STONY BROOK--A GOOD TIME WITH THE TROUT--RACKETT RIVER--TUPPER'S
LAKE--A QUESTION ASKED AND ANSWERED.
The next morning we started down Stony Brook, towards the Rackett
River, intending to pitch our tents at night on the banks of Tupper's
Lake, twenty-three miles distant. Before leaving the Spectacle Ponds,
we visited a little island at the north end of the middle pond,
containing perhaps half an acre. This island has a few Norway pines
upon it, is of a loose sandy soil, and at the highest portion is some
twenty feet above the level of the water. It is a great resort for
turtle in the season of depositing their eggs. We found thousands of
their eggs, some on the surface and some buried in the sand, and if
one in a dozen of them brings forth a turtle, there will be no lack of
the animal in the neighborhood. Stony Brook is a sluggish, tortuous
stream, large enough to float our little boats, and goes meandering
most of the way for five miles among natural meadows, overflowed at
high water, or thinly timbered prairie, when it enters the Rackett. I
discovered on a former visit to this wilderness, when the water was
very low, a spring that came boiling up near the centre of the stream,
with a volume large enough almost to carry a mill. It was at a point
where a high sandy bluff, along which the stream swept, terminated. As
we approached this spot, I suggested to Spalding, who was in the bow
of the boat, to prepare his rod and fly. We approached carefully along
the willows on the opposite shore, until in a position from which he
could throw in the direction I indicated. In the then stage of the
water, there was no appearance of a spring, or any indication marking
it as a spot where the trout would be at all likely to congregate, and
Spalding was half inclined to believe that I was practising upon his
want of knowledge of the habits of the fish of this region. I had said
nothing about the spring, or the habit of the trout in gathering
wherever a cold stream enters a river, or a spring comes gushing up
in its bed.
"I don't believe there's a trout within half a mile of us," he said,
as he adjusted his rod and fly.
"Never mind," I replied, "throw your fly across towards that boulder
on the bank, and trail it home, and you'll see."
"Well," said he, "here goes;" and he threw in the direction indicated.
The fly had scarcely touched the water when a trout, weighing a pound
or over, struck it with a rush that carried him clear out of the
water. After a little play he was landed safely in the boat, and
another, and another, followed at almost every throw. Not once did the
fly touch the water that it was not risen to by a fish.
"By Jove!" said Spalding, as he handed me the landing-net to take in
his third or fourth trout, "this is sport. You use the net, and I'll
trail them to you. Let us make hay while the sun shines. The other
boat will soon be along, and Smith will be for dipping his spoon into
my dish. I want to astonish him when he comes."
We had secured eight beautiful fish when the Doctor and Smith rounded
the point above us. We motioned them back, and their boat lay upon its
oars. Spalding kept on throwing his fly and trailing the trout to me
to secure with the landing-net."
"Hallo!" shouted Smith, "hold on there; fair play, my friends, give me
a hand in," and he fell to adjusting his rod and flies.
"Keep back, you lubber," replied Spalding; "what do _you_ know about
trout-fishing? You'll frighten them all away by your awkwardness."
"No you don't!" shouted Smith, his rod now adjusted. "Drop down,
boatman, and we'll see who is the lubber. Wait, Spalding! Don't throw,
if you are a true man, until we can take a fair start, and then the
one that comes out second best pays the piper."
The boat dropped down to the proper position, and the Doctor, who was
seated in the stern, held it in place by pressing his paddle into the
sand at the bottom, while the boatman handled the landing net.
"Now!" exclaimed Smith, as the flies dropped upon the water together
above the cold spring. There was no lack of trout, for one rose to the
fly at every cast.
"I say," said the Doctor, "how many have you in your boat?"
"Sixteen," I replied, after counting them.
"We've got eight, and I bar any more fishing. The law has reached its
limit. No wanton waste of the good things of God, you know."
The rods were unjointed and laid away, and such a string of trout as
we had, is rarely seen outside of the Saranac woods. We procured fresh
grass in which to lay our fish, and green boughs to cover them, and
floated on down the stream, entering the Rackett at nine o'clock. The
Rackett is a most beautiful river. To me at least it is so, for it
flows on its tortuous and winding way for a hundred or more miles
through an unbroken forest, with all the old things standing in their
primeval grandeur along its banks. The woodman's axe has not marred
the loveliness of its surroundings, and no human hand has for all that
distance been laid upon its mane, or harnessed it to the great wheel,
making it a slave, compelling it to be utilitarian, to grind corn or
throw the shuttle and spin. It moves on towards the mighty St.
Lawrence as wild, and halterless, and free, as when the Great Spirit
sent it forward on its everlasting flow. The same scenery, and the
same voices are seen and heard along its banks now as then; and, while
man, in his restlessness, has changed almost everything else, the
Rackett and the things that pertained to it when the earth was young,
remain unchanged. But this will not be so long. Civilization is
pushing its way even towards this wild and, for all agricultural
purposes, sterile region, and before many years even the Rackett will
be within its ever-extending circle. When that time shall have
arrived, where shall we go to find the woods, the wild things, the old
forests, and hear the sounds which belong to nature in its primeval
state? Whither shall we flee from civilization, to take off the
harness and be free, for a season, from the restraints, the
conventionalities of society, and rest from the hard struggles, the
cares and toils, the strifes and competitions of life? Had I my way, I
would mark out a circle of a hundred miles in diameter, and throw
around it the protecting aegis of the constitution. I would make it a
forest forever. It should be a misdemeanor to chop down a tree, and a
felony to clear an acre within its boundaries. The old woods should
stand here always as God made them, growing on until the earthworm ate
away their roots, and the strong winds hurled them to the ground, and
new woods should be permitted to supply the place of the old so long
as the earth remained. There is room enough for civilization in
regions better fitted for it. It has no business among these
mountains, these rivers and lakes, these gigantic boulders, these
tangled valleys and dark mountain gorges. Let it go where labor will
garner a richer harvest, and industry reap a better reward for its
toil. It will be of stinted growth at best here.
"I like these old woods," said a gentleman, whom I met on the Rackett
last year; "I like them, because one can do here just what he pleases.
He can wear a shirt a week, have holes in his pantaloons, and be out
at elbows, go with his boots unblacked, drink whisky in the raw, chew
plug tobacco, and smoke a black pipe, and not lose his position in
society. Now," continued he, "tho' I don't choose to do any of these
things, yet I love the freedom, now and then, of doing just all of
them if I choose, without human accountability. The truth is, that it
is natural as well as necessary for every man to be a vagabond
occasionally, to throw off the restraints imposed upon him by the
necessities and conventionalities of civilization, and turn savage for
a season,--and what place is left for such transformation, save these
northern forests?"
The idea was somewhat quaint, but to me it smacked of philosophy, and
I yielded it a hearty assent. I would consecrate these old forests,
these rivers and lakes, these mountains and valleys to the Vagabond
Spirit, and make them a place wherein a man could turn savage and
rest, for a fortnight or a month, from the toils and cares of life.
We entered TUPPER'S LAKE towards six o'clock, and saw our white tents
pitched upon the left bank, some half a mile above the outlet, where a
little stream, cold almost as icewater, comes down from a spring a
short way back in the forest. This lake, some ten miles long, and
from one to three in width, is one of the most beautiful sheets of
water that the eye of man ever looked upon. The scenery about it is
less bold than that of some of the other lakes of this region. The
hills rise with a gentle acclivity from the shore; behind them and far
off rise rugged mountain ranges; and further still, the lofty peaks of
the Adirondacks loom up in dim and shadowy outline against the sky.
From every point and in every direction, are views of placid and quiet
beauty rarely equalled; valleys stretching away among the highlands;
gaps in the hills, through which the sunlight pours long after the
shadows of the forest have elsewhere thrown themselves across the
lake; islands, some bold and rocky, rising in barren desolation, right
up from the deep water; some covered with a dense and thrifty growth
of evergreen trees, with a soil matchless in fertility; and some
partaking of both the sterile and productive; beautiful bays stealing
around bold promontories, and hiding away among the old woods. These
are the features of this beautiful sheet of water, which none see but
to admire, none visit but to praise; and it lies here all alone,
surrounded by the old hills and forests, bold bluffs, and rocky
shores, all as God made them, with no mark of the hand of man about
it, save in a single spot on a secluded bay, where lives a solitary
family in a log house, surrounded by an acre or two, from which the
forest has been cleared away.
"Will somebody tell me," said Smith, as we sat on the logs in front
of our tent after supper, smudging away the musquitoes with our pipes,
"will somebody tell me what we came into this wilderness among these
musquitoes, and frogs, and owls for? Mind you, I am not discontented;
I enjoy it hugely; but what I want to know is _why_ I do so? I desire
to understand the philosophy of the thing."
"As the question involves, in some sense, a physiological fact,"
replied the Doctor, "it comes within the range of my professional
duties to understand and be able to answer it, for you must know that
the enjoyments of this region are primarily physical. Now I've a
theory which is this--that every man has a certain amount of
vagabondism in his composition that will be pretty certain to break
out in spots occasionally. At all events it is so with me, and from my
observation of men, I am strong in the faith that it is so with every
one who is neither more nor less than human. It is all a mistake to
suppose that I come off here, enduring a heap of hardship and toil,
simply for the love of fishing and hunting, though I confess to a
weakness to a certain extent that way. The charm of this region
consists in the fact, that it is the best place to play the vagabond,
and in which to do the savage for a season, that I know of. You can go
bareheaded or barefooted, without a coat or neckerchief, get as ragged
and untidy as you please, without subjecting yourself to remark, or
offending the nice sense of propriety pertaining to conventional life.
You are not responsible for what you say or do, provided always that
you do not offend against the abstract rules of decency, or the
requirements of natural decorum. You can lay around loose; the lazier
you are the better the boatman in your employ likes it. If you choose
to drift leisurely and quietly under the shadow of the hills along the
shore, examining the rocks that lie there like a ruined wall, or
explore the beautiful and secluded bays that hide around behind the
bluffs, or lay off under the shade of the fir trees on the islands, or
smoke your cigar or pipe by the beautiful spring that comes bubbling
up by the side of some moss-covered boulder, or from beneath the
tangled roots of some gnarled birch or maple, you can do any or all of
these, and have a man to help you for twelve shillings a day and
board, or you can do it just about as well alone.
"You remember LONESOME ROCK, in the Lower Saranac, a great boulder
that lifts its head some ten or fifteen feet above the surface, away
out near the middle of the lake, around which the water is of unknown
depth. This rock, which is always dark and bare, is, as you will
remember, of conical shape, sharp pointed at the top, and stands up
about the size of a small hay-stack, in the midst of the waters. Do
you remember the account that somebody gives in a ragged but terse
kind of verse, of the 'gentleman in black,' who, as he walked about,
'Backward and forward he switched his long rail,
As a gentleman switches his cane?'
And of whose dress it was facetiously said:
'His coat was red and his breeches were blue,
With a hole behind for his tail to stick through.'
another author said of him on one of his fishing excursions,
that
'His rod, it was a sturdy mountain oak,
His line, a cable which no storm e'er broke,
His hook he baited with a dragon's tail,
And sat upon a rock and bob'd for whale!'
Well, like the ebony gentleman, you can, if you choose, sit upon
Lonesome Rock enjoying your meditations, and bobbing, not for whale,
for whatever other fish may be found in the Lower Saranac, I believe
there are no whale; but you can bob for trout; whether you will catch
any or not will depend very much on circumstances. It is a capital
place to cast the fly from, or to sink your hook with a bait, and if
the trout do not choose to bite, whose fault is that, I should like
to know?
"And this reminds me of an anecdote told me by a gentleman I met in
June of last year, on the Rackett River among the black flies, of an
adventure he met with on Lonesome Rock last season. He had been
trolling around the lake in a boat alone, without much success, and
concluded he would try deep fishing from this rock, as he had heard
that the trout were in the habit of congregating around its base. So
he rowed to the rock, and, as he supposed, secured his boat, and
climbing up its side seated himself on his boat cushion, on the top.
He caught one fine fish at the first throw, and took it for granted
that he was going to have a good time of it among the trout. When he
mounted the rock, about eleven o'clock, the sky was overcast, and he
caught three or four trout of good size in the course of half an hour;
but the sun coming out bright and clear, the fish altered their minds,
and refused to have anything more to do with his hook. He finally
concluded to give up the business, and seek the cooling shadows of the
forest trees along the shore. But his boat was gone; and upon looking
around he saw it drifting before a light breeze a quarter of a mile
distant. Now when you remember that all around the lake was a
wilderness, save a single spot at the head of the bay, where Martin's
house stands, three or four miles distant, and when you remember also
that no boat might be passing during the next twenty-four hours, you
will comprehend that his position was none of the pleasantest. There
he sat upon the top of his rock, with scarcely room to turn around,
with a wide sweep of deep water between him and the nearest land, the
fish utterly refusing to bite, and the sun blazing down upon him with
heat like a furnace, as it crept with its snail's pace across the sky.
At first he was inclined to smile at his ridiculous situation, all
alone there on the rock; but as the wind died away, and the sun poured
his burning rays right down upon him, and he panted and sweat under
its sweltering influences, he began to feel a little more serious.
Hours glided away, and the sun crept slowly along down the heavens,
but still no boat made its appearance.
"The sun hid itself behind the hills on the West, and still he was
alone. The shadows crept up the mountain peaks that stand up like
grim giants away off in the East, and twilight began to throw its grey
mantle over the lake; still he was alone. The darkness began to gather
around him; the forests along the shore to lose their distinctness and
to stand in sombre and shadowy outline above the water; still no
prospect of relief presented itself. The twilight faded from the West,
the stars stole out in the heavens, the milky way stretched its belt
of light across the sky, and there he sat alone still on his rock, the
night dews falling around him, and the night voices of the forest
coming solemnly out over the water. Things had now assumed a serious
aspect. He could not stretch his limbs save by standing erect, and it
seemed inevitable that he must watch the stars during the night, as he
had watched the sun during the day. To sleep there was out of the
question. There was no room for a sleeping posture, and the danger of
rolling down the rock into the water kept him wide awake. At length
the pleasant sound of oars, and voices in jolly converse, fell upon
his ear, and he shouted. Two sportsmen were returning from the Upper
Lakes, and right welcome was the answer they returned to his call. He
was glad enough to be released from his rock, upon which, as he said,
'he had made up his mind that he should be compelled to roost, like a
turkey on the ridge of a barn, for the night.'
"To go back from this digression," continued the Doctor, "I repeat
that every man has a vein of the vagabond, a streak of the savage in
him, which can never be clean wiped out. Educate him, polish him as
you may, it will be in him still, and he will love to go off into the
old woods at times, to lay around loose for a season, vagabondising
among the wild and savage things of the wilderness. It is but
indulging the original instincts of our nature. True, he will not
relish his savage ways a great while. His old habits will lead him
back to civilization, to the luxury of a well-furnished room, the
quiet of an easy chair, and the repose of a soft bed. In a word to
'clean up' and shave and dress, so that when he looks into a glass he
will see the shadow of a gentleman."