses, and our mouths if we opened them. They
worked themselves into our hair, up our sleeves, under our collar bands,
over the tops of our socks and down into them until they found the end
of our drawers where, next, was our naked skin.
We camped at night in the marsh. The next morning the attack was renewed
as vigorously as it had been waged on the previous day. At eleven
o'clock we stopped for our dinner. McEwen wore a heavy beard all over
his face; my face was bare. He looked at me as we were eating our
dinner, then dryly remarked, "I don't know how I look, but you look like
the devil; the black flies have bitten you everywhere; your face is a
fright." We went out to the main road, and secured a conveyance by which
we reached Wausau about five o'clock that afternoon.
I went immediately to my accustomed hotel, owned and managed by Charles
Winkley. He had known me well for years, and I had left him less than
forty-eight hours previous to my entering on that afternoon. Mr.
Winkley was behind his desk. I greeted him and asked him how business
was. He answered me quite independently that his house was full, and
that he had not a vacant room. I then asked him if there was any mail
for me, giving him my full name. He looked at me in astonishment, then
exclaimed, "My God! What is the matter of you?" I said, "Black flies."
Then he continued, "I mistook you for some man with the small-pox and
was planning to notify the authorities and have you cared for. Go right
to your room and stay there. Mrs. Winkley will care for you and have
your meals brought to you. I will go to the postoffice every day for
your mail." My face was one blotch of raw sores. My eyes were nearly
closed because of the poison from the black flies.
The best remedy or preventive we have ever found against all insect
pests of the northern woods, is smoked bacon rubbed onto the bare skin
in generous quantities. Its presence is not essentially disagreeable.
Objection to its use is prejudice, since it is no less pleasant than is
the oil of cedar or pennyroyal which are often prescribed by druggists
for the same purpose, and which are not half as continuous in their
efficacy, because a little perspiration will neutralize all of the good
effects of the latter named remedies. Soap and water will remove the
bacon grease when protection from flying insects is no longer desired.
There are other and more interesting living things in the northern woods
than black flies, to which statement I am willing to testify. I had been
running some lines one summer, for the purpose of locating a tote road
to some camps where work was to be prosecuted the following fall. It was
known among the homesteaders, as well as trappers, that a large bear
lived in that vicinity. On one occasion he had been caught in a
"dead-fall" that had been set for him, and he had gotten out of it,
leaving only some tufts of his hair.
Alone, and while blazing a line for this proposed road, one sunny
afternoon, I came onto a table-rock, in a little opening in the woods,
where fifty feet in front of me lay a large pine tree that had blown
down. As some small brush crackled under my feet, a bear, which I have
ever since believed from descriptions that had previously been given me,
was the much wanted great bear, stood up in front of me, close by the
fallen tree. Presumably he had been awakened from an afternoon nap. The
only weapon that I possessed was what is known as a boy's ax, the size
and kind usually carried by land examiners. I had not sought this new
acquaintance, nor did I at that moment desire a closer one, but mentally
decided, and that quickly, that the wrong thing to do would be to make
any effort to get to a place of safety. I therefore decided to stand my
ground and to put up the best fight possible with my small ax, in case
the bear insisted on a closer acquaintance. Why I should have laughed on
such an occasion as this, I never have known, but the perfect
helplessness of my situation seemed so ridiculous, that I broke into a
loud laugh. I have often wondered why that bear at that moment seemed to
think that he had seen enough of the man whom he faced. Certain it was,
that he turned on his hind legs, leaped over the log, and disappeared,
leaving only the occasional sound of a twig breaking under his feet. So
well pleased was I with the less distinct notes of the breaking twigs,
that I waited and listened until I could no longer hear any of the
welcome, receding music. The excitement having subsided, an inspection
of the little ax revealed the fact that the head was nearly, but not
quite off its handle. This incident has always been sufficient to
convince me that I have no desire to approach nearer to this animal of
the northern woods.
[Illustration: The midday luncheon is welcomed by the automobile
tourists. (Page 180.)]
In the summer of 1899, some special work was required north of Grand
Rapids, Minnesota. Accompanied by my son, Frank Merton, and a cook named
Fred Easthagen, I left Grand Rapids on a buckboard drawn by two horses
and driven by Dan Gunn, the popular proprietor of the Pokegama Hotel.
Our route was over a new road where stumps and pitch holes were
plentiful. The team of horses was said to have been raised on the
western plains, and objected strenuously to being driven over this stump
road. One of the horses balked frequently, and, when not standing still,
insisted on running. The passengers, except Easthagen, became tired of
this uneven mode of travel, and preferred to walk, being able to cover
the ground equally as fast as the team. Easthagen, however, sat tight
through it all; he having come from the far West, refused to walk when
there was a team to pull him.
Our camp was made in a fine grove of pig-iron Norway, near to which
dwelt Mr. and Mrs. Sandy Owens, settlers upon government land. From this
camp we were able to prosecute our work for a long period of time. The
late summer and autumn were very dry. Both wolves and deer abounded in
this vicinity, and not far away ranged many moose. Large lumbering camps
were about ten miles away. Oxen had been turned loose for the summer, to
pasture in the woods and cut-over lands. Passing, one day, a root house
built into the side of a hill, we pushed open the door, and in there
found the remains of an ox. The animal had probably entered the root
house to get away from the flies, and, the door having closed behind
him, he had no means of escape, so that the poor beast had perished of
hunger and thirst. The ground was dry, and all the brush, and twigs, and
leaves lying thereon, had become brittle and crackled under the feet of
every walking creature. This interfered much with the ability of the
wolves to surprise the deer, rabbits, or other animals on which they are
accustomed to feed, so that they were hungry. On this account they had
become emboldened, so much so, that they would, at nightfall or toward
evening, venture near enough to show themselves.
My son was coming in alone, from work one evening, when a pack of wolves
followed him for some distance, occasionally snapping out their short
yelp, and had he been less near the camp, he might have been in great
danger. As it was, however, they kept back from him in the woods, but
not so far as to prevent his hearing them.
An interesting article appeared in one of the numbers of "Country Life
in America," on the subject of breeding skunks for profit. From their
pelts is made and sold a fine quality of fur, known, to the purchaser,
at least, as stone martin. The nearest approach to a natural farm of
these animals that I have ever known was that existing at Sandy Owen's
cabin, and immediately adjacent to it. These little animals were
numerous in the Norway grove in which we were camped.
My son and I slept in a small "A" tent which at night was closed. On one
occasion I was awakened by feeling something moving across my feet on
the blankets, covering us. I spoke quietly to my son, requesting him to
be careful not to move, for something was in the tent, and probably,
that something was a skunk. With the gentlest of motions, I moved just
sufficiently to let the animal know that I was aware of its presence in
the tent. Immediately the animal retreated off of my legs, while we
remained quiet for some time in the tent. Then a match was struck and
with it a candle lighted, when a small hole was discovered at the foot
of the tent where evidently the animal had nosed its way in, and through
which it had retreated. In the morning when my son and I arose,
unmistakable evidence was discovered, near where our heads had lain,
that his skunkship had visited us during the night.
Mr. and Mrs. Owens left their cabin to visit another settler, several
miles distant, leaving the key with the cook, and telling him that he
could use it if he had occasion to do so. Coming in one evening from a
cruise, the cook went to the cabin to make and bake some bread in Mrs.
Owen's stove. A small hole had been cut in the door, to admit the Owens'
cat. On entering, Easthagen saw a skunk sitting in the middle of the
floor. The animal retreated under the bed, while the cook kindled a fire
in the stove and began mixing the dough for the bread. He baked the
bread and cooked the evening meal for three persons, considerately
tossing some bits of bread and meat near to where the skunk was
concealed. Our party ate supper outside the door a short distance from
the cabin. The animal remained in the cabin that night and until after
breakfast, a portion of which latter the cook fed to it, when taking the
broom, he, by easy and gentle stages, pushed the skunk toward the door,
removing the animal without accident.
The state of Minnesota has some excellent laws to prevent the
destruction of game animals by the pothunter. Notwithstanding this fact,
a greater or less number of market hunters have been able to subsist by
killing unlawful game and selling the meat to the lumber camps at about
five cents per pound. Many men interested in the ownership of timber
lands, have been aware of this fact and have been desirous of preventing
the unlawful killing of moose and deer. Some lumbermen, also, have
refused to buy the meat from these market hunters. It has not been safe,
however, for such people to offer evidence against these hunters. There
have been two principal reasons that have deterred them from so doing.
One is, that the informant's personal safety would have become
endangered, and the other reason is, that his timber would have been in
danger of being set on fire. It rests, therefore, with the game wardens,
to ferret out and prosecute to the best of their ability, all offenders
against the game law.
In the latter part of the season of 1905, my son and I, accompanied by
James O'Neill, a frontiersman and trusty employee, made a canoe trip
from Winton down the chain of lakes on the boundary line between
Minnesota and Canada, as far as Lake La Croix. We camped at night and
traveled by day, being always in Minnesota. We saw racks in Minnesota
made by the Indians, on which to smoke the meat of the moose they had
killed. We counted twenty-one moose hides hung up to dry. The moose had
doubtless been killed as they came to the lakes to get away from flies
and mosquitoes. All these animals were unlawfully killed.
A more pleasant sight than the one just related was once accorded us
while working in this same country. We were quietly pushing our canoes
up a sluggish stream that had found its bed in a spruce swamp. There, in
many places, pond lilies were growing, their wide leaves resting on the
surface of the water. The roots of the lilies are much relished as a
food by the moose. We have seen the moose standing out in the bays of
the lakes, and in the almost currentless streams, where the water was up
to the animal's flanks, or where its body was half immersed, and poking
its head deep below the surface in search of the succulent roots of the
lilies. On this day, a mother moose and her twin calves had come to this
stream to feed. She was in the act of reaching down under the water for
a lily root, as we pushed our canoes quietly over the surface of the
water into her very presence. The first to observe us was one of the
young calves not more than two days old, that rose to its feet, close by
on the shore. The mother looked toward her calf before she saw us; then,
without undue haste, waded ashore. At this moment the second calf arose,
shook itself, then, with the other twin, joined its mother. The three
moved off into the spruce swamp as we sat quietly in our canoes,
enjoying to the fullest this most unusual opportunity of the experienced
woodsman, accustomed as he is to surprises. Our only regret on this
occasion was, that we had no camera with us.
[Illustration: "Here he brings his family and friends to fish". (Page
180.)]
CHAPTER XXII.
White Pine--What of Our Future Supply?
It is claimed that where Dartmouth College is, in the town of Hanover,
New Hampshire, on the bank of the Connecticut River, there once stood a
white pine tree two hundred and seventy feet in height. That is said to
have been the tallest white pine of which there is a record.
Of the thirty-seven species of pine that grow in the United States, the
white pine is the best. Nature was lavish in distributing this beautiful
and useful tree on American soil, for it has been found growing in
twenty-four states of the Union.
The following quotation is from Bulletin 99 of the Forest Service of the
United States:
"White pine occurred originally in commercial quantities in Connecticut,
Delaware, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland,
Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York,
North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina,
Tennessee, Vermont, Virginia, West Virginia, and Wisconsin. The cut has
probably exceeded that of any other species. Several timber trees have a
wider commercial range, and at the present time two yield more lumber
yearly--Douglas fir and longleaf pine--but white pine was the leader in
the market for two hundred and fifty years. Though to-day the original
forests of this species are mere fragments of what they once were, the
second growth in small regions is meeting heavy demand. In
Massachusetts, for example, the cut in 1908 was two hundred and
thirty-eight million feet, and practically all of it was second growth.
It is not improbable that a similar cut can be made every year in the
future from the natural growth of white pine in that state. It might be
shown by a simple calculation that if one-tenth of the original white
pine region were kept in well-protected second growth, like that in
Massachusetts, it would yield annual crops, successfully for all time,
as large as the white pine cut in the United States in 1908. To do this
would require the growth of only twenty-five cubic feet of wood per acre
each year, and good white pine growth will easily double that amount.
The supply of white pine lumber need never fail in this country,
provided a moderate area is kept producing as a result of proper care.
"During the past thirty years the largest cut of white pine has come
from the Lake States, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota."
It is shown in the government's reports that forty-eight per cent of the
total lumber output of the United States in 1908 was pine. If something
near this ratio is to be maintained, it must be by planting and growing
the trees. Under the present system of taxation, neither individuals nor
corporations will undertake the work. The investment, at the shortest,
is one of thirty years before returns may be looked for, while twice
that time is better business. Owners of pine forests are obliged now,
and have been in past years, to cut their timber lands clean because of
excessive taxation. To encourage the planting and cultivation of new
pine forests, it would be better to levy no tax upon the individual's or
corporation's young trees until the time that the timber has grown to a
size fit to be marketed, and then only on that portion which is cut into
lumber. Even with this encouragement it is an enterprise that belongs
largely to the state, and from it must emanate the aggressive movement
upon land belonging to the state.
On the subject of "Reforestation with White Pine," Prof. E. G. Cheyney,
Director of the College of Forestry in the University of Minnesota,
states: "Like everything else, a tree does better on good soil, but the
pine tree has the faculty of growing well on soil too poor for any other
crop.... On the best quality of soil the white pine tree has produced
100 M feet per acre in Europe. On the third quality soil it makes from
40 to 60 M feet. Our forest soils are, on the whole, of better quality
than those devoted to forests in Europe.
"The Forest Experiment Station at Cloquet, under the control of the
College of Forestry, is now studying this reforestation policy, and the
State Forest Service is looking after the forest fires and expects to
begin the reforestation of our State Forests this spring.
"There are now two National Forests in Minnesota aggregating about
1,300,000 acres and only 50,000 acres of State Forest. These State
Forests should be increased to at least 3,000,000 acres."
CHAPTER XXIII.
Retrospect--Meed of Praise.
It is hoped that the foregoing pages have thrown some light upon the
peculiar occupation of the pioneer woodsman as he is related to
lumbering in the Northwest. There has been no attempt to do more than to
give a plain recital of some of the events that have occurred in the
experiences of one man while pioneering in this special field of the
great timber and lumbering industry of the Northwest. Another, engaged
in the same pursuit, might easily relate his personal experiences of
equal or greater scope than have been herein portrayed, for not all has
been said that might be of the woodsman's secluded life.
The occupation of this type of man is fast being eliminated, and soon
his place will be known no more. In fact, the time has already arrived
when there is no longer any primeval forest in the Northwest into which
he may enter and separate himself from others of his own race. Railroads
have been built in many directions into these vast forests, and the
fine, stately pine trees have been cut down and sent out over the lines
of these railroads. Men and their families have come from various states
and from foreign countries, and are still coming to make for themselves
homes on the lands now denuded of their once majestic forest trees
towering high, and overshadowing all the earth beneath with their green
branches and waving plumage.
[Illustration: "Prepare their fish just caught for the meal, by the open
camp fire." (Page 180.)]
The neigh of the horse, the low of the cow or the ox, and the laugh or
song of the child is now heard where twenty years ago in summer time,
stalked fearlessly the moose and the deer, where roamed the bear at
will, unmolested, safe from the crack of the white man's rifle.
The schoolhouse springs into existence, where a year ago were stumps and
trees. The faithful teacher, fresh from one of the normal schools or
colleges of the state, comes into the settlement to train the minds and
to help mould the characters of the future farmers, mechanics,
statesmen, or financiers; of the doctors, lawyers, judges; or honored
wives and mothers. From this ever increasing supply of the newly-born
Northwest, are coming and will continue to come, some of the most valued
accretions of good citizens to the commonwealth of Minnesota.
Farms are yielding their first crops to the sturdy husbandman. Pleasant,
comfortable homes meet the eye of the tourist from the city in summer as
he motors over the fairly good roads of the northern frontier. He enters
little towns carved out of the woods, and finds, now living happily,
friends whom he had known in the city, who are ready to welcome him. He
camps by the roadside on the shore of a lake, or on the bank of the
Mississippi whose waters flowed on unobstructed in the earlier days
herein recorded, but now are harnessed for the better service of man.
Here he brings his family and friends to fish and to lunch, or, better
still, to prepare their fish just caught for the meal, by the open camp
fire. He continues his journey through this unbroken wilderness of less
than a generation ago, over improving roads, to the very source of the
Mississippi River that is within five minutes' walk of Lake Itasca. Here
is a refreshing bit of natural pine forest, owned and preserved by the
state of Minnesota, where he and his friends may find shelter for the
night, and for a longer period if desired.
In concluding this subject, I am actuated by a desire to manifest my
appreciation of the fine manhood possessed by many men whom I have
known, the best part of whose lives has been spent similarly to my own,
in the extensive forests that once beautified and adorned the great
Northwest.
The occupation is one which demands many of the highest attributes of
man. He must be skillful enough as a surveyor to always know which
description of land he is on, and where he is on that description. He
must be a good judge of timber, able to discern the difference between a
sound tree and a defective one, as well as to estimate closely the
quantity and quality of lumber, reckoned in feet, board measure, each
tree will likely produce when sawed at the mill. He must examine the
contour of the country where the timber is, and make calculations how
the timber is to be gotten out, either by water or by rail, and estimate
how much money per thousand feet it will cost, to bring the logs to
market. The value of the standing pine or other timber in the woods is
dependent on all of these conditions, which must be reckoned in arriving
at an estimate of the desirability of each tract of timber as an
investment for himself, or for whomsoever he may represent.
Possessing these qualifications, he must also be honest; he must be
industrious; he must be courageous. He must gain the other side of
rivers that have no bridges over them, and he must cross lakes on which
there are no boats. He must find shelter when he has no tent, and make
moccasins when his shoes are worn and no longer of service, and new ones
are not to be obtained; he must be indefatigable, for he will often be
tempted to leave some work half finished rather than overcome the
physical obstacles that lay between him and the completion of his task.
On the character of this man and on his faithfulness, his honesty, his
conscientiousness, and on the correctness of his knowledge concerning
the quality, quantity, and situation as to marketing the timber he
examines, depends the value of the investments. Hundreds of thousands of
dollars are invested on the word of this man, after he has disappeared
into the wilderness and emerged with his report of what he has seen. The
requisitions of manhood for this work are of a very high degree, and,
when such a man is found, he is entitled to all of the esteem that is
ever accorded to an honest, faithful, conscientious cashier, banker, or
administrator of a large estate.
[Illustration: "He continues his journey ... to the very source of the
Mississippi River". (Page 180.)]
Is he required to furnish an illustrious example to prove the worthiness
of his chosen occupation, let him cite to the inquirer the early manhood
days of George Washington, who penetrated the forests from his home in
Virginia, traveling through a country where savages roamed, pushing his
course westward to the Ohio River in his search for valuable tracts of
land for investment, and surveying lands for others than himself.
His occupation is an honorable one, and those who pursue it with an
honest purpose, are accorded a high place in the esteem of those whom
they serve, and with whom they associate.
The Pines.
"We sleep in the sleep of ages, the bleak, barbarian pines;
The gray moss drapes us like sages, and closer we lock our lines,
And deeper we clutch through the gelid gloom where never
a sunbeam shines.
Wind of the East, Wind of the West, wandering to and fro,
Chant your songs in our topmost boughs, that the sons of men may know
The peerless pine was the first to come, and the pine will be
last to go!
We spring from the gloom of the canyon's womb; in the valley's lap
we lie;
From the white foam-fringe, where the breakers cringe, to the peaks
that tusk the sky,
We climb, and we peer in the crag-locked mere that gleams like
a golden eye.
Gain to the verge of the hog-back ridge where the vision ranges free;
Pines and pines and the shadow of pines as far as the eye can see;
A steadfast legion of stalwart knights in dominant empery.
Sun, moon and stars give answer; shall we not staunchly stand
Even as now, forever, wards of the wilder strand,
Sentinels of the stillness, lords of the last, lone land?"
Transcriber's Notes
Inconsistencies in the placement of quotes before or after periods have
not been changed.
Pp. 36, 123: "fiancé" changed to "fiancée".
P. 93: "empounding" changed to "impounding" (the necessity of impounding
the waters).
P. 169: "sufciently" changed to "sufficiently" (I moved just
sufficiently).
P. 181: "similarily" changed to "similarly" (similarly to my own).
End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Pioneer Woodsman as He is Related
to Lumbering in the Northwest, by George Henry Warren
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