TELOS DAM AND RIVER.
It is amazing how little one makes of discomforts in the woods, provided he sympathizes with his surroundings. But to a nature having neither poetry nor romance, to whom a fall is only a suggestion of water power, and a tree so many feet of lumber, the situation is unendurable.
Here our canvas boat was overhauled, cuts sewed and waterproofed, birch canoes pitched, buttons adjusted to our clothing, socks darned, guns and rifles cleaned, while the “Quartermaster” busied himself ingeniously carving pliers, scissors, and vises from wood, cutting the joints of the same piece as souvenirs of the locality.
But the storm had one good effect; it nearly exhausted the moose and bear stories of the guides, and left them, in the future, only the current topics of the day to discuss.
So far the days had been exceedingly warm,—thermometer sixty to seventy in the shade,—but what was our surprise on arising early on the clear bright day of August 16th to discover a heavy frost, and the ice in our camp pails an eighth of an inch in thickness. We were first aware of the event by the exclamations of our cook, Bowley, who was slipping about on the frozen ground outside, and to our incredulous replies, lifted into the door of the tent one of the frozen pails by the tin dipper which adhered to its surface. The tent was quickly “struck” and dried, and, rolling into our rubber blankets and bags our effects, we were cutting the waters of Telos stream, and soon emerged into tranquil Webster lake at its foot. The brook is about a mile long, and very shallow, and but for the late rain would hardly have been navigable. An easy “carry” of a mile can be found through the tall grass and woods on the right-hand side, which also terminates at the head of the lake.
It is very essential to one’s happiness, in making this tour, to know on which side of the stream is the best portage around a fall or rapids, for the knowledge saves many a laborious walk when one’s shoulders are loaded.
Webster lake is a charming little sheet of water about three miles long, and perhaps half as wide, which is wooded down to its very edge. At its foot is another of those series of loggers’ dams, about twelve feet high, and on the extreme high bank to the right we again pitched our tent.