Cache Lake Country Read online

  That moonlight night, clear and quiet, reminded me of other spring nights when I was a young fellow and came up here in the summer to work as a surveyor on a new railroad they were running through the northern forest. That was when I learned about Side Hill Grazers. You have probably heard of them; maybe you have even hunted them. I did when I first came up here and I had the fun of taking many others on hunts. Of course these strange and rare beasts, which have legs longer on one side than on the other so that they can walk along the side of a hill and browse in an upright position, can be hunted only at night.

  Whenever a fellow new to the north arrived one of the first things we did was to take him on a grazer hunt. The slopes of the deep cuts where the railroad went through the hills were perfect grazer country. Before we started on a hunt we would always tell the new man that these beasts were very ferocious and that the only way to capture them was to grab the legs on the long, or downhill side, and give them a quick twist to throw them off balance. Once you did that they were helpless.

  We always sent scouts ahead and then we would post our victim high on the side of a gravel slope and leave him in the darkness thinking of the tales he had heard about these terrible animals. Then when we were sure he had waited long enough to be scared plumb to death, someone would jump down the bank or start rocks rolling down. About that time one of the boys would let out an unearthly howl and another one would sneak up on our hunter and grab him. He always thought the end had come when that happened. Then everybody went back to camp feeling that the fun had been worth all the climbing.

  It was a different kind of hunt that I went on with the Chief many years ago. He was after a bear and besides the Chief and myself there were two young Crees who had a great respect for the Chief. We walked for miles following the trail of a bear until the Chief signaled that we were getting close. There we stopped and the Chief made a speech to the bear, explaining that he would not take his life if he did not need his fur for warmth and the grease for his people. He said he was very sorry that the bear’s fur was valuable, that it would have been much better if the bear had been a porcupine, in which case he would not have been hunting him. Then he motioned us to stay where we were and he went ahead. A few minutes later we heard the crack of his .38-55 Winchester up on a ridge, and when no second shot came we were sure the Chief was successful.

  After he had dressed the bear, he cut off the top of a young spruce, trimmed off the side limbs, and carefully set the animal’s head on top of the bare pole. He was talking in Cree when he did it, but I could make out that he was telling the bear’s ancestors what a fine critter this fellow was and that it was an honor to have him join them.

  That is how the Chief feels about the wild things and hunting them, for the best Indians never kill except when they need food or fur. I have seen the Chief pass many a deer and moose without a thought of shooting them because he didn’t need meat at the time. If everybody had the same idea about hunting we wouldn’t need any fish and game laws.

  When the Chief kills a moose he ties the antlers to a tree, generally at the mouth of a creek, just to make sure that the spirit of the animal is not offended. Where the narrows opens up into Snow Goose Lake you can see moose antlers hanging in a dead tamarack facing to the south.

  I woke up one night and heard a sound that made me glad to lie and listen. At first it was the flinty picking of sleet on the window near the foot of my bunk, but in a little time it softened to a steady wet whispering. I knew then that the first thawing rain of March had come, for the wind was from the south, and by daylight the snow, pocked with little holes where the water dripped from the eaves, had settled some four inches.

  I have seen a lot of rain in my day and there is more to it than just water falling from the sky, for by reading about the weather and keeping watch I found there are many kinds of rain. There is the fine, misty rain of spring and fall, the heavy thundershowers of July, and the steady rain that beats down for days at a time when a big storm is passing over. You can be pretty certain that rain made up of small drops is falling from low-lying clouds, but if it comes in large drops then it has probably come from high up, maybe four to nine miles. In that case the raindrops start out as snow or hard frozen pellets, growing as they fall through heavy clouds, and melting when they come into warmer air near the earth. I figure a sudden summer thunderstorm has the largest drops of any kind of storm in these parts.

  I learned away back how to measure the size of raindrops by letting them fall for just a few seconds into a pie plate loosely filled to the top with flour. After you have caught your raindrops you put the pan aside until the drops soak up flour and finally harden. Then you lift them out very gently and what you have is a good cast of the drops just as they were when they struck. Surprising what a difference you can see by comparing the casts of raindrops from all kinds of storms. You can do the same thing with dry plaster of Paris.

  Later in the spring I’ll be hearing the quiet whispering of fine rain on the new leaves. Sometimes a light night breeze playing in the tree tops will make just about the same sound and fool me into thinking it is raining. I enjoy watching the summer shower dapple the lake into a million circles and enjoy listening to the rain slanting into the water with the sweeping sound of the broom on my cabin floor.

  The man who has never walked in the woods and smelled rain and felt it on his face has missed something indescribable. But best of all I like the sound of rain playing on the roof at night about the time I am dropping off to sleep.

  Thundering lce and Black Water

  THE BREAK-UP has come and the ice is out of Cache Lake! It started early one morning and when I woke up and heard a muffled rumbling sound coming through the darkness from the head of the lake I knew what it meant. There is no mistaking the thunder of ice going out. Chief Tibeash and Hank heard it, too, and when they came over we went up to the carry to watch the sight that next to the geese coming north means more to us than anything else that happens in early spring.

  Just above the rapids where Lost Chief Stream gets into the Manitoupeepagee River, the ice jammed on the rocks and the water flooded over the banks and rushed down through the woods in a frothing torrent that kept us up on the ridge. It was not long, though, before the jam broke and great blocks of ice, some as big as a wagon bed, came thundering down the main stream. You wouldn’t know there were any rapids then, just tossing gray ice riding water black and cold and powerful.

  The ice on the rivers never freezes as thick as on the lakes, where the water is quiet, so it is the first to go out. Sun and warm south winds and the battering of the ice coming down the streams are needed to start the heavy stuff out of the lakes. By sundown that day the ice at the head of Cache Lake was beginning to heave and break.

  I never have quite understood it, but the news of the ice going out of a river spreads like no other information in the woods. Once I was at a settlement when an Indian came in and told us that that morning the ice had started out of the mouth of the river which was two hundred miles away. I asked him how he knew and he just shrugged and said, “I know!” I made a note of that date and found later that it had gone out on the very morning he had told us.

  I knew it wouldn’t be long after the ice went out until the geese would be coming over. And sure enough, I heard them! The night was still and clear, the stars were sparkling like splintered crystal, and the cool white moon was loafing high over Snow Goose Lake when it came—that wonderful sound all men of the woods wait for every year—the hoarse honking of the big gray Canada geese. In clear weather they often fly right through the night and just hearing them talking among themselves up there in the friendly darkness does me a world of good. You can be sure there was a wise old gander at the point of that great flight wedge leading them on to the lonely salt marshes that stretch along the low shores of James Bay.

  Although the ice has gone out and signs of spring are multiplying, there is still plenty of snow back in the woods where the sun can’t reach it.
It is no longer the soft white coat of winter, for now it is gray and heavy. Under the conifers, where the partridges, grosbeaks, siskins, and crossbills have been feeding, the drifts are sprinkled with the brown scales of cones and tiny chips of bark, twigs, and broken buds. But, unlike the dirty snow of city streets, mixed with soot and cinders and the sodden refuse of civilization, our snow is clean. If you dig down in the shadow close to the north side of a big tree you find the snow still dry and granular, which is one way the Indians know the direction of north in winter storms.

  Down in the little marshy place by the spring the first green and purple hoods of the skunk cabbage are showing. After looking at snow since last November, they are beautiful to me. I walked along the shore of the lake and saw deer and moose tracks in the soft earth near the narrows. That’s where they swim across in their travels back and forth between the ridges in the summer.

  That great flight wedge leading to the lonely salt marshes

  The sight of fresh tracks started me thinking of the days when I first came up here and got a lot of fun making casts of the tracks of wild animals. It is the best way to study and learn to know their footprints. Spring is a good time to make casts, for the ground is wet and makes nice clear prints, especially if you can find them in clay. All you need is some plaster of Paris mixed about as thick as heavy cream. The right way to mix it is to put cold water in a tin can and then slowly sprinkle in the plaster until the water disappears and it looks like cream. Start by making a little fence of cardboard around a track, pushing it into the mud carefully. Then pour the plaster in very gently and leave it alone for half an hour or so. Don’t try lifting it before it sets hard. Take it home and let it dry out. Then unwrap the cardboard, wash off the mud, and you’ll have an exact pattern of the animal’s track.

  The next step is to make a cast from the pattern, for what you are really after is a track just as the animal left it in the earth. First you coat the pattern with soap softened in hot water. Now wrap another piece of cardboard around it, first soaping the inside wall, and then pour in the plaster. Be sure to let it dry for several hours. Finally unwrap the cardboard, separate the casts, and there is the finished footprint.

  With a little practice you can make fine prints and start a collection. If you want to try something special you can lay out some soft mud or clay at night with some bait in the center. You ought to have tracks by morning. For practice you can begin with a cat or dog.

  While you are out looking for tracks you will see many other things of interest. Soon I’ll start looking for the marsh marigold with blossoms the color of country butter, and the first violets too. I seldom pick wild flowers for I would rather see them blooming just where they grow. There would be lots more mayflowers and lady’s-slippers if people had not pulled them up by the roots until they are seen in only a few places now. Another pretty flower, although its perfume isn’t so pleasant, is the wake-robin. Trillium is another name for it.

  Watch for the white flowers of the bloodroot that fold up at night, and the hepatica with its beautiful pale blue, pinkish or white blossoms. Learn to enjoy your flowers where they are. Picking wild flowers makes me think of kidnaping—taking them away from their natural homes and all the things they need from the earth. Generally the flowers that come in April are small, growing close to the earth as if to be ready to duck back in if it gets too cold. Later on when the weather is warm they grow taller.

  When I was a boy I loved to wander along the brooks and streams where life is very active in the spring. Some of the fish are spawning and the turtles are sure to be out sunning themselves on logs and rocks on warm days. The snakes are also moving about. In truth, very few snakes are poisonous, and there are none of that kind up here. I never kill snakes for they help in keeping down the mice and other rodents that damage our garden and get in the house.

  There is plenty of life in the woods now, although you do not see much unless you know just where to look. The young skunks are in their burrows and the squirrels are busy tending to their new families. So are the mink, which make homes for their little fellows in hollow logs. There are not as many otter up here as there used to be, but there are still some. They keep their babies in well-hidden places under banks or roots. The lynx are also busy with family cares. Their kittens mew just like the household kind and are just as playful.

  With the first stretch of warm days in April the eggs of some of the hardy insects begin to hatch and you soon hear them humming around in the quiet of the twilight hours. The beetles and the bark-borers begin to appear now, and little mounds of soil show that the hard-working ants are busy. If you watch you will notice quite a few moths and butterflies about, but they are mostly the small dull-colored kind. The beautiful large butterflies won’t be seen until the weather is much warmer. I have already seen a queen yellowjacket flying around under the eaves of the cabin. She is looking for a place to start a nest, I expect. Later this month the bumblebee queen will be doing the same thing. You usually see her fly close to the ground watching for a likely spot for a nest, which may be in an old mouse nest or in a hole in the ground. I have already seen a ladybird beetle—the little red fellow with black spots on his back—walking across the sill of the window after his long winter sleep.

  Back in the days when they cut big timber up here, the river crews had to wait for the lake ice to clear before the spring log drive could begin. Once it started no power on earth could stop that wild trip of the big logs down the streams into the rivers, across lakes, over falls, and through rocky gorges to the sawmills many miles away. Not so much of that now and much of it is pulp logs too light to keep up a muskrat.

  I can look back to the days when the rivermen rode logs two feet or more across the butt. You could hear the logs coming for miles, for when they formed jams, which was often, there was excitement aplenty and more than any man’s share of danger or death. Those big sticks would toss around like straws in a wind and pile up in a tangle the like of which I can’t describe. Breaking jams was risky work.

  Right up above the carry I have seen men out under the downstream wall of a jam looking for the key log that held back thousands of tons of timber. Working with peaveys and pike poles, they always found it. Once the piece was loosened the jam broke with a rush of flying sticks, and every man raced for his life. If there was clear water and no logs between them and the river banks, they had to run ahead of the breaking jam. Sure-footed as cats, they leaped from one log to another until the jam had settled and spread out on the stream. Then if the water ahead was steady going they rode the logs as long as they were running free.

  Come what might, I never saw a riverman who wasn’t ready to go out on the logs when the cry, “She’s a-holdin’ ” or “She’s a-jammin’,” went up. They would race out and try to break away the logs before they built up to a real jam. Some died doing it, but thought of going over the Long Portage never held them back. No place for a timid heart or a weak back.

  When peaveys and poles failed to break the jam they would dynamite it. Usually somebody on the bank would throw a stick of explosive fifty feet or so across open water and the boss standing among the logs would catch it. He would tie the dynamite to the end of a long pole, light the fuse and poke it down in the tangle of timber, and shout, “Fire! Fire!” Every mother’s son would hike for the bank and wait behind trees and rocks for the blast that hurled logs hefting a ton or more high in the air in a cloud of white smoke and flying spray.

  Once the logs began to move, the crew rushed out on the river yelling, “Now she hauls!” or “There she pulls!” and “Walk her! Back on her, boys!” Night and day as long as the drive was on every man was wet through. They would stand in the ice-cold water up to the waist pushing logs into the current, yet seldom did I ever hear of anyone being sick. What they wore for underwear was heavy wool, which is what you want for wet work.

  Speaking of blasting jams, I remember the time I had been at one lumber camp for over a week before I found out that wh
at the boss pulled out of a box under my bunk every morning was the day’s supply of dynamite. And me a steady smoker!

  Looking back on it I believe my best memory of the great river drives is the picture of thousands of logs lying motionless in the dead water below the rapids on a warm May evening. At that time of day when the breeze dropped, the sweet smell of rock-scarred pine and spruce came strong and fresh through the thin mist that gathered almost as soon as the sun got off the water. Then the men would stop to eat, and in the quiet you would hear whip-poor-wills calling or maybe an owl back in the darkening woods. Good days, they were.

  Lying motionless in the dead water

  Taking logs through fast water was only part of the drive, for booms had to be stretched across bays and coves to keep the timber on its course, and on the big lakes the logs were gathered in “bag-booms,” big loops made of logs chained end to end, and towed by small steamboats or pushed by a favoring wind to the outlet stream. And all the while men in “pointers” or bateaux, big boats with high pointed ends, moved about picking up drivers, working logs off the rocks, or breaking up “wings” which formed when a bunch of logs took a notion to start off by themselves. And the rear crews, “sackers” they called them, followed the main drive, clearing logs off the banks and shallow places.

  Life in the lumber camps was simple. The food was plentiful and good or the men left. They were pretty sure to get corned beef and salt codfish, sometimes tripe and plenty of baked beans with pork, dried apples stewed, molasses, fruit preserves and cookies, cake and pie. Any cook who couldn’t turn out good hot biscuits and all the pies the men could eat was in for trouble, which meant the tote road for him.