before dark; so we stopped at the first favorable shore, where there
was a narrow gravelly beach on the western side, some five miles below
the outlet of the lake. It was an interesting spot, where the river
began to make a great bend to the east, and the last of the peculiar
moose-faced Nerlumskeechticook Mountains not far southwest of Grand
Lake rose dark in the northwest a short distance behind, displaying
its gray precipitous southeast side, but we could not see this without
coming out upon the shore.
Two steps from the water on either side, and you come to the abrupt
bushy and rooty if not turfy edge of the bank, four or five feet high,
where the interminable forest begins, as if the stream had but just
cut its way through it.
It is surprising on stepping ashore anywhere into this unbroken
wilderness to see so often, at least within a few rods of the river,
the marks of the axe, made by lumberers who have either camped here or
driven logs past in previous springs. You will see perchance where,
going on the same errand that you do, they have cut large chips from a
tall white pine stump for their fire. While we were pitching the camp
and getting supper, the Indian cut the rest of the hair from his
moose-hide, and proceeded to extend it vertically on a temporary frame
between two small trees, half a dozen feet from the opposite side of
the fire, lashing and stretching it with arbor-vitæ bark which was
always at hand, and in this case was stripped from one of the trees it
was tied to. Asking for a new kind of tea, he made us some, pretty
good, of the checkerberry (_Gaultheria procumbens_), which covered the
ground, dropping a little bunch of it tied up with cedar bark into the
kettle; but it was not quite equal to the _Chiogenes_. We called this
therefore Checkerberry-Tea Camp.
I was struck with the abundance of the _Linnæa borealis_,
checkerberry, and _Chiogenes hispidula_, almost everywhere in the
Maine woods. The wintergreen (_Chimaphila umbellata_) was still in
bloom here, and clintonia berries were abundant and ripe. This
handsome plant is one of the most common in that forest. We here first
noticed the moose-wood in fruit on the banks. The prevailing trees
were spruce (commonly black), arbor-vitæ, canoe birch (black ash and
elms beginning to appear), yellow birch, red maple, and a little
hemlock skulking in the forest. The Indian said that the white maple
punk was the best for tinder, that yellow birch punk was pretty good,
but hard. After supper he put on the moose tongue and lips to boil,
cutting out the _septum_. He showed me how to write on the under side
of birch bark, with a black spruce twig, which is hard and tough, and
can be brought to a point.
The Indian wandered off into the woods a short distance just before
night, and, coming back, said, “Me found great treasure,--fifty, sixty
dollars’ worth.” “What’s that?” we asked. “Steel traps, under a log,
thirty or forty, I didn’t count ’em. I guess Indian work,--worth three
dollars apiece.” It was a singular coincidence that he should have
chanced to walk to and look under that particular log, in that
trackless forest.
I saw chivin and chub in the stream when washing my hands, but my
companion tried in vain to catch them. I also heard the sound of
bullfrogs from a swamp on the opposite side, thinking at first that
they were moose; a duck paddled swiftly by; and sitting in that dusky
wilderness, under that dark mountain, by the bright river which was
full of reflected light, still I heard the wood thrush sing, as if no
higher civilization could be attained. By this time the night was upon
us.
You commonly make your camp just at sundown, and are collecting wood,
getting your supper, or pitching your tent while the shades of night
are gathering around and adding to the already dense gloom of the
forest. You have no time to explore or look around you before it is
dark. You may penetrate half a dozen rods farther into that twilight
wilderness, after some dry bark to kindle your fire with, and wonder
what mysteries lie hidden still deeper in it, say at the end of a long
day’s walk; or you may run down to the shore for a dipper of water,
and get a clearer view for a short distance up or down the stream, and
while you stand there, see a fish leap, or duck alight in the river,
or hear a wood thrush or robin sing in the woods. That is as if you
had been to town or civilized parts. But there is no sauntering off to
see the country, and ten or fifteen rods seems a great way from your
companions, and you come back with the air of a much-traveled man, as
from a long journey, with adventures to relate, though you may have
heard the crackling of the fire all the while,--and at a hundred rods
you might be lost past recovery, and have to camp out. It is all mossy
and _moosey_. In some of those dense fir and spruce woods there is
hardly room for the smoke to go up. The trees are a _standing_ night,
and every fir and spruce which you fell is a plume plucked from
night’s raven wing. Then at night the general stillness is more
impressive than any sound, but occasionally you hear the note of an
owl farther or nearer in the woods, and if near a lake, the semihuman
cry of the loons at their unearthly revels.
To-night the Indian lay between the fire and his stretched moose-hide,
to avoid the mosquitoes. Indeed, he also made a small smoky fire of
damp leaves at his head and his feet, and then as usual rolled up his
head in his blanket. We with our veils and our wash were tolerably
comfortable, but it would be difficult to pursue any sedentary
occupation in the woods at this season; you cannot see to read much by
the light of a fire through a veil in the evening, nor handle pencil
and paper well with gloves or anointed fingers.
* * * * *
FRIDAY, July 31.
The Indian said, “You and I kill moose last night, therefore use ’em
best wood. Always use hard wood to cook moose-meat.” His “best wood”
was rock maple. He cast the moose’s lip into the fire, to burn the
hair off, and then rolled it up with the meat to carry along.
Observing that we were sitting down to breakfast without any pork, he
said, with a very grave look, “Me want some fat,” so he was told that
he might have as much as he would fry.
We had smooth but swift water for a considerable distance, where we
glided rapidly along, scaring up ducks and kingfishers. But, as usual,
our smooth progress ere long came to an end, and we were obliged to
carry canoe and all about half a mile down the right bank, around some
rapids or falls. It required sharp eyes sometimes to tell which side
was the carry, before you went over the falls, but Polis never failed
to land us rightly. The raspberries were particularly abundant and
large here, and all hands went to eating them, the Indian remarking on
their size.
Often on bare rocky carries the trail was so indistinct that I
repeatedly lost it, but when I walked behind him I observed that he
could keep it almost like a hound, and rarely hesitated, or, if he
paused a moment on a bare rock, his eye immediately detected some sign
which would have escaped me. Frequently _we_ found no path at all at
these places, and were to him unaccountably delayed. He would only say
it was “ver strange.”
We had heard of a Grand Fall on this stream, and thought that each
fall we came to must be it, but after christening several in
succession with this name, we gave up the search. There were more
Grand or Petty Falls than I can remember.
I cannot tell how many times we had to walk on account of falls or
rapids. We were expecting all the while that the river would take a
final leap and get to smooth water, but there was no improvement this
forenoon. However, the carries were an agreeable variety. So surely as
we stepped out of the canoe and stretched our legs we found ourselves
in a blueberry and raspberry garden, each side of our rocky trail
around the falls being lined with one or both. There was not a carry
on the main East Branch where we did not find an abundance of both
these berries, for these were the rockiest places, and partially
cleared, such as these plants prefer, and there had been none to
gather the finest before us.
In our three journeys over the carries,--for we were obliged to go
over the ground three times whenever the canoe was taken out,--we did
full justice to the berries, and they were just what we wanted to
correct the effect of our hard bread and pork diet. Another name for
making a portage would have been going a-berrying. We also found a few
amelanchier, or service, berries, though most were abortive, but they
held on rather more generally than they do in Concord. The Indian
called them _pemoymenuk_, and said that they bore much fruit in some
places. He sometimes also ate the northern wild red cherries, saying
that they were good medicine, but they were scarcely edible. We bathed
and dined at the foot of one of these carries. It was the Indian who
commonly reminded us that it was dinner-time, sometimes even by
turning the prow to the shore. He once made an indirect, but lengthy
apology, by saying that we might think it strange, but that one who
worked hard all day was very particular to have his dinner in good
season. At the most considerable fall on this stream, when I was
walking over the carry, close behind the Indian, he observed a track
on the rock, which was but slightly covered with soil, and, stooping,
muttered “caribou.” When we returned, he observed a much larger track
near the same place, where some animal’s foot had sunk into a small
hollow in the rock, partly filled with grass and earth, and he
exclaimed with surprise, “What that?” “Well, what is it?” I asked.
Stooping and laying his hand in it, he answered with a mysterious air,
and in a half whisper, “Devil [that is, Indian Devil, or
cougar]--ledges about here--very bad animal--pull ’em rocks all to
pieces.” “How long since it was made?” I asked. “To-day or yesterday,”
said he. But when I asked him afterward if he was sure it was the
devil’s track, he said he did not know. I had been told that the
scream of a cougar was heard about Ktaadn recently, and we were not
far from that mountain.
We spent at least half the time in walking to-day, and the walking was
as bad as usual, for the Indian, being alone, commonly ran down far
below the foot of the carries before he waited for us. The carry-paths
themselves were more than usually indistinct, often the route being
revealed only by the countless small holes in the fallen timber made
by the tacks in the drivers’ boots, or where there _was_ a slight
trail we did not find it. It was a tangled and perplexing thicket,
through which we stumbled and threaded our way, and when we had
finished a mile of it, our starting-point seemed far away. We were
glad that we had not got to walk to Bangor along the banks of this
river, which would be a journey of more than a hundred miles. Think of
the denseness of the forest, the fallen trees and rocks, the windings
of the river, the streams emptying in, and the frequent swamps to be
crossed. It made you shudder. Yet the Indian from time to time pointed
out to us where he had thus crept along day after day when he was a
boy of ten, and in a starving condition. He had been hunting far north
of this with two grown Indians. The winter came on unexpectedly early,
and the ice compelled them to leave their canoe at Grand Lake, and
walk down the bank. They shouldered their furs and started for
Oldtown. The snow was not deep enough for snowshoes, or to cover the
inequalities of the ground. Polis was soon too weak to carry any
burden; but he managed to catch one otter. This was the most they all
had to eat on this journey, and he remembered how good the yellow lily
roots were, made into a soup with the otter oil. He shared this food
equally with the other two, but being so small he suffered much more
than they. He waded through the Mattawamkeag at its mouth, when it was
freezing cold and came up to his chin, and he, being very weak and
emaciated, expected to be swept away. The first house which they
reached was at Lincoln, and thereabouts they met a white teamster with
supplies, who, seeing their condition, gave them as much of his load
as they could eat. For six months after getting home, he was very low,
and did not expect to live, and was perhaps always the worse for it.
We could not find much more than half of this day’s journey on our
maps (the “Map of the Public Lands of Maine and Massachusetts,” and
“Colton’s Railroad and Township Map of Maine,” which copies the
former). By the maps there was not more than fifteen miles between
camps at the outside, and yet we had been busily progressing all day,
and much of the time very rapidly.
For seven or eight miles below that succession of “Grand” falls, the
aspect of the banks as well as the character of the stream was
changed. After passing a tributary from the northeast, perhaps Bowlin
Stream, we had good swift smooth water, with a regular slope, such as
I have described. Low, grassy banks and muddy shores began. Many elms,
as well as maples, and more ash trees, overhung the stream, and
supplanted the spruce.
My lily roots having been lost when the canoe was taken out at a
carry, I landed late in the afternoon, at a low and grassy place amid
maples, to gather more. It was slow work, grubbing them up amid the
sand, and the mosquitoes were all the while feasting on me.
Mosquitoes, black flies, etc., pursued us in mid-channel, and we were
glad sometimes to get into violent rapids, for then we escaped them.
A red-headed woodpecker flew across the river, and the Indian remarked
that it was good to eat. As we glided swiftly down the inclined plane
of the river, a great cat owl launched itself away from a stump on the
bank, and flew heavily across the stream, and the Indian, as usual,
imitated its note. Soon the same bird flew back in front of us, and we
afterwards passed it perched on a tree. Soon afterward a white-headed
eagle sailed down the stream before us. We drove him several miles,
while we were looking for a good place to camp, for we expected to be
overtaken by a shower,--and still we could distinguish him by his
white tail, sailing away from time to time from some tree by the shore
still farther down the stream. Some shecorways being surprised by us,
a part of them dived, and we passed directly over them, and could
trace their course here and there by a bubble on the surface, but we
did not see them come up. Polis detected once or twice what he called
a “tow” road, an indistinct path leading into the forest. In the
meanwhile we passed the mouth of the Seboois on our left. This did not
look so large as our stream, which was indeed the main one. It was
some time before we found a camping-place, for the shore was either
too grassy and muddy, where mosquitoes abounded, or too steep a
hillside. The Indian said that there were but few mosquitoes on a
steep hillside. We examined a good place, where somebody had camped a
long time; but it seemed pitiful to occupy an old site, where there
was so much room to choose, so we continued on. We at length found a
place to our minds, on the west bank, about a mile below the mouth of
the Seboois, where, in a very dense spruce wood above a gravelly
shore, there seemed to be but few insects. The trees were so thick
that we were obliged to clear a space to build our fire and lie down
in, and the young spruce trees that were left were like the wall of an
apartment rising around us. We were obliged to pull ourselves up a
steep bank to get there. But the place which you have selected for
your camp, though never so rough and grim, begins at once to have its
attractions, and becomes a very centre of civilization to you: “Home
is home, be it never so homely.”
It turned out that the mosquitoes were more numerous here than we had
found them before, and the Indian complained a good deal, though he
lay, as the night before, between three fires and his stretched hide.
As I sat on a stump by the fire, with a veil and gloves on, trying to
read, he observed, “I make you candle,” and in a minute he took a
piece of birch bark about two inches wide and rolled it hard, like an
allumette fifteen inches long, lit it, and fixed it by the other end
horizontally in a split stick three feet high, stuck it in the ground,
turning the blazing end to the wind, and telling me to snuff it from
time to time. It answered the purpose of a candle pretty well.
I noticed, as I had done before, that there was a lull among the
mosquitoes about midnight, and that they began again in the morning.
Nature is thus merciful. But apparently they need rest as well as we.
Few, if any, creatures are equally active all night. As soon as it was
light I saw, through my veil, that the inside of the tent about our
heads was quite blackened with myriads, each one of their wings when
flying, as has been calculated, vibrating some three thousand times in
a minute, and their combined hum was almost as bad to endure as their
stings. I had an uncomfortable night on this account though I am not
sure that one succeeded in his attempt to sting me. We did not suffer
so much from insects on this excursion as the statements of some who
have explored these woods in midsummer led us to anticipate. Yet I
have no doubt that at some seasons and in some places they are a much
more serious pest. The Jesuit Hierome Lalemant, of Quebec, reporting
the death of Father Reni Menard, who was abandoned, lost his way, and
died in the woods, among the Ontarios near Lake Superior, in 1661,
dwells chiefly on his probable sufferings from the attacks of
mosquitoes when too weak to defend himself, adding that there was a
frightful number of them in those parts, “and so insupportable,” says
he, “that the three Frenchmen who have made that voyage affirm that
there was no other means of defending one’s self but to run always
without stopping, and it was even necessary for two of them to be
employed in driving off these creatures while the third wanted to
drink, otherwise he could not have done it.” I have no doubt that this
was said in good faith.
* * * * *
August 1.
I caught two or three large red chivin (_Leuciscus pulchellus_) early
this morning, within twenty feet of the camp, which, added to the
moose-tongue, that had been left in the kettle boiling overnight, and
to our other stores, made a sumptuous breakfast. The Indian made us
some hemlock tea instead of coffee, and we were not obliged to go as
far as China for it; indeed, not quite so far as for the fish. This
was tolerable, though he said it was not strong enough. It was
interesting to see so simple a dish as a kettle of water with a
handful of green hemlock sprigs in it, boiling over the huge fire in
the open air, the leaves fast losing their lively green color, and
know that it was for our breakfast.
We were glad to embark once more, and leave some of the mosquitoes
behind. We had passed the _Wassataquoik_ without perceiving it. This,
according to the Indian, is the name of the main East Branch itself,
and not properly applied to this small tributary alone, as on the
maps.
We found that we had camped about a mile above Hunt’s, which is on the
east bank, and is the last house for those who ascend Ktaadn on this
side.
We had expected to ascend it from this point, but my companion was
obliged to give up this on account of sore feet. The Indian, however,
suggested that perhaps he might get a pair of moccasins at this place,
and that he could walk very easily in them without hurting his feet,
wearing several pairs of stockings, and he said beside that they were
so porous that when you had taken in water it all drained out again
in a little while. We stopped to get some sugar, but found that the
family had moved away, and the house was unoccupied, except
temporarily by some men who were getting the hay. They told me that
the road to Ktaadn left the river eight miles above; also that perhaps
we could get some sugar at Fisk’s, fourteen miles below. I do not
remember that we saw the mountain at all from the river. I noticed a
seine here stretched on the bank, which probably had been used to
catch salmon. Just below this, on the west bank, we saw a moose-hide
stretched, and with it a bearskin, which was comparatively very small.
I was the more interested in this sight, because it was near here that
a townsman of ours, then quite a lad, and alone, killed a large bear
some years ago. The Indian said that they belonged to Joe Aitteon, my
last guide, but how he told I do not know. He was probably hunting
near, and had left them for the day. Finding that we were going
directly to Oldtown, he regretted that he had not taken more of the
moose-meat to his family, saying that in a short time, by drying it,
he could have made it so light as to have brought away the greater
part, leaving the bones. We once or twice inquired after the lip,
which is a famous tidbit, but he said, “That go Oldtown for my old
woman; don’t get it every day.”
Maples grew more and more numerous. It was lowering, and rained a
little during the forenoon, and, as we expected a wetting, we stopped
early and dined on the east side of a small expansion of the river,
just above what are probably called Whetstone Falls, about a dozen
miles below Hunt’s. There were pretty fresh moose-tracks by the
waterside. There were singular long ridges hereabouts, called
“horsebacks,” covered with ferns. My companion, having lost his pipe,
asked the Indian if he could not make him one. “Oh, yer,” said he, and
in a minute rolled up one of birch bark, telling him to wet the bowl
from time to time. Here also he left his gazette on a tree.
We carried round the falls just below, on the west side. The rocks
were on their edges, and very sharp. The distance was about three
fourths of a mile. When we had carried over one load, the Indian
returned by the shore, and I by the path, and though I made no
particular haste, I was nevertheless surprised to find him at the
other end as soon as I. It was remarkable how easily he got along over
the worst ground. He said to me, “I take canoe and you take the rest,
suppose you can keep along with me?” I thought that he meant that
while he ran down the rapids I should keep along the shore, and be
ready to assist him from time to time, as I had done before; but as
the walking would be very bad, I answered, “I suppose you will go too
fast for me, but I will try.” But I was to go by the path, he said.
This I thought would not help the matter, I should have so far to go
to get to the riverside when he wanted me. But neither was this what
he meant. He was proposing a race over the carry, and asked me if I
thought I could keep along with him by the same path, adding that I
must be pretty smart to do it. As his load, the canoe, would be much
the heaviest and bulkiest, though the simplest, I thought that I ought
to be able to do it, and said that I would try. So I proceeded to
gather up the gun, axe, paddle, kettle, frying-pan, plates, dippers,
carpets, etc., etc., and while I was thus engaged he threw me his
cowhide boots. “What, are these in the bargain?” I asked. “Oh, yer,”
said he; but before I could make a bundle of my load I saw him
disappearing over a hill with the canoe on his head; so, hastily
scraping the various articles together, I started on the run, and
immediately went by him in the bushes, but I had no sooner left him
out of sight in a rocky hollow than the greasy plates, dippers, etc.,
took to themselves wings, and while I was employed in gathering them
up again, he went by me; but hastily pressing the sooty kettle to my
side, I started once more, and soon passing him again, I saw him no
more on the carry. I do not mention this as anything of a feat, for it
was but poor running on my part, and he was obliged to move with great
caution for fear of breaking his canoe as well as his neck. When he
made his appearance, puffing and panting like myself, in answer to my
inquiries where he had been, he said, “Rocks (locks) cut ’em feet,”
and, laughing, added, “Oh, me love to play sometimes.” He said that he
and his companions, when they came to carries several miles long, used
to try who would get over first; each, perhaps, with a canoe on his
head. I bore the sign of the kettle on my brown linen sack for the
rest of the voyage.
We made a second carry on the west side, around some falls about a
mile below this. On the mainland were Norway pines, indicating a new
geological formation, and it was such a dry and sandy soil as we had
not noticed before.