elevated and densely wooded, with a rocky shore, in season for an
early dinner. Somebody had camped there not long before, and left the
frame on which they stretched a moose-hide, which our Indian
criticised severely, thinking it showed but little woodcraft. Here
were plenty of the shells of crayfish, or fresh-water lobsters, which
had been washed ashore, such as have given a name to some ponds and
streams. They are commonly four or five inches long. The Indian
proceeded at once to cut a canoe birch, slanted it up against another
tree on the shore, tying it with a withe, and lay down to sleep in its
shade.
When we were on the Caucomgomoc, he recommended to us a new way home,
the very one which we had first thought of, by the St. John. He even
said that it was easier, and would take but little more time than the
other, by the East Branch of the Penobscot, though very much farther
round; and taking the map, he showed where we should be each night,
for he was familiar with the route. According to his calculation, we
should reach the French settlements the next night after this, by
keeping northward down the Allegash, and when we got into the main St.
John the banks would be more or less settled all the way; as if that
were a recommendation. There would be but one or two falls, with short
carrying-places, and we should go down the stream very fast, even a
hundred miles a day, if the wind allowed; and he indicated where we
should carry over into Eel River to save a bend below Woodstock in New
Brunswick, and so into the Schoodic Lake, and thence to the
Mattawamkeag. It would be about three hundred and sixty miles to
Bangor this way, though only about one hundred and sixty by the
other; but in the former case we should explore the St. John from its
source through two thirds of its course, as well as the Schoodic Lake
and Mattawamkeag,--and we were again tempted to go that way. I feared,
however, that the banks of the St. John were too much settled. When I
asked him which course would take us through the wildest country, he
said the route by the East Branch. Partly from this consideration, as
also from its shortness, we resolved to adhere to the latter route,
and perhaps ascend Ktaadn on the way. We made this island the limit of
our excursion in this direction.
We had now seen the largest of the Allegash lakes. The next dam “was
about fifteen miles” farther north, down the Allegash, and it was dead
water so far. We had been told in Bangor of a man who lived alone, a
sort of hermit, at that dam, to take care of it, who spent his time
tossing a bullet from one hand to the other, for want of
employment,--as if we might want to call on him. This sort of
tit-for-tat intercourse between his two hands, bandying to and fro a
leaden subject, seems to have been his symbol for society.
This island, according to the map, was about a hundred and ten miles
in a straight line north-northwest from Bangor, and about ninety-nine
miles east-southeast from Quebec. There was another island visible
toward the north end of the lake, with an elevated clearing on it; but
we learned afterward that it was not inhabited, had only been used as
a pasture for cattle which summered in these woods, though our
informant said that there was a hut on the mainland near the outlet
of the lake. This unnaturally smooth-shaven, squarish spot, in the
midst of the otherwise uninterrupted forest, only reminded us how
uninhabited the country was. You would sooner expect to meet with a
bear than an ox in such a clearing. At any rate, it must have been a
surprise to the bears when they came across it. Such, seen far or
near, you know at once to be man’s work, for Nature never does it. In
order to let in the light to the earth as on a lake, he clears off the
forest on the hillsides and plains, and sprinkles fine grass seed,
like an enchanter, and so carpets the earth with a firm sward.
Polis had evidently more curiosity respecting the few settlers in
those woods than we. If nothing was said, he took it for granted that
we wanted to go straight to the next log-hut. Having observed that we
came by the log huts at Chesuncook, and the blind Canadian’s at the
Mud Pond carry, without stopping to communicate with the inhabitants,
he took occasion now to suggest that the usual way was, when you came
near a house, to go to it, and tell the inhabitants what you had seen
or heard, and then they tell you what they had seen; but we laughed,
and said that we had had enough of houses for the present, and had
come here partly to avoid them.
In the meanwhile, the wind, increasing, blew down the Indian’s birch,
and created such a sea that we found ourselves prisoners on the
island, the nearest shore, which was the western, being perhaps a mile
distant, and we took the canoe out to prevent its drifting away. We
did not know but we should be compelled to spend the rest of the day
and the night there. At any rate, the Indian went to sleep again in
the shade of his birch, my companion busied himself drying his
plants, and I rambled along the shore westward, which was quite stony,
and obstructed with fallen, bleached, or drifted trees for four or
five rods in width. I found growing on this broad, rocky, and gravelly
shore the _Salix rostrata_, _discolor_, and _lucida_, _Ranunculus
recurvatus_, _Potentilla Norvegica_, _Scutellaria lateriflora_,
_Eupatorium purpureum_, _Aster Tradescanti_, _Mentha Canadensis_,
_Epilobium angustifolium_ (abundant), _Lycopus sinuatus_, _Solidago
lanceolata_, _Spiræa salicifolia_, _Antennaria margaraticea_,
_Prunella_, _Rumex Acetosella_, raspberries, wool-grass, _Onoclea_,
etc. The nearest trees were _Betula papyracea_ and _excelsa_, and
_Populus tremuloides_. I give these names because it was my farthest
northern point.
Our Indian said that he was a doctor, and could tell me some medicinal
use for every plant I could show him. I immediately tried him. He said
that the inner bark of the aspen (_Populus tremuloides_) was good for
sore eyes; and so with various other plants, proving himself as good
as his word. According to his account, he had acquired such knowledge
in his youth from a wise old Indian with whom he associated, and he
lamented that the present generation of Indians “had lost a great
deal.”
He said that the caribou was a “very great runner,” that there was
none about this lake now, though there used to be many, and pointing
to the belt of dead trees caused by the dams, he added, “No likum
stump,--when he sees that he scared.”
Pointing southeasterly over the lake and distant forest, he observed,
“Me go Oldtown in three days.” I asked how he would get over the
swamps and fallen trees. “Oh,” said he, “in winter all covered, go
anywhere on snowshoes, right across lakes.” When I asked how he went,
he said, “First I go Ktaadn, west side, then I go Millinocket, then
Pamadumcook, then Nicketow, then Lincoln, then Oldtown,” or else he
went a shorter way by the Piscataquis. What a wilderness walk for a
man to take alone! None of your half-mile swamps, none of your
mile-wide woods merely, as on the skirts of our towns, without hotels,
only a dark mountain or a lake for guide-board and station, over
ground much of it impassable in summer!
It reminded me of Prometheus Bound. Here was traveling of the old
heroic kind over the unaltered face of nature. From the Allegash, or
Hemlock River, and Pongoquahem Lake, across great Apmoojenegamook, and
leaving the Nerlumskeechticook Mountain on his left, he takes his way
under the bear-haunted slopes of Souneunk and Ktaadn Mountains to
Pamadumcook, and Millinocket’s inland seas (where often gulls’-eggs
may increase his store), and so on to the forks of the Nicketow
(_niasoseb_, “we alone Joseph,” seeing what our folks see), ever
pushing the boughs of the fir and spruce aside, with his load of furs,
contending day and night, night and day, with the shaggy demon
vegetation, traveling through the mossy graveyard of trees. Or he
could go by “that rough tooth of the sea,” Kineo, great source of
arrows and of spears to the ancients, when weapons of stone were used.
Seeing and hearing moose, caribou, bears, porcupines, lynxes, wolves,
and panthers. Places where he might live and die and never hear of
the United States, which make such a noise in the world,--never hear
of America, so called from the name of a European gentleman.
There is a lumberer’s road called the Eagle Lake road, from the
Seboois to the east side of this lake. It may seem strange that any
road through such a wilderness should be passable, even in winter,
when the snow is three or four feet deep, but at that season, wherever
lumbering operations are actively carried on, teams are continually
passing on the single track, and it becomes as smooth almost as a
railway. I am told that in the Aroostook country the sleds are
required by law to be of one width (four feet), and sleighs must be
altered to fit the track, so that one runner may go in one rut and the
other follow the horse. Yet it is very bad turning out.
We had for some time seen a thunder-shower coming up from the west
over the woods of the island, and heard the muttering of the thunder,
though we were in doubt whether it would reach us; but now the
darkness rapidly increasing, and a fresh breeze rustling the forest,
we hastily put up the plants which we had been drying, and with one
consent made a rush for the tent material and set about pitching it. A
place was selected and stakes and pins cut in the shortest possible
time, and we were pinning it down lest it should be blown away, when
the storm suddenly burst over us.
As we lay huddled together under the tent, which leaked considerably
about the sides, with our baggage at our feet, we listened to some of
the grandest thunder which I ever heard,--rapid peals, round and
plump, bang, bang, bang, in succession, like artillery from some
fortress in the sky; and the lightning was proportionally brilliant.
The Indian said, “It must be good powder.” All for the benefit of the
moose and us, echoing far over the concealed lakes. I thought it must
be a place which the thunder loved, where the lightning practiced to
keep its hand in, and it would do no harm to shatter a few pines. What
had become of the ephemeræ and devil’s-needles then? Were they prudent
enough to seek harbor before the storm? Perhaps their motions might
guide the voyageur.
Looking out I perceived that the violent shower falling on the lake
had almost instantaneously flattened the waves,--the commander of that
fortress had smoothed it for us so,--and, it clearing off, we resolved
to start immediately, before the wind raised them again.
Going outside, I said that I saw clouds still in the southwest, and
heard thunder there. The Indian asked if the thunder went “lound”
(round), saying that if it did we should have more rain. I thought
that it did. We embarked, nevertheless, and paddled rapidly back
toward the dams. The white-throated sparrows on the shore were about,
singing, _Ah, te-e-e, te-e-e, te_, or else _ah, te-e-e, te-e-e,
te-e-e, te-e-e_.
At the outlet of Chamberlain Lake we were overtaken by another gusty
rain-storm, which compelled us to take shelter, the Indian under his
canoe on the bank, and we ran under the edge of the dam. However, we
were more scared than wet. From my covert I could see the Indian
peeping out from beneath his canoe to see what had become of the rain.
When we had taken our respective places thus once or twice, the rain
not coming down in earnest, we commenced rambling about the
neighborhood, for the wind had by this time raised such waves on the
lake that we could not stir, and we feared that we should be obliged
to camp there. We got an early supper on the dam and tried for fish
there, while waiting for the tumult to subside. The fishes were not
only few, but small and worthless, and the Indian declared that there
were no good fishes in the St. John’s waters; that we must wait till
we got to the Penobscot waters.
At length, just before sunset, we set out again. It was a wild evening
when we coasted up the north side of this Apmoojenegamook Lake. One
thunder-storm was just over, and the waves which it had raised still
running with violence, and another storm was now seen coming up in the
southwest, far over the lake; but it might be worse in the morning,
and we wished to get as far as possible on our way up the lake while
we might. It blowed hard against the northern shore about an eighth of
a mile distant on our left, and there was just as much sea as our
shallow canoe would bear, without our taking unusual care. That which
we kept off, and toward which the waves were driving, was as dreary
and harborless a shore as you can conceive. For half a dozen rods in
width it was a perfect maze of submerged trees, all dead and bare and
bleaching, some standing half their original height, others prostrate,
and criss-across, above or beneath the surface, and mingled with them
were loose trees and limbs and stumps, beating about. Imagine the
wharves of the largest city in the world, decayed, and the earth and
planking washed away, leaving the spiles standing in loose order, but
often of twice the ordinary height, and mingled with and beating
against them the wreck of ten thousand navies, all their spars and
timbers, while there rises from the water’s edge the densest and
grimmest wilderness, ready to supply more material when the former
fails, and you may get a faint idea of that coast. We could not have
landed if we would, without the greatest danger of being swamped; so
blow as it might, we must depend on coasting by it. It was twilight,
too, and that stormy cloud was advancing rapidly in our rear. It was a
pleasant excitement, yet we were glad to reach, at length, in the
dusk, the cleared shore of the Chamberlain Farm.
We landed on a low and thinly wooded point there, and while my
companions were pitching the tent, I ran up to the house to get some
sugar, our six pounds being gone;--it was no wonder they were, for
Polis had a sweet tooth. He would first fill his dipper nearly a third
full of sugar, and then add the coffee to it. Here was a clearing
extending back from the lake to a hilltop, with some dark-colored log
buildings and a storehouse in it, and half a dozen men standing in
front of the principal hut, greedy for news. Among them was the man
who tended the dam on the Allegash and tossed the bullet. He having
charge of the dams, and learning that we were going to Webster Stream
the next day, told me that some of their men, who were haying at Telos
Lake, had shut the dam at the canal there in order to catch trout, and
if we wanted more water to take us through the canal, we might raise
the gate, for he would like to have it raised. The Chamberlain Farm is
no doubt a cheerful opening in the woods, but such was the lateness
of the hour that it has left but a dusky impression on my mind. As I
have said, the influx of light merely is civilizing, yet I fancied
that they walked about on Sundays in their clearing somewhat as in a
prison-yard.
They were unwilling to spare more than four pounds of brown
sugar,--unlocking the storehouse to get it,--since they only kept a
little for such cases as this, and they charged twenty cents a pound
for it, which certainly it was worth to get it up there.
When I returned to the shore it was quite dark, but we had a rousing
fire to warm and dry us by, and a snug apartment behind it. The Indian
went up to the house to inquire after a brother who had been absent
hunting a year or two, and while another shower was beginning, I
groped about cutting spruce and arbor-vitæ twigs for a bed. I
preferred the arbor-vitæ on account of its fragrance, and spread it
particularly thick about the shoulders. It is remarkable with what
pure satisfaction the traveler in these woods will reach his
camping-ground on the eve of a tempestuous night like this, as if he
had got to his inn, and, rolling himself in his blanket, stretch
himself on his six-feet-by-two bed of dripping fir twigs, with a thin
sheet of cotton for roof, snug as a meadow-mouse in its nest.
Invariably our best nights were those when it rained, for then we were
not troubled with mosquitoes.
You soon come to disregard rain on such excursions, at least in the
summer, it is so easy to dry yourself, supposing a dry change of
clothing is not to be had. You can much sooner dry you by such a fire
as you can make in the woods than in anybody’s kitchen, the fireplace
is so much larger, and wood so much more abundant. A shed-shaped tent
will catch and reflect the heat like a Yankee baker, and you may be
drying while you are sleeping.
Some who have leaky roofs in the towns may have been kept awake, but
we were soon lulled asleep by a steady, soaking rain, which lasted all
night. To-night, the rain not coming at once with violence, the twigs
were soon dried by the reflected heat.
* * * * *
WEDNESDAY, July 29.
When we awoke it had done raining, though it was still cloudy. The
fire was put out, and the Indian’s boots, which stood under the eaves
of the tent, were half full of water. He was much more improvident in
such respects than either of us, and he had to thank us for keeping
his powder dry. We decided to cross the lake at once, before
breakfast, or while we could; and before starting I took the bearing
of the shore which we wished to strike, S. S. E. about three miles
distant, lest a sudden misty rain should conceal it when we were
midway. Though the bay in which we were was perfectly quiet and
smooth, we found the lake already wide awake outside, but not
dangerously or unpleasantly so; nevertheless, when you get out on one
of those lakes in a canoe like this, you do not forget that you are
completely at the mercy of the wind, and a fickle power it is. The
playful waves may at any time become too rude for you in their sport,
and play right on over you. We saw a few _shecorways_ and a fish hawk
thus early, and after much steady paddling and dancing over the dark
waves of Apmoojenegamook, we found ourselves in the neighborhood of
the southern land, heard the waves breaking on it, and turned our
thoughts wholly to that side. After coasting eastward along this shore
a mile or two, we breakfasted on a rocky point, the first convenient
place that offered.
It was well enough that we crossed thus early, for the waves now ran
quite high, and we should have been obliged to go round somewhat, but
beyond this point we had comparatively smooth water. You can commonly
go along one side or the other of a lake, when you cannot cross it.
The Indian was looking at the hard-wood ridges from time to time, and
said that he would like to buy a few hundred acres somewhere about
this lake, asking our advice. It was to buy as near the crossing-place
as possible.
My companion and I, having a minute’s discussion on some point of
ancient history, were amused by the attitude which the Indian, who
could not tell what we were talking about, assumed. He constituted
himself umpire, and, judging by our air and gesture, he very seriously
remarked from time to time, “you beat,” or “he beat.”
Leaving a spacious bay, a northeasterly prolongation of Chamberlain
Lake, on our left, we entered through a short strait into a small lake
a couple of miles over, called on the map _Telasinis_, but the Indian
had no distinct name for it, and thence into _Telos_ Lake, which he
called _Paytaywecomgomoc_, or Burnt-Ground Lake. This curved round
toward the northeast, and may have been three or four miles long as
we paddled. He had not been here since 1825. He did not know what
Telos meant; thought it was not Indian. He used the word
“_spokelogan_” (for an inlet in the shore which led nowhere), and when
I asked its meaning said that there was “no Indian in ’em.” There was
a clearing, with a house and barn, on the southwest shore, temporarily
occupied by some men who were getting the hay, as we had been told;
also a clearing for a pasture on a hill on the west side of the lake.
We landed on a rocky point on the northeast side, to look at some red
pines (_Pinus resinosa_), the first we had noticed, and get some
cones, for our few which grow in Concord do not bear any.
The outlet from the lake into the East Branch of the Penobscot is an
artificial one, and it was not very apparent where it was exactly, but
the lake ran curving far up northeasterly into two narrow valleys or
ravines, as if it had for a long time been groping its way toward the
Penobscot waters, or remembered when it anciently flowed there; by
observing where the horizon was lowest, and following the longest of
these, we at length reached the dam, having come about a dozen miles
from the last camp. Somebody had left a line set for trout, and the
jack knife with which the bait had been cut on the dam beside it, an
evidence that man was near, and on a deserted log close by a loaf of
bread baked in a Yankee baker. These proved the property of a solitary
hunter, whom we soon met, and canoe and gun and traps were not far
off. He told us that it was twenty miles farther on our route to the
foot of Grand Lake, where you could catch as many trout as you
wanted, and that the first house below the foot of the lake, on the
East Branch, was Hunt’s, about forty-five miles farther; though there
was one about a mile and a half up Trout Stream, some fifteen miles
ahead, but it was rather a blind route to it. It turned out that,
though the stream was in our favor, we did not reach the next house
till the morning of the third day after this. The nearest permanently
inhabited house behind us was now a dozen miles distant, so that the
interval between the two nearest houses on our route was about sixty
miles.
This hunter, who was a quite small, sunburnt man, having already
carried his canoe over, and baked his loaf, had nothing so interesting
and pressing to do as to observe our transit. He had been out a month
or more alone. How much more wild and adventurous his life than that
of the hunter in Concord woods, who gets back to his house and the
mill-dam every night! Yet they in the towns who have wild oats to sow
commonly sow them on cultivated and comparatively exhausted ground.
And as for the rowdy world in the large cities, so little enterprise
has it that it never adventures in this direction, but like vermin
clubs together in alleys and drinking-saloons, its highest
accomplishment, perchance, to run beside a fire-engine and throw
brickbats. But the former is comparatively an independent and
successful man, getting his living in a way that he likes, without
disturbing his human neighbors. How much more respectable also is the
life of the solitary pioneer or settler in these, or any
woods,--having real difficulties, not of his own creation, drawing his
subsistence directly from nature,--than that of the helpless
multitudes in the towns who depend on gratifying the extremely
artificial wants of society and are thrown out of employment by hard
times!
Here for the first time we found the raspberries really plenty,--that
is, on passing the height of land between the Allegash and the East
Branch of the Penobscot; the same was true of the blueberries.
Telos Lake, the head of the St. John on this side, and Webster Pond,
the head of the East Branch of the Penobscot, are only about a mile
apart, and they are connected by a ravine, in which but little digging
was required to make the water of the former, which is the highest,
flow into the latter. This canal, which is something less than a mile
long and about four rods wide, was made a few years before my first
visit to Maine. Since then the lumber of the upper Allegash and its
lakes has been run down the Penobscot, that is, up the Allegash, which
here consists principally of a chain of large and stagnant lakes,
whose thoroughfares, or river-links, have been made nearly equally
stagnant by damming, and then down the Penobscot. The rush of the
water has produced such changes in the canal that it has now the
appearance of a very rapid mountain stream flowing through a ravine,
and you would not suspect that any digging had been required to
persuade the waters of the St. John to flow into the Penobscot here.
It was so winding that one could see but little way down.