CHAPTER X
“WE SEE MICHIKAMAU”
“It’s no use, Pete. You may as well go back to your blankets.”
It was the morning of the second day after reaching the lake which we named Desolation. We had portaged through a valley and over a low ridge to the shores of a pond, out of which a small stream ran to the southeast. The country was devastated by fire and to the last degree inhospitable. Not a green shrub over two feet in height was to be seen, the trees were dead and blackened; not even the customary moss covered the naked earth, and loose bowlders were scattered everywhere about.
There was no fixed trail now to look for or to guide us, but by keeping a general westerly course, we knew that we must, sooner or later, reach Michikamau. Rough, irregular ridges blocked our path and it was necessary to look ahead that we might not become tangled up amongst them. One hill, higher than the others, a solitary bailiff that guarded the wilderness beyond, was to have been climbed this morning, but when Pete and I at daybreak came out of the tent we were met by driving rain and dashes of sleet that cut our faces, and a mist hung over the earth so thick we could not even see across the tiny lake at our feet. I looked longingly into the storm and mist in the direction in which I knew the big hill lay, and realized the hopelessness and foolhardiness of attempting to reach it.
“It’s no use, Pete,” I continued, “to try to scout in this storm. You could see nothing from the hill if you reached it, and the chances are, with every landmark hidden, you couldn’t find the tent again. I don’t want to lose you yet. Go back and sleep.”
Later in the morning to my great relief the weather cleared, and Richards and Pete were at once dispatched to scout. We who remained “at home,” as we called our camp, found plenty of work to keep us occupied. The bushes had ravaged our clothing to such an extent that some of us were pretty ragged, and every halt was taken advantage of to make much needed repairs.
It was nearly dark when Richards and Pete came back. They had reached the high hill and from its summit saw, some distance to the westward, long stretches of water reaching far away to the hills in that direction. A portage of several miles in which some small lakes occurred would take us, they said, into a large lake. Beyond this they could not see.
Pete brought back with him a hatful of ripe currants which he stewed and which proved a very welcome addition to our supper of corn-meal mush.
The report of water ahead made us happy. It was now August twenty-third. If we could reach Michikamau by September first that should give me ample time, I believed, to reach the George River before the caribou migration would take place.
The following morning we started forward with a will, and with many little lakes to cross and short portages between them, we made fairly good progress, and each lake took us one step higher on the plateau.
The character of the country was changing, too. The naked land and rocks and dead trees gave way to a forest of green spruce, and the ground was again covered with a thick carpet of white caribou moss.
We were catching no fish, however, although our efforts to lure them to the hook or entangle them in the net were never relinquished. Pork was a luxury, and no baker ever produced anything half so dainty and delicious as our squaw bread. A strict distribution of rations was maintained, and when the pork was fried, Pete, with a spoon, dished out the grease into the five plates in equal shares. Into this the quarter loaf ration of bread was broken and the mixture eaten to the last morsel. Sometimes the men drank the warm pork grease clear. Finally it became so precious that they licked their plates after scraping them with their spoons, and the longing eyes that were cast at the frying pan made me fear that some time a raid would be made on that.
One day, an owl was shot and went into the pot to keep company with a couple of partridges. Pete demurred. “Owl eat mice,” said he. “Not good man eat him.
“You can count me out on owl, too,” Richards volunteered.
“Oh! they’re all right,” I assured them. “The Labrador people always eat them and you’ll find them very nice.”
“Not me. Owl eat mice,” Pete insisted.
“Well,” I suggested, “possibly we’ll be eating mice, too, before we get home, and it’s a good way to begin by eating owl—for then the mice won’t seem so bad when we have to eat them.”
Stanton took charge of the kettle and dished out the rations that night.
“Partridge is good enough for me,” said Richards, fearing that Stanton might forget his prejudice against owl.
“Me, too,” echoed Pete.
“I’ll take owl,” said I.
Easton said nothing.
After we had eaten, Stanton asked: “How’d you like the partridge, Richards?”
“It was fine,” said he. “Guess it was a piece of a young one you gave me, for it wasn’t as tough as they usually are.”
“Maybe it was young, but that partridge was owl.” “I’ll be darned!” exclaimed Richards. His face was a study for a moment, then he laughed. “If that was owl they’re all right and I’m a convert. I’ll eat all I can get after this.”
After leaving Lake Desolation the owls had begun to come to us, and Richards was one of the best owl hunters of the party. At first one or two a day were killed, but now whenever we halted an owl would fly into a tree and twitter, and, with a very wise appearance, proceed to look us over as though he wanted to find out what we were up to anyway, for these owls were very inquisitive fellows. He immediately became a candidate for our pot, and as many as six were shot in one day. The men called them the “manna of the Labrador wilderness.” Pete’s disinclination to eat them was quickly forgotten, for hunger is a wonderful killer of prejudices, and he was as keen for them now as any of us.
An occasional partridge was killed and now and again a black duck or two helped out our short ration, but the owls were our mainstay. We did not have enough to satisfy the appetites of five hungry men, however; still we did fairly well.
The days were growing perceptibly shorter with each sunset, and the nights were getting chilly. On the night of August twenty-fifth, the thermometer registered a minimum temperature of twenty-five degrees above zero, and on the twenty-sixth of August, forty-eight degrees was the maximum at midday.
During the forenoon of that day we reached the largest of the lakes that the scouting party had seen three days before, and further scouting was now necessary. At the western end of the lake, about two miles from where we entered, a hill offered itself as a point from which to view the country beyond, and here we camped.
We were now out of the burned district and the scant growth of timber was apparently the original growth, though none of the trees was more than eight inches or so in diameter. In connection with this it might be of interest to note here the fact that the timber line ended at an elevation of two hundred and seventy-five feet above the lake. The hill was four hundred feet high and there was not a vestige of vegetation on its summit. The top of the hill was strewn with bowlders, large and small, lying loose upon the clean, storm-scoured bed rock, just as the glaciers had left them.
What a view we had! To the northwest, to the west, and to the southwest, for fifty miles in any direction was a network of lakes, and the country was as level as a table. The men called it “the plain of a thousand lakes,” and this describes it well. To the far west a line of blue hills extending to the northwest and southeast cut off our view beyond. They were low, with but one high, conical peak standing out as a landmark. Another ridge at right angles to this one ran to the eastward, bounding the lakes on that side. I examined them carefully through my binoculars and discovered a long line of water, like a silver thread, following the ridge running eastward, and decided that this must be the Nascaupee River, though later I was convinced that I was mistaken and that the river lay to the southward of the ridge. To the cast and north of our hill was an expanse of rolling, desolate wilderness. Carefully I examined with my glass the great plain of lakes, hoping that I might discover the smoke of a wigwam fire or some other sign of life, but none was to be seen. It was as still and dead as the day it was created. It was a solemn, awe-inspiring scene, impressive beyond description, and one that I shall not soon forget.
We outlined as carefully as possible the course that we should follow through the maze of lakes, with the round peak as our objective point, for just south of it there seemed to be an opening through the ridge: beyond which we hoped lay Michikamau.
The next day we portaged through a marsh and into the lake country and made some progress, portaging from lake to lake across swampy and marshy necks. It was Sunday, but we did not realize it until our day’s work was finished and we were snug in camp in the evening.
Monday’s dawn brought with it a day of superb loveliness. The sky was cloudless, the earth was white with hoarfrost, the atmosphere was crisp and cool, and we took deep breaths of it that sent the blood tingling through our veins. It was a day that makes one love life.
Through small lakes and short portages we worked until afternoon and then—hurrah! we were on big water again. Thirty or forty miles in length the lake stretched off to the westward to carry us on our way. It was choked in places with many fir-topped islands, and the channels in and out amongst these islands were innumerable, so Pete called it Lake Kasheshebogamog, which in his language means “Lake of Many Channels.”
As we paddled I dropped a troll and before we stopped for the night landed a seven-pound namaycush, and another large one broke a troll. The “Land of God’s Curse” was behind us. We were with the fish again, and caribou and wolf tracks were seen.
The next day found us on our way early. A fine wind sent us spinning before it and at the same time kept us busy with a rough sea that was running on the wide, open lake when we were away from the shelter of the islands. At one o’clock we boiled the kettle at the foot of a low sand ridge, and upon climbing the ridge we found it covered with a mass of ripe blueberries. We ate our fill and picked some to carry with us.
At three o’clock we were brought up sharply at the end of the water with no visible outlet. The nature of the lake and the lateness of the season made it impracticable to turn back and look in other channels for the connection with western waters. Former experience had taught me that we might paddle around for a week before we found it, for these were big waters. Five miles ahead was the high, round peak that we were aiming for, and I had every confidence that from its top Michikamau could be seen and a way to reach the big lake. I decided that it must be climbed the next morning, and selected Pete and Easton for the work. A fall the day before had given me a stiff knee, and it was a bitter disappointment that I could not go myself, for I was nervously anxious for a first view of Michikamau. However, I realized that it was unwise to attempt the journey, and I must stay behind.
That night Stanton made two roly-polies of the blueberries we picked in the afternoon, boiling them in specimen bags, and we used the last of our sugar for sauce. This, with coffee, followed a good supper of boiled partridge and owl. It was like the old days when I was with Hubbard. We were making good progress, our hopes ran high, and we must feast. Pete’s laughs, and songs and jokes added to our merriment. Rain came, but we did not mind that. We sat by a big, blazing fire and ate and enjoyed ourselves in spite of it. Then we went to the tent to smoke and every one pronounced it the best night in weeks.
On Wednesday rain poured down at the usual rising time and the men were delayed in starting, for we were in a place where scouting in thick weather was dangerous. It was the morning of the famous eclipse, but we had forgotten the fact. The rain had fallen away to a drizzle and we were eating a late breakfast when the darkness came. It did not last long, and then the rain stopped, though the sky was still overcast. Shortly after breakfast Pete and Easton left us. I gave Pete a new corncob pipe as he was leaving. When he put it in his pocket he said, “I smoke him when I see Michikaman, when I climb hill, if Michikamau there. Sit down, me, look at big water, feel good then. Smoke pipe, me, and call hill Corncob Hill.”
“All right,” said I, laughing at Pete’s fancy. “I hope the hill will have a name to-day.”
It was really a day of anxiety for me, for if Michikamau were not visible from the mountain top with the wide view of country that it must offer, then we were too far away from the lake to hope to reach it.
A mile from camp, Richards discovered a good-sized river flowing in from the northwest and set the net in it. Then he and Stanton paddled up the river a mile and a half to another lake, but did not explore it farther.
With what impatience I awaited the return of Pete and Easton can be imagined, and when, near dusk, I saw them coming I almost dreaded to hear their report, for what if they had not seen Michikamau?
But they had seen Michikamau. When Pete was within talking distance of me, he shouted exultantly, “We see him! We see him! We see Michikamau!”
