SCOUTING FOR THE TRAIL
Lake Nipishish is approximately twenty miles in length, and at its
broadest part ten or twelve miles in width. It extends in an almost
due easterly direction from the place where we launched our canoes near
its outlet. The shores are rocky and rise gradually into low,
well-wooded hills, by which the lake is surrounded. Five miles from
the outlet a rocky point juts out into the water, and above the point
an arm of the lake reaches into the hills to the northward to a
distance of six miles, almost at right angles to the main lake. In the
arm there are several small, rocky islands which sustain a scrubby
growth of black spruce and fir balsam.
Hitherto the Indian maps had been of little assistance to us. No
estimate of distance could be made from them, and the lakes through
which we had passed (not all of them shown on the map) were represented
by small circles with nothing to indicate at what point on their shores
the trail was to be found. Lake Nipishish, however, was drawn on a
larger scale and with more detail, and we readily located the trail
leading out of the arm which I have mentioned.
After a day's work through several small lakes or ponds, with short
intervening portages, and a trail on the whole well defined and easily
followed, we came one afternoon to a good-sized lake of irregular shape
which Pete promptly named Washkagama (Crooked Lake).
A stream flowed into Washkagama near the place where we went ashore,
and it seemed to me probable that our route might be along this stream,
which it was likely drained lakes farther up; but a search in the
vicinity failed to uncover any signs of the trail, and the irregular
shape of the lake suggested several other likely places for it. We
were, therefore, forced to go into camp, disappointing as it was, until
we should know our position to a certainty.
The next day was showery, but we began in the morning a determined hunt
for the trail. Stanton remained in camp to make needed repairs to the
outfit; Easton went with Pete to the northward, while Richards and I in
one of the canoes paddled to the eastern side of the lake arm, upon
which we were encamped, to climb a barren hill from which we hoped to
get a good view of the country, and upon reaching the summit we were
not disappointed. A wide panorama was spread before us. To the north
lay a great rolling country covered with a limitless forest of firs,
with here and there a bit of sparkling water. A mile from our camp a
creek, now and again losing itself in the green woods, rushed down to
join Washkagama, anxious to gain the repose of the lake. To the
northeast the rugged white hills, that we were hoping to reach soon,
loomed up grand and majestic, with patches of snow, like white sheets,
spread over their sides and tops. From Nipishish to Washkagama we had
passed through a burned and rocky country where no new growth save
scant underbrush and a few scattering spruce, balsam and tamarack trees
had taken the place of the old destroyed forest. The dead, naked tree
trunks which, gaunt and weather-beaten, still stood upright or lay in
promiscuous confusion on the ground, gave this part of the country from
our hilltop view an appearance of solitary desolation that we had not
noticed when we were traveling through it. But this unregenerated
district ended at Washkagama; and below it Nipishish, with its
green-topped hills, seemed almost homelike.
The creek that I have mentioned as flowing into the lake a mile from
our camp seemed to me worthy to be explored for the trail, and I
determined to go there at once upon our return to camp, while Richards
desired to climb a rock-topped hill which held its head above the
timber line three or four miles to the northwest, that he might make
topographical and geological observations there.
We returned to camp, and Richards, with a package of erbswurst in his
pocket to cook for dinner and my rifle on his shoulder, started
immediately into the bush, and was but just gone when Pete and Easton
appeared with the report that two miles above us lay a large lake, and
that they had found the trail leading from it to the creek I had seen
from the hill. The lake lay among the hills to the northward, and the
bits of water I had seen were portions of it. I was anxious to break
camp and start forward, but this could not be done until Richards'
return. Easton, Pete and I paddled up to the creek's mouth, therefore,
and spent the day fishing, and landed eighty-seven trout, ranging from
a quarter pound to four pounds in weight. The largest ones Stanton
split and hung over the fire to dry for future use, while the others
were applied to immediate need.
When Richards came into camp in the evening he brought with him an
excellent map of the country that he had seen from the hill and
reported having counted ten lakes, including the large one that Easton
and Pete had visited. He also had found the trail and followed it back.
The next morning some tracking and wading up the creek was necessary
before we found ourselves upon the trail with packs on our backs, and
before twelve o'clock we arrived with all our outfit at the lake, which
we shall call Minisinaqua. It was an exceedingly beautiful sheet of
water, the main body, perhaps, ten or twelve miles in length, but
narrow, and with many arms and indentations and containing numerous
round green islands. The shores and surrounding country were well
wooded with spruce, fir, balsam, larch, and an occasional small white
birch.
I took my place in the larger canoe with Pete and Easton and left
Stanton to follow with Richards. Pete's eyes, as always, were scanning
with keen scrutiny every inch of shore. Suddenly he straightened up,
peered closely at an island, and in a stage whisper exclaimed "Caribou!
Caribou! Don't make noise! Paddle, quick!"
We saw them then--two old stags and a fawn--on an island, but they had
seen us, too, or winded us more likely, and, rushing across the island,
took to the water on the opposite side, making for the mainland. We
bent to our paddles with all our might, hoping to get within shooting
distance of them, but they had too much lead. We all tried some shots
when we saw we could not get closer, but the deer were five hundred
yards away, and from extra exertion with our paddles, we were unable to
hold steady, and missed.
Our canoes were turned into an arm of the lake leading to the
northward. Amongst some islands we came upon a flock of five
geese--two old ones and three young ones. The old ones had just passed
through the molting season, and their new wing feathers were not long
enough to bear them, and the young ones, though nearly full grown, had
not yet learned to fly. Pete brought the mother goose and two of her
children down with the shotgun, but father gander and the other
youngster escaped, flapping away on the surface of the lake at a
remarkable speed, and they were allowed to go with their lives without
a chase.
We stumbled upon the trail leading from Lake Minisinaqua, almost
immediately upon landing. Its course was in a northerly direction
through the valley of a small river that emptied into the lake. This
valley was inclosed by low hills, and the country, like that between
Washkagama and Lake Minisinaqua, was well covered with the same
varieties of small trees that were found there. For a mile and
three-quarters, the stream along which the trail ran was too swift for
canoeing, but it then expanded into miniature lakes or ponds which were
connected by short rapids. Each of us portaged a load to the first
pond, where the canoes were to be launched, and I directed Pete and
Stanton to remain here, pluck the geese, and prepare two of them for an
evening dinner, while Richards, Easton and I brought forward a second
load and pitched camp.
This was Easton's twenty-second birthday and it occurred to me that it
would be a pleasant variation to give a birthday dinner in his honor
and to have a sort of feast to relieve the monotony of our daily life,
and give the men something to think about and revive their spirits; for
"bucking the trail" day after day with no change but the gradual change
of scenery does grow monotonous to most men, and the ardor of the best
of them, especially men unaccustomed to roughing it, will become damped
in time unless some variety, no matter how slight, can be brought into
their lives. A good dinner always has this effect, for after men are
immersed in a wilderness for several weeks, good things to eat take the
first place in their thoughts and, to judge from their conversation,
the attainment of these is their chief aim in life.
My instructions to Pete included the baking of an extra ration of bread
to be served hot with the roast geese, and I asked Stanton to try his
hand at concocting some kind of a pudding out of the few prunes that
still remained, to be served with sugar as sauce, and accompanied by
black coffee. Our coffee supply was small and it was used only on
Sundays now, or at times when we desired an especial treat.
We were pretty tired when we returned with our second packs and dropped
them on a low, bare knoll some fifty yards above the fire where Pete
and Stanton were carrying on their culinary operations, but a whiff of
roasting goose came to us like a tonic, and it did not take us long to
get camp pitched.
"Um-m-m," said Easton, stopping in his work of driving tent pegs to
sniff the air now bearing to us appetizing odors of goose and coffee,
"that smells like home."
"You bet it does," assented Richards. "I haven't been filled up for a
week, but I'm going to be to-night."
At length dinner was ready, and we fell to with such good purpose that
the two birds, a generous portion of hot bread, innumerable cups of
black coffee, and finally, a most excellent pudding that Stanton had
made out of bread dough and prunes and boiled in a canvas specimen bag
disappeared.
How we enjoyed it! "No hotel ever served such a banquet," one of the
boys remarked as we filled our pipes and lighted them with brands from
the fire. Then with that blissful feeling that nothing but a good
dinner can give, we lay at full length on the deep white moss,
peacefully puffing smoke at the stars as they blinked sleepily one by
one out of the blue of the great arch above us until the whole
firmament was glittering with a mass of sparkling heaven gems. The
soft perfume of the forest pervaded the atmosphere; the aurora borealis
appeared in the northern sky, and its waves of changing light swept the
heavens; the vast silence of the wilderness possessed the world and,
wrapped in his own thoughts, no man spoke to break the spell. Finally
Pete began a snatch of Indian song:
"Puhgedewawa enenewug
Nuhbuggesug kamiwauw."
Then he drew from his pocket a harmonica, and for half an hour played
soft music that harmonized well with the night and the surroundings;
when he ceased, all but Richards and I went to their blankets. We two
remained by the dying embers of our fire for another hour to enjoy the
perfect night, and then, before we turned to our beds, made an
observation for compass variation, which calculations the following
morning showed to be thirty-seven degrees west of the true north.
Paddling through the ponds, polling and tracking through the rapids or
portaging around them up the little river on which we were encamped the
night before, brought us to Otter Lake, which was considerably larger
than Lake Minisinaqua, but not so large as Nipishish. The main body
was not over a mile and a half in width, but it had a number of bays
and closely connected tributary lakes. Its eastern end, which we did
not explore, penetrated low spruce and balsam-covered hills. To the
north and northeast were rugged, rock-tipped hills, rising to an
elevation of some seven hundred feet above the lake. The country at
their base was covered with a green forest of small fir, spruce and
birch, and near the water, in marshy places, as is the case nearly
everywhere in Labrador, tamarack, but the hills themselves had been
fire swept, and were gray with weather-worn, dead trees. On the
summits, and for two hundred feet below, bare basaltic rock indicated
that at this elevation they had never sustained any growth, save a few
straggling bushes. On some of these hills there still remained patches
of snow of the previous winter.
We paddled eastward along the northern shore of the lake. Once we saw
a caribou swimming far ahead of us, but he discovered our approach and
took to the timber before we were within shooting distance of him. A
flock of sawbill ducks avoided us. No sign of Indians was seen, and
four miles up the lake we stopped upon a narrow, sandy point that
jutted out into the water for a distance of a quarter mile, to pitch
camp and scout for the trail. All along the point and leading back
into the bush, were fresh caribou tracks, where the animals came out to
get the benefit of the lake breezes and avoid the flies, which torment
them terribly. Natives in the North have told me of caribou having
been worried to death by the insects, and it is not improbable. The
"bulldogs" or "stouts," as they are sometimes called, which are as big
as bumblebees, are very vicious, and follow the poor caribou in swarms.
The next morning a caribou wandered down to within a hundred and fifty
yards of camp, and Pete and Stanton both fired at it, but missed, and
it got away unscathed.
After breakfast, with Pete and Easton, I climbed one of the higher
hills for a view of the surrounding country. Near the foot of the
hill, and in the depth of the spruce woods, we passed a lone Indian
grave, which we judged from its size to be that of a child. It was
inclosed by a rough fence, which had withstood the pressure of the
heavy snows of many winters and a broken cross lay on it. From the
summit of the hill we could see a string of lakes extending in a
general northwesterly direction until they were lost in other hills
above, and also numerous lakes to the south, southwest, east and
northeast. We could count from one point nearly fifty of these lakes,
large and small. To the north and northwest the country was rougher
and more diversified, and the hills much higher than any we had as yet
passed through.
Down by our camp it had been excessively warm, but here on the hilltop
a cold wind was blowing that made us shiver. We found a few scattered
dry sticks, and built a fire under the lee of a high bowlder, where we
cooked for luncheon some pea-meal porridge with water that Pete, with
foresight, had brought with him from a brook that we passed half way
down the hillside. We then continued our scouting tour several miles
inland, climbing two other high hills, from one of which an excellent
view was had of the string of lakes penetrating the northwestern hills.
Everywhere so far as our vision extended the valleys were comparatively
well wooded, but the treeless, rock-bound hills rose grimly above the
timber line.
When we returned to camp we were still unsettled as to where the trail
left the lake, but there was one promising bay that had not been
explored, and Richards and Easton volunteered to take a canoe and
search this bay. They were supplied with tarpaulin, blankets, an ax
and one day's rations, and started immediately.
I felt some anxiety as to our slow progress. August was almost upon us
and we had not yet reached Seal Lake. Here, as at other places, we had
experienced much delay in finding the trail, and we did not know what
difficulties in that direction lay before us. I had planned to reach
the George River by early September, and the question as to whether we
could do it or not was giving me much concern.
Pete and Stanton had been in bed and asleep for an hour, but I was
still awake, turning over in my mind the situation, and planning
to-morrow's campaign, when at ten o'clock I heard the soft dip of
paddles, and a few moments later Richards and Easton appeared out of
the night mist that hung over the lake, with the good news that they
had found the trail leading northward from the bay.