CHAPTER II.
The Pine twenty-five Years ago.—Its rapid Disappearance.—Explorations. —Outfit.—Up-river Journeying.—Its Distance.—Mode of Nightly Encampment.—Cooking.—Disturbed Slumbers.—Ludicrous Fright.—Deer. —Encounter with Bears.—Mode of Exploring.—Forest Observatory.— Climbing Trees.—The Emotions excited by the View.—Necessity of Compass.—Nature's Compass.—The Return.—Annoyances from mischievous Bears.—Stumpage.—Permits.—Outfit and Return.—Crossing Carrying-places.—A Strong Man.—Skill of Boatmen.—Item of personal Experience.—Blind Path.—A Family in the Wilderness.—Things to be considered in locating Camps.
Allusion has been made to the peculiarity of the Pine-tree in associating together in clusters or families. It is now a rare thing to find a sufficient quantity of timber in one of those clusters to meet the demands of a team during the usual period of hauling, which is about three months.
Twenty-five or thirty years ago, large tracts of country were covered principally with Pine-trees. Those tracks seemed purposely located in the vicinity of lakes, large streams, and rivers; a winter's work could then be made contiguous to improved portions of the country, which rendered little previous exploration necessary. But the woodman's ax, together with the destructive fires which have swept over large districts from time to time, have, so to speak, driven this tree far back into the interior wilderness. In fact, the Pine seems doomed, by the avarice and enterprise of the white man, gradually to disappear from the borders of civilization, as have the Aborigines of this country before the onward march of the Saxon race.
The diminished size and number of these Pine communities, near the borders of civil and agricultural abodes, added to the fact that this tree has been pursued to wild and unknown forest regions, renders exploring expeditions previous to the commencement of a winter's campaign absolutely indispensable, at least to insure success. This labor is performed, more or less, at all periods of the year; but, perhaps, the more general and appropriate time is found to be during the earlier part of autumn. The work of exploring is often performed during the winter, while the crews are on the ground, in camp. The difficulty of traveling through deep snows is overcome by the use of the snow-shoe, which enables the wearer to walk upon the surface of the untrodden snow. This shoe is about three feet long by sixteen inches wide, oval before and tapering to a point behind. It is simply a flat net-work, made from thongs of green hide, surrounded by a slender frame or bow of wood. This net-work is fastened, near the middle, to the bottom of the boot, and the woodman, throwing himself along, one side at a time, with a lengthened pace-like stride, passes over the ground at a rapid rate.
When the business of timber-hunting is deferred until autumn, the following method is practiced: Two or three men accustomed to the business take the necessary provisions, which usually consists of ship-bread, salt pork, tea, sugar, or molasses; for cooking utensils, a coffee-pot or light tea-kettle, a tin dipper, sometimes a frying-pan, a woolen blanket or two for bed-clothes, and an ax, with gun and ammunition; all of which are put on board a skiff, if the exploration is to be on the St. Croix, or on a bateau if on the Penobscot River, with two sets of propellers, setting-poles for rapids, and paddles to be used on dead water.
With these slight preparations, away we start; now making our way up the main river, then shooting along up the less capacious branches; sometimes performing a journey of two hundred miles far into the interior, in those solitudes which never before, perhaps, echoed with the tones of the white man's voice. The location for our nightly encampments are selected in time to make the necessary arrangements for refreshment and repose, before the darkness shuts down over the dense wilderness that surrounds us. Selecting a proper site near some gushing spring, or where a murmuring streamlet plays along its romantic little channel, we pitch our tent, which formerly consisted of a slender frame of little poles, slightly covered on the top and at each end with long boughs, the front entirely open, before which burns the watch-fire, by whose light the deep darkness of a forest night is rendered more solemn and palpable.
In some instances a large blanket is spread over the frame; and when there are good reasons to expect rain, we haul our boat up, turn it bottom side up, and crawl beneath it, this proving a sure protection from the falling rain or dew. Of late, small portable tent-coverings are used, which prove very convenient.
Next the evening meal is prepared. Here the tea is thoroughly boiled, in the coffee-pot or tea-kettle, over the little fire. A thin slice of salt pork is cut, and, running a sharp stick through it, it is held over the fire and roasted, being withdrawn occasionally to catch the drippings on a cake of pilot or ship bread. This is a good substitute for buttered toast, the roasted pork making an excellent rasher. Sometimes we ate the pork raw, dipping it in molasses, which some relish; and though the recital may cause, in delicate and pampered stomachs, some qualms, yet we can assure the uninitiated that, from these gross simples, the hungry woodsman makes many a delicious meal. After pipe devotions (for little else ascends from forest altars, though we have sometimes heard the voice of prayer even in the logging swamps), we throw our weary limbs upon our boughy couches to seek repose in the slumbers of night.
Sometimes our slumbers are disturbed by the shrill whooping of the owl, whose residence is chosen in those lonely solitudes of dense woodlands, where this ghostly watchman of the night makes the wild wood reverberate with the echo of his whoo-ho-ho-whah-whoo! which is enough, as one has observed, to frighten a garrison of soldiers. Few sounds, I am certain, so really harmless in themselves, awaken such a thrill of terror, as it breaks suddenly upon the ear during the stillness and loneliness of the midnight hour.