35? Clifton
BATTLEGROUND ADVENTURES. Illustrated.
A BOOK OF FAIRY-TALE FOXES. Illustrated.
A BOOK OF FAIRY-TALE BEARS. Illustrated.
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
BOSTON AND NBW YORK
CANOEING IN THE
WILDERNESS
The Indian Guide's Evening Prayer (page 59)
,1*
.
CANOEING IN THE
WILDERNESS
BY HENRY D. THOREAU
EDITED BY
CLIFTON JOHNSON
ILLUSTRATED BY
WILL HAMMBLL
BOSTON AND NEW YORK
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
fiitoerjfttie prestf Cnmbriboe
1916
COPYRIGHT, 1906, BY HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN * CO.
COPYRIGHT, 1916, BY HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Published Apri
U3RARY
O X"^ . - -**.
^XV\ M"y
WS 29
F
ILLUSTRATIONS
THE INDIAN GUIDE'S EVENING PRAYER . . Frontispiece
THE STAGE ON THE ROAD TO MOOSEHEAD LAKE . . 8
MAKING A CAMP IN THE STREAMSIDE WOODLAND . . 5*
FISHING 7
THE RED SQUIRREL . . . "88
COMING DOWN THE RAPIDS 131
SHOOTING THE MOOSE 154
CARRYING ROUND THE FALLS . ... .180
INTRODUCTION
THOREAU was born at Concord,
Massachusetts, July 12, 1817, and at
the time he made this wilderness canoe
trip he was forty years old. The record of
the journey is the latter half of his The
Maine Woods, which is perhaps the finest
idyl of the forest ever written. It is par-
ticularly charming in its blending of medi-
tative and poetic fancies with the minute
description of the voyager's experiences.
The chief attraction that inspired Tho-
reau to make the trip was the primitive-
ness of the region. Here was a vast tract
of almost virgin woodland, peopled only
with a few loggers and pioneer farmers,
Indians, and wild animals. No one could
have been better fitted than Thoreau to
enjoy such a region and to transmit his en-
joyment of it to others. For though he
was a person of culture and refinement,
viii INTRODUCTION
with a college education, and had for an
intimate friend so rare a man as Ralph
Waldo Emerson, he was half wild in
many of his tastes and impatient of the
restraints and artificiality of the ordinary
social life of the towns and cities.
He liked especially the companionship
of men who were in close contact with
nature, and in this book we find him deeply
interested in his Indian guide and linger-
ing fondly over the man's characteristics
and casual remarks. The Indian retained
many of his aboriginal instincts and ways,
though his tribe was in most respects
civilized. His home was in an Indian vil-
lage on an island in the Penobscot River at
Oldtown, a few miles above Bangor.
Thoreau was one of the world's greatest
nature writers, and as the years pass, his
fame steadily increases. He was a careful
and accurate observer, more at home in the
fields and woods than in village and town,
and with a gift of piquant originality
in recording his impressions. The play of
INTRODUCTION ix
his imagination is keen and nimble, yet
his fancy is so well balanced by his native
common sense that it does not run away
with him. There is never any doubt about
his genuineness, or that what he states is
free from bias and romantic exaggeration.
It is to be noted that he was no hunter.
His inquisitiveness into the ways of the
wild creatures carried with it no desire
to shoot them, and to his mind the
killing of game for mere sport was akin
to butchery. The kindly and sympathetic
spirit constantly manifest in his pages is
very attractive, and the fellowship one
gains with him through his written words
is both delightful and wholesome. He
stimulates not only a love for nature, but a
love for simple ways of living, and for all
that is sincere and unaffected in human
life, wherever found.
In the present volume various details and
digressions that are not of interest to most
readers have been omitted, but except for
such elimination Thoreau's text has been
x INTRODUCTION
retained throughout. It is believed that
nothing essential has been sacrificed, and
that the narrative in this form will be found
lively, informing, and thoroughly enjoy-
able.
CLIFTON JOHNSON.
HADLEY, MASSACHUSETTS.
CANOEING IN THE
WILDERNESS
CANOEING IN THE
WILDERNESS
MONDAY, TUESDAY, WEDNESDAY, THURSDAY
JULY 20-23, l8 57
I STARTED on my third excursion to
the Maine woods Monday, July 20,
1857, with one companion, arriving at
Bangor the next day at noon. The suc-
ceeding morning, a relative of mine who
is well acquainted with the Penobscot In-
dians took me in his wagon to Oldtown
to assist me in obtaining an Indian for this
expedition. We were ferried across to the
Indian Island in a bateau. The ferryman's
boy had the key to it, but the father, who
was a blacksmith, after a little hesitation,
cut the chain with a cold chisel on the
rock. He told me that the Indians were
nearly all gone to the seaboard and to Mas-
sachusetts, partly on account of the small-
4 CANOEING IN THE WILDERNESS
pox, of which they are very much afraid,
having broken out in Oldtown. The old
chief Neptune, however, was there still.
The first man we saw on the island was
an Indian named Joseph Polis, whom my
relative addressed familiarly as "Joe." He
was dressing a deerskin in his yard. The
skin was spread over a slanting log, and
he was scraping it with a stick held by both
hands. He was stoutly built, perhaps a little
above the middle height, with a broad face,
and, as others said, perfect Indian features
and complexion. His house was a two-
story white one with blinds, the best-look-
ing that I noticed there, and as good as
an average one on a New England village
street. It was surrounded by a garden and
fruit trees, single cornstalks standing thinly
amid the beans. We asked him if he knew
any good Indian who would like to go into
the woods with us, that is, to the Allegash
Lakes by way of Moosehead, and return by
the East Branch of the Penobscot.
To which he answered out of that
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 5
strange remoteness in which the Indian
ever dwells to the white man, " Me like to
go myself; me want to get some moose'*;
and kept on scraping the skin.
The ferryman had told us that all the
best Indians were gone except Polis, who
was one of the aristocracy. He, to be sure,
would be the best man we could have, but
if he went at all would want a great price.
Polis asked at first two dollars a day but
agreed to go for a dollar and a half, and
fifty cents a week for his canoe. He would
come to Bangor with his canoe by the
seven o'clock train that evening we
might depend on him. We thought our-
selves lucky to secure the services of this
man, who was known to be particularly
steady and trustworthy.
I spent the afternoon with my com-
panion, who had remained in Bangor,
in preparing for our expedition, purchas-
ing provisions, hard-bread, 1 pork, coffee,
1 Hard-bread or ship-bread is a kind of hard biscuit com-
monly baked in large cakes and much used by sailors and soldiers.
6 CANOEING IN THE WILDERNESS
sugar, etc., and some india-rubber cloth-
ing.
At evening the Indian arrived in the
cars, and I led the way, while he followed
me, three quarters of a mile to my friend's
house, with the canoe on his head. I did
not know the exact route, but steered by
the lay of the land, as I do in Boston. I
tried to enter into conversation with him,
but as he was puffing under the weight of
his canoe, not having the usual apparatus
for carrying it, but, above all, as he was an
Indian, I might as well have been thump-
ing on the bottom of his birch the while.
In answer to the various observations that
I made he only grunted vaguely from be-
neath his canoe once or twice, so that I
knew he was there.
Early the next morning the stage called
for us. My companion and I had each a
large knapsack as full as it would hold, and
we had two large rubber bags which held
our provisions and utensils. As for the In-
dian, all the baggage he had, beside his axe
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 7
and gun, was a blanket, which he brought
loose in his hand. However, he had laid in
a store of tobacco and a new pipe for the
excursion. The canoe was securely lashed
diagonally across the top of the stage, with
bits of carpet tucked under the edge to pre-
vent its chafing. The driver appeared as
much accustomed to carrying canoes in
this way as bandboxes.
At the Bangor House we took in four
men bound on a hunting excursion, one of
the men going as cook. They had a dog,
a middling-sized brindled cur, which ran
by the side of the stage, his master show-
ing his head and whistling from time to
time. But after we had gone about three
miles the dog was suddenly missing, and
two of the party went back for him, while
the stage, which was full of passengers,
waited. At length one man came back,
while the other kept on. This whole party
of hunters declared their intention to stop
till the dog was found, but the very oblig-
ing driver was ready to wait a spell longer.
8 CANOEING IN THE WILDERNESS
He was evidently unwilling to lose so many
passengers, who would have taken a private
conveyance, or perhaps the other line of
stages, the next day. Such progress did we
make, with a journey of over sixty miles to
be accomplished that day, and a rainstorm
just setting in. We discussed the subject
of dogs and their instincts till it was
threadbare, while we waited there, and the
scenery of 'the suburbs of Bangor is still
distinctly impressed on my memory.
After full half an hour the man re-
turned, leading the dog by a rope. He
had overtaken him just as he was entering
the Bangor House. He was then tied on
the top of the stage, but, being wet and
cold, several times in the course of the
journey he jumped off, and I saw him
dangling by his neck. This dog was de-
pended on to stop bears. He had already
stopped one somewhere in New Hamp-
shire, and I can testify that he stopped
a stage in Maine. This party of four
probably paid nothing for the dog's ride,
The Stage on the Road to Moosehead Lake
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 9
nor for his run, while our party of three
paid two dollars and were charged four
for the light canoe which lay still on
the top.
The stage was crowded all the way. If
you had looked inside you would have
thought that we were prepared to run the
gantlet of a band of robbers, for there
were four or five guns on the front seat
and one or two on the back one, each
man holding his darling in his arms. It
appeared that this party of hunters was
going our way, but much farther. Their
leader was a handsome man about thirty
years old, of good height, but not appar-
ently robust, of gentlemanly address and
faultless toilet. He had a fair white com-
plexion as if he had always lived in the
shade, and an intellectual face, and with
his quiet manners might have passed for
a divinity student who had seen something
of the world. I was surprised to find that
he was probably the chief white hunter
of Maine and was known all along the
io CANOEING IN THE WILDERNESS
road. I afterwards heard him spoken of
as one who could endure a great deal of
exposure and fatigue without showing the
effect of it; and he could not only use
guns, but make them, being himself a
gunsmith. In the spring he had saved a
stage-driver and two passengers from
drowning in the backwater of the Piscat-
aquis on this road, having swum ashore in
the freezing water and made a raft and
got them off though the horses were
drowned at great risk to himself, while
the only other man who could swim
withdrew to the nearest house to prevent
freezing. He knew our man, and remarked
that we had a good Indian there, a good
hunter; adding that he was said to be
worth six thousand dollars. The Indian
also knew him, and said to me, "The
great hunter."
The Indian sat on the front seat with
a stolid expression of face as if barely
awake to what was going on. Again I
was struck by the peculiar vagueness of
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH u
his replies when addressed in the stage or
at the taverns. He really never said any-
thing on such occasions. He was merely
stirred up like a wild beast, and passively
muttered some insignificant response. His
answer, in such cases, was vague as a puffof
smoke, suggesting no responsibility, and if
you considered it you would find that you
had got nothing out of him. This was
instead of the conventional palaver and
smartness of the white man, and equally
profitable. Most get no more than this out
of the Indian, and pronounce him stolid
accordingly. I was surprised to see what a
foolish and impertinent style a Maine man,
a passenger, used in addressing him, as if
he were a child, which only made his
eyes glisten a little. A tipsy Canadian
asked him at a tavern, in a drawling tone,
if he smoked, to which he answered with
an indefinite "Yes."
" Won't you lend me your pipe a little
while?" asked the other.
He replied, looking straight by the
12 CANOEING IN THE WILDERNESS
man's head, with a face singularly vacant
to all neighboring interests, " Me got no
pipe"; yet I had seen him put a new
one, with a supply of tobacco, into his
pocket that morning.
Our little canoe, so neat and strong,
drew a favorable criticism from all the
wiseacres among the tavern loungers along
the road. By the roadside, close to the
wheels, I ngticed a splendid great purple
fringed orchis which I would fain have
stopped the stage to pluck, but as this had
never been known to stop a bear, like the
cur on the stage, the driver would prob-
ably have thought it a waste of time.
When we reached the lake, about half
past eight in the evening, it was still
steadily raining, and in that fresh, cool
atmosphere the hylas were peeping and
the toads ringing about the lake. It was
as if the season had revolved backward
two or three months, or I had arrived at
the abode of perpetual spring.
We had expected to go upon the lake
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 13
at once, and, after paddling up two or
three miles, to camp on one of its islands,
but on account of the rain we decided to
go to one of the taverns for the night.
II
FRIDAY, JULY 24
A3OUT four o'clock the next morn-
ing, though it was quite cloudy, ac-
companied by the landlord to the water's
edge, in the twilight, we launched our
canoe from a rock on Moosehead Lake.
We had a rather small canoe for three
persons, eighteen and one fourth feet long
by two feet six and one half inches wide
in the middle, and one foot deep within.
I judged that it would weigh not far from
eighty pounds. The Indian had recently
made it himself, and its smallness was
partly compensated for by its newness, as
well as stanchness and solidity, it being
made of very thick bark and ribs. Our
baggage weighed about one hundred and
sixty-six pounds. The principal part of
the baggage was, as usual, placed in the
middle of the broadest part, while we
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 15
stowed ourselves in the chinks and cran-
nies that were left before and behind it,
where there was no room to extend our
legs, the loose articles being tucked into
the ends. The canoe was thus as closely
packed as a market basket. The Indian sat
on a crossbar in the stern, but we flat on
the bottom with a splint or chip behind
our backs to protect them from the cross-
bar, and one of us commonly paddled
with the Indian.
Paddling along the eastern side of the
lake in the still of the morning, we soon
saw a few sheldrakes, which the Indian
called Shecorways, and some peetweets on
the rocky shore. We also saw and heard
loons. It was inspiriting to hear the reg-
ular dip of the paddles, as if they were
our fins or flippers, and to realize that we
were at length fairly embarked.
Having passed the small rocky isles
within two or three miles of the foot of
the lake, we had a short consultation re-
specting our course, and inclined to the
16 CANOEING IN THE WILDERNESS
western shore for the sake of its lee; for
otherwise, if the wind should rise, it would
be impossible for us to reach Mount Kineo,
which is about midway up the lake on the
east side, but at its narrowest part, where
probably we could recross if we took the
western side. The wind is the chief obsta-
cle to crossing the lakes, especially in so
small a canoe. The Indian remarked sev-
eral times that he did not like to cross the
lakes " in littlum canoe," but nevertheless,
"just as we say, it made no odds to him."
Moosehead Lake is twelve miles wide
at the widest place, and thirty miles long
in a direct line, but longer as it lies. Pad-
dling near the shore, we frequently heard
the pe-pe of the olive-sided flycatcher, also
the wood pewee and the kingfisher. The
Indian reminding us that he could not
work without eating, we stopped to break-
fast on the main shore southwest of Deer
Island. We took out our bags, and the
Indian made a fire under a very large
bleached log, using white pine bark from
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 17
a stump, though he said that hemlock was
better, and kindling with canoe birch bark.
Our table was a large piece of freshly
peeled birch bark, laid wrong side up, and
our breakfast consisted of hard-bread, fried
pork, and strong coffee well sweetened, in
which we did not miss the milk.
While we were getting breakfast a brood
of twelve black dippers, 1 half grown, came
paddling by within three or four rods, not
at all alarmed ; and they loitered about as
long as we stayed, now huddled close to-
gether, now moving off in a long line, very
cunningly.
Looking northward from this place it
appeared as if we were entering a large
bay, and we did not know whether we
should be obliged to diverge from our
course and keep outside a point which we
saw, or should find a passage between this
and the mainland. It was misty dog-day
weather, and we had already penetrated
1 The name dipper is applied to several species of water-
birds that are notable for their skill in diving.
i8 CANOEING IN THE WILDERNESS
a smaller bay of the same kind, and
knocked the bottom out of it, though we
had been obliged to pass over a bar be-
tween an island and the shore, where there
was but just breadth and depth enough to
float the canoe, and the Indian had ob-
served, " Very easy makum bridge here,'*
but now it seemed that if we held on we
should be fairly embayed. Presently, how-
ever, the *nist lifted somewhat and re-
vealed a break in the shore northward.
The Indian immediately remarked, " I
guess you and I go there."
This was his common expression in-
stead of saying " we." He never addressed
us by our names, though curious to know
how they were spelled and what they
meant. We called him Polis. He had al-
ready guessed very accurately at our ages,
and said that he was forty-eight.
After breakfast I emptied the melted
pork that was left into the lake, making
what the sailors call a " slick," and watch-
ing to see how much it spread over and
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 19
smoothed the agitated surface. The Indian
looked at it a moment and said, "That
make hard paddlum through ; hold 'em
canoe. So say old times/'
We hastily reloaded, putting the dishes
loose in the bows, that they might be at
hand when wanted, and set out again.
The western shore, near which we paddled
along, rose gently to a considerable height
and was everywhere densely covered with
the forest, in which was a large propor-
tion of hard wood to enliven and relieve
the fir and spruce.
The Indian said that the lichen which
we saw hanging from the trees was called
cborcborque. We asked him the names of
several birds which we heard this morning.
The thrush, which was quite common,
and whose note he imitated, he said was
called Adelungquamooktum ; but sometimes
he could not tell the name of some small
bird which I heard and knew, but he said,
" I tell all the birds about here ; can't tell
littlum noise, but I see 'em, then I can tell."
20 CANOEING IN THE WILDERNESS
I observed that I should like to go to
school to him to learn his language, living
on the Indian island the while; could not
that be done?
"Oh, yer," he replied, "good many do
so."
I asked how long he thought it would
take. He said one week. I told him that
in this voyage I would tell him all I knew,
and he should tell me all he knew, to which
*
he readily agreed.
Mount Kineo, which was generally visi-
ble, though occasionally concealed by is-
lands or the mainland in front, had a level
bar of cloud concealing its summit, and all
the mountain-tops about the lake were
cut off at the same height. Ducks of vari-
ous kinds were quite common, and ran
over the water before us as fast as a horse
trots.
The Indian asked the meaning of reality,
as near as I could make out the word, which
he said one of us had used ; also of interrent,
that is, intelligent. I observed that he could
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 21
rarely sound the letter r, but used 1, as also
r for 1 sometimes; as load for road, pickelel
for pickerel, Soogle Island for Sugar Island.
He generally added the syllable um to his
words, as paddlum, etc.
On a point on the mainland where we
landed to stretch our legs and look at the
vegetation, going inland a few steps, I dis-
covered a fire still glowing beneath its
ashes, where somebody had breakfasted,
and a bed of twigs prepared for the follow-
ing night. So I knew not only that they
had just left, but that they designed to re-
turn, and by the breadth of the bed that
there was more than one in the party.
You might have gone within six feet of
these signs without seeing them. There
grew the beaked hazel, rue seven feet high,
and red osier, whose bark the Indian said
was good to smoke, "tobacco before white
people came to this country, Indian to-
bacco."
The Indian was always very careful in
approaching the shore, lest he should in-
22 CANOEING IN THE WILDERNESS
jure his canoe on the rocks, letting it swing
round slowly sidewise, and was still more
particular that we should not step into it
on shore, nor till it floated free, and then
should step gently lest we should open its
seams, or make a hole in the bottom.
After passing Deer Island we saw the
little steamer from Greenville, far east in
the middle of the lake. Sometimes we
could hardly tell her from an island which
had a few trees on it. Here we were ex-
posed to the wind from over the whole
breadth of the lake, and ran a little risk
of being swamped. While I had my eye
fixed on the spot where a large fish had
leaped, we took in a gallon or two of water ;
but we soon reached the shore and took
the canoe over the bar at Sand-bar Island,
a few feet wide only, and so saved a con-
siderable distance.
We crossed a broad bay and found the
water quite rough. A very little wind on
these broad lakes raises a sea which will
swamp a canoe. Looking off from the
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 23
shore, the surface may appear to be almost
smooth a mile distant, or if you see a few
white crests they appear nearly level with
the rest of the lake, but when you get out
so far, you may find quite a sea running,
and ere long, before you think of it, a wave
will gently creep up the side of the canoe
and fill your lap, like a monster deliber-
ately covering you with its slime before it
swallows you, or it will strike the canoe
violently and break into it. The same
thing may happen when the wind rises
suddenly, though it were perfectly calm
and smooth there a few minutes before; so
that nothing can save you, unless you can
swim ashore, for it is impossible to get
into a canoe when it is upset. Since you
sit flat on the bottom, though the danger
should not be imminent, a little water is
a great inconvenience, not to mention the
wetting of your provisions. We rarely
crossed even a bay directly, from point to
point, when there was wind, but made a
slight curve corresponding somewhat to the
24 CANOEING IN THE WILDERNESS
shore, that we might the sooner reach it
if the wind increased.
When the wind is aft, and not too strong,
the Indian makes a spritsail of his blanket.
He thus easily skims over the whole length
of this lake in a day.
The Indian paddled on one side, and
one of us on the other, to keep the canoe
steady, and when he wanted to change
hands he would say, "T'other side.'* He
asserted, in answer to our questions, that he
had never upset a canoe himself, though
he may have been upset by others.
Think of our little eggshell of a canoe
tossing across that great lake, a mere black
speck to the eagle soaring above it!
My companion trailed for trout as we
paddled along, but, the Indian warning him
that a big fish might upset us, for there are
some very large ones there, he agreed to
pass the line quickly to the stern if he had
a bite.
While we were crossing this bay, where
Mount Kineo rose dark before us within
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 25
two or three miles, the Indian repeated
the tradition respecting this mountain's
having anciently been a cow moose how
a mighty Indian hunter succeeded in kill-
ing this queen of the moose tribe with
great difficulty, while her calf was killed
somewhere among the islands in Penob-
scot Bay, and, to his eyes, this mountain
had still the form of the moose in a reclin-
ing posture. He told this at some length
and with apparent good faith, and asked
us how we supposed the hunter could have
killed such a mighty moose as that. An
Indian tells such a story as if he thought
it deserved to have a good deal said about
it, only he has not got it to say, and so he
makes up for the deficiency by a drawling
tone, long-windedness, and a dumb won-
der which he hopes will be contagious.
We approached the land again through
pretty rough water, and then steered di-
rectly across the lake at its narrowest part
to the eastern side, and were soon partly
under the lee of the mountain, having
26 CANOEING IN THE WILDERNESS
paddled about twenty miles. It was now
about noon.
We designed to stop there that afternoon
and night, and spent half an hour looking
along the shore northward for a suitable
place to camp. At length, by going half
a dozen rods into the dense spruce and fir
wood on the side of the mountain almost
as dark as a cellar, we found a place suf-
ficiently clpar and level to lie down on,
after cutting away a few bushes. The In-
dian cleared a path to it from the shore
with his axe, and we then carried up all our
baggage, pitched our tent, and made our
bed, in order to be ready for foul weather,
which then threatened us, and for the night.
He gathered a large armful of fir twigs,
breaking them off, which he said were the
best for our bed, partly, I thought, because
they were the largest and could be most
rapidly collected. It had been raining more
or less for four or five days, and the wood
was even damper than usual, but he got
dry bark from the under side of a dead
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 27
leaning hemlock, which he said he could
always do.
This noon his mind was occupied with
a law question, and I referred him to my
companion, who was a lawyer. It appeared
that he had been buying land lately I
think it was a hundred acres but there was
probably an incumbrance to it, somebody
else claiming to have bought some grass on
it for this year. He wished to know to
whom the grass belonged, and was told
that if the other man could prove that he
bought the grass before he, Polis, bought
the land, the former could take it whether
the latter knew it or not. To which he
only answered, " Strange ! " He went over
this several times, fairly sat down to it,
with his back to a tree, as if he meant to
confine us to this topic henceforth ; but as
he made no headway, only reached the
jumping-ofF place of his wonder at white
men's institutions after each explanation,
we let the subject die.
He said that he had fifty acres of grass,
28 CANOEING IN THE WILDERNESS
potatoes, etc., somewhere above Oldtown,
besides some about his house; that he hired
a good deal of his work, hoeing, etc., and
preferred white men to Indians because
"they keep steady and know how."
After dinner we returned southward
along the shore, in the canoe, on account
of the difficulty of climbing over the rocks
and fallen trees, and began to ascend the
mountain alpng the edge of the precipice.
But, a smart shower coming up just then,
the Indian crept under his canoe, while
we, protected by our rubber coats, pro-
ceeded to botanize. So we sent him back
to the camp for shelter, agreeing that he
should come for us with his canoe toward
night. It had rained a little in the fore-
noon, and we trusted that this would be
the clearing-up shower, which it proved;
but our feet and legs were thoroughly wet
by the bushes. The clouds breaking away
a little, we had a glorious wild view, as we
ascended, of the broad lake with its nu-
merous forest-clad islands extending be-
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 29
yond our sight both north and south, and
the boundless forest undulating away from
its shores on every side, as densely packed
as a rye-field and enveloping nameless
mountains in succession. It was a perfect
lake of the woods.
Looking southward, the heavens were
completely overcast, the mountains capped
with clouds, and the lake generally wore
a dark and stormy appearance, but from
its surface six or eight miles distant there
was reflected upward through the misty
air a bright blue tinge from the unseen
sky of another latitude beyond. They prob-
ably had a clear sky then at the south end
of the lake.
Again we mistook a little rocky islet
seen through the " drisk," with some taller
bare trunks or stumps on it, for the
steamer with its smoke-pipes, but as it
had not changed its position after half an
hour we were undeceived. So much do the
works of man resemble the works of na-
ture. A moose might mistake a steamer
30 CANOEING IN THE WILDERNESS
for a floating isle, and not be scared till
he heard its puffing or its whistle.
If I wished to see a mountain or other
scenery under the most favorable auspices,
I would go to it in foul weather so as to
be there when it cleared up. We are then
in the most suitable mood, and nature is
most fresh and inspiring. There is no seren-
ity so fair as that which is just established
in a tearful eye.
Jackson, in his " Report on the Geology
of Maine," says : " Hornstone, which will
answer for flints, occurs in various parts of
the State. The largest mass of this stone
known in the world is Mount Kineo,
upon Moosehead Lake, which appears to
be entirely composed of it, and rises seven
hundred feet above the lake level. This
variety of hornstone I have seen in every
part of New England in the form of In-
dian arrow-heads, hatchets, chisels, etc.,
which were probably obtained from this
mountain by the aboriginal inhabitants of
the country."
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 31
I have myself found hundreds of arrow-
heads made of the same material. It is
generally slate-colored, with white specks,
becoming a uniform white where exposed
to the light and air. I picked up a small
thin piece which had so sharp an edge
that I used it as a knife, and, to see what
I could do, fairly cut off an aspen one
inch thick with it, by bending it and
making many cuts; though I cut my
fingers badly with the back of it in the
meanwhile.
From the summit of the precipice
which forms the southern and eastern
sides of this mountain peninsula, five or
six hundred feet high, we probably might
have jumped down to the water, or to the
seemingly dwarfish trees on the narrow
neck of land which connects it with the
main. It is a dangerous place to try the
steadiness of your nerves.
The plants which attracted our atten-
tion on this mountain were the moun-
tain cinquefoil, abundant and in bloom
32 CANOEING IN THE WILDERNESS
still at the very base by the waterside,
very beautiful harebells overhanging the
precipice, bearberry, the Canada blue-
berry, wild holly, the great round-leafed
orchis, bunchberry, reddening as we as-
cended, green at the base of the moun-
tain, red at the top, and the small fern
Woodsia ihensts, growing in tufts, now in
fruit. Having explored the wonders of
the mountain, and the weather being now
cleared up, we commenced the descent.
We met the Indian, puffing and panting,
about one third of the way up, but think-
ing that he must be near the top. On
reaching the canoe we found that he had
caught a lake trout weighing about three
pounds, while we were on the mountain.
When we got to the camp, the canoe
was taken out and turned over, and a log
laid across it to prevent its being blown
away. The Indian cut some large logs of
damp and rotten wood to smoulder and
keep fire through the night. The trout
was fried for supper.
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 33
Our tent was of thin cotton cloth and
quite small, forming with the ground a
triangular prism closed at the rear end,
six feet long, seven wide, and four high,
so that we could barely sit up in the mid-
dle. It required two forked stakes, a
smooth ridgepole, and a dozen or more
pins to pitch it. It kept off dew and wind
and an ordinary rain, and answered our
purpose well enough. We reclined within
it till bedtime, each with his baggage at
his head, or else sat about the fire, having
hung our wet clothes on a pole before
the fire for the night.
As we sat there, just before night, look-
ing out through the dusky wood, the In-
dian heard a noise which he said was
made by a snake. He imitated it at my
request, making a low whistling note
pheet pbeet two or three times re-
peated, somewhat like the peep of the
hyla, but not so loud. He said that he
had never seen them while making it, but
going to the spot he finds the snake. This,
34 CANOEING IN THE WILDERNESS
he said, was a sign of rain. When I had
selected this place for our camp he had
remarked that there were snakes there.
" But they won't do any hurt," I said.
"Oh, no," he answered, "just as you
say; it makes no difference to me."
He lay on the right side of the tent,
because, as he said, he was partly deaf in
one ear, and he wanted to lie with his
good ear up. As we lay there he inquired
if I ever heard " Indian sing." I replied
that I had not often, and asked him if
he would not favor us with a song. He
readily assented, and, lying on his back,
with his blanket wrapped around him, he
commenced a slow, somewhat nasal, yet
musical chant, in his own language, which
probably was taught his tribe long ago
by the Catholic missionaries. He trans-
lated it to us, sentence by sentence, after-
ward. It proved to be a very simple
religious exercise or hymn, the burden of
which was that there was only one God
who ruled all the world.
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 35
His singing carried me back to the pe-
riod of the discovery of America, when
Europeans first encountered the simple
faith of the Indian. There was, indeed, a
beautiful simplicity about it; nothing of
the dark and savage, only the mild and
infantile. The sentiments of humility and
reverence chiefly were expressed.
It was a dense and damp spruce and fir
wood in which we lay, and, except for our
fire, perfectly dark ; and when I awoke in
the night, I either heard an owl from
deeper in the forest behind us, or a loon
from a distance over the lake. Getting up
some time after midnight to collect the
scattered brands together, while my com-
panions were sound asleep, I observed,
partly in the fire, which had ceased to
blaze, a perfectly regular elliptical ring of
light, about five inches in its shortest diam-
eter, six or seven in its longer, and from
one eighth to one quarter of an inch wide.
It was fully as bright as the fire, but not
reddish or scarlet like a coal, but a white
j
IRPf
36 CANOEING IN THE WILDERNESS
and slumbering light, like the glowworm's.
I saw at once that it must be phosphor-
escent wood, which I had often heard of,
but never chanced to see. Putting my fin-
ger on it, with a little hesitation, I found
that it was a piece of dead moosewood
which the Indian had cut off in a slanting
direction the evening before.
Using my knife, I discovered that the
light proceeded from that portion of the
sapwood immediately under the bark, and
thus presented a regular ring at the end,
and when I pared off the bark and cut into
the sap, it was all aglow along the log. I
was surprised to find the wood quite hard
and apparently sound, though probably
decay had commenced in the sap, and I
cut out some little triangular chips, and,
placing them in the hollow of my hand, car-
ried them into the camp, waked my com-
panion, and showed them to him. They
lit up the inside of my hand, revealing the
lines and wrinkles, and appearing exactly
like coals of fire raised to a white heat.
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 37
I noticed that part of a decayed stump
within four or five feet of the fire, an inch
wide and six inches long, soft and shaking
wood, shone with equal brightness.
I neglected to ascertain whether our fire
had anything to do with this, but the pre-
vious day's rain and long-continued wet
weather undoubtedly had.
I was exceedingly interested by this
phenomenon. It could hardly have thrilled
me more if it had taken the form of let-
ters, or of the human face. I little thought
that there was such a light shining in the
darkness of the wilderness for me.
The next day the Indian told me their
name for the light artoosoqu* and on
my inquiring concerning the will-o'-the-
wisp he said that his " folks " sometimes
saw fires passing along at various heights,
even as high as the trees, and making a
noise. I was prepared after this to hear of
the most startling and unimagined phe-
nemona witnessed by "his folks," they are
abroad at all hours and seasons in scenes
38 CANOEING IN THE WILDERNESS
so unfrequented by white men. Nature
must have made a thousand revelations to
them which are still secrets to us.
I did not regret my not having seen
this before, since I now saw it under cir-
cumstances so favorable. I was in just the
frame of mind to see something wonder-
ful, and this was a phenomenon adequate
to my circumstances and expectation, and
it put me on the alert to see more like it.
I let science slide, and rejoiced in that
light as if it had been a fellow creature.
A scientific explanation, as it is called, would
have been altogether out of place there.
That is for pale daylight. Science with its
retorts would have put me to sleep ; it was
the opportunity to be ignorant that I im-
proved. It made a believer of me more
than before. I believed that the woods
were not tenantless, but choke-full of hon-
est spirits as good as myself any day not
an empty chamber in which chemistry was
left to work alone, but an inhabited house.
It suggested, too, that the same experience
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 39
always gives birth to the same sort of be-
lief or religion. One revelation has been
made to the Indian, another to the white
man. I have much to learn of the Indian,
nothing of the missionary. I am not sure
but all that would tempt me to teach the
Indian my religion would be his promise
to teach me his. Long enough I had heard
of irrelevant things ; now at length I was
glad to make acquaintance with the light
that dwells in rotten wood.
I kept those little chips and wet them
again the next night, but they emitted no
light.
Ill
SATURDAY, JULY 25
AT breakfast, the Indian, evidently
curious to know what would be ex-
pected of him the next day, asked me how
I spent the Sunday when at home. I told
him that I. commonly sat in my chamber
reading, etc., in the forenoon, and went
to walk in the afternoon. At which he
shook his head and said, " Er, that is ver*
bad."
" How do you spend it ?" I asked.
He said that he did no work, that he
went to church at Oldtown when he was
at home ; in short, he did as he had been
taught by the whites.
When we were washing the dishes in
the lakes, many fishes came close up to us
to get the particles of grease.
The weather seemed to be more settled
this morning, and we set out early in order
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 41
to finish our voyage up the lake before the
wind arose. Soon after starting, the Indian
directed our attention to the Northeast
Carry, which we could plainly see, about
thirteen miles distant. This carry is a rude
wooden railroad running north and south
about two miles, perfectly straight, from
the lake to the Penobscot through a low
tract, with a clearing three or four rods
wide. This opening appeared as a clear
bright, or light, point in the horizon, rest-
ing on the edge of the lake. We should
not have suspected it to be visible if the
Indian had not drawn our attention to it.
It was a remarkable kind of light to steer
for daylight seen through a vista in the
forest but visible as far as an ordinary
beacon by night.
We crossed a deep wide bay north of
Kineo, leaving an island on our left and
keeping up the eastern side of the lake.
We then crossed another broad bay, which,
as we could no longer observe the shore
particularly, afforded ample time for con-
42 CANOEING IN THE WILDERNESS
versation. The Indian said that he had got
his money by hunting, mostly high up the
West Branch of the Penobscot, and toward
the head of the St. John. He had hunted
there from a boy, and knew all about that
region. His game had been beaver, otter,
black cat (or fisher), sable, moose, etc.
Canada lynx were plenty yet in burnt
grounds. For food in the woods he uses
partridges, ducks, dried moose meat, hedge-
hog, etc. Loons, too, were good, only " bile
'em good."
Pointing into the bay he said that it
was the way to various lakes which he
knew. Only solemn bear-haunted moun-
tains with their great wooded slopes were
visible. The Indian said that he had been
along there several times. I asked him
how he guided himself in the woods.
" Oh," said he, " I can tell good many
ways."
When I pressed him further he an-
swered, "Sometimes I lookum sidehill,"
and he glanced toward a high hill or
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 43
mountain on the eastern shore; "great
difference between the north and south ;
see where the sun has shone most. So
trees the large limbs bend toward south.
Sometimes I lookum locks " (rocks).
I asked what he saw on the rocks, but
he did not describe anything in particu-
lar, answering vaguely, in a mysterious or
drawling tone, " Bare locks on lake shore
great difference between north, south,
east, west side can tell what the sun has
shone on.'*
"Suppose," said I, "that I should take
you in a dark night right up here into the
middle of the woods a hundred miles, set
you down, and turn you round quickly
twenty times, could you steer straight to
Oldtown?"
" Oh, yer," said he, " have done pretty
much same thing. I will tell you. Some
years ago I met an old white hunter at
Millinocket ; very good hunter. He said
he could go anywhere in the woods. He
wanted to hunt with me that day, so we
44 CANOEING IN THE WILDERNESS
start. We chase a moose all the forenoon,
round and round, till middle of afternoon,
when we kill him. Then I said to him,
'Now you go straight to camp.'
"He said, 'I can't do that. I don't
know where I am.'
"'Where you think camp?' I asked.
" He pointed so. Then I laugh at him.
I take the lead and go right off the other
way, cross pur tracks many times, straight
camp/'
"How do you do that?" asked I.
" Oh, I can't tell you" he replied.
" Great difference between me and white
man.'
It appeared as if the sources of infor-
mation were so various that he did not
give a distinct conscious attention to any
one, and so could not readily refer to any
when questioned about it, but he found
his way very much as an animal does.
Perhaps what is commonly called instinct
in the animal in this case is merely a sharp-
ened and educated sense. Often, when an
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 45
Indian says, " I don't know,'* in regard to
the route he is to take, he does not mean
what a white man would by those words,
for his Indian instinct may tell him still
as much as the most confident white man
knows. He does not carry things in his
head, nor remember the route exactly, like
a white man, but relies on himself at the
moment. Not having experienced the
need of the other sort of knowledge
all labeled and arranged he has not
acquired it.
The hunter with whom I talked in
the stage knew some of the resources of
the Indian. He said that he steered by the
wind, or by the limbs of the hemlocks,
which were largest on the south side ; also
sometimes, when he knew that there was a
lake near, by firing his gun and listening
to hear the direction and distance of the
echo from over it.
As the forenoon advanced the wind in-
creased. The last bay which we crossed
before reaching the desolate pier at the
46 CANOEING IN THE WILDERNESS
Northeast Carry, was two or three miles
over, and the wind was southwesterly. After
going a third of the way, the waves had
increased so as occasionally to wash into
the canoe, and we saw that it was worse
ahead. At first we might have turned
about, but were not willing to. It would
have been of no use to follow the course
of the shore, for the waves ran still higher
there on account of the greater sweep the
wind had. At any rate it would have been
dangerous now to alter our course, because
the waves would have struck us at an ad-
vantage. It will not do to meet them at
right angles, for then they will wash in
both sides, but you must take them quar-
tering. So the Indian stood up in the
canoe and exerted all his skill and strength
for a mile or two, while I paddled right
along in order to give him more steerage-
way. For more than a mile he did not
allow a single wave to strike the canoe as
it would, but turned it quickly from this
side to that, so that it would always be on
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 47
or near the crest of a wave when it broke,
where all its force was spent, and we merely
settled down with it. At length I jumped
out onto the end of the pier against which
the waves were dashing violently, in order
to lighten the canoe and catch it at the
landing, which was not much sheltered,
but just as I jumped we took in two or
three gallons of water. I remarked to the
Indian, "You managed that well," to
which he replied: " Ver' few men do that.
Great many waves; when I look out for
one, another come quick."
While the Indian went to get cedar
bark, etc., to carry his canoe with, we
cooked the dinner on the shore in the
midst of a sprinkling rain. He prepared
his canoe for carrying in this wise. He
took a cedar shingle or splint eighteen
inches long and four or five wide, rounded
at one end, that the corners might not be
in the way, and tied it with cedar bark by
two holes made midway, near the edge on
each side, to the middle crossbar of the
48 CANOEING IN THE WILDERNESS
canoe. When the canoe was lifted upon
his head bottom up, this shingle, with its
rounded end uppermost, distributed the
weight over his shoulders and head, while
a band of cedar bark, tied to the crossbar
on each side of the shingle, passed round
his breast, and another longer one, outside
of the last, round his forehead ; also a hand
on each side rail served to steer the canoe
and keep it. from rocking. He thus carried
it with his shoulders, head, breast, fore-
head, and both hands, as if the upper part
of his body were all one hand to clasp and
hold it A cedar tree furnished all the gear
in this case, as it had the woodwork of the
canoe. One of the paddles rested on the
crossbars in the bows. I took the canoe
upon my head and found that I could
carry it with ease, but I let him carry it,
not caring to establish a different precedent.
This shingle remained tied to the crossbar
throughout the voyage, was always ready
for the carries, and also served to protect
the back of one passenger.
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 49
We were obliged to go over this carry
twice, our load was so great. But the
carries were an agreeable variety, and we
improved the opportunity to gather the
rare plants which we had seen, when we
returned empty-handed.
We reached the Penobscot about four
o'clock, and found there some St. Francis
Indians encamped on the bank. They were
making a canoe and drying moose meat.
Their camp was covered with spruce bark.
They had a young moose, taken in the
river a fortnight before, confined in a sort
of cage of logs piled up cob-fashion, seven
or eight feet high. It was quite tame,
about four feet high, and covered with
moose flies. There was a large quantity of
cornel, red maple, and also willow and
aspen boughs, stuck through between the
logs on all sides, butt ends out, and on their
leaves it was browsing. It looked at first
as if it were in a bower rather than a
pen.
Our Indian said that be used black spruce
So CANOEING IN THE WILDERNESS
roots to sew canoes with, obtaining it from
high lands or mountains. The St. Francis
Indians thought that white spruce roots
might be best. But the former said, "No
good, break, can't split 'em."
I told him I thought that I could make
a canoe, but he expressed great doubt of it ;
at any rate he thought that my work would
not be "neat" the first time.
Having reloaded, we paddled down the
Penobscot. We saw a splendid yellow lily
by the shore, which I plucked. It was six
feet high and had twelve flowers, in two
whorls, forming a pyramid. We afterward
saw many more thus tall along this stream,
and on the East Branch. The Indian said
that the roots were good for soup, that is,
to cook with meat, to thicken it, taking
the place of flour. They get them in the
fall. I dug some, and found a mass of bulbs
pretty deep in the earth, two inches in
diameter, looking, and even tasting, some-
what like raw green corn on the ear.
When we had gone about three miles
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 51
down the Penobscot, we saw through the
tree-tops a thunder-shower coming up in
the west, and we looked out a camping-
place in good season, about five o'clock.
I will describe the routine of camping.
We generally told the Indian that we would
stop at the first suitable place, so that he
might be on the lookout for it. Having
observed a clear, hard, and flat beach to
land on, free from mud, and from stones
which would injure the canoe, one would
run up the bank to see if there were open
and level space enough for the camp be-
tween the trees, or if it could be easily
cleared, preferring at the same time a cool
place, on account of insects. Sometimes
we paddled a mile or more before finding
one to our minds, for where the shore
was suitable the bank would often be too
steep, or else too low and grassy, and there-
fore mosquitoey. We then took out the
baggage and drew up the canoe. The In-
dian cut a path to the spot we had selected,
which was usually within two or three
52 CANOEING IN THE WILDERNESS
rods of the water, and we carried up our
baggage.
One, perhaps, takes birch bark, always
at hand, and dead dry wood, and kindles
a fire five or six feet in front of where we
intend to lie. It matters not, commonly,
on which side this is, because there is little
or no wind in so dense a wood at that
season ; and then he gets a kettle of water
from the river, and takes out the pork,
bread, coffee, etc., from their several pack-
ages.
Another, meanwhile, having the axe, cuts
down the nearest dead rock maple or other
dry hard wood, collecting several large logs
to last through the night, also a green stake,
with a notch or fork to it, which is slanted
over the fire, perhaps resting on a rock or
forked stake, to hang the kettle on, and two
forked stakes and a pole for the tent.
The third man pitches the tent, cuts a
dozen or more pins with his knife to fasten
it down with, and then collects an armful
or two of fir twigs, arbor-vitas, spruce, or
Making a Camp in the Streamside Woodland
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 53
hemlock, whichever is at hand, and makes
the bed, beginning at either end, and lay-
ing the twigs wrong side up, in regular
rows, covering the stub ends of the last
row ; first, however, filling the hollows, if
there are any, with coarser material.
Commonly, by the time the bed is made,
or within fifteen or twenty minutes, the
water boils, the pork is fried, and supper
is ready. We eat this sitting on the ground,
or a stump, around a large piece of birch
bark for a table, each holding a dipper in
one hand and a piece of ship-bread or fried
pork in the other, frequently making a
pass with his hand, or thrusting his head
into the smoke, to avoid the mosquitoes.
Next, pipes are lit by those who smoke,
and veils are donned by those who have
them, and we hastily examine and dry our
plants, anoint our faces and hands, and go
to bed.
Though you have nothing to do but
see the country, there 's rarely any time to
spare, hardly enough to examine a plant,
54 CANOEING IN THE WILDERNESS
before the night or drowsiness is upon
you.
Such was the ordinary experience, but
this evening we had camped earlier on ac-
count of the rain, and had more time. We
found that our camp was on an old indis-
tinct supply-road, running along the river.
What is called a road there shows no ruts
or trace of wheels, for they are not used ;
nor, indeed, of runners, since they are used
only in the winter when the snow is sev-
eral feet deep. It is only an indistinct vista
through the wood, which it takes an ex-
perienced eye to detect.
We had no sooner pitched our tent than
the thunder-shower burst on us, and we
hastily crept under it, drawing our bags
after us, curious to see how much of a
shelter our thin cotton roof was going to
be in this excursion. Though the violence
of the rain forced a fine shower through
the cloth before it was fairly wetted and
shrunk, with which we were well bedewed,
we managed to keep pretty dry, only a
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 55
box of matches having been left out and
spoiled, and before we were aware of it
the shower was over, and only the drip-
ping trees imprisoned us.
Wishing to see what fishes were in the
river there, we cast our lines over the wet
bushes on the shore, but they were repeat-
edly swept down the swift stream in vain.
So, leaving the Indian, we took the canoe,
just before dark, and dropped down the
river a few rods to fish at the mouth of a
sluggish brook. We pushed up this a rod
or two, but were soon driven off by the
mosquitoes. While there we heard the
Indian fire his gun twice in rapid succes-
sion. His object was to clean out and dry
it after the rain, and he then loaded it with
ball, being now on ground where he ex-
pected to meet with large game. This
sudden loud crashing noise in the still aisles
of the forest affected me like an insult to
nature, or ill manners at any rate, as if you
were to fire a gun in a hall or temple. It
was not heard far, however, except along
$6 CANOEING IN THE WILDERNESS
the river, the sound being rapidly hushed
up or absorbed by the damp trees and
mossy ground.
The Indian made a little smothered fire
of damp leaves close to the back of the
camp, that the smoke might drive through
and keep out the mosquitoes, but just be-
fore we fell asleep this suddenly blazed up
and came near setting fire to the tent.
IV
SUNDAY, JULY 26
THE note of the white- throated spar-
row was the first heard in the morn-
ing, and with this all the woods rang.
Though commonly unseen, their simple
ah, te-te-te, te-te-te, te-te-te t so sharp and
piercing, was as distinct to the ear as the
passage of a spark of fire shot into the
darkest of the forest would be to the eye.
We were commonly aroused by their lively
strain very early. What a glorious time they
must have in that wilderness, far from man-
kind !
I told the Indian that we would go to
church to Chesuncook this morning, some
fifteen miles. It was settled weather at
last. A few swallows flitted over the water,
we heard Maryland yellow-throats along
the shore, the notes of the chickadee, and,
58 CANOEING IN THE WILDERNESS
I believe, redstarts. Moose-flies of large
size pursued us in midstream.
The Indian thought that we should lie
by on Sunday. Said he, " We come here
lookum things, look all round, but come
Sunday look up all that, and then Monday
look again."
He spoke of an Indian of his acquaint-
ance who had been with some ministers
to Katahdm and had told him how they
conducted. This he described in a low and
solemn voice. " They make a long prayer
every morning and night, and at every
meal. Come Sunday, they stop 'em, no go
at all that day keep still preach all
day first one, then another, just like
church. Oh, ver' good men. One day go-
ing along a river, they came to the body
of a man in the water, drowned good
while. They go right ashore stop there,
go no farther that day they have meet-
ing there, preach and pray just like Sun-
day. Then they go back and carry the
body with them. Oh, they ver' good men."
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 59
I judged from this account that their
every camp was a camp-meeting, and that
they wanted an opportunity to preach
somewhere more than to see Katahdin.
However, the Indian added, plying the
paddle all the while, that if we would go
along he must go with us, he our man, and
he suppose that if he no takum pay for
what he do Sunday then ther 's no harm,
but if he takum pay then wrong. I told
him that he was stricter than white men.
Nevertheless, I noticed that he did not
forget to reckon in the Sundays at last.
He appeared to be a very religious man,
and said his prayers in a loud voice, in In-
dian, kneeling before the camp, morning
and evening sometimes scrambling up
in haste when he had forgotten this, and
saying them with great rapidity. In the
course of the day he remarked, "Poor
man rememberum God more than rich."
We soon passed the island where I had
camped four years before. The deadwater,
a mile or two below it, the Indian said
60 CANOEING IN THE WILDERNESS
was "a great place for moose." We saw
the grass bent where a moose came out
the night before, and the Indian said that
he could smell one as far as he could see
him, but he added that if he should see
five or six to-day close by canoe he no
shoot 'em. Accordingly, as he was the
only one of the party who had a gun, or
had come a-hunting, the moose were safe.
Just below this a cat owl flew heavily
over the stream, and he, asking if I knew
what it was, imitated very well the com-
mon boo, boo, boo, hoorer, boo, of our woods.
We carried a part of the baggage about
Pine Stream Falls, while the Indian went
down in the canoe. A Bangor merchant
had told us that two men in his employ
were drowned some time ago while pass-
ing these falls in a bateau, and a third clung
to a rock all night and was taken off in the
morning. There were magnificent great
purple fringed orchises on this carry and
the neighboring shores. I measured the
largest canoe birch which I saw in this
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 61
journey near the end of the carry. It was
fourteen and one half feet in circumfer-
ence at two feet from the ground, but at
five feet divided into three parts. The In-
dian cut a small woody knob as big as a
filbert from the trunk of a fir, apparently
an old balsam vesicle filled with wood,
which he said was good medicine.
After we had embarked and gone half
a mile, my companion remembered that
he had left his knife, and we paddled back
to get it, against the strong and swift cur-
rent. This taught us the difference be-
tween going up and down the stream, for
while we were working our way back a
quarter of a mile, we should have gone
down a mile and half at least. So we
landed, and while he and the Indian were
gone back for it, I watched the motions
of the foam, a kind of white waterfowl
near the shore, forty or fifty rods below.
It alternately appeared and disappeared
behind the rock, being carried round by
an eddy.
62 CANOEING IN THE WILDERNESS
Immediately below these falls was the
Chesuncook Deadwater, caused by the
flowing back of the lake. As we paddled
slowly over this, the Indian told us a story
of his hunting thereabouts, and something
more interesting about himself. It ap-
peared that he had represented his tribe
at Augusta, and once at Washington. He
had a great idea of education, and would
occasionallybreak out into such expressions
as this, " Kademy good thing I sup-
pose they usum Fifth Reader there. You
been college?'*
We steered across the northwest end of
the lake. It is an agreeable change to cross
a lake after you have been shut up in the
woods, not only on account of the greater
expanse of water, but also of sky. It is one
of the surprises which Nature has in store
for the traveler in the forest. To look down,
in this case, over eighteen miles of water
was liberating and civilizing even. The
lakes also reveal the mountains, and give
ample scope and range to our thought.
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 63
Already there were half a dozen log huts
about this end of the lake, though so far
from a road. In these woods the earliest
settlements are clustering about the lakes,
partly, I think, for the sake of the neigh-
borhood as the oldest clearings. Water is
a pioneer which the settler follows, taking
advantage of its improvements.
About noon we turned northward up a
broad kind of estuary, and at its northeast
corner found the Caucomgomoc River,
and after going about a mile from the lake
reached the Umbazookskus. Our course
was up the Umbazookskus, but as the In-
dian knew of a good camping-place, that
is, a cool place where there were few mos-
quitoes, about half a mile farther up the
Caucomgomoc, we went thither. So
quickly we changed the civilizing sky of
Chesuncook for the dark wood of the
Caucomgomoc. On reaching the Indian's
camping-ground on the south side, where
the bank was about a dozen feet high, I
read on the trunk of a fir tree blazed by
64 CANOEING IN THE WILDERNESS
an axe an inscription in charcoal which had
been left by him. It was surmounted by a
drawing of a bear paddling a canoe, which
he said was the sign used by his family
always. The drawing, though rude, could
not be mistaken for anything but a bear,
and he doubted my ability to copy it.
The inscription ran thus. I interline the
English of his Indian as he gave it to
me.
(The figure of a bear in a boat.)
July 26
1853
niasoseb
We alone Joseph
Palis elioi
Polis start
sia olta
for Oldtown
onke ni
right away
quambi
July 15
1855
niasoseb
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 65
He added now below:
1857
July 26
Jo. Polls
This was one of his homes. I saw
where he had sometimes stretched his
moose-hides on the sunny north side of the
river where there was a narrow meadow.
After we had selected a place for our
camp, and kindled our fire, almost exactly
on the site of the Indian's last camp here,
he, looking up, observed, " That tree
danger."
It was a dead part, more than a foot in
diameter, of a large canoe birch, which
branched at the ground. This branch,
rising thirty feet or more, slanted directly
over the spot which we had chosen for
our bed. I told him to try it with his axe,
but he could not shake it perceptibly, and,
therefore, seemed inclined to disregard it,
and my companion expressed his willing-
ness to run the risk. But it seemed to me
that we should be fools to lie under it, for
66 CANOEING IN THE WILDERNESS
though the lower part was firm, the top,
for aught we knew, might be just ready
to fall, and we should at any rate be very
uneasy if the wind arose in the night. It
is a common accident for men camping
in the woods to be killed by a falling tree.
So the camp was moved to the other side
of the fire.
The Indian said that the Umbazooks-
kus, being a dead stream with broad mead-
ows, was a good place for moose, and he
frequently came a-hunting here, being
out alone three weeks or more from Old-
town. He sometimes, also, went a-hunt-
ing to the Seboois Lakes, taking the stage,
with his gun and ammunition, axe and
blankets, hard-bread and pork, perhaps for
a hundred miles of the way, and jumped
off at the wildest place on the road, where
he was at once at home, and every rod
was a tavern-site for him. Then, after a
short journey through the woods, he would
build a spruce-bark canoe in one day, put-
ting but few ribs into it, that it might be
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 67
light, and, after doing his hunting with it
on the lakes, would return with his furs
the same way he had come. Thus you
have an Indian availing himself of the
advantages of civilization, without losing
any of his woodcraft, but proving himself
the more successful hunter for it.
This man was very clever and quick to
learn anything in his line. Our tent was
of a kind new to him, but when he had
once seen it pitched it was surprising how
quickly he would find and prepare the
pole and forked stakes to pitch it with,
cutting and placing them right the first
time, though I am sure that the majority
of white men would have blundered sev-
eral times.
Now I thought I would observe how
he spent his Sunday. While I and my
companion were looking about at the trees
and river he went to sleep. Indeed, he
improved every opportunity to get a nap,
whatever the day.
Rambling about the woods at this
68 CANOEING IN THE WILDERNESS
camp, I noticed that they consisted chiefly
of firs, spruce, red maple, birch, and,
along the river, the hoary alder. I could
trace the outlines of large birches that had
fallen long ago, collapsed and rotted and
turned to soil, by faint yellowish-green
lines of featherlike moss, eighteen inches
wide and twenty or thirty feet long,
crossed by other similar lines.
Wild asit was, it was hard for me to
get rid of the associations of the settle-
ments. Any steady and monotonous sound,
to which I did not distinctly attend, passed
for a sound of human industry. The water-
falls which I heard were not without their
dams and mills to my imagination ; and
several times I found that I had been re-
garding the steady rushing sound of the
wind from over the woods beyond the
rivers as that of a train of cars. Our minds
anywhere, when left to themselves, are al-
ways thus busily drawing conclusions from
false premises.
I asked the Indian to make us a sugar-
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 69
bowl of birch bark, which he did, using
the great knife which dangled in a sheath
from his belt; but the bark broke at the
corners when he bent it up, and he said
it was not good that there was a great
difference in this respect between the bark
of one canoe birch and that of another.
My companion, wishing to distinguish
between the black and white spruce, asked
Polis to show him a twig of the latter,
which he did at once, together with the
black; indeed, he could distinguish them
about as far as he could see them. As the
two twigs appeared very much alike, my
companion asked the Indian to point out
the difference ; whereupon the latter, tak-
ing the twigs, instantly remarked, as he
passed his hand over them successively in
a stroking manner, that the white was
rough, that is, the needles stood up nearly
perpendicular, but the black smooth, that
is, as if bent down. This was an obvious
difference, both to sight and touch.
I asked him to get some black spruce
70 CANOEING IN THE WILDERNESS
root and make some thread. Whereupon,
without looking up at the trees overhead,
he began to grub in the ground, instantly
distinguishing the black spruce roots, and
cutting off a slender one, three or four
feet long, and as big as a pipestem, he
split the end with his knife, and taking a
half between the thumb and forefinger of
each hand, rapidly separated its whole
length into two equal semi-cylindrical
halves. Then, giving me another root, he
said, " You try."
But in my hands it immediately ran off
one side, and I got only a very short
piece. Though it looked easy, I found
that there was a great art in splitting
these roots. The split is skillfully hu-
mored by bending short with this hand
or that, and so kept in the middle. He
then took off the bark from each half,
pressing a short piece of cedar bark
against the convex side with both hands,
while he drew the root upward with his
teeth. An Indian's teeth are strong, and
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 71
I noticed that he used his often where we
should have used a hand. They amounted
to a third hand. He thus obtained in a
moment a very neat, tough, and flexible
string, which he could tie into a knot, or
make into a fishline even. He said that
you would be obliged to give half a dollar
for spruce root enough for a canoe, thus
prepared.
He had discovered the day before that
his canoe leaked a little, and said that it
was owing to stepping into it violently. I
asked him where he would get pitch to
mend it with, for they commonly use
hard pitch, obtained of the whites at
Oldtown. He said that he could make
something very similar, and equally good,
of material which we had with us ; and
he wished me to guess what. But I could
not, and he would not tell me, though he
showed me a ball of it when made, as
big as a pea and like black pitch, saying,
at last, that there were some things which
a man did not tell even his wife.
72 CANOEING IN THE WILDERNESS
Being curious to see what kind of
fishes there were in this dark, deep, slug-
gish river, I cast in my line just before
night, and caught several small sucker-like
fishes, which the Indian at once rejected,
saying that they were good for nothing.
Also, he would not touch a pout, which
I caught, and said that neither Indians
nor whites thereabouts ever ate them.
But he said that some small silvery fishes,
which I called white chivin, were the best
fish in the Penobscot waters, and if 1
would toss them up the bank to him,
he would cook them for me. After clean-
ing them, not very carefully, leaving the
heads on, he laid them on the coals and
so broiled them.
Returning from a short walk, he
brought a vine in his hand, saying that it
made the best tea of any thing in the woods.
It was the creeping snowberry, which
was quite common there, its berries just
grown. So we determined to have some
tea made of this. It had a slight checker-
Fishing
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 73
berry flavor, and we both agreed that it
was really better than the black tea which
we had brought. We thought it quite a
discovery, and that it might well be dried
and sold in the shops. I for one, how-
ever, am not an old tea-drinker and can-
not speak with authority to others. The
Indian said that they also used for tea a
certain herb which grew in low ground,
which he did not find there, and Labra-
dor tea; also hemlock leaves, the last
especially in winter when the other plants
were covered with snow; and various
other things. We could have had a new
kind of tea every night.
Just before night we saw a musquash,
the only one we saw in this voyage,
swimming downward on the opposite side
of the stream. The Indian, wishing to
get one to eat, hushed us, saying, "Stop,
me call 'em"; and, sitting flat on the
bank, he began to make a curious squeak-
ing, wiry sound with his lips, exerting
himself considerably. I was greatly sur-
74 CANOEING IN THE WILDERNESS
prised thought that I had at last got
into the wilderness, and that he was a wild
man indeed, to be talking to a musquash !
I did not know which of the two was the
strangest to me. He seemed suddenly to
have quite forsaken humanity, and gone
over to the musquash side. The mus-
quash, however, as near as I could see, did
not turn aside, and the Indian said that he
saw our fire-; but it was evident that he
was in the habit of calling the musquash
to him, as he said. An acquaintance of
mine who was hunting moose in these
woods a month after this, tells me that his
Indian in this way repeatedly called the
musquash within reach of his paddle in
the moonlight, and struck at them.
The Indian said a particularly long
prayer this Sunday evening, as if to atone
for working in the morning.
V
MONDAY, JULY 27
HAVING rapidly loaded the canoe,
which the Indian always carefully
attended to, that it might be well trimmed,
and each having taken a look, as usual, to
see that nothing was left, we set out again,
descending the Caucomgomoc, and turn-
ing northeasterly up the Umbazookskus.
This name, the Indian said, meant Much
Meadow River. We found it now very
wide on account of the rains. The space
between the woods, chiefly bare meadow,
was from fifty to two hundred rods in
breadth.
In the water on the meadows grew
sedges, wool-grass, the common blue flag
abundantly, its flower just showing itself
above the high water, as if it were a blue
water-lily, and higher in the meadows a
great many clumps of a peculiar narrow-
76 CANOEING IN THE WILDERNESS
leaved willow. Here also grew the red
osier, its large fruit now whitish.
It was unusual for the woods to be so
distant from the shore, and there was
quite an echo from them, but when I was
shouting in order to awake it, the Indian
reminded me that I should scare the
moose, which he was looking out for, and
which we all wanted to see.
Having paddled several miles up the
Umbazookskus, it suddenly contracted to
a mere brook, narrow and swift, the larches
and other trees approaching the bank and
leaving no open meadow. We landed to
get a black spruce pole for pushing against
the stream. The one selected was quite
slender, cut about ten feet long, merely
whittled to a point, and the bark shaved
off.
While we were thus employed, two In-
dians in a canoe hove in sight round the
bushes, coming down stream. Our Indian
knew one of them, an old man, and fell
into conversation with him. He belonged
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 77
at the foot of Moosehead. The other was
of another tribe. They were returning
from hunting. I asked the younger if they
had seen any moose, to which he said
"No"; but I, seeing the moose-hides
sticking out from a great bundle made
with their blankets in the middle of the
canoe, added, " Only their hides."
As he was a foreigner, he may have
wished to deceive me, for it is against the
law for white men and foreigners to kill
moose in Maine at this season. But per-
haps he need not have been alarmed, for
the moose-wardens are not very particular.
I heard of one who, being asked by a white
man going into the woods what he would
say if he killed a moose, answered, "If
you bring me a quarter of it I guess you
won't be troubled." His duty being, as he
said, only to prevent the " indiscriminate "
slaughter of them for their hides. I sup-
pose that he would consider it an indiscrim-
inate slaughter when a quarter was not
reserved for himself.
78 CANOEING IN THE WILDERNESS
We continued along through the most
extensive larch wood which I had seen
tall and slender trees with fantastic branches.
You do not find straggling trees of this spe-
cies here and there throughout the wood,
but rather a little forest of them. The same
is the case with the white and red pines and
some other trees, greatly to the convenience
of the lumberer. They are of a social
habit, growing in "veins," "clumps/*
"groups," or "communities," as the ex-
plorers call them, distinguishing them far
away, from the top of a hill or a tree, the
white pines towering above the surround-
ing forest, or else they form extensive
forests by themselves. I should have liked
to come across a large community of pines
which had never been invaded by the
lumbering army.
We saw some fresh moose-tracks along
the shore. The stream was only from one
and one half to three rods wide, quite wind-
ing, with occasional small islands, meadows,
and some very swift and shallow places.
The Red Squirrel
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 79
When we came to an island the Indian
never hesitated which side to take, as if
the current told him which was the short-
est and deepest. It was lucky for us that
the water was so high. We had to walk
but once on this stream, carrying a part of
the load, at a swift and shallow reach, while
he got up with the canoe, not being obliged
to take out, though he said it was very
strong water. Once or twice we passed
the red wreck of a bateau which had
been stove some spring.
While making this portage I saw many
splendid specimens of the great purple
fringed orchis, three feet high. It is re-
markable that such delicate flowers should
here adorn these wilderness paths.
The Umbazookskus is called ten miles
long. Having poled up the narrowest part
some three or four miles, the next opening
in the sky was over Umbazookskus Lake,
which we. suddenly entered about eleven
o'clock in the forenoon. It stretches north-
westerly four or five miles. We crossed
8o CANOEING IN THE WILDERNESS
the southeast end to the carry into Mud
Pond.
Hodge, who went through this way to
the St. Lawrence in the service of the State,
calls the portage here a mile and three
quarters long. The Indian said this was
the wettest carry in the State, and as the
season was a very wet one we anticipated
an unpleasant walk. As usual he made
one large bundle of the pork-keg, cook-
ing-utensils, and other loose traps, by
tying them up in his blanket. We should
be obliged to go over the carry twice, and
our method was to carry one half part way,
and then go back for the rest.
Our path ran close by the door of a log
hut in a clearing at this end of the carry,
which the Indian, who alone entered it,
found to be occupied by a Canadian and
his family, and that the man had been
blind for a year. This was the first house
above Chesuncook, and was built here, no
doubt, because it was the route of the
lumberers in the winter and spring.
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 81
After a slight ascent from the lake
through the springy soil of the Canadian's
clearing, we entered on a level and very
wet and rocky path through the dense
evergreen forest, a loosely paved gutter
merely, where we went leaping from rock
to rock and from side to side in the vain
attempt to keep out of the water and mud.
It was on this carry that the white hunter
whom I met in the stage, as he told me,
had shot two bears a few months before.
They stood directly in the path and did
not turn out for him. He said that at this
season bears were found on the mountains
and hillsides in search of berries and were
apt to be saucy.
Here commences what was called,
twenty years ago, the best timber land in
the State. This very spot was described as
" covered with the greatest abundance of
pine," but now this appeared to me, com-
paratively, an uncommon tree there and
yet you did not see where any more could
have stood, amid the dense growth of
cedar, fir, etc.
82 CANOEING IN THE WILDERNESS
The Indian with his canoe soon disap-
peared before us, but ere long he came back
and told us to take a path which turned
off westward, it being better walking, and,
at my suggestion, he agreed to leave a
bough in the regular carry at that place
that we might not pass it by mistake.
Thereafter, he said, we were to keep the
main path, and he added, "You see 'em
my tracks.** *
But I had not much faith that we could
distinguish his tracks, since others had
passed over the carry within a few days.
We turned off at the right place, but were
soon confused by numerous logging-paths
coming into the one we were on. How-
ever, we kept what we considered the
main path, though it was a winding one,
and in this, at long intervals, we distin-
guished a faint trace of a footstep. This,
though comparatively unworn, was at first
a better, or, at least, a dryer road than the
regular carry which we had left. It led
through an arbor-vitae wilderness of the
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 83
grimmest character. The great fallen and
rotting trees had been cut through and
rolled aside, and their huge trunks abutted
on the path on each side, while others still
lay across it two or three feet high.
It was impossible for us to discern the
Indian's trail in the elastic moss, which,
like a thick carpet, covered every rock and
fallen tree, as well as the earth. Neverthe-
less, I did occasionally detect the track of
a man, and I gave myself some credit for
it. I carried my whole load at once, a
heavy knapsack, and a large rubber bag
containing our bread and a blanket, swung
on a paddle, in all about sixty pounds; but
my companion preferred to make two jour-
neys by short stages while I waited for him.
We could not be sure that we were not
depositing our loads each time farther off
from the true path.
As I sat waiting for my companion, he
would seem to be gone a long time, and
I had ample opportunity to make observa-
tions on the forest. I now first began to
84 CANOEING IN THE WILDERNESS
be seriously molested by the black fly, a
very small but perfectly formed fly of that
color, about one tenth of an inch long,
which I felt, and then saw, in swarms
about me, as I sat by a wider and more
than usually doubtful fork in this dark
forest path. Remembering that I had a
wash in my knapsack, prepared by a
thoughtful hand in Bangor, I made haste
to apply if to my face and hands, and was
glad to find it effectual, as long as it was
fresh, or for twenty minutes, not only
against black flies, but all the insects that
molested us. They would not alight on
the part thus defended. It was composed
of sweet oil and oil of turpentine, with a
little oil of spearmint, and camphor. How-
ever, I finally concluded that the remedy
was worse than the disease, it was so dis-
agreeable and inconvenient to have your
face and hands covered with such a mix-
ture.
Three large slate-colored birds of the
jay genus, the Canada jay, came flitting
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 85
silently and by degrees toward me, and
hopped down the limbs inquisitively to
within seven or eight feet. Fish hawks
from the lake uttered their sharp whist-
ling notes low over the top of the forest
near me, as if they were anxious about a
nest there.
After I had sat there some time I no-
ticed at this fork in the path a tree which
had been blazed, and the letters " Chamb.
L." written on it with red chalk. This I
knew to mean Chamberlain Lake. So I
concluded that on the whole we were on
the right course.
My companion having returned with
his bag, we set forward again. The walk-
ing rapidly grew worse and the path more
indistinct, and at length we found ourselves
in a more open and regular swamp made
less passable than ordinary by the unusual
wetness of the season. We sank a foot deep
in water and mud at every step, and some-
times up to our knees. The trail was almost
obliterated, being no more than a mus-
86 CANOEING IN THE WILDERNESS
quash leaves in similar places when he parts
the floating sedge. In fact, it probably was
a musquash trail in some places. We con-
cluded that if Mud Pond was as muddy as
the approach to it was wet, it certainly de-
served its name. It would have been amus-
ing to behold the dogged and deliberate
pace at which we entered that swamp,
without interchanging a word, as if deter-
mined to go through it, though it should
come up to our necks. Having penetrated
a considerable distance into this and found
a tussock on which we could deposit our
loads, though there was no place to sit,
my companion went back for the rest of
his pack.
After a long while my companion came
back, and the Indian with him. We had
taken the wrong road, and the Indian had
lost us. He had gone back to the Cana-
dian's camp and asked him which way we
had probably gone, since he could better
understand the ways of white men, and he
told him correctly that we had undoubt-
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 87
edly taken the supply road to Chamber-
lain Lake. The Indian was greatly sur-
prised that we should have taken what he
called a " tow," that is, tote, toting, or
supply, road instead of a carry path, that
we had not followed his tracks, said
it was "strange," and evidently thought
little of our woodcraft.
Having held a consultation and eaten a
mouthful of bread, we concluded that it
would perhaps be nearer for us two now
to keep on to Chamberlain Lake, omit-
ting Mud Pond, than to go back and start
anew for the last place, though the In-
dian had never been through this way and
knew nothing about it. In the meanwhile
he would go back and finish carrying over
his canoe and bundle to Mud Pond, cross
that, and go down its outlet and up Cham-
berlain Lake, and trust to meet us there
before night. It was now a little after
noon. He supposed that the water in
which we stood had flowed back from
Mud Pond, which could not be far off
88 CANOEING IN THE WILDERNESS
eastward, but was unapproachable through
the dense cedar swamp.
Keeping on, we were ere long agreeably
disappointed by reaching firmer ground,
and we crossed a ridge where the path
was more distinct, but there was never any
outlook over the forest. At one place I
heard a very clear and piercing note from
a small hawk as he dashed through the
tree-tops over my head. We also saw and
heard several times the red squirrel. This,
according to the Indian, is the only squir-
rel found in those woods, except a very
few striped ones. It must have a solitary
time in that dark evergreen forest, where
there is so little life, seventy-five miles
from a road as we had come. I wondered
how he could call any particular tree
there his home, and yet he would run up
the stem of one out of the myriads, as if
it were an old road to him. I fancied that
he must be glad to see us, though he did
seem to chide us. One of those somber
fir and spruce woods is not complete un-
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 89
less you hear from out its cavernous mossy
and twiggy recesses his fine alarum his
spruce voice, like the working of the sap
through some crack in a tree. Such an im-
pertinent fellow would occasionally try to
alarm the wood about me.
"Oh," said I, "I am well acquainted
with your family. I know your cousins in
Concord very well." But my overtures
were vain, for he would withdraw by his
aerial turnpikes into a more distant cedar-
top, and spring his rattle again.
We entered another swamp, at a neces-
sarily slow pace, where the walking was
worse than ever, not only on account of
the water, but the fallen timber, which
often obliterated the indistinct trail en-
tirely. The fallen trees were so numerous
that for long distances the route was
through a succession of small yards, where
we climbed over fences as high as our
heads, down into water often up to our
knees, and then over another fence into a
second yard, and so on. In many places
90 CANOEING IN THE WILDERNESS
the canoe would have run if it had not
been for the fallen timber. Again it would
be more open, but equally wet, too wet
for trees to grow. It was a mossy swamp,
which it required the long legs of a moose
to traverse, and it is very likely that we
scared some of them in our transit, though
we saw none. It was ready to echo the
growl of a bear, the howl of a wolf, or the
scream of a panther ; but when you get
fairly into the middle of one of these grim
forests you are surprised to find that the
larger inhabitants are not at home com-
monly, but have left only a puny red squir-
rel to bark at you. Generally speaking, a
howling wilderness does not howl ; it is the
imagination of the traveler that does the
howling. I did, however, see one dead
porcupine. Perhaps he had succumbed to
the difficulties of the way. These bristly
fellows are a very suitable small fruit of
such unkempt wildernesses.
Making a logging-road in the Maine
woods is called " swamping " it, and they
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 91
who do the work are called "swampers.*'
I now perceived the fitness of the term.
This was the most perfectly swamped of
all the roads I ever saw. Nature must have
cooperated with art here. However, I sup-
pose they would tell you that this name
took its origin from the fact that the chief
work of roadmakers in those woods is to
make the swamps passable. We came to
a stream where the bridge, which had been
made of logs tied together with cedar
bark, had been broken up, and we got
over as we could. Such as it was, this
ruined bridge was the chief evidence that
we were on a path of any kind.
We then crossed another low rising
ground, and I, who wore shoes, had an
opportunity to wring out my stockings,
but my companion, who used boots, had
found that this was not a safe experiment
for him, for he might not be able to get
his wet boots on again. He went over the
whole ground, or water, three times, for
which reason our progress was very slow.
92 CANOEING IN THE WILDERNESS
Beside that, the water softened our feet,
and to some extent unfitted them for walk-
ing.
As I sat waiting for him it would natur-
ally seem an unaccountable time that he
was gone. Therefore, as I could see through
the woods that the sun was getting low,
and it was uncertain how far the lake
might be, even if we were on the right
course, and in what part of the world we
should find ourselves at nightfall, I pro-
posed that I should push through with
what speed I could, leaving boughs to mark
my path, and find the lake and the In-
dian, if possible, before night, and send
the latter back to carry my companion's
bag.
Having gone about a mile I heard a
noise like the note of an owl, which I
soon discovered to be made by the Indian,
and answering him, we soon came together.
He had reached the lake after crossing
Mud Pond and running some rapids be-
low it, and had come up about a mile and
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 93
a half on our path. If he had not come
back to meet us, we probably should not
have found him that night, for the path
branched once or twice before reaching
this particular part of the lake. So he went
back for my companion and his bag. Hav-
ing waded through another stream, where
the bridge of logs had been broken up
and half floated away, we continued on
through alternate mud and water to the
shores of Apmoojenegamook Lake, which
we reached in season for a late supper, in-
stead of dining there, as we had expected,
having gone without our dinner.
It was at least five miles by the way we
had come, and as my companion had gone
over most of it three times he had walked
full a dozen miles. In the winter, when the
water is frozen and the snow is four feet
deep, it is no doubt a tolerable path to a
footman. If you want an exact recipe for
making such a road, take one part Mud
Pond, and dilute it with equal parts of
Umbazookskus and Apmoojenegamook;
94 CANOEING IN THE WILDERNESS
then send a family of musquash through
to locate it, look after the grades and cul-
verts, and finish it to their minds, and let
a hurricane follow to do the fencing.
We had come out on a point extending
into Apmoojenegamook, or Chamberlain
Lake, where there was a broad, gravelly,
and rocky shore, encumbered with bleached
logs and trees. We were rejoiced to see
such dry things in that part of the world.
But at first we did not attend to dryness
so much as to mud and wetness. We all
three walked into the lake up to our mid-
dle to wash our clothes.
This was another noble lake, twelve
miles long; if you add Telos Lake, which,
since the dam was built, has been con-
nected with it by dead water, it will be
twenty; and it is apparently from a mile
and a half to two miles wide. We were
about midway its length on the south side.
We could see the only clearing in these
parts, called the "Chamberlain Farm,"
with two or three log buildings close to-
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 95
gather, on the opposite shore, some two
and a half miles distant. The smoke of
our fire on the shore brought over two men
in a canoe from the farm, that being a
common signal agreed on when one wishes
to cross. It took them about half an hour
to come over, and they had their labor for
their pains this time.
After putting on such dry clothes as we
had, and hanging the others to dry on the
pole which the Indian arranged over the
fire, we ate our supper, and lay down on
the pebbly shore with our feet to the fire
without pitching our tent, making a thin
bed of grass to cover the stones.
Here first I was molested by the little
midge called the no-see-em, especially over
the sand at the water's edge, for it is a
kind of sand-fly. You would not observe
them but for their light-colored wings.
They are said to get under your clothes
and produce a feverish heat, which I sup-
pose was what I felt that night.
Our insect foes in this excursion were,
96 CANOEING IN THE WILDERNESS
first, mosquitoes, only troublesome at night,
or when we sat still on shore by day ; sec-
ond, black flies (simulium molestum), which
molested us more or less on the carries by
day, and sometimes in narrower parts of
the stream ; third, moose-flies, stout brown
flies much like a horsefly. They can bite
smartly, according to Polis, but are easily
avoided or killed. Fourth, the no-see-ems.
Of all these, the mosquitoes are the only
ones that troubled me seriously, but as I
was provided with a wash and a veil, they
have not made any deep impression.
The Indian would not use our wash to
protect his face and hands, for fear that
it would hurt his skin, nor had he any
veil. He, therefore, suffered from insects
throughout this journey more than either
of us. He regularly tied up his face in his
handkerchief, and buried it in his blanket,
and he now finally lay down on the sand
between us and the fire for the sake of the
smoke, which he tried to make enter his
blanket about his face, and for the same
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 97
purpose he lit his pipe and breathed the
smoke into his blanket.
In the middle of the night we heard
the voice of the loon, loud and distinct,
from far over the lake. It is a very wild
sound, quite in keeping with the place
and the circumstances of the traveler, and
very unlike the voice of a bird. I could
lie awake for hours listening to it, it is so
thrilling. When camping in such a wil-
derness as this, you are prepared to hear
sounds from some of its inhabitants which
will give voice to its wildness. Some idea
of bears, wolves, or panthers runs in your
head naturally, and when this note is first
heard very far off at midnight, as you lie
with your ear to the ground, the forest
being perfectly still about you, you take
it for granted that it is the voice of a
wolf or some other wild beast, you con-
clude that it is a pack of wolves baying
the moon, or, perchance, cantering after
a moose. It was the unfailing and charac-
teristic sound of those lakes.
98 CANOEING IN THE WILDERNESS
Some friends of mine, who two years
ago went up the Caucomgomoc River,
were serenaded by wolves while moose-
hunting by moonlight. It was a sudden
burst, as if a hundred demons had broke
loose, a startling sound enough, which,
if any, would make your hair stand on
end, and all was still again. It lasted
but a moment, and you 'd have thought
there were twenty of them, when probably
there were only two or three. They heard
it twice only, and they said that it gave
expression to the wilderness which it
lacked before. I heard of some men, who,
while skinning a moose lately in those
woods, were driven off from the carcass
by a pack of wolves, which ate it up.
This of the loon I do not mean its
laugh, but its looning is a long-drawn
call, as it were, sometimes singularly hu-
man to my ear boo-boo-ooooo, like the
hallooing of a man on a very high key,
having thrown his voice into his head. I
have heard a sound exactly like it when
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 99
breathing heavily through my own nos-
trils, half awake at ten at night, suggest-
ing my affinity to the loon; as if its
language were but a dialect of my own,
after all. Formerly, when lying awake at
midnight in those woods, I had listened
to hear some words or syllables of their
language, but it chanced that I listened in
vain until I heard the cry of the loon. I
have heard it occasionally on the ponds
of my native town, but there its wild-
ness is not enhanced by the surrounding
scenery.
I was awakened at midnight by some
heavy, low-flying bird, probably a loon,
flapping by close over my head along the
shore. So, turning the other side of my
half-clad body to the fire, I sought slum-
ber again.
w
VI
TUESDAY, JULY 28
HEN we awoke we found a heavy
dew on our blankets. I lay awake
very early and listened to the clear, shrill
ahj te te t te te, te of the white-throated
sparrow, repeated at short intervals, with-
out the least variation, for half an hour,
as if it could not enough express its hap-
piness.
We did some more washing in the lake
this morning, and, with our clothes hung
about on the dead trees and rocks, the
shore looked like washing-day at home.
The Indian, taking the hint, borrowed
the soap, and, walking into the lake,
washed his only cotton shirt on his per-
son, then put on his pants and let it dry
on him.
I observed that he wore a cotton shirt,
originally white, a greenish flannel one
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 101
over it, but no waistcoat, flannel drawers,
and strong linen or duck pants, which also
had been white, blue woolen stockings,
cowhide boots, and a Kossuth hat. 1 He car-
ried no change of clothing, but, putting on
a stout, thick jacket, which he laid aside
in the canoe, and seizing a full-sized axe,
his gun and ammunition, and a blanket,
which would do for a sail or knapsack, if
wanted, and strapping on his belt, which
contained a large sheath-knife, he walked
off at once, ready to be gone all summer.
This looked very independent a few
simple and effective tools, and no rubber
clothing. He was always the first ready
to start in the morning. Instead of carry-
ing a large bundle of his own extra cloth-
ing, etc., he brought back the greatcoats
of moose tied up in his blanket. I found
that his outfit was the result of a long ex-
perience, and in the main hardly to be
improved on, unless by washing and an
1 A soft felt hat of the kind worn by the Hungarian patriot,
Kossuth, on his visit to this country in 1851-52.
102 CANOEING IN THE WILDERNESS
extra shirt. Wanting a button here, he
walked off to a place where some Indians
had recently encamped, and searched for
one, but I believe in vain.
Having softened our stiffened boots and
shoes with the pork fat, the usual disposi-
tion of what was left at breakfast, we
crossed the lake, steering in a diagonal di-
rection northeastly about four miles to the
outlet. The Indian name, Apmoojenega-
mook, means lake that is crossed, because
the usual course lies across and not along
it. We did not intend to go far down the
Allegash, but merely to get a view of the
lakes which are its source, and then re-
turn this way to the East Branch of the
Penobscot.
After reaching the middle of the lake,
we found the waves pretty high, and the
Indian warned my companion, who was
nodding, that he must not allow himself
to fall asleep in the canoe lest he should
upset us ; adding, that when Indians want
to sleep in a canoe, they lie down straight
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 103
on the bottom. But in this crowded one
that was impossible. However, he said
that he would nudge him if he saw him
nodding.
A belt of dead trees stood all around the
lake, some far out in the water, with others
prostrate behind them, and they made the
shore, for the most part, almost inaccessi-
ble. This is the effect of the dam at the
outlet. Thus the natural sandy or rocky
shore, with its green fringe, was concealed
and destroyed. We coasted westward along
the north side, searching for the outlet,
about quarter of a mile distant from this
savage-looking shore, on which the waves
were breaking violently, knowing that it
might easily be concealed amid this rub-
bish, or by the overlapping of the shore.
It is remarkable how little these important
gates to a lake are blazoned. There is no
triumphal arch over the modest inlet or
outlet, but at some undistinguished point
it trickles in or out through the uninter-
rupted forest, almost as through a sponge.
104 CANOEING IN THE WILDERNESS
We reached the outlet in about an hour,
and carried over the dam there, which is
quite a solid structure, and about one
quarter of a mile farther there was a sec-
ond dam. The result of this particular
damming about Chamberlain Lake is that
the headwaters of the St. John are made to
flow by Bangor. They have thus dammed
all the larger lakes, raising their broad
surfaces many feet, thus turning the forces
of Nature against herself, that they might
float their spoils out of the country. They
rapidly run out of these immense forests
all the finer and more accessible pine tim-
ber, and then leave the bears to watch the
decaying dams, not clearing nor cultivat-
ing the land, nor making roads, nor build-
ing houses, but leaving it a wilderness, as
they found it. In many parts only these
dams remain, like deserted beaver dams.
Think how much land they have flowed
without asking Nature's leave.
The wilderness experiences a sudden rise
of all her streams and lakes. She feels ten
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 105
thousand vermin gnawing at the base of
her noblest trees. Many combining drag
them off, jarring over the roots of the sur-
vivors, and tumble them into the nearest
stream, till, the fairest having fallen, they
scamper off to ransack some new wilder-
ness, and all is still again. It is as when a
migrating army of mice girdles a forest of
pines. The chopper fells trees from the
same motive that the mouse gnaws them
to get his living. You tell me that he
has a more interesting family than the
mouse. That is as it happens. He speaks
of a " berth " of timber, a good place for
him to get into, just as a worm might.
When the chopper would praise a pine
he will commonly tell you that the one
he cut was so big that a yoke of oxen stood
on its stump; as if that were what the pine
had grown for, to become the footstool
of oxen. In my mind's eye I can see these
unwieldy tame deer, with a yoke binding
them together, the brazen-tipped horns
betraying their servitude, taking their
stand on the stump of each giant pine in
succession throughout this whole forest,
and chewing their cud there, until it is
nothing but an ox-pasture, and run out at
that. As if it were good for the oxen,
and some medicinal quality ascended into
their nostrils. Or is their elevated position
intended merely as a symbol of the fact
that the pastoral comes next in order to
the sylvan 'or hunter life?
The character of the logger's admira-
tion is betrayed by his very mode of ex-
pressing it. If he told all that was in his
mind, he would say, " It was so big that I
cut it down, and then a yoke of oxen could
stand on its stump." He admires the log,
the carcass or corpse, more than the tree.
Why, my dear sir, the tree might have
stood on its own stump, and a great deal
more comfortably and firmly than a yoke
of oxen can, if you had not cut it down.
The Anglo-American can indeed cut
down and grub up all this waving forest,
and make a stump speech on its ruins, but
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 107
he cannot converse with the spirit of the
tree he fells, he cannot read the poetry and
mythology which retire as he advances.
He ignorantly erases mythological tablets
in order to print his handbills and town-
meeting warrants on them. Before he has
learned his a b c in the beautiful but mys-
tic lore of the wilderness he cuts it down,
puts up a " deestrict " schoolhouse, and
introduces Webster's spelling-book.
Below the last dam, the river being
swift and shallow, we two walked about
half a mile to lighten the canoe. I made
it a rule to carry my knapsack when I
walked, and also to keep it tied to a cross-
bar when in the canoe, that it might be
found with the canoe if we should upset.
I heard the dog-day locust here, a sound
which I had associated only with more
open, if not settled countries.
We were now fairly on the Allegash
River. After perhaps two miles of river
we entered Heron Lake, scaring up forty
or fifty young sheldrakes, at the entrance,
io8 CANOEING IN THE WILDERNESS
which ran over the water with great rap-
idity, as usual in a long line.
This lake, judging from the map, is
about ten miles long. We had entered it
on the southwest side, and saw a dark moun-
tain northeast over the lake which the In-
dian said was called Peaked Mountain, and
used by explorers to look for timber from.
The shores were in the same ragged and
unsightly condition, encumbered with dead
timber, both fallen and standing, as in the
last lake, owing to the dam on the Allegash
below. Some low points or islands were
almost drowned.
I saw something white a mile off on the
water, which turned out to be a great gull
on a rock, which the Indian would have
been glad to kill and eat. But it flew away
long before we were near ; and also a flock
of summer ducks that were about the rock
with it. I asking him about herons, since
this was Heron Lake, he said that he found
the blue heron's nests in the hard-wood
trees.
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 109
Rounding a point, we stood across a bay
toward a large island three or four miles
down the lake. We met with shadflies
midway, about a mile from the shore, and
they evidently fly over the whole lake.
On Moosehead I had seen a large devil's-
needle half a mile from the shore, coming
from the middle of the lake, where it was
three or four miles wide at least. It had
probably crossed.
We landed on the southeast side of the
island, which was rather elevated, and
densely wooded, with a rocky shore, in
season for an early dinner. Somebody had
camped there not long before and left the
frame on which they stretched a moose-
hide. The Indian proceeded at once to cut
a canoe birch, slanted it up against another
tree on the shore, tying it with a withe,
and lay down to sleep in its shade. We
made this island the limit of our excursion
in this direction.
The next dam was about fifteen miles
farther north down the Allegash. We had
been told in Bangor of a man who lived
alone, a sort of hermit, at that dam, to
take care of it, who spent his time tossing
a bullet from one hand to the other, for
want of employment. This sort of tit-for-
tat intercourse between his two hands,
bandying to and fro a leaden subject, seems
to have been his symbol for society.
There was another island visible toward
the north dnd of the lake, with an elevated
clearing on it ; but we learned afterward
that it was not inhabited, had only been
used as a pasture for cattle which sum-
mered in these woods. This unnaturally
smooth-shaven, squarish spot, in the midst
of the otherwise uninterrupted forest, only
reminded us how uninhabited the country
was. You would sooner expect to meet a
bear than an ox in such a clearing. At any
rate, it must have been a surprise to the
bears when they came across it. Such, seen
far or near, you know at once to be man's
work, for Nature never does it. In order
to let in the light to the earth he clears off
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH in
the forest on the hillsides and plains, and
sprinkles fine grass seed like an enchanter,
and so carpets the earth with a firm sward.
Polis had evidently more curiosity re-
specting the few settlers in those woods
than we. If nothing was said, he took it
for granted that we wanted to go straight
to the next log hut. Having observed that
we came by the log huts at Chesuncook,
and the blind Canadian's at the Mud Pond
carry, without stopping to communicate
with the inhabitants, he took occasion
now to suggest that the usual way was,
when you came near a house, to go to it,
and tell the inhabitants what you had seen
or heard, and then they told you what they
had seen; but we laughed and said that
we had had enough of houses for the pres-
ent, and had come here partly to avoid
them.
In the meanwhile, the wind, increas-
ing, blew down the Indian's birch and
created such a sea that we found ourselves
prisoners on the island, the nearest shore
ii2 CANOEING IN THE WILDERNESS
being perhaps a mile distant, and we took
the canoe out to prevent its drifting away.
We did not know but we should be com-
pelled to spend the rest of the day and the
night there. At any rate, the Indian went
to sleep again, my companion busied him-
self drying his plants, and I rambled along
the shore westward, which was quite stony,
and obstructed with fallen bleached or
drifted tree's for four or five rods in width.
Our Indian said that he was a doctor, and
could tell me some medicinal use for every
plant I could show him. I immediately
tried him. He said that the inner bark
of the aspen was good for sore eyes ; and
so with various other plants, proving him-
self as good as his word. According to his
account, he had acquired such knowledge
in his youth from a wise old Indian with
whom he associated, and he lamented that
the present generation of Indians " had
lost a great deal."
He said that the caribou was a "very
great runner," that there were none about
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 113
this lake now, though there used to be
many, and, pointing to the belt of dead
trees caused by the dams, he added : " No
likum stump. When he sees that he
scared."
Pointing southeasterly over the lake and
distant forest, he observed, " Me go Old-
town in three days."
I asked how he would get over the
swamps and fallen trees. " Oh," said he,
"in winter all covered, go anywhere on
snowshoes, right across lakes."
What a wilderness walk for a man to take
alone ! None of your half-mile swamps,
none of your mile-wide woods merely, as
on the skirts of our towns, without hotels,
only a dark mountain or a lake for guide-
board and station, over ground much of it
impassable in summer !
Here was traveling of the old heroic
kind over the unaltered face of nature.
From the Allegash River, across great
Apmoojenegamook, he takes his way under
the bear-haunted slopes of Katahdin to
ii4 CANOEING IN THE WILDERNESS
Pamadumcook and Millinocket's inland
seas, and so to the forks of the Nicketow,
ever pushing the boughs of the fir and
spruce aside, with his load of furs, con-
tending day and night, night and day, with
the shaggy demon vegetation, traveling
through the mossy graveyard of trees. Or
he could go by " that rough tooth of the
sea" Kineo, great source of arrows and of
spears to the ancients, when weapons of
stone were used. Seeing and hearing moose,
caribou, bears, porcupines, lynxes, wolves,
and panthers. Places where he might live
and die and never hear of the United States
never hear of America.
There is a lumberer's road called the
Eagle Lake Road from the Seboois to the
east side of this lake. It may seem strange
that any road through such a wilderness
should be passable, even in winter, but at
that season, wherever lumbering operations
are actively carried on, teams are contin-
ually passing on the single track, and it
becomes as smooth almost as a railway. I
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 115
am told that in the Aroostook country the
sleds are required by law to be of one width,
four feet, and sleighs must be altered to fit
the track, so that one runner may go in
one rut and the other follow the horse.
Yet it is very bad turning out.
We had for some time seen a thunder-
shower coming up from the west over the
woods of the island, and heard the mut-
tering of the thunder, though we were in
doubt whether it would reach us ; but now
the darkness rapidly increasing, and a fresh
breeze rustling the forest, we hastily put up
the plants which we had been drying, and
with one consent made a rush for the tent
material and set about pitching it. A place
was selected and stakes and pins cut in the
shortest possible time, and we were pin-
ning it down lest it should be blown away,
when the storm suddenly burst over us.
As we lay huddled together under the
tent, which leaked considerably about the
sides, with our baggage at our feet, we
listened to some of the grandest thunder
u6 CANOEING IN THE WILDERNESS
which I ever heard rapid peals, round
and plump, bang, bang, bang, in succes-
sion, like artillery from some fortress in
the sky ; and the lightning was propor-
tionally brilliant. The Indian said, " It
must be good powder." All for the bene-
fit of the moose and us, echoing far over
the concealed lakes. I thought it must be
a place which the thunder loved, where
the lightning practiced to keep its hand
in, and it would do no harm to shatter a
few pines.
Looking out, I perceived that the violent
shower falling on the lake had almost in-
stantaneously flattened the waves, and, it
clearing off, we resolved to start immedi-
ately, before the wind raised them again.
Getting outside, I said that I saw clouds
still in the southwest, and heard thunder
there. We embarked, nevertheless, and
paddled rapidly back toward the dams.
At the outlet of Chamberlain Lake we
were overtaken by another gusty rain-
storm, which compelled us to take shelter,
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 117
the Indian under his canoe on the bank,
and we under the edge of the dam. How-
ever, we were more scared than wet. From
my covert I could see the Indian peeping
out from beneath his canoe to see what
had become of the rain. When we had
taken our respective places thus once or
twice, the rain not coming down in ear-
nest, we commenced rambling about the
neighborhood, for the wind had by this
time raised such waves on the lake that
we could not stir, and we feared that we
should be obliged to camp there. We got
an early supper on the dam and tried for
fish, while waiting for the tumult to sub-
side. The fishes were not only few, but
small and worthless.
At length, just before sunset, we set out
again. It was a wild evening when we
coasted up the north side of this Apmooje-
negamook Lake. One thunder-storm was
just over, and the waves which it had
raised still running with violence, and an-
other storm was now seen coming up in
ii8 CANOEING IN THE WILDERNESS
the southwest, far over the lake ; but it
might be worse in the morning, and we
wished to get as far as possible on our way
while we might.
It blew hard against the shore, which
was as dreary and harborless as you can
conceive. For half a dozen rods in width
it was a perfect maze of submerged trees,
all dead and bare and bleaching, some
standing half their original height, others
prostrate, and criss-across, above or be-
neath the surface, and mingled with them
were loose trees and limbs and stumps,
beating about. We could not have landed
if we would, without the greatest danger
of being swamped; so blow as it might,
we must depend on coasting. It was twi-
light, too, and that stormy cloud was ad-
vancing rapidly in our rear. It was a
pleasant excitement, yet we were glad to
reach, at length, the cleared shore of the
Chamberlain Farm.
We landed on a low and thinly wooded
point, and while my companions were
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 119
pitching the tent, I ran up to the house
to get some sugar, our six pounds being
gone. It was no wonder they were, for
Polis had a sweet tooth. He would first
fill his dipper nearly a third full of sugar,
and then add the coffee to it. Here was a
clearing extending back from the lake to
a hilltop, with some dark-colored log
buildings and a storehouse in it, and half
a dozen men standing in front of the prin-
cipal hut, greedy for news. Among them
was the man who tended the dam on the
Allegash and tossed the bullet. He, having
charge of the dams, and learning that we
were going to Webster Stream the next
day, told me that some of their men, who
were haying at Telos Lake, had shut the
dam at the canal there in order to catch
trout, and if we wanted more water to
take us through the canal we might raise
the gate.
They were unwilling to spare more than
four pounds of brown sugar, unlocking
the storehouse to get it, since they only
120 CANOEING IN THE WILDERNESS
kept a little for such cases as this, and
they charged twenty cents a pound for it,
which certainly it was worth to get it up
there.
When I returned to the shore it was
quite dark, but we had a rousing fire to
warm and dry us by, and a snug apart-
ment behind it. The Indian went up to
the house to inquire after a brother who
had been absent hunting a year or two,
and while another shower was beginning,
I groped about cutting spruce and arbor-
vitas twigs for a bed. I preferred the ar-
bor-vitas on account of its fragrance, and
spread it particularly thick about the
shoulders. It is remarkable with what
pure satisfaction the traveler in those
woods will reach his camping-ground on
the eve of a tempestuous night like this,
as if he had got to his inn, and, rolling
himself in his blanket, stretch himself
on his six-feet-by-two bed of dripping fir
twigs, with a thin sheet of cotton for roof,
snug as a meadow mouse in its nest. In-
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 121
variably our best nights were those when
it rained, for then we were not troubled
with mosquitoes.
You soon come to disregard rain on
such excursions, at least in the summer,
it is so easy to dry yourself, supposing a
dry change of clothing is not to be had.
You can much sooner dry you by such a
fire as you can make in the woods than in
anybody's kitchen, the fireplace is so much
larger, and wood so much more abundant.
A shed-shaped tent will catch and reflect
the heat, and you may be drying while
you are sleeping.
Some who have leaky roofs in the
towns may have been kept awake, but we
were soon lulled asleep by a steady, soak-
ing rain, which lasted all night.
VII
WEDNESDAY, JULY 29
WHEN we awoke it had done rain-
ing, though it was still cloudy. The
fire was put out, and the Indian's boots,
which stood under the eaves of the tent,
were half -full of water. He was much
more improvident in such respects than
either of us, and he had to thank us for
keeping his powder dry. We decided to
cross the lake at once, before breakfast ;
and before starting I took the bearing of
the shore which we wished to strike, about
three miles distant, lest a sudden misty rain
should conceal it when we were midway.
Though the bay in which we were was
perfectly quiet and smooth, we found the
lake already wide awake outside, but not
dangerously or unpleasantly so. Neverthe-
less, when you get out on one of those
lakes in a canoe like this, you do not for-
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 123
get that you are completely at the mercy
of the wind, and a fickle power it is. The
playful waves may at any time become too
rude for you in their sport, and play right
on over you. After much steady paddling
and dancing over the dark waves we found
ourselves in the neighborhood of the
southern land. We breakfasted on a rocky
point, the first convenient place that of-
fered.
It was well enough that we crossed thus
early, for the waves now ran quite high,
but beyond this point we had compara-
tively smooth water. You can commonly
go along one side or the other of a lake,
when you cannot cross it.
My companion and I, having a discus-
sion on some point of ancient history, were
amused by the attitude which the Indian,
who could not tell what we were talking
about, assumed. He constituted himself
umpire, and, judging by our air and ges-
ture, he very seriously remarked from time
to time, "You beat," or " He beat."
124 CANOEING IN THE WILDERNESS
Leaving a spacious bay on our left, we
entered through a short strait into a small
lake a couple of miles over, and thence
into Telos Lake. This curved round
toward the northeast, and may have been
three or four miles long as we paddled.
The outlet from the lake into the East
Branch of the Penobscot is an artificial
one, and it was not very apparent where
it was exactly, but the lake ran curving
far up northeasterly into two narrow val-
leys or ravines, as if it had for a long time
been groping its way toward the Penob-
scot waters. By observing where the hori-
zon was lowest, and following the longest
of these, we at length reached the dam,
having come about a dozen miles from
the last camp. Somebody had left a line
set for trout, and the jackknife with
which the bait had been cut on the dam
beside it, and, on a log close by, a loaf of
bread. These proved the property of a
solitary hunter, whom we soon met, and
canoe and gun and traps were not far off.
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 125
He told us that it was twenty miles to the
foot of Grand Lake, and that the first
house below the foot of the lake, on the
East Branch, was Hunt's, about forty-five
miles farther.
This hunter, who was a quite small,
sunburnt man, having already carried his
canoe over, had nothing so interesting and
pressing to do as to observe our transit.
He had been out a month or more alone.
How much more respectable is the life
of the solitary pioneer or settler in these,
or any woods having real difficulties,
not of his own creation, drawing his sub-
sistence directly from nature than that
of the helpless multitudes in the towns
who depend on gratifying the extremely
artificial wants of society and are thrown
out of employment by hard times !
Telos Lake, the head of the St. John
on this side, and Webster Pond, the head
of the East Branch of the Penobscot, are
only about a mile apart, and they are con-
nected by a ravine, in which but little
126 CANOEING IN THE WILDERNESS
digging was required to make the water
of the former, which is the highest, flow
into the latter. This canal is something
less than a mile long and about four rods
wide. The rush of the water has pro-
duced such changes in the canal that it
has now the appearance of a very rapid
mountain stream flowing through a ravine,
and you would not suspect that any dig-
ging had been required to persuade the
waters of the St. John to flow into the
Penobscot here. It was so winding that
one could see but a little way down.
It is wonderful how well watered this
country is. As you ( paddle across a lake,
bays will be pointed out to you, by fol-
lowing up which, and perhaps the tribu-
tary stream which empties in, you may,
after a short portage, or possibly, at some
seasons, none at all, get into another
river, which empties far away from the
one you are on. Generally, you may go
in any direction in a canoe, by making
frequent but not very long portages. It
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 127
seems as if the more youthful and impres-
sionable streams can hardly resist the nu-
merous invitations and temptations to
leave their native beds and run down their
neighbors' channels.
Wherever there is a channel for water
there is a road for the canoe. It is said
that some Western steamers can run on
a heavy dew, whence we can imagine
what a canoe may do.
This canal, so called, was a consider-
able and extremely rapid and rocky river.
The Indian decided that there was water
enough in it without raising the dam,
which would only make it more vio-
lent, and that he would run down it alone,
while we carried the greater part of the
baggage. Our provisions being about half
consumed, there was the less left in the
canoe. We had thrown away the pork-
keg and wrapped its contents in birch
bark.
Following a moist trail through the
forest, we reached the head of Webster
128 CANOEING IN THE WILDERNESS
. Pond about the same time with the In-
dian, notwithstanding the velocity with
which he moved, our route being the
most direct. The pond was two or three
miles long.
At the outlet was another dam, at
which we stopped and picked raspberries,
while the Indian went down the stream a
half-mile through the forest, to see what
he had got to contend with. There was
a deserted log camp here, apparently used
the previous winter, with its " hovel " or
barn for cattle. In the hut was a large
fir-twig bed, raised two feet from the
floor, occupying a large part of the single
apartment, a long narrow table against
the wall, with a stout log bench before
it, and above the table a small window,
the only one there was, which admitted
a feeble light. It was a simple and strong
fort erected against the cold.
We got our dinner on the shore, on
the upper side of the dam. As we were
sitting by our fire, concealed by the earth
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 129
bank of the dam, a long line of shel-
drakes, half grown, came waddling over
it from the water below, passing within
about a rod of us, so that we could
almost have caught them in our hands.
They were very abundant on all the
streams and lakes which we visited, and
every two or three hours they would rush
away in a long string over the water be-
fore us, twenty to fifty of them at once,
rarely ever flying, but running with great
rapidity up or down the stream, even in
the midst of the most violent rapids, and
apparently as fast up as down.
An Indian at Oldtown had told us that
we should be obliged to carry ten miles
between Telos Lake on the St. John and
Second Lake on the East Branch of the
Penobscot; but the lumberers whom we
met assured us that there would not be
more than a mile of carry. It turned out
that the Indian was nearest right, as far as
we were concerned. However, if one of
us could have assisted the Indian in man-
130 CANOEING IN THE WILDERNESS
aging the canoe in the rapids, we might
have run the greater part of the way ; but
as he was alone in the management of the
canoe in such places we were obliged to
walk the greater part.
My companion and I carried a good
part of the baggage on our shoulders, while
the Indian took that which would be least
injured by t wet in the canoe. We did not
know when we should see him again, for
he had not been this way since the canal
was cut. He agreed to stop when he got
to smooth water, come up and find our
path if he could, and halloo for us, and
after waiting a reasonable time go on and
try again and we were to look out in
like manner for him.
He commenced by running through the
sluiceway and over the dam, as usual, stand-
ing up in his tossing canoe, and was soon
out of sight behind a point in a wild gorge.
This Webster Stream is well known to
lumbermen as a difficult one. It is exceed-
ingly rapid and rocky, and also shallow,
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 131
and can hardly be considered navigable,
unless that may mean that what is launched
in it is sure to be carried swiftly down it,
though it may be dashed to pieces by the
way. It is somewhat like navigating a thun-
der-spout. With commonly an irresistible
force urging you on, you have got to choose
your own course each moment between
the rocks and shallows, and to get into it,
moving forward always with the utmost
possible moderation, and often holding on,
if you can, that you may inspect the rapids
before you.
By the Indian's direction we took an
old path on the south side, which appeared
to keep down the stream. It was a wild
wood-path, with a few tracks of oxen
which had been driven over it, probably
to some old camp clearing for pasturage,
mingled with the tracks of moose which
had lately used it. We kept on steadily for
about an hour without putting down our
packs, occasionally winding around or
climbing over a fallen tree, for the most
'i 3 2 CANOEING IN THE WILDERNESS
part far out of sight and hearing of the
river; till, after walking about three miles,
we were glad to find that the path came
to the river again at an old camp-ground,
where there was a small opening in the
forest, at which we paused.
Swiftly as the shallow and rocky river
ran here, a continuous rapid with dancing
waves, I saw, as I sat on the shore, a long
string of sheldrakes, which something
scared, run up the opposite side of the
stream by me, just touching the surface of
the waves, and getting an impulse from
them as they flowed from under them;
but they soon came back, driven by the
Indian, who had fallen a little behind us
on account of the windings. He shot
round a point just above, and came to land
by us with considerable water in his canoe.
He had found it, as he said, "very strong
water,'* and had been obliged to land once
before to empty out what he had taken in.
He complained that it strained him to
paddle so hard in order to keep his canoe
.
Coming Down the Rapids
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 133
straight in its course, having no one in the
bows to aid him, and, shallow as it was,
said that it would be no joke to upset there,
for the force of the water was such that he
had as lief I would strike him over the
head with a paddle as have that water
strike him. Seeing him come out of that
gap was as if you should pour water down
an inclined and zigzag trough, then drop
a nutshell into it, and, taking a short cut
to the bottom, get there in time to see it
come out, notwithstanding the rush and
tumult, right side up, and only partly full
of water.
After a moment's breathing-space, while
I held his canoe, he was soon out of sight
again around another bend, and we, shoul-
dering our packs, resumed our course.
Before going a mile we heard the Indian
calling to us. He had come up through the
woods and along the path to find us, hav-
ing reached sufficiently smooth water to
warrant his taking us in. The shore was
about one fourth of a mile distant through
134 CANOEING IN THE WILDERNESS
a dense, dark forest, and as he led us back
to it, winding rapidly about to the right
and left, I had the curiosity to look down
carefully and found that he was following
his steps backward. I could only occasion-
ally perceive his trail in the moss, and yet
he did not appear to look down nor hesi-
tate an instant, but led us out exactly to
his canoe. This surprised me, for without
a compass,, or the sight or noise of the
river to guide us, we could not have kept
our course many minutes, and could have
retraced our steps but a short distance, with
a great deal of pains and very slowly, using
a laborious circumspection. But it was evi-
dent that he could go back through the
forest wherever he had been during the
day.
After this rough walking in the dark
woods it was an agreeable change to glide
down the rapid river in the canoe once
more. This river, though still very swift,
was almost perfectly smooth here, and
showed a very visible declivity, a regularly
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 135
inclined plane, for several miles, like a
mirror set a little aslant, on which we
coasted down. It was very exhilarating,
and the perfection of traveling, the coast-
ing down this inclined mirror between two
evergreen forests edged with lofty dead
white pines, sometimes slanted half-way
over the stream. I saw some monsters
there, nearly destitute of branches, and
scarcely diminishing in diameter for eighty
or ninety feet.
As we were thus swept along, our In-
dian repeated in a deliberate and drawling
tone the words, " Daniel Webster, great
lawyer," apparently reminded of him by the
name of the stream, and he described his
calling on him once in Boston at what he
supposed was his boarding-house. He had
no business with him but merely went to
pay his respects, as we should say. It was
on the day after Webster delivered his
Bunker Hill oration. The first time he
called he waited till he was tired without
seeing him, and then went away. The
136 CANOEING IN THE WILDERNESS
next time he saw him go by the door of
the room in which he was waiting several
times, in his shirt-sleeves, without notic-
ing him. He thought that if he had come
to see Indians they would not have treated
him so. At length, after very long delay,
he came in, walked toward him, and asked
in a loud voice, gruffly, " What do you
want?" and he, thinking at first, by the
motion of bis hand, that he was going to
strike him, said to himself, "You'd bet-
ter take care; if you try that I shall know
what to do."
He did not like him, and declared that
all he said "was not worth talk about a
musquash."
Coming to falls and rapids, our easy
progress was suddenly terminated. The In-
dian went alongshore to inspect the water,
while we climbed over the rocks, picking
berries. When the Indian came back, he
remarked, " You got to walk ; ver' strong
water."
So, taking out his canoe, he launched
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 137
it again below the falls, and was soon
out of sight. At such times he would step
into the canoe, take up his paddle, and
start off, looking far down-stream as if
absorbing all the intelligence of forest
and stream into himself. We meanwhile
scrambled along the shore with our packs,
without any path. This was the last of
our boating for the day.
The Indian now got along much faster
than we, and waited for us from time to
time. I found here the only cool spring
that I drank at anywhere on this excur-
sion, a little water filling a hollow in the
sandy bank. It was a quite memorable
event, and due to the elevation of the
country, for wherever else we had been
the water in the rivers and the streams
emptying in was dead and warm, com-
pared with that of a mountainous region.
It was very bad walking along the shore
over fallen and drifted trees and bushes,
and rocks, from time to time swinging
ourselves round over the water, or else
138 CANOEING IN THE WILDERNESS
taking to a gravel bar or going inland. At
one place, the Indian being ahead, I was
obliged to take off all my clothes in order
to ford a small but deep stream emptying
in, while my companion, who was inland,
found a rude bridge, high up in the woods,
and I saw no more of him for some time.
I saw there very fresh moose tracks, and
I passed one white pine log, lodged in the
forest near the edge of the stream, which
was quite five feet in diameter at the butt.
Shortly after this I overtook the Indian
at the edge of some burnt land, which ex-
tended three or four miles at least, begin-
ning about three miles above Second Lake,
which we were expecting to reach that
night. This burnt region was still more
rocky than before, but, though compara-
tively open, we could not yet see the lake.
Not having seen my companion for some
time, I climbed with the Indian a high
rock on the edge of the river forming a
narrow ridge only a foot or two wide at
top, in order to look for him. After calling
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 139
many times I at length heard him answer
from a considerable distance inland, he
having taken a trail which led off from the
river, and being now in search of the river
again. Seeing a much higher rock of the
same character about one third of a mile
farther down-stream, I proceeded toward
it through the burnt land, in order to
look for the lake from its summit, and
hallooing all the while that my com-
panion might join me on the way.
Before we came together I noticed
where a moose, which possibly I had
scared by my shouting, had apparently
just run along a large rotten trunk of a
pine, which made a bridge thirty or forty
feet long over a hollow, as convenient for
him as for me. The tracks were as large
as those of an ox, but an ox could not
have crossed there. This burnt land was
an exceedingly wild and desolate region.
Judging by the weeds and sprouts, it ap-
peared to have been burnt about two years
before. It was covered with charred
i 4 o CANOEING IN THE WILDERNESS
trunks, either prostrate or standing, which
crocked our clothes and hands. Great
shells of trees, sometimes unburnt with-
out, or burnt on one side only, but black
within, stood twenty or forty feet high.
The fire had run up inside, as in a chim-
ney, leaving the sapwood. There were
great fields of fireweed, which presented
masses of pink. Intermixed with these
were blueberry and raspberry bushes.
Having crossed a second rocky ridge,
when I was beginning to ascend the third,
the Indian, whom I had left on the shore,
beckoned to me to come to him, but I
made sign that I would first ascend the
rock before me. My companion accom-
panied me to the top.
There was a remarkable series of these
great rock-waves revealed by the burning ;
breakers, as it were. No wonder that the
river that found its way through them was
rapid and obstructed by falls. We could
see the lake over the woods, and that the
river made an abrupt turn southward around
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 141
the end of the cliff on which we stood,
and that there was an important fall in it
a short distance below us. I could see the
canoe a hundred rods behind, but now on
the opposite shore, and supposed that the
Indian had concluded to take out and carry
round some bad rapids on that side, but after
waiting a while I could still see nothing
of him, and I began to suspect that he had
gone inland to look for the lake from some
hilltop on that side. This proved to be
the case, for after I had started to return
to the canoe I heard a faint halloo, and
descried him on the top of a distant rocky
hill. I began to return along the ridge
toward the angle in the river. My com-
panion inquired where I was going ; to
v/hich I answered that I was going far
enough back to communicate with the
Indian.
When we reached the shore the Indian
appeared from out the woods on the oppo-
site side, but on account of the roar of the
water it was difficult to communicate with
i 4 2 CANOEING IN THE WILDERNESS
him. He kept along the shore westward
to his canoe, while we stopped at the an-
gle where the stream turned southward
around the precipice. I said to my com-
panion that we would keep along the shore
and keep the Indian in sight. We started
to do so, being close together, the Indian
behind us having launched his canoe again,
but I saw the latter beckoning to me, and
I called to. my companion, who had just
disappeared behind large rocks at the point
of the precipice on his way down the
stream, that I was going to help the In-
dian.
I did so helped get the canoe over a
fall, lying with my breast over a rock, and
holding one end while he received it be-
low and within ten or fifteen minutes I
was back at the point where the river
turned southward, while Polis glided down
the river alone, parallel with me. But to
my surprise, when I rounded the preci-
pice, though the shore was bare of trees,
without rocks, for a quarter of a mile at
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 143
least, my companion was not to be seen.
It was as if he had sunk into the earth.
This was the more unaccountable to me,
because I knew that his feet were very
sore, and that he wished to keep with the
party.
I hastened along, hallooing and search-
ing for him, thinking he might be con-
cealed behind a rock, but the Indian had
got along faster in his canoe, till he was ar-
rested by the falls, about a quarter of a mile
below. He then landed, and said that we
could go no farther that night. The sun was
setting, and on account of falls and rapids
we should be obliged to leave this river
and carry a good way into another farther
east. The first thing then was to find my
companion, for I was now very much
alarmed about him, and I sent the Indian
along the shore down-stream, which be-
gan to be covered with unburnt wood
again just below the falls, while I searched
backward about the precipice which we
had passed.
144 CANOEING IN THE WILDERNESS
The Indian showed some unwillingness
to exert himself, complaining that he was
very tired in consequence of his day's
work, that it had strained him getting
down so many rapids alone; but he went
off calling somewhat like an owl. I re-
membered that my companion was near-
sighted, and I feared that he had either
fallen from the precipice, or fainted and
sunk dowi\ amid the rocks beneath it. I
shouted and searched above and below this
precipice in the twilight till I could not
see, expecting nothing less than to find his
body beneath it. For half an hour I antic-
ipated and believed only the worst. I
thought what I should do the next day if
I did not find him, and how his relatives
would feel if I should return without him.
I felt that if he were really lost away from
the river there, it would be a desperate
undertaking to find him ; and where were
they who could help you ? What would it
be to raise the country, where there were
only two or three camps, twenty or thirty
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 145
miles apart, and no road, and perhaps no-
body at home?
I rushed down from this precipice to
the canoe in order to fire the Indian's gun,
but found that my companion had the
caps. When the Indian returned he said
that he had seen his tracks once or twice
along the shore. This encouraged me very
much. He objected to firing the gun, say-
ing that if my companion heard it, which
was not likely, on account of the roar of
the stream, it would tempt him to come
toward us, and he might break his neck
in the dark. For the same reason we re-
frained from lighting a fire on the highest
rock. I proposed that we should both
keep down the stream to the lake, or that
I should go at any rate, but the Indian
said: "No use, can't do anything in the
dark. Come morning, then we find 'em.
No harm he make 'em camp. No bad
animals here warm night he well off
as you and I."
The darkness in the woods was by this
146 CANOEING IN THE WILDERNESS
so thick that it decided the question. We
must camp where we were. I knew that
he had his knapsack, with blankets and
matches, and, if well, would fare no worse
than we, except that he would have no
supper nor society.
This side of the river being so encum-
bered with rocks, we crossed to the east-
ern or smoother shore, and proceeded to
camp there, within two or three rods of
the falls. We pitched no tent, but lay on
the sand, putting a few handfuls of grass
and twigs under us, there being no ever-
green at hand. For fuel we had some of
the charred stumps. Our various bags of
provisions had got quite wet in the rapids,
and I arranged them about the fire to dry.
The fall close by was the principal one on
this stream, and it shook the earth un-
der us. It was a cool, dewy night. I lay
awake a good deal from anxiety. From
time to time I fancied that I heard his
voice calling through the roar of the falls
from the opposite side of the river ; but
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 147
it is doubtful if we could have heard him
across the stream there. Sometimes I
doubted whether the Indian had really
seen his tracks, since he manifested an
unwillingness to make much of a search.
It was the most wild and desolate re-
gion we had camped in, where, if any-
where, one might expect to meet with
befitting inhabitants, but I heard only the
squeak of a nighthawk flitting over. The
moon in her first quarter, in the fore part
of the night, setting over the bare rocky
hills garnished with tall, charred, and
hollow stumps or shells of trees, served to
reveal the desolation.
I
VIII
THURSDAY, JULY 30
AROUSED the Indian early to go
in search of our companion, expecting
to find him within a mile or two, farther
down the stream. The Indian wanted his
breakfast first, but I reminded him that
my companion had had neither breakfast
nor supper. We were obliged first to
carry our canoe and baggage over into
another stream, the main East Branch,
about three fourths of a mile distant, for
Webster Stream was no farther navigable.
We went twice over this carry, and the
dewy bushes wet us through like water
up to the middle. I hallooed from time
to time, though I had little expectation
that I could be heard over the roar of the
rapids.
In going over this portage the last time,
the Indian, who was before me with the
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 149
canoe on his head, stumbled and fell
heavily once, and lay for a moment silent
as if in pain. I hastily stepped forward to
help him, asking if he was much hurt,
but after a moment's pause, without re-
plying, he sprang up and went forward.
We had launched our canoe and gone
but little way down the East Branch,
when I heard an answering shout from
my companion, and soon after saw him
standing on a point where there was a
clearing a quarter of a mile below, and
the smoke of his fire was rising near by.
Before I saw him I naturally shouted
again and again, but the Indian curtly
remarked, "He hears you," as if once
was enough.
It was just below the mouth of Web-
ster Stream. When we arrived he was
smoking his pipe, and said that he had
passed a pretty comfortable night, though
it was rather cold, on account of the dew.
It appeared that when we stood together
the previous evening, and I was shouting
150 CANOEING IN THE WILDERNESS
to the Indian across the river, he, being
nearsighted, had not seen the Indian nor
his canoe, and when I went back to the
Indian's assistance, did not see which way
I went, and supposed that we were below
and not above him, and so, making haste
to catch up, he ran away from us. Hav-
ing reached this clearing, a mile or more
below our camp, the night overtook him,
and he made a fire in a little hollow, and
lay down by it in his blanket, still think-
ing that we were ahead of him.
He had stuck up the remnant of a
lumberer's shirt, found on the point, on a
pole by the waterside for a signal, and
attached a note to it to inform us that he
had gone on to the lake, and that if he
did not find us there he would be back in
a couple of hours. If he had not found
us soon he had some thoughts of going
back in search of the solitary hunter
whom we had met at Telos Lake, ten
miles behind, and, if successful, hire him
to take him to Bangor. But if this hunter
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 151
had moved as fast as we, he would have
been twenty miles off by this time, and
who could guess in what direction ? It
would have been like looking for a needle
in a haymow to search for him in these
woods. He had been considering how
long he could live on berries alone.
We all had good appetites for the
breakfast which we made haste to cook
here, and then, having partially dried our
clothes, we glided swiftly down the wind-
ing stream toward Second Lake.
As the shores became flatter with fre-
quent sandbars, and the stream more wind-
ing in the lower land near the lake, elms
and ash trees made their appearance; also
the wild yellow lily, some of whose bulbs
I collected for a soup. On some ridges
the burnt land extended as far as the lake.
This was a very beautiful lake, two or three
miles long, with high mountains on the
southwest side. The morning was a bright
one, and perfectly still, the lake as smooth
as glass, we making the only ripple as we
152 CANOEING IN THE WILDERNESS
paddled into it. The dark mountains
about it were seen through a glaucous
mist, and the white stems of canoe birches
mingled with the other woods around it.
The thrush sang on the distant shore,
and the laugh of some loons, sporting in
a concealed western bay, as if inspired
by the morning, came distinct over the
lake to us. The beauty of the scene may
have been enhanced to our eyes by the
fact that we had just come together after
a night of some anxiety.
Having paddled down three quarters
of the lake, we came to a standstill while
my companion let down for fish. In the
midst of our dreams of giant lake trout,
even then supposed to be nibbling, our fish-
erman drew up a diminutive red perch,
and we took up our paddles.
It was not apparent where the outlet
of the lake was, and while the Indian
thought it was in one direction, I thought
it was in another. He said, " I bet you
fourpence it is there," but he still held on
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 153
in my direction, which proved to be the
right one.
As we were approaching the outlet he
suddenly exclaimed, " Moose ! moose ! "
and told us to be still. He put a cap on
his gun, and, standing up in the stern,
rapidly pushed the canoe straight toward
the shore and the moose. It was a cow
moose, about thirty rods off, standing in
the water by the side of the outlet, partly
behind some fallen timber and bushes,
and at that distance she did not look very
large. She was flapping her large ears,
and from time to time poking off the
flies with her nose from some part of her
body. She did not appear much alarmed
by our neighborhood, only occasionally
turned her head and looked straight at
us, and then gave her attention to the
flies again. As we approached nearer she
got out of the water, stood higher, and
regarded us more suspiciously.
Polis pushed the canoe steadily forward
in the shallow water, but the canoe soon
154 CANOEING IN THE WILDERNESS
grounded in the mud eight or ten rods
distant from the moose, and the Indian
seized his gun. After standing still a mo-
ment she turned so as to expose her side,
and he improved this moment to fire,
over our heads. She thereupon moved off
eight or ten rods at a moderate pace
across a shallow bay to the opposite shore,
and she stood still again while the In-
dian hastily loaded and fired twice at her,
without her moving. My companion,
who passed him his caps and bullets, said
that Polis was as excited as a boy of fif-
teen, that his hand trembled, and he once
put his ramrod back upside down.
The Indian now pushed quickly and
quietly back, and a long distance round,
in order to get into the outlet, for he
had fired over the neck of a peninsula
between it and the lake, till we ap-
proached the place where the moose had
stood, when he exclaimed, " She is a
goner ! "
There, to be sure, she lay perfectly
Shooting the Moose
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 155
dead, just where she had stood to receive
the last shots. Using a tape, I found that
the moose measured six feet from the
shoulder to the tip of the hoof, and was
eight feet long.
Polis, preparing to skin the moose,
asked me to help him find a stone on
which to sharpen his large knife. It being
flat alluvial ground, covered with red
maples, etc., this was no easy matter. We
searched far and wide a long time till at
length I found a flat kind of slate stone,
on which he soon made his knife very
sharp.
While he was skinning the moose I
proceeded to ascertain what kind of fishes
were to be found in the sluggish and
muddy outlet. The greatest difficulty was
to find a pole. It was almost impossible
to find a slender, straight pole ten or
twelve feet long in those woods. You
might search half an hour in vain. They
are commonly spruce, arbor-vitae, fir, etc.,
short, stout, and branchy, and do not
156 CANOEING IN THE WILDERNESS
make good fishpoles, even after you have
patiently cut off all their tough and scraggy
branches. The fishes were red perch and
chivin.
The Indian, having cut off a large piece
of sirloin, the upper lip, and the tongue,
wrapped them in the hide, and placed
them in the bottom of the canoe, observ-
ing that there was " one man," meaning
the weight of one. Our load had pre-
viously been reduced some thirty pounds,
but a hundred pounds were now added,
which made our quarters still more nar-
row, and considerably increased the dan-
ger on the lakes and rapids as well as the
labor of the carries. The skin was ours
according to custom, since the Indian was
in our employ, but we did not think of
claiming it. He being a skillful dresser
of moose-hides would make it worth seven
or eight dollars to him, as I was told. He
said that he sometimes earned fifty or sixty
dollars in a day at them ; he had killed
ten moose in one day, though the skin-
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 157
ning and all took two days. This was the
way he had got his property.
We continued along the outlet through
a swampy region, by a long, winding dead-
water, very much choked up by wood,
where we were obliged to land sometimes
in order to get the canoe over a log. It
was hard to find any channel, and we did
not know but we should be lost in the
swamp. It abounded in ducks, as usual.
At length we reached Grand Lake.
We stopped to dine on an interesting
rocky island, securing our canoe to the
cliffy shore. Here was a good opportunity
to dry our dewy blankets on the open
sunny rock. Indians had recently camped
here, and accidentally burned over the
western end of the island. Polis picked
up a gun-case of blue broadcloth, and
said that he knew the Indian it belonged
to and would carry it to him. His tribe is
not so large but he may know all its
effects. We proceeded to make a fire and
cook our dinner amid some pines.
158 CANOEING IN THE WILDERNESS
I saw where the Indians had made
canoes in a little secluded hollow in the
woods, on the top of the rock, where they
were out of the wind, and large piles of
whittlings remained. This must have been
a favorite resort of their ancestors, and,
indeed, we found here the point of an ar-
row-head, such as they have not used for
two centuries and now know not how to
make. The, Indian picked up a yellowish
curved bone by the side of our fireplace
and asked me to guess what it was. It
was one of the upper incisors of a beaver,
on which some party had feasted within
a year or two. I found also most of the
teeth and the skull. We here dined on
fried moose meat.
Our blankets being dry, we set out again,
the Indian, as usual, having left his gazette
on a tree. We paddled southward, keeping
near the western shore. The Indian did
not know exactly where the outlet was,
and he went feeling his way by a middle
course between two probable points, from
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 159
which he could diverge either way at last
without losing much distance. In ap-
proaching the south shore, as the clouds
looked gusty and the waves ran pretty high,
we so steered as to get partly under the lee
of an island, though at a great distance
from it.
I could not distinguish the outlet till we
were almost in it, and heard the water fall-
ing over the dam there. Here was a con-
siderable fall, and a very substantial dam,
but no sign of a cabin or camp.
While we loitered here Polis took oc-
casion to cut with his big knife some of
the hair from his moose-hide, and so light-
ened and prepared it for drying. I noticed
at several old Indian camps in the woods
the pile of hair which they had cut from
their hides.
Having carried over the dam, he darted
down the rapids, leaving us to walk for a
mile or more, where for the most part
there was no path, but very thick and diffi-
cult traveling near the stream. He would
160 CANOEING IN THE WILDERNESS
call to let us know where he was waiting
for us with his canoe, when, on account of
the windings of the stream, we did not
know where the shore was, but he did not
call often enough, forgetting that we were
not Indians. He seemed to be very saving
of his breath yet he would be surprised
if we went by, or did not strike the right
spot. This was not because he was un-
accommodating, but a proof of superior
manners. Indians like to get along with
the least possible communication and ado.
He was really paying us a great compli-
ment all the while, thinking that we pre-
ferred a hint to a kick.
At length, climbing over the willows
and fallen trees, when this was easier than
to go round or under them, we overtook
the canoe, and glided down the stream in
smooth but swift water for several miles.
I here observed, as at Webster Stream, that
the river was a smooth and regularly in-
clined plane down which we coasted.
We decided to camp early that we might
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 161
have ample time before dark. So we
stopped at the first favorable shore, where
there was a narrow gravelly beach, some
five miles below the outlet of the lake.
Two steps from the water on either side,
and you come to the abrupt, bushy, and
rooty, if not turfy, edge of the bank, four
or five feet high, where the interminable
forest begins, as if the stream had but just
cut its way through it.
It is surprising on stepping ashore any-
where into this unbroken wilderness to see
so often, at least within a few rods of the
river, the marks of the axe, made by lum-
berers who have either camped here or
driven logs past in previous springs. You
will see perchance where they have cut
large chips from a tall white pine stump
for their fire.
While we were pitching the camp and
getting supper, the Indian cut the rest of
the hair from his moose-hide, and pro-
ceeded to extend it vertically on a tem-
porary frame between two small trees, half
162 CANOEING IN THE WILDERNESS
a dozen feet from the opposite side of the
fire, lashing and stretching it with arbor-
vita? bark. Asking for a new kind of tea,
he made us some pretty good of the check-
erberry, which covered the ground, drop-
ping a little bunch of it tied up with cedar
bark into the kettle.
After supper he put on the moose
tongue and lips to boil. He showed me
how to write on the under side of birch
bark with a black spruce twig, which is
hard and tough and can be brought to a
point.
The Indian wandered off into the woods
a short distance just before night, and, com-
ing back, said, " Me found great treasure."
"What's that? "we asked.
" Steel traps, under a log, thirty or forty,
I did n't count 'em. I guess Indian work
worth three dollars apiece."
It was a singular coincidence that he
should have chanced to walk to and look
under that particular log in that trackless
forest.
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 163
I saw chivin and chub in the stream
when washing my hands, but my com-
panion tried in vain to catch them. I
heard the sound of bullfrogs from a swamp
on the opposite side.
You commonly make your camp just
at sundown, and are collecting wood, get-
ting your supper, or pitching your tent
while the shades of night are gathering
around and adding to the already dense
gloom of the forest. You have no time to
explore or look around you before it is
dark. You may penetrate half a dozen
rods farther into that twilight wilderness
after some dry bark to kindle your fire with,
and wonder what mysteries lie hidden still
deeper in it, or you may run down to the
shore for a dipper of water, and get a
clearer view for a short distance up or
down the stream, and while you stand
there, see a fish leap, or duck alight in the
river, or hear a thrush or robin sing in the
woods.
But there is no sauntering off to see the
164 CANOEING IN THE WILDERNESS
country. Ten or fifteen rods seems a great
way from your companions, and you come
back with the air of a much traveled man,
as from a long journey, with adventures to
relate, though you may have heard the
crackling of the fire all the while and at
a hundred rods you might be lost past re-
covery and have to camp out. It is all
mossy and moosey. In some of those dense
fir and spruce woods there is hardly room
for the smoke to go up. The trees are a
standing night, and every fir and spruce
which you fell is a plume plucked from
night's raven wing. Then at night the
general stillness is more impressive than
any sound, but occasionally you hear the
note of an owl farther or nearer in the
woods, and if near a lake, the semihuman
cry of the loons at their unearthly revels.
To-night the Indian lay between the fire
and his stretched moose-hide, to avoid
mosquitoes. Indeed, he also made a small
smoky fire of damp leaves at his head and
feet, and then as usual rolled up his head
r
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 165
in his blanket. We with our veils and our
wash were tolerably comfortable, but it
would be difficult to pursue any sedentary
occupation in the woods at this season;
you cannot see to read much by the light
of a fire through a veil in the evening, nor
handle pencil and paper well with gloves
or anointed fingers.
IX
FRIDAY, JULY 31
WE had smooth but swift water for
a considerable distance, where we
glided rapidly along, scaring up ducks and
kingfishers. But, as usual, our smooth prog-
ress ere long come to an end, and we were
obliged to carry canoe and all about half
a mile down the right bank around some
rapids or falls. It required sharp eyes some-
times to tell which side was the carry, be-
fore you went over the falls, but Polis never
failed to land us rightly. The raspberries
were particularly abundant and large here,
and all hands went to eating them, the
Indian remarking on their size.
Often on bare rocky carries the trail
was so indistinct that I repeatedly lost it,
but when I walked behind him I observed
that he could keep it almost like a hound,
and rarely hesitated, or, if he paused a mo-
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 167
ment on a bare rock, his eye immediately
detected some sign which would have es-
caped me. Frequently we found no path
at all at these places, and were to him un-
accountably delayed. He would only say
it was "ver* strange/*
We had heard of a Grand Fall on this
stream, and thought that each fall we came
to must be it, but after christening several
in succession with this name we gave up
the search. There were more Grand or
Petty Falls than I can remember.
I cannot tell how many times we had
to walk on account of falls or rapids. We
were expecting all the while that the river
would take a final leap and get to smooth
water, but there was no improvement this
forenoon. However, the carries were an
agreeable variety. So surely as we stepped
out of the canoe and stretched our legs we
found ourselves in a blueberry and rasp-
berry garden, each side of our rocky trail
being lined with one or both. There was
not a carry on the main East Branch where
1 68 CANOEING IN THE WILDERNESS
we did not find an abundance of both these
berries, for these were the rockiest places
and partially cleared, such as these plants
prefer, and there had been none to gather
the finest before us.
We bathed and dined at the foot of one
of these carries. It was the Indian who
commonly reminded us that it was dinner-
time, sometimes even by turning the prow
to the shore. He once made an indirect,
but lengthy apology, by saying that we
might think it strange, but that one who
worked hard all day was very particular to
have his dinner in good season. At the
most considerable fall on this stream,
when I was walking over the carry close
behind the Indian, he observed a track
on the rock, which was but slightly cov-
ered with soil, and, stooping, muttered,
"Caribou."
When we returned, he observed a much
larger track near the same place, where
some animal's foot had sunk into a small
hollow in the rock, partly filled with grass
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 169
and earth, and he exclaimed with surprise,
"What that?"
"Well, what is it?" I asked.
Stooping and laying his hand in it, he
answered with a mysterious air, and in a
half-whisper, "Devil [that is, Indian devil,
or cougar] ledges about here very bad
animal pull 'em rocks all to pieces."
"How long since it was made?" I
asked.
"To-day or yesterday," said he.
We spent at least half the time in walk-
ing to-day. The Indian, being alone, com-
monly ran down far below the foot of the
carries before he waited for us. The carry-
paths themselves were more than usually
indistinct, often the route being revealed
only by the countless small holes in the
fallen timber made by the tacks in the
drivers' boots. It was a tangled and per-
plexing thicket, through which we stum-
bled and threaded our way, and when we
had finished a mile of it, our starting-point
seemed far away. We were glad that we
i 7 o CANOEING IN THE WILDERNESS
had not got to walk to Bangor along the
banks of this river, which would be a jour-
ney of more than a hundred miles. Think
of the denseness of the forest, the fallen
trees and rocks, the windings of the river,
the streams emptying in, and the frequent
swamps to be crossed. It made you shud-
der. Yet the Indian from time to time
pointed out to us where he had thus crept
along day after day when he was a boy of
ten, and in a starving condition.
He had been hunting far north of this
with two grown Indians. The winter
came on unexpectedly early, and the ice
compelled them to leave their canoe at
Grand Lake, and walk down the bank.
They shouldered their furs and started for
Oldtown. The snow was not deep enough
for snowshoes, or to cover the inequalities
of the ground. Polis was soon too weak to
carry any burden, but he managed to catch
one otter. This was the most they all had
to eat on this journey, and he remem-
bered how good the yellow lily roots were,
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 171
made into a soup with the otter oil. He
shared this food equally with the other
two, but being so small he suffered much
more than they. He waded through the
Mattawamkeag at its mouth, when it was
freezing cold and came up to his chin,
and he, being very weak and emaciated,
expected to be swept away. The first
house which they reached was at Lincoln,
and thereabouts they met a white teamster
with supplies, who, seeing their condition,
gave them as much as they could eat. For
six months after getting home he was very
low and did not expect to live, and was
perhaps always the worse for it.
For seven or eight miles below that
succession of "Grand" falls the aspect of
the banks as well as the character of the
stream was changed. After passing a trib-
utary from the northeast we had swift
smooth water. Low grassy banks and
muddy shores began. Many elms as well
as maples and more ash trees overhung the
stream and supplanted the spruce.
i 7 2 CANOEING IN THE WILDERNESS
Mosquitoes, black flies, etc., pursued us
in mid-channel, and we were glad some-
times to get into violent rapids, for then we
escaped them. As we glided swiftly down
the inclined plane of the river, a great cat
owl launched itself away from a stump on
the bank, and flew heavily across the
stream, and the Indian, as usual, imitated
its note. Soon afterward a white-headed
eagle sailed down the stream before us.
We drove him several miles, while we
were looking for a good place to camp,
for we expected to be overtaken by a
shower, and still we could distinguish
him by his white tail, sailing away from
time to time from some tree by the shore
still farther down the stream. Some she-
corways being surprised by us, a part of
them dived, and we passed directly over
them, and could trace their course here
and there by a bubble on the surface, but
we did not see them come up.
It was some time before we found a
camping-place, for the shore was either
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 173
too grassy and muddy, where mosquitoes
abounded, or too steep a hillside. We at
length found a place to our minds, where,
in a very dense spruce wood above a grav-
elly shore, there seemed to be but few in-
sects. The trees were so thick that we
were obliged to clear a space to build our
fire and lie down in, and the young spruce
trees that were left were like the wall of
an apartment rising around us. We were
obliged to pull ourselves up a steep bank
to get there. But the place which you
have selected for your camp, though never
so rough and grim, begins at once to have
its attractions, and becomes a very center
of civilization to you : " Home is home,
be it never so homely."
The mosquitoes were numerous, and
the Indian complained a good deal, though
he lay, as the night before, between three
fires and his stretched hide. As I sat on a
stump by the fire with a veil and gloves
on, trying to read, he observed, " I make
you candle," and in a minute he took a
174 CANOEING IN THE WILDERNESS
piece of birch bark about two inches wide
and rolled it hard, like an allumette ' fifteen
inches long, lit it, fixed it by the other end
horizontally in a split stick three feet high,
and stuck it in the ground, turning the
blazing end to the wind, and telling me to
snuff it from time to time. It answered the
purpose of a candle pretty well.
I noticed, as I had before, that there
was a lull^ among the mosquitoes about
midnight, and that they began again in
the morning. Apparently they need rest
as well as we. Few, if any, creatures are
equally active all night. As soon as it was
light I saw, through my veil, that the in-
side of the tent about our heads was quite
blackened with myriads, and their com-
bined hum was almost as bad to endure as
their stings. I had an uncomfortable night
on this account, though I am not sure that
one succeeded in his attempt to sting me.
*A match. In this case an old-fashioned "spill," or
lamplighter, made by twisting a piece of paper, into a long,
tight spiral roll.
SATURDAY, SUNDAY, MONDAY
AUGUST 1-3
I CAUGHT two or three large red
chivin within twenty feet of the camp,
which, added to the moose tongue that
had been left in the kettle boiling over
night, and to our other stores, made a
sumptuous breakfast. The Indian made us
some hemlock tea instead of coffee. This
was tolerable, though he said it was not
strong enough. It was interesting to see
so simple a dish as a kettle of water with
a handful of green hemlock sprigs in it
boiling over the huge fire in the open air,
the leaves fast losing their lively green color,
and know that it was for our breakfast.
We were glad to embark once more
and leave some of the mosquitoes behind.
We found that we had camped about a
mile above Hunt's, which is the last house
176 CANOEING IN THE WILDERNESS
for those who ascend Katahdin on this side.
We had expected to ascend it from this
point, but my companion was obliged to
give up this on account of sore feet. The
Indian, however, suggested that perhaps he
might get a pair of moccasins at this place,
and that he could walk very easily in them
without hurting his feet, wearing several
pairs of stockings, and he said beside that
they were^ so porous that when you had
taken in water it all drained out in a little
while. We stopped to get some sugar, but
found that the family had moved away,
and the house was unoccupied, except tem-
porarily by some men who were getting
the hay. I noticed a seine here stretched
on the bank, which probably had been
used to catch salmon.
Just below this, on the west bank, we
saw a moose-hide stretched, and with it a
bearskin. The Indian said they belonged
to Joe Aitteon, 1 but how he told I do not
1 Joe Aitteon was Thoreau's guide on the second of his
three excursions into the Maine Woods. He was an Indian
whose home was on the same island where Polis lived.
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 177
know. He was probably hunting near and
had left them for the day. Finding that
we were going directly to Oldtown, he
regretted that he had not taken more of
the moose meat to his family, saying that
in a short time, by drying it, he could
have made it so light as to have brought
away the greater part, leaving the bones.
We once or twice inquired after the lip,
which is a famous tidbit, but he said,
" That go Oldtown for my old woman ;
don't get it every day."
Maples grew more and more numerous.
It rained a little during the forenoon, and,
as we expected a wetting, we stopped early
and dined just above Whetstone Falls,
about a dozen miles below Hunt's. My
companion, having lost his pipe, asked the
Indian if he could make him one.
" Oh, yer," said he, and in a minute
rolled up one of birch bark, telling him
to wet the bowl from time to time.
We carried round the falls. The dis-
tance was about three fourths of a mile.
178 CANOEING IN THE WILDERNESS
When we had carried over one load, the
Indian returned by the shore, and I by
the path ; and though I made no particular
haste I was nevertheless surprised to find
him at the other end as soon as I. It was
remarkable how easily he got over the
worst ground. He said to me, " I take
canoe and you take the rest, suppose you
can keep along with me ? "
I thought he meant that while he ran
down the rapids I should keep along the
shore, and be ready to assist him from time
to time, as I had done before ; but as the
walking would be very bad, I answered,
" I suppose you will go too fast for me,
but I will try."
But I was to go by the path, he said.
This I thought would not help the mat-
ter, I should have so far to go to get to
the riverside when he wanted me. But
neither was this what he meant. He was
proposing a race over the carry, and asked
me if I thought I could keep along with
him by the same path, adding that I must
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 179
be pretty smart to do it. As his load,
the canoe, would be much the heaviest
and bulkiest, I thought that I ought to
be able to do it, and said that I would try.
So I proceeded to gather up the gun, axe,
paddle, kettle, frying-pan, plates, dippers,
carpets, etc., and while I was thus engaged
he threw me his cowhide boots. " What,
are these in the bargain?" I asked.
" Oh, yer," said he ; but before I could
make a bundle of my load I saw him dis-
appearing over a hill with the canoe on
his head.
Hastily scraping the various articles to-
gether, I started on the run, and immedi-
ately went by him in the bushes, but I
had no sooner left him out of sight in a
rocky hollow than the greasy plates, dip-
pers, etc., took to themselves wings, and
while I was employed in gathering them
up, he went by me; but, hastily pressing
the sooty kettle to my side, I started once
more, and, soon passing him again, I saw
him no more on the carry. I do not men-
180 CANOEING IN THE WILDERNESS
tion this as anything of a feat, for it was
but poor running on my part, and he was
obliged to move with great caution for
fear of breaking his canoe as well as his
neck. When he made his appearance, puf-
fing and panting like myself, in answer to
my inquiries where he had been, he said,
"Locks cut 'em feet," and, laughing,
added, " Oh, me love to play sometimes."
He g&id that he and his companions
when they came to carries several miles
long used to try who would get over first ;
each perhaps with a canoe on his head. I
bore the sign of the kettle on my brown
linen sack for the rest of the voyage.
As we approached the mouth of the
East Branch we passed two or three huts,
the first sign of civilization after Hunt's,
though we saw no road as yet. We heard
a cowbell, and even saw an infant held up
to a small square window to see us pass.
On entering the West Branch at Nicke-
tow, Polis remarked that it was all smooth
water hence to Oldtown, and he threw
Carrying round the Falls
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 181
away his pole which was cut on the Um-
bazookskus.
We camped about two miles below
Nicketow, covering with fresh twigs the
withered bed of a former traveler, and
feeling that we were now in a settled
country, especially when in the evening
we heard an ox sneeze in its wild pasture
across the river. Wherever you land along
the frequented part of the river you have
not far to go to find these sites of tem-
porary inns, the withered bed of flattened
twigs, the charred sticks, and perhaps the
tent-poles. Not long since, similar beds
were spread along the Connecticut, the
Hudson, and the Delaware, and longer
still ago, by the Thames and Seine, and
they now help to make the soil where
private and public gardens, mansions, and
palaces are. We could not get fir twigs
for our bed here, and the spruce was
harsh in comparison, having more twig
in proportion to its leaf, but we improved
it somewhat with hemlock.
i8a CANOEING IN THE WILDERNESS
After the regular supper we attempted
to make a lily soup of the bulbs which I had
brought along, for I wished to learn all I
could before I got out of the woods. Fol-
lowing the Indian's directions, I washed
the bulbs carefully, minced some moose
meat and some pork, salted and boiled all
together, but we had not the patience to
try the experiment fairly, for he said it
must be boiled till the roots were com-
pletely softened so as to thicken the soup
like flour; but though we left it on all
night, we found it dried to the kettle in
the morning and not yet boiled to a flour.
Perhaps the roots were not ripe enough,
for they commonly gather them in the
fall. The Indian's name for these bulbs
was sheepnoc.
He prepared to camp as usual between
his moose-hide and the fire, but it begin-
ning to rain suddenly he took refuge under
the tent with us, and gave us a song before
falling asleep. It rained hard in the night
and spoiled another box of matches for
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 183
us, which the Indian had left out, for he
was very careless; but we had so much
the better night for the rain, since it kept
the mosquitoes down.
Sunday, a cloudy and unpromising morn-
ing. One of us observed to the Indian,
"You did not stretch your moose-hide
last night, did you, Mr. Polis ? "
Whereat he replied in a tone of sur-
prise, though perhaps not of ill humor:
" What you ask me that question for ?
Suppose I stretch 'em, you see 'em. May
be your way talking, may be all right, no
Indian way."
I had observed that he did not wish to
answer the same question more than once,
and was often silent when it was put
again, as if he were moody. Not that he
was incommunicative, for he frequently
commenced a longwinded narrative of his
own accord repeated at length the tra-
dition of some old battle, or some passage
in the recent history of his tribe in which
he had acted a prominent part, from time
184 CANOEING IN THE WILDERNESS
to time drawing a long breath, and resum-
ing the thread of his tale, with the true
story-teller's leisureliness. Especially after
the day's work was over, and he had put
himself in posture for the night, he would
be unexpectedly sociable, and we would
fall asleep before he got through.
The Indian was quite sick this morning
with the colic. I thought that he was the
worse for the moose meat he had eaten.
We reached the Mattawamkeag at half
past eight in the morning, in the midst
of a drizzling rain, and, after buying some
sugar, set out again.
The Indian growing much worse, we
stopped in the north part of Lincoln to
get some brandy for him, but, failing in
this, an apothecary recommended Brand-
reth's pills, which he refused to take be-
cause he was not acquainted with them.
He said, "Me doctor first study my
case, find out what ail 'em then I know
what to take."
We stopped at mid-forenoon on an
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 185
island and made him a dipper of tea.
Here, too, we dined and did some washing
and botanizing, while he lay on the bank.
In the afternoon we went on a little far-
ther. As a thunder-shower appeared to be
coming up we stopped opposite a barn
on the west bank. Here we were obliged
to spend the rest of the day and night,
on account of our patient, whose sickness
did not abate. He lay groaning under his
canoe on the bank, looking very woebe-
gone. You would not have thought, if
you had seen him lying about thus, that
he was worth six thousand dollars and
had been to Washington. It seemed to
me that he made a greater ado about his
sickness than a Yankee does, and was
more alarmed about himself. We talked
somewhat of leaving him with his people
in Lincoln, for that is one of their
homes, but he objected on account of
the expense, saying, " Suppose me well
in morning, you and I go Oldtown by
noon.'*
186 CANOEING IN THE WILDERNESS
As we were taking our tea at twilight,
while he lay groaning under his canoe, he
asked me to get him a dipper of water.
Taking the dipper in one hand, he seized
his powderhorn with the other, and, pour-
ing into it a charge or two of powder,
stirred it up with his finger, and drank it
off. This was all he took to-day after
breakfast beside his tea.
To save the trouble of pitching our
tent, when we had secured our stores from
wandering dogs, we camped in the soli-
tary half-open barn near the bank, with
the permission of the owner, lying on new-
mown hay four feet deep. The fragrance
of the hay, in which many ferns, etc.,
were mingled, was agreeable, though it
was quite alive with grasshoppers which
you could hear crawling through it. This
served to graduate our approach to houses
and feather beds. In the night some large
bird, probably an owl, flitted through
over our heads, and very early in the
morning we were awakened by the twit-
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 187
tering of swallows which had their nests
there.
We started early before breakfast, the
Indian being considerably better, and soon
glided by Lincoln, and stopped to break-
fast two or three miles below this town.
We frequently passed Indian islands
with their small houses on them. The
Penobscot Indians seem to be more social
even than the whites. Ever and anon in
the deepest wilderness of Maine you come
to the log hut of a Yankee or Canada set-
tler, but a Penobscot never takes up his
residence in such a solitude. They are not
even scattered about on their islands in the
Penobscot, but gathered together on two
or three, evidently for the sake of society.
I saw one or two houses not now used by
them, because, as our Indian said, they
were too solitary.
From time to time we met Indians in
their canoes going up river. Our man did
not commonly approach them, but only
exchanged a few words with them at a
188 CANOEING IN THE WILDERNESS
distance. We took less notice of the scen-
ery to-day, because we were in quite a
settled country. The river became broad
and sluggish, and we saw a blue heron
winging its way slowly down the stream
before us.
The Sunkhaze, a short dead stream,
comes in from the east two miles above
Oldtown. Asking the meaning of this
name, the Indian said, " Suppose you are
going down Penobscot, just like we, and
you see a canoe come out of bank and go
along before you, but you no see 'em
stream. That is Sunkhaze"
He had previously complimented me on
my paddling, saying that I paddled "just
like anybody," giving me an Indian name
which meant " great paddler." When off
this stream he said to me, who sat in the
bows, " Me teach you paddle."
So, turning toward the shore, he got out,
came forward, and placed my hands as he
wished. He placed one of them quite out-
side the boat, and the other parallel with
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 189
the first, grasping the paddle near the end,
not over the flat extremity, and told me to
slide it back and forth on the side of the
canoe. This, I found, was a great improve-
ment which I had not thought of, saving
me the labor of lifting the paddle each
time, and I wondered that he had not sug-
gested it before. It is true, before our bag-
gage was reduced we had been obliged to
sit with our legs drawn up, and our knees
above the side of the canoe, which would
have prevented our paddling thus, or per-
haps he was afraid of wearing out his
canoe by constant friction on the side.
I told him that I had been accustomed
to sit in the stern, and lift my paddle at
each stroke, getting a pry on the side each
time, and I still paddled partly as if in the
stern. He then wanted to see me paddle
in the stern. So, changing paddles, for he
had the longer and better one, and turning
end for end, he sitting flat on the bottom
and I on the crossbar, he began to paddle
very hard, trying to turn the canoe, look-
IQO CANOEING IN THE WILDERNESS
ing over his shoulder and laughing, but,
finding it in vain, he relaxed his efforts,
though we still sped along a mile or two
very swiftly. He said that he had no fault
to find with my paddling in the stern, but
I complained that he did not paddle ac-
cording to his own directions in the bows.
As we drew near to Oldtown I asked
Polis if he was not glad to get home
again; but there was no relenting to his
wildness, and he said, " It makes no dif-
ference to me where I am." Such is the
Indian's pretense always.
We approached the Indian Island
through the narrow strait called " Cook."
He said : " I 'xpect we take in some wa-
ter there, river so high never see it so
high at this season. Very rough water
there ; swamp steamboat once. Don't you
paddle till I tell you. Then you paddle
right along."
It was a very short rapid. When we
were in the midst of it he shouted, " Pad-
dle ! " and we shot through without taking
ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH 191
in a drop. Soon after the Indian houses
came in sight. I could not at first tell my
companion which of two or three large
white ones was our guide's. He said it was
the one with blinds.
We landed opposite his door at about
four in the afternoon, having come some
forty miles this day. We stopped for an
hour at his house. Mrs. P. wore a hat and
had a silver brooch on her breast, but she
was not introduced to us. The house was
roomy and neat. A large new map of Old-
town and the Indian Island hung on the
wall, and a clock opposite to it.
This was the last that I saw of Joe Polis.
We took the last train, and reached Ban-
gor that night.
THE END
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F Thoreau, Henry David
27 Canoeing in the wilderness
1916
cop. 2
