Some Michigan Trips.
Owing to the recent fires (1905) in the northern portion of Michigan,
which have undoubtedly killed many of the smaller fur bearing animals
in that section, has called to mind experiences I had trapping and
hunting in both the Lower and Upper Peninsulas of that state. In the
fall of 1868 on the first of October, a party of four of us took a
boat at Buffalo, New York, and went to Alpena on Thunder Bay,
Michigan, where we purchased provisions for a winter's campaign
hunting and trapping.
We engaged a team to take our outfit up the Thunder Bay River, a
distance of about twenty miles, where the road ended. The road was an
old lumber road and rather rough over those long stretches of
corduroy. We camped at the end of the lumber road the first night and
the team returned home the next morning. We took our knapsacks with
some blankets and grub and went up the river to find a camping ground
to suit our notion.
Mr. Jones and myself took the one axe that we carried with us and
began clearing a site to build the camp on. Mr. Goodsil and Mr.
Vanater went back after more of the supplies, which included another
good axe and a crosscut saw. They cut out a road as they returned so
that we could drive to camp when it became necessary. At the end of a
week we had up a good log cabin, and all was ready to begin to slay
the deer and skin the fur bearers. Two of the boys now went down to
Alpena to get the mail and send letters home. On the boys' return
next day they brought word that we would not be allowed to ship any
deer out of the state. This put a wry face on Goodsil and Jones, for
deer hunting was their delight. It was not so bad with Vanater and
myself, for we could find plenty of sport with the traps and tanning
a few deer skins. Vanater was an expert at it, graining the skins in
the water and using the brains of the deer and coon oil for tanning
and then smoking the skins.
We did not kill many deer though they were plentiful, but venison was
so cheap in Detroit and other Michigan cities that it did not pay one
for the trouble. By the last of October there was quite a fall of
snow and Mr. Goodsil, who was a gunsmith, suddenly came to the
conclusion that he was neglecting his business at home and we could
not persuade him to stay any longer. It was only a few days later
when Mr. Jones also concluded that he was neglecting his business and
left us. Now I began to wonder if Mr. Vanater or myself would be the
next to get the home fever, but knowing the metal Charley was made
of, I expected that I would be attacked first.
Charley and I being now left alone began building deadfalls for mink,
marten, fisher and lowdowns for bear. I will explain that a lowdown
is one of those affairs, half pen, half deadfall, which are built by
first making a bed of small poles, then placing on this bed notched
together the same as for a log house. The logs should be about twelve
inches in diameter, and two tiers will make the pen high enough. The
space inside the pen is usually made about seven feet long, two feet
high and twenty inches wide. The roof is made of poles or small logs
pinned to cross logs, the one at the back end of the pen forming a
roller hinge. The cover is raised up and fastened with the usual
lever and hook trigger, which the bait is fastened to. The bear in
order to get the bait goes over the logs into the pen. I wish to say
that while this sort of a trap is quickly made, I do not like them,
as the bear will rub the fur madly in its struggles, and they are an
inhuman sort of an affair at best.
[Illustration: BUILDING A BEAR "LOWDOWN."]
To get back to my story, Charley and I did fairly well in catching
mink and marten, but the bear had either migrated or gone into winter
quarters. The coon had also gone into winter quarters. The snow was
getting quite deep as it was now past the middle of November, and it
now proved to be my luck to be left alone in camp. One night when we
were coming to camp, we had to cross a stream on a small tree which
had fallen across the creek. There were several inches of snow on the
log and Charley was carrying a small deer on his back. I was behind
him carrying the guns. Charley worked his way carefully across the
log but just as he was about to step off the log on the opposite bank
he slipped and fell striking his left leg across the log, breaking
the bone just above the ankle joint. Fortunately we were only a short
distance from camp so that Charley hobbled to camp, using his gun for
a crutch.
When we got in camp it did not take long to see that the bone was
broken. I fixed wood, water and food as convenient as possible for
Charley and took a lantern, a lunch in my pocket and started for
Alpena, reaching there shortly after daylight the next morning.
Engaging a team without any delay we started back to camp. Reaching
camp about three o'clock in the afternoon, we found Charley quite
comfortable and feeling quite chipper under the circumstances. While
the team was eating we fixed both blankets on the straw and a
mattress which we had brought for the purpose from town, and fixed
things as comfortable as we could. We were soon on our way back to
town, which we reached about midnight. The next morning the doctor
set the broken limb with but little difficulty.
After staying two or three days and making arrangements with a young
man to come to camp every Saturday and bring mail and word from
Charley, I returned to camp, where I found things all right. While
out to town I bought a pair of snow shoes. I had never used them, and
for the first few days it was who and who to know which would be on
top, myself or the snow shoes. I finally mastered them and found them
a great help in getting about in the deep snow. It kept me pretty
busy attending to the traps.
One night after Charley had been gone about three weeks, on nearing
camp, I saw a big smoke coming out of the chimney. I first thought
the cabin was on fire, but I soon saw that that was not the case, and
knew some one had started a fire. When I got there I saw some one had
been there with a team. When I rapped on the door Charley called out,
"Come in, I am running this camp now." Well, I tell you I was pleased
to hear that voice call out, "Come in." It was some time before we
thought it best for Charley to go out very much, but he could keep
camp and I had company. We stayed in camp until the middle of May,
thinking that we would have a big catch of bear in the spring, but
were disappointed for we only caught three; but we caught quite a lot
of coon. We did not trap any for muskrat.
My next trip to Michigan was to Kalkaska County, and I had two
partners, Moshier and Funk by name, and both were residents of the
state. Our camp was on the Manistee River near the Crawford and
Kalkaska County line. This trip was some ten or twelve years later
than the one previously mentioned, probably 1878. We killed some
thirty odd deer, and Mr. Moshier having some friends living down
close to the Indiana line, he shipped our venison down to his friend
and he sold it for us. I do not know where he sold it but the checks
came from a man by the name of Suttell, N. Y. We caught 11 bear
during the fall and spring. We caught a good number of mink, coon and
fox, also a few marten.
I should have said that on my trip on Thunder Bay River we caught
several beaver, but on the Manistee we saw no fresh beaver signs but
plenty of old beaver dams. We would make an occasional trip on to the
Boardman and Rapid Rivers for mink. On Rapid River two or three miles
above Rickers Mill was a colony or family of three or four beaver,
but we did not try to catch them.
My third trip to Michigan was to the Upper Peninsula, in Schoolcraft
County. A pard of mine by the name of Ross and myself had a boat made
at Manistique, and started the first of September. We poled and rowed
the boat up the Manistique River for a distance of about a hundred
miles, according to our estimate. The boat was heavily loaded with
our outfit, and we were nearly a month making the trip up the river
to where we built our camp on a small lake about one-half mile from
the main river. We found mink, marten, beaver and coon quite
plentiful, but from what I read bear and wolves are more plentiful
there now than they were about 1879. At that time there was not a
railroad in that section, nor scarcely a tree cut in the northern
part of the Upper Peninsula, with the exception of up about the Iron
Works where they were cutting timber and burning coke and charcoal.
In fact, I found bear more plentiful in Lower Michigan.
About the fifteenth of October we had the camp in shape and a big
pile of wood cut and piled close to the door. We now began to explore
the country for the best sites to set our traps, mostly Nos. 2, 3 and
4, besides seven bear traps, all Newhouse. We would build deadfalls
along the line, for we would not set a steel trap only where we were
quite sure that we would make a catch. We used the water set mostly
for wolves and fox, and of course, for mink and coon.
Good springs were not so common where water sets could be made as in
Pennsylvania. We could find occasionally a good log crossing where we
could get in a set for wolf, but suitable places of this kind were
not plentiful. We worked for beaver all we could. We would break a
notch in their dams and then set a trap just on the edge of break in
water just deep enough so the beaver would spring the trap. It was
while trapping here that I learned to make the bait set for beaver.
This is to use the kind of wood beaver were feeding on for bait.
We caught three or four wolves on the ice close to the bank.
Sometimes the ice would settle along the banks and the water would
run over the ice too close to the shore and then freeze. This made a
good path, or rather place for the wolf to travel. Now, where a
spruce or cedar tree would fall into the lake so as to leave a narrow
space between the boughs on the tree and the bank, was a good place
to set. We would watch the weather and when it began snowing we would
go to one of these trees from the ice or water side, cut a notch in
the ice, put in some ashes or dry pulverized rotten wood. The notch
cut in the ice must be just deep enough to let the trap down level
with the surface. The clog was concealed under a bough of the tree.
Now, I wish to say that I was never able to catch a timber wolf
unless I was able to outwit him, and in order to do this the
conditions and surroundings must be perfect for making the set. Where
we found good places to make a set of this kind we would place the
carcass of a deer several yards from shore out on the ice. This would
entice the wolves to come around, and of course increase our chances
of making a catch.
We were bothered some by having a wolverine follow a line of
deadfalls, tear down the bait pen and take the bait, but we did not
allow him to do his cussedness long before we would put a trap in the
way.
We would sometimes have the parts of a deer taken down by a lynx
where we had hung up venison so that it would be convenient to use
for bear bait. We never objected much about it for we were willing to
trade venison for a cat almost any time, for deer were very
plentiful.
In April, when we were taking up our traps and getting ready to start
down the river as soon as the water dropped so that we dare start, we
were going onto a stream one day to take up three or four traps that
we had set for beaver, our route led us across the point of the
ridge. The point faced to the southeast, and the snow was off in
spots on this point. When we went over this point in the morning we
saw many deer run from these bare spots, so when we came back along
in the afternoon we were as careful as possible and kept the highest
ground so as to get a good view on this bare point to see how many
deer we could count. There were upwards of forty in sight at one
time. How I wish I could have had that picture.
We did not dare to start down the river until the first of June, on
account of the high water. We had been told that there was a camp on
the head of the river where they were cutting wood to be burned into
charcoal. While we were waiting for the water to drop we took a
knapsack of grub and some fishing tackle and started to find the wood
choppers' camp, which we did on the second day after leaving camp. We
stayed ten or twelve days at this camp, and while there a Frenchman
invited me out to a lake two or three miles from their camp and fish
for bass. He said he would take along a couple of traps and we would
have some rats for breakfast, as we were going to camp at the lake
over night. I did not say much about rats for breakfast, as I thought
the man was joking. But sure enough, we had rats for breakfast, also
plenty of fish.
Well, after the man had argued and plead the case of the rats from
all points of view, and I had done a good deal of snuffing and
smelling, I tasted, yes, I ate a piece of muskrat and I must confess
it was of a fine flavor and would be splendid eating if it was not a
rat. However, I have not tried any more from that day to this. I
prefer partridge, and I have never been in a place where there were
as many partridges as there were in Upper Michigan.
It is remarkable how long and well one can live on one hundred pounds
of flour, twenty-five pounds lard, ten pounds salt and some bacon,
(tea and coffee if one thinks he can't get along without it), in a
good game and fish country with a good gun and fishing tackle.
We started on our return trip down the river on the second day of
June. There had not been a man to our camp during this time. We were
well satisfied with our catch with one exception, that being bear, as
we only got four and they were all rather small. We had a splendid
journey on our return trip down the river. We would see deer at
almost every turn and once we saw a bear swimming the river. We
caught lots of fish, all we could use, with hardly an effort.