Kitabı oku: «The Pioneer Woodsman as He Is Related to Lumbering in the Northwest»

I DEDICATE

THIS BOOK TO THE MEMORY OF

WILLIAM S. PATRICK,

GUIDING FRIEND AND HELPFUL COUNSELOR

OF MY EARLIER MANHOOD YEARS.

Foreword

The aim will be to take the reader along on the journey of the pioneer woodsman, from comfortable hearthstone, from family, friends, books, magazines, and daily papers, and to disappear with him from all evidences of civilization and from all human companionship save, ordinarily, that of one helper who not infrequently is an Indian, and to live for weeks at a time in the unbroken forest, seldom sleeping more than a single night in one place.

The woodsman and his one companion must carry cooking utensils, axes, raw provisions of flour, meat, beans, coffee, sugar, rice, pepper, and salt; maps, plats, books for field notes; the simplest and lightest possible equipment of surveying implements; and, lastly, tent and blankets for shelter and covering at night to protect them from storm and cold.

Incidents of the daily life of these two voluntary reclusionists, as they occurred to the author, and some of the results obtained, will be told to the reader in the pages which are to follow.

CHAPTER I.
Sowing the Germ That I Knew Not

"This superficial tale is but a preface of her worthy praise."

Early environment sometimes paints colors on the canvas of one's later life.

Fifty years ago in western New York, there were thousands of acres of valuable timber. The country was well watered, and, on some of the streams, mills and factories had sprung into existence. On one of these were three sawmills of one upright saw each, and all did custom sawing.

My father was a manufacturer, especially of carriages, wagons, and sleighs. There were no factories then engaged in making spokes, felloes, whiffletrees, bent carriage poles, thills or shafts, and bent runners for cutters and sleighs. These all had to be made at the shop where the cutter, wagon, or carriage was being built. Consequently the manufacturer was obliged to provide himself with seasoned planks and boards of the various kinds of wood that entered into the construction of each vehicle. Trips were made to the woods to examine trees of birch, maple, oak, ash, beech, hickory, rock elm, butternut, basswood, whitewood, and sometimes hemlock and pine. The timber desired having been selected, the trees were converted into logs which in turn were taken to the custom mill and sawed into such dimensions required, as far as was possible at that period to have done at these rather primitive sawmills. Beyond this the resawing was done at the shop.

Thus, almost unconsciously, at an early age, by reason of the assistance rendered to my father in selecting and securing this manufactured lumber from the tree in the forest to the sawed product of the mill, I became familiar with the names and the textures of many kinds of woods, the knowledge of which stood me in good turn in later years.

CHAPTER II.
Preparations for the Wilds of Wisconsin

In the city of Detroit, early in June, 1871, was gathered a group of four veteran woodsmen of the lumbermen's craft, and two raw recruits, one, a student fresh from his father's law office in Bay City, and the other, myself, whose frontier experiences were yet to be gained.

A contract, by William S. Patrick of Bay City, the principal of this group, had been made with Henry W. Sage, of Brooklyn, New York, to select and to secure by purchase from the United States and from the state of Wisconsin, valuable pine lands believed to be located in the wilds of northern Wisconsin. Tents, blankets, axes, extra clothing, cooking utensils, compasses, and other surveying implements were ordered, and soon the party was ready for the start.

At that time no passable roads penetrated the northern woods of Wisconsin from the south. The country to be examined for available pine lands at the commencement of our work was tributary to the head waters of the Flambeau River. To reach this point in the forest it was thought best to enter the woods from the south shore of Lake Superior. Also, the United States land office controlling a part of this territory, was located at Bayfield, Wisconsin, and at that office must be selected such township plats as would be needed in the examining of lands in that portion of the Bayfield Land District.

The quickest line of transit at that date was by railroad to Chicago, and thence to St. Paul over the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railway, crossing the Mississippi River at Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin, to McGregor, Iowa, and thence north to St. Paul. There was no other railroad then completed from Chicago to St. Paul. The only railroad from St. Paul to Lake Superior was the St. Paul and Duluth. From Duluth, passage was taken by steamer to Bayfield. Township plats were here obtained from the government land office. Provisions of pork, flour, beans, coffee, rice, sugar, baking powder, dried apples, pepper and salt, tobacco, etc., for one month's living in the woods for nine men, were bought and put into cloth sacks. Our original number of six men was here augmented by three half-breed Indians of the Bad River Indian Reservation, who were hired as packers and guides over a trail to be followed to the Flambeau Indian Reservation. A Lake Superior fisherman was then engaged to take the party and its outfit in his sailing boat from Bayfield to the mouth of Montreal River, which is the boundary between Wisconsin and Michigan. The distance was about thirty-five miles.

CHAPTER III.
Entering the Wilds of Wisconsin

The party disembarked at a sand beach, but the sailboat drew too much water to permit a close landing. Here it was that the two tenderfeet got their first experience with Lake Superior's cold water, since all were obliged to climb or jump overboard into three feet of the almost icy water, and to carry on heads and shoulders portions of the luggage to the dry land. Here was to begin the first night of my camp life. Dry wood was sought, and camp fires were kindled to be used, first, to dry the wet clothing, and second, to cook the food for the first out-of-door supper.

To avoid mosquitoes, orders were given to prepare beds for the night on the sand beach away from the friendly tall trees that stood near by. One mattress served for the whole party and consisted of as level a strip of the sandy shore as could be selected. Promise of fair weather rendered unnecessary the raising of tents which were made to serve as so much thickness to keep the body from contact with the sand.

That night the stars shone brightly above the sleepers' faces, the waters of Superior broke gently along the beach, and the tall pines lent their first lullaby to willingly listening ears.

 
"The waves have a story to tell me,
As I lie on the lonely beach;
Chanting aloft in the pine-tops,
The wind has a lesson to teach;
But the stars sing an anthem of glory
I cannot put into speech.
 
 
They sing of the Mighty Master,
Of the loom His fingers span,
Where a star or a soul is a part of the whole,
And weft in the wondrous plan."
 

The next morning broke bright and clear, and the sun sent a sheen upon the dimpled waters of old Superior that gave us a touch of regret at the parting of the ways; for the members, one by one, after a well relished breakfast, shouldered their packs and fell into single file behind the Indian guide who led the way to the trail through the woods, forty miles long, to the Flambeau Reservation.

Two days and the morning of the third brought the party, footsore in new boots and eaten by mosquitoes, to the end of the trail. Now, lakes must be crossed, and the Flambeau River navigated for many days. In the Indian village were many wigwams, occupied by the usually large families of two or three generations of bucks, squaws, children, from the eldest down to the liquid-nosed papoose, and their numerous dogs that never fail to announce the approach of "kitchimokoman," the white man.

Some of the old men were building birch canoes, and many birch crafts of different ages and of previous service were to be seen in the camp. From among them, enough were bought to carry all of the men of the party and their outfits. The last canoe bought was a three-man canoe, which leaked and must be "pitched" before it could be used.

At this point let it be explained that every woodsman, trapper, pioneer, settler, or camper who depends upon a birch canoe for navigation should, and generally does, provide himself with a quantity of commercial resin and a fireproof dish in which to melt it. The resin is then tempered by adding just enough grease to prevent the mixture, when applied to the dry surface of a leaky spot on the canoe, and cooled in the water of the lake or river at the time of using, from cracking by reason of too great hardness. The surface must be dry or the "pitch" will not adhere firmly to the leaky seam or knot in the bark of the canoe. The drying is quickly done by holding a live ember or firebrand close to the surface of the wet bark.

Mr. Patrick had bought the canoes from different owners and had paid for them all except the leaky three-man canoe. It was the property of a fat squaw of uncertain age. The price agreed upon for this canoe was twenty dollars. Mr. Patrick and the squaw were standing on opposite sides of the canoe as Mr. Patrick took from his pocket a twenty dollar bill to hand her in payment. Just then he discovered that the pan of pitch (resin), which had been previously placed over the live coals, was on fire. He placed the twenty dollar bill on the canoe in front of the squaw, and quickly ran to extinguish the fire in the burning pitch. When he returned to the canoe, the bill had disappeared, and the wise old squaw claimed to know nothing of its whereabouts. A second twenty dollar bill was produced and handed to the squaw, when Mr. Patrick became the owner of a forty dollar birch canoe.

CHAPTER IV.
Surveying and Selecting Government Timber Lands

Our party of land surveyors, or "land lookers" as they were often called, being thus supplied with water transports, proceeded in their canoes a short distance down the Flambeau River, where the work of selecting government or state lands timbered with pine trees was to begin.

The questions have been so often asked, "How do you know where you are when in the dense forest away from all roads and trails, and many miles from any human habitation?", "How can you tell one tract of land from another tract?", and "How can you tell what land belongs to the United States and what to the State?", that it seems desirable to try to make these points clear to the reader.

The Continental Congress, through its committee appointed expressly for the work, inaugurated the present system of survey of the public lands in 1784. For the purposes of this explanation it will be sufficient to recite that the system consists of parallel lines six miles apart running north and south, designated as "range lines"; also of other parallel lines, six miles apart running east and west, designated as "township lines". Any six miles square bounded by four of these lines constitutes a "township". The territory within these two range lines and two township lines is subdivided into "sections", each one mile square, by running five parallel lines north and south across the township, each one mile from its nearest parallel line, and, in like manner, by running five other parallel lines east and west across the township from the east range line to the west range line, each line one mile from its nearest parallel line. In this manner, the township is subdivided into thirty-six sections each one mile square. The four township corners are marked by posts, squared at the upper end, and marked on the four sides by the proper letters and figures cut into the four flat faces by "marking irons", each flat surface facing the township for which it is marked.

In addition, one tree in each of the four township corners is blazed (a smooth surface exposed by chopping through the bark into the wood) on the side of the tree facing the stake, and the same letters and figures as are on the nearest face of the stake are marked thereon. These letters and figures give the number of the township, range and section touching that corner. On another blaze below the first, and near the ground, are marked the letters "B T", meaning "bearing tree".

The surveyor writes in his field book the kind and diameter of tree, the distance and direction of each bearing tree from the corner post, and these notes of the surveyor are recorded in the United States land office at Washington.

Even if the stake and three of the bearing trees should be destroyed, so that but one tree be left, with a copy of the notes, one could relocate the township corner.

The section corners within the township are marked in a similar manner.

Midway between adjacent section corners is located a "quarter corner", on the line between the two adjacent sections. This is marked by a post blazed flat on opposite sides and marked "¼ S". There are also two "witness trees" or bearing trees marked "¼ S".

By running straight lines through a section, east and west and north and south, connecting the quarter corners, the section of six hundred and forty acres may be divided into four quarter sections of one hundred and sixty acres each. These may in turn be divided into four similar shaped quarters of forty acres each called "forties", which constitute the smallest regular government subdivisions, except fractional acreages caused by lakes and rivers which may cut out part of what might otherwise have been a forty. In such cases the government surveyor "meanders" or measures the winding courses, and the fractional forties thus measured are marked with the number of acres each contains. Each is called a "lot" and is given a number. These lots are noted and numbered on the surveyor's map or plat which is later recorded.

The subdivision of the mile square section is the work of the land looker, as the government ceases its work when the exterior lines are run.

On the township plat which one buys at the local United States land office, are designated by some character, the lands belonging to the United States, and, by a different character, the lands owned by the State.

The country presented an unbroken forest of the various kinds of trees and underbrush indigenous to this northern climate. The deer, bear, lynx, porcupine, and wolf were the rightful and principal occupants. Crossing occasionally, the trail of the first named, served only to remind us of our complete isolation from the outside, busy world.

The provisions yet remaining were sufficient to feed our party for less than three weeks. In the meantime two of the Indians had gone down the river in a canoe with Mr. Patrick to the mouth of the Flambeau, to await the arrival of fresh supplies which he was to send up to that point from Eau Claire by team. The experienced and skilled woodsmen had divided the working force into small crews, which began subdividing the sections within the townships where there were government or state lands, to ascertain whether there were any forty acre tracts that contained enough valuable pine to make the land profitable to purchase at the land offices. Two thousand acres were thus selected during the first cruise, but, on our agent reaching the land office where the lands had to be entered, only twelve hundred acres were still vacant (unentered), other land lookers having preceded our representative and arrived first at the land office with eight hundred acres of the same descriptions as our own.

As there were many land lookers at this time in the woods, all anxious to buy the good pine lands from the government and the state, conflicts like the above were not unusual.

Through a misunderstanding of orders, our working party, now nearly out of everything to eat, assembled at The Forks, a point forty-five miles above the mouth of the Flambeau, and waited for the Indians to bring up fresh supplies. They did not come, and, after waiting three days, while each man subsisted on rations of three small baking powder biscuits per day, all hands pushed down to the mouth of the river where the Indians were awaiting us with plenty of raw materials, some of which were soon converted into cooked food of which all partook most heartily.

Corrected plats, showing the unentered lands of each township which we were directed to examine, were sent to us.

CHAPTER V.
Gaining Experience—Getting Wet

Some field experience which I had acquired in surveying when a sophomore in college, assisted me greatly in quickly learning how to subdivide the sections, while my knowledge of timber gained at an early age, when assisting my father in choosing trees in the forest suitable for his uses as a manufacturer, aided me greatly in judging the quality and quantity of the pine timber growing in the greater forests of the Northwest.

Freshly equipped with provisions, and with plats corrected up to date, we returned to the deep woods. There we divided into parties of only two—the land looker and his assistant. The latter's duty was chiefly to help carry the supplies of uncooked foods, blankets, tent, etc., to pitch tent at night, and, ordinarily, to do the most of the cooking, though seldom all of it. On some days much good vacant (unentered) pine was found, and on other days none at all. Several miles of woods were at times laboriously passed through, without seeing any timber worth entering (buying). Some portions would consist of hardwood ridges of maple, oak, elm; some of poplar, birch, basswood; others of long stretches of tamarack and spruce swamps, sections of which would be almost without wooded growth, so marshy and wet that the moss-covered bottom would scarcely support our weight, encumbered as we always were by pack sacks upon our backs, which weighed when starting as much as sixty pounds and sometimes more. Their weight diminished daily as we cooked and ate from our store which they contained.

Windfalls—places where cyclones or hurricanes had passed—were sometimes encountered. The cyclones left the trees twisted and broken, their trunks and branches pointing in various directions; the hurricanes generally left the trees tipped partly or entirely to the ground, their roots turned up and their trunks pointing quite uniformly in the same relative direction. The getting through, over, under, and beyond these places, which vary from a few rods to a possible mile across, especially in winter when the mantle of snow hides the pitfalls and screens the rotten trunks and limbs from view, tries the courage, patience, and endurance of the woodsman. All of the time he must use his compass and keep his true direction as well as measure the distance, otherwise he would not know where he was located. Without this knowledge his work could not proceed.

Sometimes we would come to a natural meadow grown up with alders, around the borders of which stood much young poplar. A stream of water flowed through the meadow, and the beavers had discovered that it was eminently fitted, if not designed, for their necessities. Accordingly, they had selected an advantageous spot where nature had kindly thrown up a bank of earth on each side and drawn the ends down comparatively near to the stream. Small trees were near by, and these they had cut down, and then cut into such lengths as were right, in their judgment, for constructing a water-tight dam across the narrow channel between the two opposite banks of earth. The flow of water being thus checked by the beaver dam, the water set-back and overflowed the meadow to its remotest confines, and even submerged some of the trunks of the trees to perhaps a depth of two feet. Out further in the meadow and amongst the alders where had flowed the natural stream, the water in the pond was much deeper.

These ponds sometimes lay directly across the line of our survey and inconvenienced us greatly. We disliked to make "offsets" in our lines and thus go around the dam, for the traveling in such places was usually very slow and tedious. The saving of time is always important to the land hunter, since he must carry his provisions, and wishes to accomplish all that is possible before the last day's rations are reached. It was not strange, then, if we first tried the depth of the water in the pond by wading and feeling our way. While we could keep our pack sacks from becoming wet, we continued to wade toward the opposite shore, meantime remembering or keeping in sight some object on the opposite shore, in the direct course we must travel, which we had located by means of our compass before entering the water. Sometimes a retreat had to be made by reason of too great depth of water. During the summer months we did not mind simply getting wet clothes by wading; but once in the fall just before ice had formed, this chilly proposition of wading across, was undertaken voluntarily, and was only one of many uncomfortable things that entered into the woodsman's life.

Subjected thus to much inconvenience and discomfort by those valuable little animals, we could but admire their wisdom in choosing places for their subaqueous homes. They feed upon the bark of the alder, the poplar, the birch, and of some other trees. These grew where they constructed their dam and along the margin of the pond of water thus formed. They cut down these trees by gnawing entirely around their trunks, then they cut off branches and sections of the trunks of the trees, and drew them into their houses under the ice. Most trees cut by the beaver are of small diameter. I once measured one beaver stump and found it to be fourteen inches in diameter. I still have in my possession a section of a white cedar stump measuring seventeen inches in circumference that had been gnawed off by beavers. It is the only cedar tree I have ever known to have been cut down by these wise little creatures.