Farms are yielding their first crops to the sturdy husbandman. Pleasant, comfortable homes meet the eye of the tourist from the city in summer as he motors over the fairly good roads of the northern frontier. He enters little towns carved out of the woods, and finds, now living happily, friends whom he had known in the city, who are ready to welcome him. He camps by the roadside on the shore of a lake, or on the bank of the Mississippi whose waters flowed on unobstructed in the earlier days herein recorded, but now are harnessed for the better service of man. Here he brings his family and friends to fish and to lunch, or, better still, to prepare their fish just caught for the meal, by the open camp fire. He continues his journey through this unbroken wilderness of less than a generation ago, over improving roads, to the very source of the Mississippi River that is within five minutes' walk of Lake Itasca. Here is a refreshing bit of natural pine forest, owned and preserved by the state of Minnesota, where he and his friends may find shelter for the night, and for a longer period if desired.
In concluding this subject, I am actuated by a desire to manifest my appreciation of the fine manhood possessed by many men whom I have known, the best part of whose lives has been spent similarly to my own, in the extensive forests that once beautified and adorned the great Northwest.
The occupation is one which demands many of the highest attributes of man. He must be skillful enough as a surveyor to always know which description of land he is on, and where he is on that description. He must be a good judge of timber, able to discern the difference between a sound tree and a defective one, as well as to estimate closely the quantity and quality of lumber, reckoned in feet, board measure, each tree will likely produce when sawed at the mill. He must examine the contour of the country where the timber is, and make calculations how the timber is to be gotten out, either by water or by rail, and estimate how much money per thousand feet it will cost, to bring the logs to market. The value of the standing pine or other timber in the woods is dependent on all of these conditions, which must be reckoned in arriving at an estimate of the desirability of each tract of timber as an investment for himself, or for whomsoever he may represent.
Possessing these qualifications, he must also be honest; he must be industrious; he must be courageous. He must gain the other side of rivers that have no bridges over them, and he must cross lakes on which there are no boats. He must find shelter when he has no tent, and make moccasins when his shoes are worn and no longer of service, and new ones are not to be obtained; he must be indefatigable, for he will often be tempted to leave some work half finished rather than overcome the physical obstacles that lay between him and the completion of his task.
On the character of this man and on his faithfulness, his honesty, his conscientiousness, and on the correctness of his knowledge concerning the quality, quantity, and situation as to marketing the timber he examines, depends the value of the investments. Hundreds of thousands of dollars are invested on the word of this man, after he has disappeared into the wilderness and emerged with his report of what he has seen. The requisitions of manhood for this work are of a very high degree, and, when such a man is found, he is entitled to all of the esteem that is ever accorded to an honest, faithful, conscientious cashier, banker, or administrator of a large estate.
"He continues his journey ... to the very source of the Mississippi River". (Page [180].)