Cache Lake Country Read online

  The Stars and the Silence

  WOLVES are on the move now, for when the snow is deep food is hard to get and they are hungry and savage. We hear them at Cache Lake, but not as much as further north in the Thunder Lake country, where the Chief has a trap line. I usually go along with him and while he looks to his traps I strike across to the logging camp to see how the cutting is going.

  Fire burned over part of this section a few years ago and left a desolate and lonely ridge covered with the white skeletons of standing dead trees. That is what they call dryki, a shortening of “dry-kill timber”—trees killed by fire, but still standing. Dry-ki has also come to mean timber killed by the backwater when they raise the level of the lakes for lumbering. We call the place the Graveyard and it is the kind of country wolves like, for it borders on a swamp where the deer winter. If wolves can drive a deer out into the jackpots of tangled timber and slash they usually get it.

  One night when we made camp half a day north of Cache Lake the big gray critters began their howling in the hills where Lost Chief Stream runs through the Graveyard country. Now, there is nothing friendly in the howl of a wolf, yet I find something strangely beautiful in his quavering song, especially on a still cold night. If a man is given to feeling lonely in the woods the howling of a wolf can bring it on about as fast as anything, but I’m not bothered that way. At first there was only one wolf, but he made himself heard all right. Soon another started, then a third and fourth joined in, and their chorus came to us strong and clear on a breeze that barely slanted the smoke of our fire.

  Well we knew that the deer and the moose for miles around that night were hearing the wolf-song and moving closer together, listening uneasily and searching the air with lifted heads and quivering nostrils for a trace of the scent they dread more than any other. Along the creeks the white hares stopped nibbling the bark of tender saplings and scurried for cover, and a mouse hunting for seeds among the dead weeds on top of the snow would dive into his hole under a stump. Only the lynx, crouching on the limb of a spruce in wait for a rabbit, would pay no attention.

  Chief Tibeash, sitting on his blankets on a deep bed of balsam boughs by the fire, grunted in disgust and began cutting little chips from a plug of black tobacco. Rolling them in his palm with the heel of his brown hand, he filled his pipe and reached for a glowing ember. He listened to the wolves for a long time and frowned when one of them, having stopped for a few minutes, began howling again just like a man joining a quartet at the wrong place in the song.

  What bothered the Chief was that the wolves were in his trapping territory and might cost him some fine skins. As it was the weather had been colder than usual with a spell of twenty below zero or lower for ten days without a break. A long stretch of cold weather during the short days of midwinter is likely as not to keep the animals pretty close to home with the result that the trapper’s catch may drop off.

  I asked the Chief if he had ever known a wolf to attack a man. He had heard of many such attacks, he said, but none were true so far as he could find out. He agreed that wolves will trail you and sometimes circle a camp for hours, but more from curiosity than anything else, he thinks. You hear them all winter, but mighty seldom actually see the animals.

  Some people would have you believe that wolves run in large packs. According to what I know, and the Chief agrees, six or seven would be a large number to see together. Four or five is more common and often they are all members of the same family—father, mother, and several one- or two-year-olds. But even three wolves can make a noise that sounds like ten, which probably accounts for some of the yarns you hear.

  Springs from behind and hamstrings it

  Born in April or early May, young wolves romp and play with all the fun of dog puppies. The old folks feed them faithfully, but it’s not long before they begin to teach the youngsters to hunt for themselves. Smart critters, they are, too. Working as a team, wolves will soon bring down a deer if the snow is deep, but with good footing a deer can usually outrun them. Sometimes a wolf will go for the throat, throwing the deer head over heels. Another way is for one or two wolves to run close to the deer’s head to keep its attention while another springs from behind and hamstrings it by cutting the tendon in the hind leg. After that a deer hasn’t a chance.

  I would say that most wolves weigh somewhere between seventy and eighty pounds, though quite a few go up to a hundred and thirty or more, and they average about two feet high at the shoulder. Mostly they are a mixture of brown and gray in color, but some are a creamy white, while others are what you might call black.

  We were camping well north of Faraway See Hill and the stars looked down on us like the sparkling eyes of millions of curious children. The Aurora Borealis, or Northern Lights, slashed the northern sky into thin bands of rose and yellow and ghostly green that reached from the earth high among the stars. They were always moving, suddenly rushing across the sky, rising and falling, then fading to a dim glow only to flare up again to flow across the night, a wide river of rippling light. The Chief said it reminded him of the young people he used to watch in his boyhood when they danced in the light of the fires against the dark forest. And the soft swishing noise you hear when the lights are strong was like the sound of their deerskin clothes as they moved about. The old man likes to watch the northern lights and says it must be rainbows dancing in the night. Even the wolves stopped howling and for a while the only sound we heard was the cracking of the frost in the trees.

  Sleeping out in the open when the temperature is below zero is no hardship if you have the right outfit and stick by a few simple rules. All we had with us was our blankets, grub, and cooking utensils, which consisted of a pail, frying pan, cups, and tin plates.

  We carried our outfit on the Chief’s hunting sled, which looks like a narrow toboggan and is common among the Indian trappers of the north. It is nothing more than two hand-hewn maple, ash, or birch boards about half an inch thick, held in place by four crosspieces with rawhide lashing, and curved up at the front by steaming over a slow fire in wet moss or cloth. Seven or eight feet long and about a foot wide, this narrow sled is so flexible it seems to flow over the rough places in the trail and easily snakes between trees and brush in heavily wooded country. There’s not a nail or a peg in it, and the load is lashed on by thongs running through loops fastened to the ends of the crosspieces.

  Although dogs are often hitched to hunting sleds, the Chief never takes them out on the trap line. They disturb the game, leave a scent that makes the wild things extra cautious for a long time, and sometimes get into the traps. So we hauled the sled with a long double moosehide thong with a wide section at the loop to put over the forehead to spell our shoulders once in a while—same idea as a tump line. There are more ways than one of using your head in the woods. The Chief taught me years ago that the first thing to do when you make camp is to turn your sled or toboggan on its side if loaded, or on end if empty, so the runners won’t freeze to the snow and will be free of frost in the morning. It is a good idea to scrape the runners clean when you stop for the night, for there is nothing harder to pull than a sled with frosted runners.

  You think of sleds or toboggans being used only on snow and ice, but once when I was traveling along the shore of the St. Lawrence River close to where it widens to meet the sea I saw people sliding down the high sandy cliffs on toboggans and skis. The beach was very narrow and when they hit the bottom the toboggan skimmed out on the water quite a way. I have heard of people sliding and skiing on dry grass, too. When I was young I took one of my mother’s best big trays to slide down a hill under the tall pines where the ground was covered several inches deep with dry and slippery needles. It was grand sport.

  We spent two nights on the trail to the Chief’s cabin on Thunder Lake, circling wide to cover part of his trap line on the way. The first day out we crossed a black spruce swamp and saw signs that deer and moose had been feeding on the cedar tips. The paths in their yards are not packed down like most t
rails, but are a series of large holes formed when they step in the same places as they move back and forth. On the edge of the swamps we came on the trail of a fox and followed it to the base of a big spruce where it had pounced on a partridge sleeping under the snow. A few scattered feathers and a bright red stain told the story of the never-ending battle for life in the forest. If snow falls after a partridge dives into the white cover its hiding place is fairly secure; otherwise it leaves a sign and scent on the surface.

  As usual in winter travel we followed the waterways whenever we could, for the going on lakes and rivers is easier than in the woods where the drifts pile up, and we took turns breaking trail. Darkness comes early in the north country’s short winter days and about four o’clock the Chief headed into a stand of big spruce on the south side of a ridge. As long as I have been in the big woods I have never gotten over the way the old Chief goes about making himself comfortable under all conditions, winter or summer. A good woodsman has patience. He realizes he can’t change nature nor hurry her. He doesn’t fret because a river runs the wrong way for his journey, doesn’t cuss over being wind-bound for days on an island in a big lake. He knows he can’t lower the hills to make a portage easier, and in winter he won’t try to fight a blizzard. He learns early that rushing does not often get you where you are going any faster than taking it quietly. Wise in the ways of the woods, he realizes that often the longest way is the shortest. He never takes any more steps than he needs to, and he knows just where to sink his axe to bring down a tree with the least number of strokes. In the far away cities they call that efficiency and teach men to do things with the fewest motions. Up here they have no name for it, but just watch a good woodsman pick up a canoe and walk away with it and you will know what I’m driving at. And what’s more, you’ll probably learn to live longer.

  The place the Chief had chosen for a camp site was in the middle of a little opening surrounded by big shaggy trees, and I knew he had found just what he wanted when he took off his snowshoes and used one of them like a shovel to clear a place for our camp.

  On many another winter’s night we have slept with nothing but the sky for a roof and the trees of the forest for walls, but that night the Chief thought there was a chance of the wind springing up, so we had made just enough of a shelter to catch any drifting snow which would quickly form a cover on the balsam thatching.

  I have made a winter camp by cutting away the low branches from a thick spruce to form snug sleeping quarters under the tree, but there’s always the chance that dry snow will sift down through the branches if the wind makes up. What’s more, the fire is likely to melt snow clinging to the tree and soak everything.

  For winter sleeping in the open there is nothing to equal a rabbitskin robe. One robe is equal to at least two blankets and it insulates you from the cold in the way that nature devised for the wild things—by trapping the air in the fur. One method of making a skin robe is to begin cutting the rabbitskin in a circle in a continuous strip about three-quarters of an inch wide. In that way you get a piece several feet long from a single skin. If a strip is too short you sew it to the end of another. The next step is to twist the the strips around thin hide thongs until they form what looks like a fur covered rope. These pieces are then woven into a robe about four feet wide and eight feet long. You want them wide enough to roll in and plenty long enough so your head can be covered. Some Indians make their robes of flat strips cut lengthwise of the skin and then sewed end to end. The edges are held by a binding of strong cotton cloth. Rabbitskin robes are hard to get now, for few are made, the Indians preferring to buy blankets.

  The only disadvantage of a rabbitskin robe is that it sheds hair from the day it is made until it wears out. I got tired of waking up with my nose and mouth full of rabbit fur, so I sewed my robe between two strong cotton sheets, which ended the trouble and, I believe, made the robe warmer than ever.

  The largest blanket that can be found is none too big for winter camping, for rolling in your blanket is the only way to be sure of keeping covered while you sleep, unless you use a sleeping bag. The blankets you lie on should be spread out flat and those in which you will roll are pulled up far enough to cover your head. Then with the top blankets spread out flat over you, lift your legs stiffly from the hips and fold one side of the blankets and then the other beneath your legs. Then no matter which way you turn in your sleep you will wind yourself tight in your covering. The sides of the blankets beneath you can then be folded over and fastened on top with big horse-blanket pins if you need extra warmth. Sleeping bags are also fine for camping in cold weather, but I started rolling in blankets and skin robes when I first came into this country and I will always be partial to them.

  The first thought on making a winter camp is firewood and plenty of it, for if a storm comes in the night and you have to go out and hunt fuel you may have a bad time of it. The wise thing is to get in enough to last you until daylight, come what may. And it is a good idea to put some dry birch bark and small dead limbs under cover close at hand to start the fire quickly.

  Your axe is your most valuable tool in the woods. In cold weather you have to be careful of it, for in temperatures far below zero metal gets so brittle it may chip. Once in a while you find an axe with such a high temper that it is as brittle as a stick of candy. The only cure for that is to heat the head to a dull red and then plunge it into a can of oil. I’ve seen the Chief use bear grease, but any heavy oil will serve. It should be done with care and outdoors in case the oil catches fire. That treatment softens the metal and prevents chipping in low temperatures. Another thing to remember is to keep your rifle away from heat in cold weather. It is best to leave it outside your camp while on the trail. When cold metal is suddenly warmed it sweats and the moisture freezes when you take it out in the cold again.

  The fire lit up the dark forest

  While I cut balsam boughs for our bed and as cover for a shelter, the Chief felled several dead trees, for a standing dead tree is drier and makes better firewood than timber that has been lying on the ground. By the time he got back with the first load I had built up a mattress of boughs two feet thick and spread a deerskin robe to keep the cold from striking through. On top of that I laid out the blankets and our rabbitskin robes.

  We were both hungry, but on the trail we never start supper until the night’s wood supply is stacked handy to the fire, which was already lighting up the dark forest and taking the sting out of the cold air. While the old man finished his chopping I built up a low wall of green birch logs back of the fire to reflect the heat toward our bed and filled the pails with snow to melt for tea water. Ice-is better than snow if it is handy. Suddenly the Chief appeared out of the darkness with a shoulder load of logs and gave the word to start supper.

  While we sat eating in the good warmth of the campfire we got to talking about food—the right kind of food for the life you are living. We can’t understand why some people think that because you live in the woods you can eat anything and always be healthy. True it is that life in the open, is all in a man’s favor, but I have seen too many woodsmen with “misery in the innards” to know that you can’t abuse your stomach without paying a price, be it in the woods or the city.

  On the trail when you’re working hard you can eat more fats and sweet things than you can when taking life easy. The fact is, you need those energy foods for hard work. Baked beans on the trail are nourishing and give a man staying power, but beans as a regular dish when you are not active will soon make a man wish he had never tried them.

  When we are traveling the Chief and I always carry bacon, the mainstay of the woodsman’s fare, flour for pan biscuits, bannock, or flapjacks, powdered soups if possible, sugar (brown is most nourishing), rice, which is fine with raisins in it, and maybe some prunes or apricots for variety. We also like dried apples when we can get them, for you need fruit to keep fit. Then with some fish or game in season a man can live well.

  The finest meal we had at the Chief
’s trapping shack was broiled pike, which he had taken late in December and cached in the ice for use on his trips. That’s an old and good way of storing fish and meat in the woods in winter. When he caught several dozen fish the Chief chopped a trough in the ice about nine inches deep, laid the fish in it side by side a few inches apart and poured water over them. In no time they were frozen in solid.

  When we went down to chop out some fish for supper there were wolf tracks all about the little spruce tree the Chief had stuck in the snow to mark the place, and plenty of signs that they had been scratching, but they couldn’t break into the old Indian’s refrigerator. We left enough for several meals later on. If you plan to use all the fish at one time, they can be frozen in the original fishing hole, first filling it almost full with broken chunks of ice. The trough method is best when you want to leave part of your catch for later eating. Unless you set up a marker, or take a range on the spot, snow will soon hide your cache and you may never find it again.

  The wind does strange things with snow on the open stretches of the lakes. Often it packs the snow almost as hard as sand on a beach, leaving long curving ridges to mark the places where the ice cracks and heaves as it expands when the temperature drops very low. When ice four to five feet thick begins to crack you know about it, for the noise is like many shotguns going off at the same time. Then sometimes you hear a grinding sound like a monster gritting its teeth. The Chief says the lake is just stretching in its sleep. Along the shores where the drifts are deep, the wind sometimes whirls the snow into the form of waves just as if the water breaking on a shore had suddenly frozen.