Whiskey Jack
Nest and Eggs of the White-Throated Sparrow
Towards evening, a dead stillness pervaded the air, broken occasionally by the “hoot, hoot” of an owl and the sharp smack of the beaver’s tail on the water as he was disturbed in his night prowlings. Through the stillness came to us the sweet notes of the white-throated sparrow (Zonotrichia albicollis) roosting among the fragrant boughs of the balsam fir. His song may have been inspired by the changed and refreshing atmosphere, or perhaps he was inquiring about the welfare of his little mate as she brooded over her four wee brown-speckled eggs carefully laid in the small arched house on a cushion of moss lined with fine grass and rootlets.
Arranging our bed of balsam boughs, we were just about ready to blow out the light, when my half-breed guide, who held the candle in his hand, suggested that he offer up a little prayer. I assented to his desire and he knelt on the boughs with the candle in his hand, while with face upturned he remained silent in this suppliant attitude for some time. The mellow light of the candle on his swarthy, upturned face, amidst the quiet solemnity of the night, was very impressive and turned my earnest thought to the higher things of life. It touched me very deeply. I thought if this simple child of the forest had so much to be thankful for, how much more we, a happy, prosperous people.
Just as the half-risen sun kissed the tips of the mountains, we pushed our little craft from the shore. Gently the current caught the stern, and like a magnet drew the boat towards the head of the Lower Humber,—gently at first, but faster and faster as we neared the rapids.
The woodman with his ax had been at work. Floating silently with the current were two large tree-trunks felled by the ax of the lumberman. The one, with grayish-brown bark, is known as the white spruce (Picea canadensis), a tree until recently of no value, its foliage nasty smelling, its wood soft and brittle. When burned it cracks and throws off sparks that eat holes in the wearing apparel of the camper-out. The other, with its white resinous bark, was the canoe birch (Betula papyrifera), which has given pleasure to man from time immemorial, and is used in so many ways by both Indian and white hunters. On the latter three white gulls, with their mantles of black, were standing with heads bowed, as though respectful mourners at the funeral of the noble birch that was moving faster and faster towards the rapids. About the time the log reached the brink of the boiling and seething waters the mourners left it to its fate. The current tossed and pitched it in every conceivable direction, and at last plunged it into the billows head-on, where it disappeared, and after being lost to sight for some time finally floated gracefully into an eddy not much the worse for wear and tear, turning around like an animate being, while the little voices of the forest seemed to unite in praise of their hero. The old spruce with its soft substance appeared tattered and torn—“unwept, unhonored, and unsung” by any except the new man—the pulp manufacturer.