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[Illustration: THE INDIANS WOULD RISE TO THEIR FEET FOR A SINGLE
MOMENT]
THE FOREST
BY
STEWART EDWARD WHITE
CONTENTS
I. THE CALLING
II. THE SCIENCE OF GOING LIGHT
III. THE JUMPING-OFF PLACE
IV. ON MAKING CAMP
V. ON LYING AWAKE AT NIGHT
VI. THE 'LUNGE
VII. ON OPEN-WATER CANOE TRAVELLING
VIII. THE STRANDED STRANGERS
IX. ON FLIES
X. CLOCHE
XI. THE HABITANTS
XII. THE RIVER
XIII. THE HILLS
XIV. ON WALKING THROUGH THE WOODS
XV. ON WOODS INDIANS
XVI. ON WOODS INDIANS _(continued)_
XVII. THE CATCHING OF A CERTAIN FISH
XVIII. MAN WHO WALKS BY MOONLIGHT
XIX. APOLOGIA
SUGGESTIONS FOR OUTFIT
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
THE INDIANS WOULD RISE TO THEIR FEET FOR A SINGLE MOMENT
THIS OLD SOLDIER HAD COME IN FROM THE LONG TRAIL TO BEAR AGAIN THE FLAG
OF HIS COUNTRY
AT SUCH A TIME YOU WILL MEET WITH ADVENTURES
EACH WAVE WAS SINGLY A PROBLEM, TO FAIL IN WHOSE SOLUTION MEANT INSTANT
SWAMPING
WATCHED THE LONG NORTH-COUNTRY TWILIGHT STEAL UP LIKE A GRAY CLOUD FROM
THE EAST
IN THIS LOVABLE MYSTERY WE JOURNEYED ALL THE REST OF THAT MORNING
NOR NEED YOU HOPE TO POLE A CANOE UPSTREAM AS DO THESE PEOPLE
THEN IN THE TWILIGHT THE BATTLE
THE FOREST
I.
THE CALLING.
"The Red Gods make their medicine again."
Some time in February, when the snow and sleet have shut out from the
wearied mind even the memory of spring, the man of the woods generally
receives his first inspiration. He may catch it from some companion's
chance remark, a glance at the map, a vague recollection of a dim past
conversation, or it may flash on him from the mere pronouncement of a
name. The first faint thrill of discovery leaves him cool, but
gradually, with the increasing enthusiasm of cogitation, the idea gains
body, until finally it has grown to plan fit for discussion.
Of these many quickening potencies of inspiration, the mere name of a
place seems to strike deepest at the heart of romance. Colour, mystery,
the vastnesses of unexplored space are there, symbolized compactly for
the aliment of imagination. It lures the fancy as a fly lures the
trout. Mattágami, Peace River, Kánanaw, the House of the Touchwood
Hills, Rupert's House, the Land of Little Sticks, Flying Post,
Conjuror's House--how the syllables roll from the tongue, what pictures
rise in instant response to their suggestion! The journey of a thousand
miles seems not too great a price to pay for the sight of a place
called the Hills of Silence, for acquaintance with the people who dwell
there, perhaps for a glimpse of the saga-spirit that so named its
environment. On the other hand, one would feel but little desire to
visit Muggin's Corners, even though at their crossing one were assured
of the deepest flavour of the Far North.
The first response to the red god's summons is almost invariably the
production of a fly-book and the complete rearrangement of all its
contents. The next is a resumption of practice with the little pistol.
The third, and last, is pencil and paper, and lists of grub and duffel,
and estimates of routes and expenses, and correspondence with men who
spell queerly, bear down heavily with blunt pencils, and agree to be at
Black Beaver Portage on a certain date. Now, though the February snow
and sleet still shut him in, the spring has draw very near. He can
feel the warmth of her breath rustling through his reviving memories.
There are said to be sixty-eight roads to heaven, of which but one is
the true way, although here and there a by-path offers experimental
variety to the restless and bold. The true way for the man in the woods
to attain the elusive best of his wilderness experience is to go as
light as possible, and the by-paths of departure from that principle
lead only to the slightly increased carrying possibilities of
open-water canoe trips, and permanent camps.
But these prove to be not very independent side paths, never diverging
so far from the main road that one may dare hope to conceal from a
vigilant eye that he is _not_ going light.
To go light is to play the game fairly. The man in the woods matches
himself against the forces of nature. In the towns he is warmed and fed
and clothed so spontaneously and easily that after a time he perforce
begins to doubt himself, to wonder whether his powers are not atrophied
from disuse. And so, with his naked soul, he fronts the wilderness. It
is a test, a measuring of strength, a proving of his essential pluck
and resourcefulness and manhood, an assurance of man's highest potency,
the ability to endure and to take care of himself. In just so far as he
substitutes the ready-made of civilization for the wit-made of the
forest, the pneumatic bed for the balsam boughs, in just so far is he
relying on other men and other men's labour to take care of him. To
exactly that extent is the test invalidated. He has not proved a
courteous antagonist, for he has not stripped to the contest.
To go light is to play the game sensibly. For even when it is not so
earnest, nor the stake so high, a certain common-sense should take the
place on a lower plane of the fair-play sense on the higher. A great
many people find enjoyment in merely playing with nature. Through
vacation they relax their minds, exercise mildly their bodies, and
freshen the colours of their outlook on life. Such people like to live
comfortably, work little, and enjoy existence lazily. Instead of
modifying themselves to fit the life of the wilderness, they modify
their city methods to fit open-air conditions. They do not need to
strip to the contest, for contest there is none, and Indian packers are
cheap at a dollar a day. But even so the problem of the greatest
comfort--defining comfort as an accurate balance of effort expended to
results obtained--can be solved only by the one formula. And that
formula is, again, _go light_, for a superabundance of paraphernalia
proves always more of a care than a satisfaction. When the woods offer
you a thing ready made, it is the merest foolishness to transport that
same thing a hundred miles for the sake of the manufacturer's trademark.
I once met an outfit in the North Woods, plodding diligently across
portage, laden like the camels of the desert. Three Indians swarmed
back and forth a half-dozen trips apiece. An Indian can carry over two
hundred pounds. That evening a half-breed and I visited their camp and
examined their outfit, always with growing wonder. They had tent-poles
and about fifty pounds of hardwood tent pegs--in a wooded country where
such things can be had for a clip of the axe. They had a system of
ringed iron bars which could be so fitted together as to form a low
open grill on which trout could be broiled--weight twenty pounds, and
split wood necessary for its efficiency. They had air mattresses and
camp-chairs and oil lanterns. They had corpulent duffel bags apiece
that would stand alone, and enough changes of clothes to last out
dry-skinned a week's rain. And the leader of the party wore the
wrinkled brow of tribulation. For he had to keep track of everything
and see that package number twenty-eight was not left, and that package
number sixteen did not get wet; that the pneumatic bed did not get
punctured, and that the canned goods did. Beside which, the caravan was
moving at the majestic rate of about five miles a day.
Now tent-pegs can always be cut, and trout broiled beautifully by a
dozen other ways, and candle lanterns fold up, and balsam can be laid
in such a manner as to be as springy as a pneumatic mattress, and
camp-chairs, if desired, can be quickly constructed with an axe, and
clothes can always be washed or dried as long as fire burns and water
runs, and any one of fifty other items of laborious burden could have
been ingeniously and quickly substituted by any one of the Indians. It
was not that we concealed a bucolic scorn of effete but solid comfort;
only it did seem ridiculous that a man should cumber himself with a
fifth wheel on a smoothly macadamized road.
The next morning Billy and I went cheerfully on our way. We were
carrying an axe, a gun, blankets, an extra pair of drawers and socks
apiece, a little grub, and an eight-pound shelter tent. We had been out
a week, and we were having a good time.
II.
THE SCIENCE OF GOING LIGHT.
"Now the Four-Way lodge is opened--now the smokes of Council rise--
Pleasant smokes ere yet 'twixt trail and trail they choose."
You can no more be told how to go light than you can be told how to hit
a ball with a bat. It is something that must be lived through, and all
advice on the subject has just about the value of an answer to a
bashful young man who begged from one of our woman's periodicals help
in overcoming the diffidence felt on entering a crowded room. The reply
read: "Cultivate an easy, graceful manner." In like case I might
hypothecate, "To go light, discard all but the really necessary
articles."
The sticking-point, were you to press me close, would be the definition
of the word "necessary," for the terms of such definition would have to
be those solely and simply of a man's experience. Comforts, even most
desirable comforts, are not necessities. A dozen times a day trifling
emergencies will seem precisely to call for some little handy
contrivance that would be just the thing, were it in the pack rather
than at home. A disgorger does the business better than a pocket-knife;
a pair of oilskin trousers turns the wet better than does kersey; a
camp-stove will burn merrily in a rain lively enough to drown an open
fire. Yet neither disgorger, nor oilskins, nor camp-stove can be
considered in the light of necessities, for the simple reason that the
conditions of their use occur too infrequently to compensate for the
pains of their carriage. Or, to put it the other way, a few moments'
work with a knife, wet knees occasionally, or an infrequent soggy meal
are not too great a price to pay for unburdened shoulders.
Nor on the other hand must you conclude that because a thing is a mere
luxury in town, it is nothing but that in the woods. Most woodsmen own
some little ridiculous item of outfit without which they could not be
happy. And when a man cannot be happy lacking a thing, that thing
becomes a necessity. I knew one who never stirred without borated
talcum powder; another who must have his mouth-organ; a third who was
miserable without a small bottle of salad dressing; I confess to a pair
of light buckskin gloves. Each man must decide for himself--remembering
always the endurance limit of human shoulders.
A necessity is that which, _by your own experience_, you have
found you cannot do without. As a bit of practical advice, however, the
following system of elimination may be recommended. When you return
from a trip, turn your duffel bag upside down on the floor. Of the
contents make three piles--three piles conscientiously selected in the
light of what has happened rather than what ought to have happened, or
what might have happened. It is difficult to do this. Preconceived
notions, habits of civilization, theory for future, imagination, all
stand in the eye of your honesty. Pile number one should comprise those
articles you have used every day; pile number two, those you have used
occasionally; pile number three, those you have not used at all. If you
are resolute and singleminded, you will at once discard the latter two.
Throughout the following winter you will be attacked by misgivings. To
be sure, you wore the mosquito hat but once or twice, and the fourth
pair of socks not at all; but then the mosquitoes might be thicker next
time, and a series of rainy days and cold nights might make it
desirable to have a dry pair of socks to put on at night. The past has
been _x_, but the future might be _y_. One by one the discarded creep
back into the list. And by the opening of next season you have made
toward perfection by only the little space of a mackintosh coat and a
ten-gauge gun.
But in the years to come you learn better and better the simple woods
lesson of substitution or doing without. You find that discomfort is as
soon forgotten as pain; that almost anything can be endured if it is
but for the time being; that absolute physical comfort is worth but a
very small price in avoirdupois. Your pack shrinks.
In fact, it really never ceases shrinking. Only last summer taught me
the uselessness of an extra pair of trousers. It rains in the woods;
streams are to be waded; the wetness of leaves is greater than the
wetness of many rivers. Logically, naturally, inevitably, such
conditions point to change of garments when camp is made. We always
change our clothes when we get wet in the city. So for years I carried
those extra nether garments--and continued in the natural exposure to
sun and wind and camp-fire to dry off before change time, or to hang
the damp clothes from the ridge-pole for resumption in the morning. And
then one day the web of that particular convention broke. We change wet
trousers in the town; we do not in the woods. The extras were relegated
to pile number three, and my pack, already apparently down to a
minimum, lost a few pounds more.
You will want a hat, a _good_ hat to turn rain, with a medium
brim. If you are wise, you will get it too small for your head, and rip
out the lining. The felt will cling tenaciously to your hair, so that
you will find the snatches of the brush and the wind generally
unavailing.
By way of undergarments wear woollen. Buy winter weights even for
midsummer. In travelling with a pack a man is going to sweat in
streams, no matter what he puts on or takes off, and the thick garment
will be found no more oppressive than the thin. And then in the cool of
the woods or of the evening he avoids a chill. And he can plunge into
the coldest water with impunity, sure that ten minutes of the air will
dry him fairly well. Until you have shivered in clammy cotton, you
cannot realize the importance of this point. Ten minutes of cotton
underwear in cold water will chill. On the other hand, suitably clothed
in wool, I have waded the ice water of north country streams when the
thermometer was so low I could see my breath in the air, without other
discomfort than a cold ring around my legs to mark the surface of the
water, and a slight numbness in my feet when I emerged. Therefore, even
in hot weather, wear heavy wool. It is the most comfortable.
Undoubtedly you will come to believe this only by experience.
Do not carry a coat. This is another preconception of civilization,
exceedingly difficult to get rid of. You will never wear it while
packing. In a rain you will find that it wets through so promptly as to
be of little use; or, if waterproof, the inside condensation will more
than equal the rain-water. In camp you will discard it because it will
impede the swing of your arms. The end of that coat will be a brief
half-hour after supper, and a makeshift roll to serve as a pillow
during the night. And for these a sweater is better in every way.
In fact, if you feel you must possess another outside garment, let it
be an extra sweater. You can sleep in it, use it when your day garment
is soaked, or even tie things in it as in a bag. It is not necessary,
however.
One good shirt is enough. When you wash it, substitute the sweater
until it dries. In fact, by keeping the sweater always in your
waterproof bag, you possess a dry garment to change into. Two
handkerchiefs are enough. One should be of silk, for neck, head, or--in
case of cramps or intense cold--the _stomach_; the other of
coloured cotton for the pocket. Both can be quickly washed, and dried
_en route_. Three pairs of heavy wool socks will be enough--one
for wear, one for night, and one for extra. A second pair of drawers
supplements the sweater when a temporary day change is desirable. Heavy
kersey "driver's" trousers are the best. They are cheap, dry very
quickly, and are not easily "picked out" by the brush.
The best blanket is that made by the Hudson's Bay Company for its
servants--a "three-point" for summer is heavy enough. The next best is
our own gray army blanket. One of rubber should fold about it, and a
pair of narrow buckle straps is handy to keep the bundle right and
tight and waterproof. As for a tent, buy the smallest shelter you can
get along with, have it made of balloon silk well waterproofed, and
supplement it with a duplicate tent of light cheesecloth to suspend
inside as a fly-proof defence. A seven-by-seven three-man A-tent, which
would weigh between twenty and thirty pounds if made of duck, means
only about eight pounds constructed of this material. And it is
waterproof. I own one which I have used for three seasons. It has been
employed as tarpaulin, fly, even blanket on a pinch; it has been packed
through the roughest country; I have even pressed it into service as a
sort of canoe lining; but it is still as good as ever. Such a tent
sometimes condenses a little moisture in a cold rain, but it never
"sprays" as does a duck shelter; it never leaks simply because you have
accidentally touched its under-surface; and, best of all, it weighs no
more after a rain than before it. This latter item is perhaps its best
recommendation. The confronting with equanimity of a wet day's journey
in the shower-bath brush of our northern forests requires a degree of
philosophy which a gratuitous ten pounds of soaked-up water sometimes
most effectually breaks down. I know of but one place where such a tent
can be bought. The address will be gladly sent to any one practically
interested.
As for the actual implements of the trade, they are not many, although
of course the sporting goods stores are full of all sorts of "handy
contrivances." A small axe--one of the pocket size will do, if you get
the right shape and balance, although a light regulation axe is better;
a thin-bladed sheath-knife of the best steel; a pocket-knife; a
compass; a waterproof match-safe; fishing-tackle; firearms; and cooking
utensils comprise the list. All others belong to permanent camps, or
open-water cruises--not to "hikes" in the woods.
The items, with the exception of the last two, seem to explain
themselves. During the summer months in the North Woods you will not
need a rifle. Partridges, spruce hens, ptarmigan, rabbits, ducks, and
geese are usually abundant enough to fill the provision list. For them,
of course, a shotgun is the thing; but since such a weapon weighs many
pounds, and its ammunition many more, I have come gradually to depend
entirely on a pistol. The instrument is single shot, carries a six-inch
barrel, is fitted with a special butt, and is built on the graceful
lines of a 38-calibre Smith and Wesson revolver. Its cartridge is the
22 long-rifle, a target size, that carries as accurately as you can
hold for upwards of a hundred yards. With it I have often killed a
half-dozen of partridges from the same tree. The ammunition is light.
Altogether it is a most satisfactory, convenient, and accurate weapon,
and quite adequate to all small game. In fact, an Indian named
Tawabinisáy, after seeing it perform, once borrowed it to kill a moose.
[Illustration: THIS OLD SOLDIER HAD COME IN FROM THE LONG TRAIL TO BEAR
AGAIN THE FLAG OF HIS COUNTRY.]
"I shootum in eye," said he.
By way of cooking utensils, buy aluminium. It is expensive, but so
light and so easily cleaned that it is well worth all you may have to
pay. If you are alone you will not want to carry much hardware. I made
a twenty-day trip once with nothing but a tin cup and a frying-pan.
Dishes, pails, wash-basins, and other receptacles can always be made of
birch bark and cedar withes--by one who knows how. The ideal outfit for
two or three is a cup, fork, and spoon apiece, one tea-pail, two
kettle-pails, and a frying-pan. The latter can be used as a bread-oven.
A few minor items, of practically no weight, suggest themselves--toilet
requisites, fly-dope, needle and thread, a cathartic, pain-killer, a
roll of surgeon's bandage, pipe and tobacco. But when the pack is made
up, and the duffel bag tied, you find that, while fitted for every
emergency but that of catastrophe, you are prepared to "go light."
III.
THE JUMPING-OFF PLACE.
Sometime, no matter how long your journey, you will reach a spot whose
psychological effect is so exactly like a dozen others that you will
recognize at once its kinship with former experience. Mere physical
likeness does not count at all. It may possess a water-front of laths
and sawdust, or an outlook over broad, shimmering, heat-baked plains.
It may front the impassive fringe of a forest, or it may skirt the calm
stretch of a river. But whether of log or mud, stone or unpainted
board, its identity becomes at first sight indubitably evident. Were
you, by the wave of some beneficent wand, to be transported direct to
it from the heart of the city, you could not fail to recognize it. "The
jumping-off place!" you would cry ecstatically, and turn with unerring
instinct to the Aromatic Shop.
For here is where begins the Long Trail. Whether it will lead you
through the forests, or up the hills, or over the plains, or by
invisible water paths; whether you will accomplish it on horseback, or
in canoe, or by the transportation of your own two legs; whether your
companions shall be white or red, or merely the voices of the
wilds--these things matter not a particle. In the symbol of this little
town you loose your hold on the world of made things, and shift for
yourself among the unchanging conditions of nature.
Here the faint forest flavour, the subtle, invisible breath of freedom,
stirs faintly across men's conventions. The ordinary affairs of life
savour of this tang--a trace of wildness in the domesticated berry. In
the dress of the inhabitants is a dash of colour, a carelessness of
port; in the manner of their greeting is the clear, steady-eyed
taciturnity of the silent places; through the web of their gray talk of
ways and means and men's simpler beliefs runs a thread of colour. One
hears strange, suggestive words and phrases--arapajo, capote, arroyo,
the diamond hitch, cache, butte, coulé, muskegs, portage, and a dozen
others coined into the tender of daily use. And occasionally, when the
expectation is least alert, one encounters suddenly the very symbol of
the wilderness itself--a dust-whitened cowboy, an Indian packer with
his straight, fillet-confined hair, a voyageur gay in red sash and
ornamented moccasins, one of the Company's canoemen, hollow-cheeked
from the river--no costumed show exhibit, but fitting naturally into
the scene, bringing something of the open space with him--so that in
your imagination the little town gradually takes on the colour of
mystery which an older community utterly lacks.
But perhaps the strongest of the influences which unite to assure the
psychological kinships of the jumping-off places is that of the
Aromatic Shop. It is usually a board affair, with a broad high sidewalk
shaded by a wooden awning. You enter through a narrow door, and find
yourself facing two dusky aisles separated by a narrow division of
goods, and flanked by wooden counters. So far it is exactly like the
corner store of our rural districts. But in the dimness of these two
aisles lurks the spirit of the wilds. There in a row hang fifty pair of
smoke-tanned moccasins; in another an equal number of oil-tanned;
across the background you can make out snowshoes. The shelves are high
with blankets--three-point, four-point--thick and warm for the
out-of-doors. Should you care to examine, the storekeeper will hook
down from aloft capotes of different degrees of fineness. Fathoms of
black tobacco-rope lie coiled in tubs. Tump-lines welter in a tangle of
dimness. On a series of little shelves is the ammunition, fascinating
in the attraction of mere numbers--44 Winchester, 45 Colt, 40-82,
30-40, 44 S. & W.--they all connote something to the accustomed mind,
just as do the numbered street names of New York.
An exploration is always bringing something new to light among the
commonplaces of ginghams and working shirts, and canned goods and
stationery, and the other thousands of civilized drearinesses to found
in every country store. From under the counter you drag out a mink skin
or so; from the dark corner an assortment of steel traps. In a loft a
birch-bark mokok, fifty pounds heavy with granulated maple sugar,
dispenses a faint perfume.
For this is, above all, the Aromatic Shop. A hundred ghosts of odours
mingle to produce the spirit of it. The reek of the camp-fires is in
its buckskin, of the woods in its birch bark, of the muskegs in its
sweet grass, of the open spaces in its peltries, of the evening meal in
its coffees and bacons, of the portage trail in the leather of the
tump-lines. I am speaking now of the country of which we are to write.
The shops of the other jumping-off places are equally aromatic--whether
with the leather of saddles, the freshness of ash paddles, or the
pungency of marline; and once the smell of them is in your nostrils you
cannot but away.
The Aromatic Shop is always kept by the wisest, the most accommodating,
the most charming shopkeeper in the world. He has all leisure to give
you, and enters into the innermost spirit of your buying. He is of
supernal sagacity in regard to supplies and outfits, and if he does not
know all about routes, at least he is acquainted with the very man who
can tell you everything you want to know. He leans both elbows on the
counter, you swing your feet, and together you go over the list, while
the Indian stands smoky and silent in the background. "Now, if I was
you," says he, "I'd take just a little more pork. You won't be eatin'
so much yourself, but these Injuns ain't got no bottom when it comes to
sow-belly. And I wouldn't buy all that coffee. You ain't goin' to want
much after the first edge is worn off. Tea's the boy." The Indian
shoots a few rapid words across the discussion. "He says you'll want
some iron shoes to fit on canoe poles for when you come back
up-stream," interprets your friend. "I guess that's right. I ain't got
none, but th' blacksmith'll fit you out all right. You'll find him just
below--never mind, don't you bother, I'll see to all that for you."
The next morning he saunters into view at the river-bank. "Thought I'd
see you off," he replies to your expression of surprise at his early
rising. "Take care of yourself." And so the last hand-clasp of
civilization is extended to you from the little Aromatic Shop.
Occasionally, however, though very rarely, you step to the Long Trail
from the streets of a raw modern town. The chance presence of some
local industry demanding a large population of workmen, combined with
first-class railroad transportation, may plant an electric-lighted,
saloon-lined, brick-hoteled city in the middle of the wilderness.
Lumber, mines--especially of the baser metals or commercial
minerals--fisheries, a terminus of water freightage, may one or all
call into existence a community a hundred years in advance of its
environment. Then you lose the savour of the jump-off. Nothing can
quite take the place of the instant plunge into the wilderness, for you
must travel three or four days from such a place before you sense the
forest in its vastness, even though deer may eat the cabbages at the
edge of town. Occasionally, however, by force of crude contrast to the
brick-heated atmosphere, the breath of the woods reaches your cheek,
and always you own a very tender feeling for the cause of it.
Dick and myself were caught in such a place. It was an unfinished
little town, with brick-fronted stores, arc-lights swaying over
fathomless mud, big superintendent's and millowner's houses of bastard
architecture in a blatant superiority of hill location, a hotel whose
office chairs supported a variety of cheap drummers, and stores
screeching in an attempt at metropolitan smartness. We inspected the
standpipe and the docks, walked a careless mile of board walk, kicked a
dozen pugnacious dogs from our setter, Deuce, and found ourselves at
the end of our resources. As a crowd seemed to be gathering about the
wooden railway station, we joined it in sheer idleness.
It seemed that an election had taken place the day before, that one
Smith had been chosen to the Assembly, and that, though this district
had gone anti-Smith, the candidate was expected to stop off an hour on
his way to a more westerly point. Consequently the town was on hand to
receive him.
The crowd, we soon discovered, was bourgeois in the extreme. Young men
from the mill escorted young women from the shops. The young men wore
flaring collars three sizes too large; the young women white cotton
mitts three sizes too small. The older men spat, and talked through
their noses; the women drawled out a monotonous flow of speech
concerning the annoyances of domestic life. A gang of uncouth practical
jokers, exploding in horse-laughter, skylarked about, jostling rudely.
A village band, uniformed solely with cheap carriage-cloth caps, brayed
excruciatingly. The reception committee had decorated, with red and
white silesia streamers and rosettes, an ordinary side-bar buggy, to
which a long rope had been attached, that the great man might be
dragged by his fellow-citizens to the public square.
Nobody seemed to be taking the affair too seriously. It was evidently
more than half a joke. Anti-Smith was more good-humouredly in evidence
than the winning party. Just this touch of buffoonery completed our
sense of the farce-comedy character of the situation. The town was
tawdry in its preparations--and knew it; but half sincere in its
enthusiasm--and knew it. If the crowd had been composed of Americans,
we should have anticipated an unhappy time for Smith; but good, loyal
Canadians, by the limitations of temperament, could get no further than
a spirit of manifest irreverence.
In the shifting of the groups Dick and I became separated, but shortly
I made him out worming his way excitedly toward me, his sketch-book
open in his hand.
"Come here," he whispered. "There's going to be fun. They're going to
open up on old Smith after all."
I followed. The decorated side-bar buggy might be well meant; the
village band need not have been interpreted as an ironical compliment;
the rest of the celebration might indicate paucity of resource rather
than facetious intent; but surely the figure of fun before us could not
be otherwise construed than as a deliberate advertising in the face of
success of the town's real attitude toward the celebration.
The man was short. He wore a felt hat, so big that it rested on his
ears. A gray wool shirt hung below his neck. A cutaway coat miles too
large depended below his knees and to the first joints of his fingers.
By way of official uniform his legs were incased in an ordinary rough
pair of miller's white trousers, on which broad strips of red flannel
had been roughly sewn. Everything was wrinkled in the folds of
too-bigness. As though to accentuate the note, the man stood very
erect, very military, and supported in one hand the staff of an English
flag. This figure of fun, this man made from the slop-chest, this
caricature of a scarecrow, had been put forth by heavy-handed
facetiousness to the post of greatest honour. He was Standard-Bearer to
the occasion! Surely subtle irony could go no further.
A sudden movement caused the man to turn. One sleeve of the faded,
ridiculous old cutaway was empty. He turned again. From under the
ear-flanging hat looked unflinchingly the clear, steady blue eye of the
woodsman. And so we knew. This old soldier had come in from the Long
Trail to bear again the flag of his country. If his clothes were old
and ill-fitting, at least they were his best, and the largeness of the
empty sleeve belittled the too-largeness of the other. In all this
ribald, laughing, irreverent, commonplace, semi-vicious crowd he was
the one note of sincerity. To him this was a real occasion, and the
exalted reverence in his eye for the task he was so simply performing
was Smith's real triumph--if he could have known it. We understood now,
we felt the imminence of the Long Trail. For the first time the little
brick, tawdry town gripped our hearts with the well-known thrill of the
Jumping-Off Place. Suddenly the great, simple, unashamed wilderness
drew near us as with the rush of wings.
IV.
ON MAKING CAMP.
"Who hath smelt wood-smoke at twilight? Who hath
heard the birch log burning?
Who is quick to read the noises of the night?
Let him follow with the others, for the young men's feet are turning
To the camps of proved desire and known delight."
In the Ojibway language _wigwam_ means a good spot for camping, a
place cleared for a camp, a camp as an abstract proposition, and a camp
in the concrete as represented by a tent, a thatched shelter, or a
conical tepee. In like manner, the English word _camp_ lends
itself to a variety of concepts. I once slept in a four-poster bed over
a polished floor in an elaborate servant-haunted structure which,
mainly because it was built of logs and overlooked a lake, the owner
always spoke of as his camp. Again, I once slept on a bed of prairie
grass, before a fire of dried buffalo chips and mesquite, wrapped in a
single light blanket, while a good vigorous rain-storm made new cold
places on me and under me all night. In the morning the cowboy with
whom I was travelling remarked that this was "sure a lonesome
proposition as a camp."
Between these two extremes is infinite variety, grading upwards through
the divers bivouacs of snow, plains, pines, or hills to the bark
shelter; past the dog-tent, the A-tent, the wall-tent, to the elaborate
permanent canvas cottage of the luxurious camper, the dug-out winter
retreat of the range cowboy, the trapper's cabin, the great log-built
lumber-jack communities, and the last refinements of sybaritic summer
homes in the Adirondacks. All these are camps. And when you talk of
making camp you must know whether that process is to mean only a search
for rattlesnakes and enough acrid-smoked fuel to boil tea, or a
winter's consultation with an expert architect; whether your camp is to
be made on the principle of Omar's one-night Sultan, or whether it is
intended to accommodate the full days of an entire summer.
But to those who tread the Long Trail the making of camp resolves
itself into an algebraical formula. After a man has travelled all day
through the Northern wilderness he wants to rest, and anything that
stands between himself and his repose he must get rid of in as few
motions as is consistent with reasonable thoroughness. The end in view
is a hot meal and a comfortable dry place to sleep. The straighter he
can draw the line to those two points the happier he is.
Early in his woods experience, Dick became possessed with the desire to
do everything for himself. As this was a laudable striving for
self-sufficiency, I called a halt at about three o'clock one afternoon
in order to give him plenty of time.
Now Dick is a good, active, able-bodied boy, possessed of average
intelligence and rather more than average zeal. He even had theory of a
sort, for he had read various "Boy Campers, or the Trapper's Guide,"
"How to Camp Out," "The Science of Woodcraft," and other able works. He
certainly had ideas enough and confidence enough. I sat down on a log.
At the end of three hours' flusteration, heat, worry, and good hard
work, he had accomplished the following results: A tent, very saggy,
very askew, covered a four-sided area--it was not a rectangle--of very
bumpy ground. A hodge-podge bonfire, in the centre of which an
inaccessible coffee-pot toppled menacingly, alternately threatened to
ignite the entire surrounding forest or to go out altogether through
lack of fuel. Personal belongings strewed the ground near the fire, and
provisions cumbered the entrance to the tent. Dick was anxiously mixing
batter for the cakes, attempting to stir a pot of rice often enough to
prevent it from burning, and trying to rustle sufficient dry wood to
keep the fire going. This diversity of interests certainly made him sit
up and pay attention. At each instant he had to desert his flour-sack
to rescue the coffee-pot, or to shift the kettle, or to dab hastily at
the rice, or to stamp out the small brush, or to pile on more dry
twigs. His movements were not graceful. They raised a scurry of dry
bark, ashes, wood dust, twigs, leaves, and pine needles, a certain
proportion of which found their way into the coffee, the rice, and the
sticky batter, while the smaller articles of personal belonging,
hastily dumped from the duffel-bag, gradually disappeared from view in
the manner of Pompeii and ancient Vesuvius. Dick burned his fingers and
stumbled about and swore, and looked so comically-pathetically
red-faced through the smoke that I, seated on the log, at the same time
laughed and pitied. And in the end, when he needed a continuous steady
fire to fry his cakes, he suddenly discovered that dry twigs do not
make coals, and that his previous operations had used up all the fuel
within easy circle of the camp.
So he had to drop everything for the purpose of rustling wood,
while the coffee chilled, the rice cooled, the bacon congealed, and all
the provisions, cooked and uncooked, gathered entomological specimens.
At the last, the poor bedeviled theorist made a hasty meal of scorched
food, brazenly postponed the washing of dishes until the morrow, and
coiled about his hummocky couch to dream the nightmares of complete
exhaustion.
Poor Dick! I knew exactly how he felt, how the low afternoon sun
scorched, how the fire darted out at unexpected places, how the smoke
followed him around, no matter on which side of the fire he placed
himself, how the flies all took to biting when both hands were
occupied, and how they all miraculously disappeared when he had set
down the frying-pan and knife to fight them. I could sympathize, too,
with the lonely, forlorn, lost-dog feeling that clutched him after it
was all over. I could remember how big and forbidding and unfriendly
the forest had once looked to me in like circumstances, so that I had
felt suddenly thrust outside into empty spaces. Almost was I tempted to
intervene; but I liked Dick, and I wanted to do him good. This
experience was harrowing, but it prepared his mind for the seeds of
wisdom. By the following morning he had chastened his spirit, forgotten
the assurance breathed from the windy pages of the Boy Trapper Library,
and was ready to learn.
Have you ever watched a competent portraitist at work? The infinite
pains a skilled man spends on the preliminaries before he takes one
step towards a likeness nearly always wears down the patience of the
sitter. He measures with his eye, he plumbs, he sketches tentatively,
he places in here a dab, there a blotch, he puts behind him apparently
unproductive hours--and then all at once he is ready to begin something
that will not have to be done over again. An amateur, however, is
carried away by his desire for results. He dashes in a hit-or-miss
early effect, which grows into an approximate likeness almost
immediately, but which will require infinite labour, alteration, and
anxiety to beat into finished shape.
The case of the artist in making camps is exactly similar, and the
philosophical reasons for his failure are exactly the same. To the
superficial mind a camp is a shelter, a bright fire, and a smell of
cooking. So when a man is very tired he cuts across lots to those three
results. He pitches his tent, lights his fire, puts over his food--and
finds himself drowned in detail, like my friend Dick.
The following is, in brief, what during the next six weeks I told that
youth, by precept, by homily, and by making the solution so obvious
that he could work it out for himself.
When five or six o'clock draws near, begin to look about you for a good
level dry place, elevated some few feet above the surroundings. Drop
your pack or beach your canoe. Examine the location carefully. You
will want two trees about ten feet apart, from which to suspend your
tent, and a bit of flat ground underneath them. Of course the flat
ground need not be particularly unencumbered by brush or saplings, so
the combination ought not to be hard to discover. Now return to your
canoe. Do not unpack the tent.
With the little axe clear the ground thoroughly. By bending a sapling
over strongly with the left hand, clipping sharply at the strained
fibres, and then bending it as strongly the other way to repeat the axe
stroke on the other side, you will find that treelets of even two or
three inches diameter can be felled by two blows. In a very few
moments you will have accomplished a hole in the forest, and your two
supporting trees will stand sentinel at either end of a most
respectable-looking clearing. Do not unpack the tent.
Now, although the ground seems free of all but unimportant growths, go
over it thoroughly for little shrubs and leaves. They look soft and
yielding, but are often possessed of unexpectedly abrasive roots.
Besides, they mask the face of the ground. When you have finished
pulling them up by the roots, you will find that your supposedly level
plot is knobby with hummocks. Stand directly over each little mound;
swing the back of your axe vigorously against it, adze-wise, between
your legs. Nine times out of ten it will crumble, and the tenth time
means merely a root to cut or a stone to pry out. At length you are
possessed of a plot of clean, fresh earth, level and soft, free from
projections. But do not unpack your tent.
Lay a young birch or maple an inch or so in diameter across a log. Two
clips will produce you a tent-peg. If you are inexperienced, and
cherish memories of striped lawn marquees, you will cut them about six
inches long. If you are wise and old and gray in woods experience, you
will multiply that length by four. Then your loops will not slip off,
and you will have a real grip on mother earth, than which nothing can
be more desirable in the event of a heavy rain and wind squall about
midnight. If your axe is as sharp as it ought to be, you can point
them more neatly by holding them suspended in front of you while you
snip at their ends with the axe, rather than by resting them against a
solid base. Pile them together at the edge of the clearing. Cut a
crotched sapling eight or ten feet long. Now unpack your tent.
In a wooded country you will not take the time to fool with tent-poles.
A stout line run through the eyelets and along the apex will string it
successfully between your two trees. Draw the line as tight as
possible, but do not be too unhappy if, after your best efforts, it
still sags a little. That is what your long crotched stick is for.
Stake out your four corners. If you get them in a good rectangle, and
in such relation to the apex as to form two isosceles triangles of the
ends, your tent will stand smoothly. Therefore, be an artist and do it
right. Once the four corners are well placed, the rest follows
naturally. Occasionally in the North Country it will be found that the
soil is too thin over the rocks to grip the tent-pegs. In that case
drive them at a sharp angle as deep as they will go, and then lay a
large flat stone across the slant of them. Thus anchored, you will
ride out a gale. Finally, wedge your long sapling crotch under the
line--outside the tent, of course--to tighten it. Your shelter is up.
If you are a woodsman, ten or fifteen minutes has sufficed to
accomplish all this.
There remains the question of a bed, and you'd better attend to it now,
while your mind is still occupied with the shelter problem. Fell a
good thrifty young balsam and set to work pulling off the fans. Those
you cannot strip off easily with your hands are too tough for your
purpose. Lay them carelessly crisscross against the blade of your axe
and up the handle. They will not drop off, and when you shoulder that
axe you will resemble a walking haystack, and will probably experience
a genuine emotion of surprise at the amount of balsam that can be thus
transported. In the tent lay smoothly one layer of fans, convex side
up, butts toward the foot. Now thatch the rest on top of this,
thrusting the butt ends underneath the layer already placed in such a
manner as to leave the fan ends curving up and down towards the foot of
your bed. Your second emotion of surprise will assail you as you
realize how much spring inheres in but two or three layers thus
arranged. When you have spread your rubber blanket, you will be
possessed of a bed as soft and a great deal more aromatic and luxurious
than any you would be able to buy in town.
Your next care is to clear a living space in front of the tent. This
will take you about twenty seconds, for you need not be particular as
to stumps, hummocks, or small brush. All you want is room for cooking,
and suitable space for spreading out your provisions. But do not
unpack anything yet.
Your fireplace you will build of two green logs laid side by side. The
fire is to be made between them. They should converge slightly, in
order that the utensils to be rested across them may be of various
sizes. If your vicinity yields flat stones, they build up even better
than the logs--unless they happen to be of granite. Granite explodes
most disconcertingly. Poles sharpened, driven upright into the ground,
and then pressed down to slant over the fireplace, will hold your
kettles a suitable height above the blaze.
Fuel should be your next thought. A roll of birch bark first of all.
Then some of the small, dry, resinous branches that stick out from the
trunks of medium-sized pines, living or dead. Finally, the wood
itself. If you are merely cooking supper, and have no thought for a
warmth-fire or a friendship-fire, I should advise you to stick to the
dry pine branches, helped out, in the interest of coals for frying, by
a little dry maple or birch. If you need more of a blaze, you will
have to search out, fell, and split a standing dead tree. This is not
at all necessary. I have travelled many weeks in the woods without
using a more formidable implement than a one-pound hatchet. Pile your
fuel--a complete supply, all you are going to need--by the side of your
already improvised fireplace. But, as you value your peace of mind, do
not fool with matches.
It will be a little difficult to turn your mind from the concept of
fire, to which all these preparations have compellingly led
it--especially as a fire is the one cheerful thing your weariness needs
the most at this time of day--but you must do so. Leave everything just
as it is, and unpack your provisions.
First of all, rinse your utensils. Hang your tea-pail, with the proper
quantity of water, from one slanting pole, and your kettle from the
other. Salt the water in the latter receptacle. Peel your potatoes,
if you have any; open your little provision sacks; puncture your tin
cans, if you have any; slice your bacon; clean your fish; pluck your
birds; mix your dough or batter; spread your table tinware on your
tarpaulin or a sheet of birch bark; cut a kettle-lifter; see that
everything you are going to need is within direct reach of your hand as
you squat on your heels before the fireplace. Now light your fire.
The civilized method is to build a fire and then to touch a match to
the completed structure. If well done and in a grate or steve, this
works beautifully. Only in the woods you have no grate. The only sure
way is as follows: Hold a piece of birch bark in your hand. Shelter
your match all you know how. When the bark has caught, lay it in your
fireplace, assist it with more bark, and gradually build up, twig by
twig, stick by stick, from the first pin-point of flame, all the fire
you are going to need. It will not be much. The little hot blaze
rising between the parallel logs directly against the aluminium of your
utensils will do the business in a very short order. In fifteen
minutes at most your meal is ready. And you have been able to attain
to hot food thus quickly because you were prepared.
In case of very wet weather the affair is altered somewhat. If the
rain has just commenced, do not stop to clear out very thoroughly, but
get your tent up as quickly as possible, in order to preserve an area
of comparatively dry ground. But if the earth is already soaked, you
had best build a bonfire to dry out by, while you cook over a smaller
fire a little distance removed, leaving the tent until later. Or it
may be well not to pitch the tent at all, but to lay it across slanting
supports at an angle to reflect the heat against the ground.