The Pioneer Woodsman as He Is Related to Lumbering in the Northwest

One spring, accompanied by Mr. W. B. Buckingham, cashier of one of the national banks at Stevens Point, who also owned interests in valuable pine timber lands adjacent to, or near by those in which I owned interests, I went into the countries of the Spirit and Willow Rivers. The snow was melting and the waters nearly filled the banks of the respective streams. Wishing to cross the Spirit River, we found a point where an island occupied the near center of the stream, on which was a little standing timber. A tree was felled, the top of which landed on the island. Having crossed on the tree to the island, we felled another tree which reached from the island to the farther shore. It was not large in diameter, and, under the weight of Mr. Buckingham, who first proceeded, it swayed until he lost his balance and fell into the water and was obliged to swim to the opposite shore. I was more fortunate in this instance, and stayed on the tree until I reached the shore.

Swimming in ice water is never found comfortable, and we hurried to a close at hand, deserted logging camp, where, fortunately, we found a large heating stove set up and ready for use, and near by a fine pile of dry wood for the stove, which had been left over from the recent winter's operations of logging. In a few minutes, a rousing fire was made, and, after removing his garments and wringing them as dry as possible, we hung them on lines about the stove and quickly dried them and made them ready for use. This was necessary, as no change of clothing had been provided for this intended short excursion into the woods.

By the time our work was finished, the snow had mostly melted away. The ice was all out of the rivers, and we found ourselves one morning on the banks of the Tomahawk River, wondering how we were to cross it, if possible, without the delay of constructing a raft sufficiently large to carry us. The tote-road leading to Merrill, which we wished to follow, was on the opposite side of the Tomahawk from where we approached it. We finally discovered an old birch canoe hidden in the brush. It was leaky and in very bad repair, so we set ourselves to work gathering pitch from the ends of a pile of freshly cut pine logs lying on the bank of the river, banked there to be pushed into the stream by the log drivers. This we put into a dish with a little grease and boiled until it was of the right consistency to stick to the bark of the canoe. Patches of cloth were laid over the riven places in the bark, and pitched until the boat was made waterproof—for temporary use at least.

With our small belongings, we got into the canoe and started down the Tomahawk, intending to stay in it as long as it would hold together and take us on our journey, saving us that much walking. Unfortunately, however, for us, we soon came to a long strip of rapids with which we were not familiar. Selecting what we believed to be the best water, we permitted the frail craft to float into the rapids, and our fast journey down stream had begun almost before we realized the fact. All went well until nearly to the lower end of the rapids, when the old canoe struck a sharp rock slightly hidden under the water, and split in two. Partly by swimming and partly by wading, we reached the coveted shore, wetter and wiser than when an hour before we had taken an old canoe that was not our own, in which to cross the stream, instead of spending considerably more time to construct a raft on which we could safely and with dry clothes, have reached the opposite shore. The usual woodsman's process of drying clothes was again gone through with, since it was too cold, at that season of the year, to travel all day in our wet garments.

One early summer day while traveling through a part of this same country, watered by the Willow River, my companion and I stopped in a majestic forest of towering white pine trees, interspersed with the more spreading hemlocks. It was nearing twelve o'clock, and we were both hungry. While my companion was collecting wood for a fire, I went in search of water with which to make a pail of hot coffee. Returning, I climbed over a large hemlock tree that had fallen, probably, from old age. There, nestled in the moss and leaves, lay a spotted fawn. It made no effort to get up and run from me, so I carefully approached it and gently caressed it. Then I lifted the handsome little creature, with its great, trusting brown eyes, into my arms, and carried it near to our camp fire. While my helper was preparing dinner, I fondled this beautiful infant of the forest that yet knew no fear. I sweetened some water to which I added just a sprinkle of meal, then fed it from a spoon to this confiding baby animal. After this, when I moved, the trusting little creature followed me. When it came time for us to resume our work I carried my little newly found friend back to the spot where its mother had probably left it and put it down in its mossy, leafy bed, and, carefully climbing over the log, left it to be better cared for than it was possible for me to do.

CHAPTER X.

Does It Pay to Rest on Sunday?

"With what a feeling deepDoes Nature speak to us! Oh, how divineThe flame that glows on her eternal shrine!What knowledge can we reapFrom her great pages if we read aright!Through her God shows His wisdom and His might."

It was in the summer of 1872, while I was at the United States land office at Bayfield, Wisconsin, and was having some township plats corrected previous to going into the woods in that district to hunt for pine timber, that John Buffalo, chief of the Red Cliff band of Chippewa Indians, a friend of the United States land officers, made his quiet appearance at the land office. I had asked where I could find a reliable, trustworthy, and capable man to accompany me on this cruise, planned to cover a period of not less than two weeks. Captain Wing, receiver of the land office, asked the Indian chief, "John, wouldn't you like to earn a little money by going into the woods to help this man for a couple of weeks or more?" To this the chief gave his consent with the usual Indian "Ugh."

During that day provisions were bought and placed in individual cloth sacks. A strong rowboat was secured and the journey begun. Camp was made the first night on one of the Apostle Islands in Lake Superior. The day following, our destination was reached at the mouth of the Cranberry River, where our boat was carefully cached.

It rained for several days, in consequence of which the underbrush was wet most of the time, and in passing through it we became wet to the skin. Before leaving home I had bought for use on the trip what I believed to be a fine pair of corduroy trousers. They looked well, and the brush did not cling to them, a desirable condition when traveling through thickets often encountered in the woods. It rained the first day that we were out. At night we pitched our tent, prepared the evening meal, and at an early hour retired. On retiring, it is usually the custom for men camping, to remove their outer garments and put them out of the way at one side of the tent. Both were very tired and soon fell asleep. I was awakened by a very disagreeable odor within the tent and walked out into the fresh air. Returning, I lay down and remained thus until early daylight, experiencing only a disturbed sleep during the night. My feeling was that I had chosen an undesirable bedfellow, and, as later developments proved, it would have been reasonable if the Indian chief had arrived at the same conclusion.

During the next day it again rained. After the rain the sun came out bright and warm, causing a rapid evaporation to take place on our wet garments. It was under these circumstances that the discovery was made that the very disagreeable odor experienced during the preceding night was again present, and was emanating from the wet coloring matter that had been used in the manufacture of the corduroy trousers. The best possible defense—which I felt it was necessary to make—was to call attention to the fact that the strong odor was coming forth from the corduroy cloth. On reaching camp that evening, the new corduroys were hung out on the limb of a tree where they were last seen by our small camping party.

It is not customary for land hunters to work less on Sunday than on other days, for the principal reason that all of their provisions must be carried with them on their backs, and, that by resting on Sunday, the provisions would disappear as rapidly, or more so, than they would if work continued on that day. However, toward the end of our trip which had been a very successful one in point of finding desirable government timber lands to enter, we decided that we would rest on the next day, which was Sunday, just previous to our taking our boat to make our return trip on Lake Superior waters to the land office at Bayfield. As a precaution, lest other land lookers should discover our presence, our camping ground was selected in the interior of the section. We had eaten our dinner, and were enjoying a siesta when we heard voices. Listening, we heard men discussing the most direct line to take to reach their boat, hidden somewhere on the shore of the lake. Time sufficient was given to allow them to get so far in our advance, that any movement on our part would not be heard by them. Soon, thereafter, we packed our tent and all of our belongings and started for our boat. We did not reach it until nine o'clock the following morning. We were then forty-five miles from Bayfield by water.

Soon after we had rowed out into the lake, a northeasterly wind began to blow and did not cease blowing during the entire day. The sandstone bluffs around that portion of the south shore of Lake Superior in many places are nearly vertical and rise to very considerable heights, preventing any possible way of escape from the water's edge for miles in extent. It was with the greatest effort that we, pulling with all our might, could keep the boat out into the lake, so powerful was the wind, and so increasingly great were the waves. Besides, it was not possible to take a rest from our labors for, the moment we ceased rowing, our boat began rapidly drifting toward the rocks on the south shore. Thus we labored until near the middle of the afternoon, when we got under cover of the first of the friendly Apostle Islands. After resting awhile, before dark we were able to reach the Red Cliff Indian Agency, where we spent the night at the chief's wigwam.

The next morning early, we resumed our boat and rowed into Bayfield, arriving in time to be present at the opening of the land office. With much anxiety, I made application to enter the vacant lands that had been selected on this trip, fearing that the men whom we had overheard talking in the woods two days before, might have arrived in advance of me and have secured at least a part of the same descriptions. With great satisfaction, however, I found the lands to be still vacant, and all of the minutes chosen while on this strenuous cruise, I bought.

A little before noon of this same day, two well-known land hunters from Chippewa Falls came in, in their boat, off the lake, and, on going to the land office, applied to enter nearly all of the lands which I had secured a few hours before.

The moralist might point with justification to the fact that had we not rested on Sunday, more than likely we should not have known of the presence of any competitors in the field, and should not, therefore, have worked so many long hours in our boat on that windy day, nor should we likely have reached the land office in advance of the two men who arrived there only a few hours later than ourselves.

"By the shores of Gitche Gumee,By the shining Big-Sea-Water,Stood the wigwam of Nokomis,Daughter of the Moon, Nokomis.Dark behind it rose the forest,Rose the black and gloomy pine-trees,Rose the firs with cones upon them;Bright before it beat the water,Beat the clear and sunny water,Beat the shining Big-Sea-Water."

CHAPTER XI.

Indian Traits—Dog Team

Chief John Buffalo was a superior Indian, always pleasant, companionable, and willing to do a full day's work. He seemed to prefer the society of the white men, and therefore spent much of his time with them. The Indian grows to manhood schooled in superstition. I recall that during the first long trip from the mouth of Montreal River to the Flambeau Reservation, and thence to the mouth of the Flambeau River, on one evening the party camped near by a natural meadow where the grass had ripened and was dry. Our three Indians went out with their knives, to gather armfuls of the grass to spread in our tents to soften our beds for the night. While thus engaged, Antoine, one of the Indians, encountered a blow-snake. This reptile, when defending itself, emits an odor which is sickening, but among white men is not considered very dangerous. There was no question but that Antoine was made sick for that evening by the snake, which had not touched him but had been very near to him. Ed and Frank, the other two Indians of the party, told us that evening that it was too bad, for Antoine surely would die within the year as a result of his having gotten this odor from the blow-snake. Two years subsequently, I landed at Bayfield from a Lake Superior steamer, and one of the first persons I met on the dock was Antoine, who looked as hale and hearty and well as he was before his experience with the blow-snake. On congratulating him for his victory over the dire calamity predicted, because of his encounter two years previous with the blow-snake, he was considerably embarrassed, but made no explanation why he was yet alive.

During the first half of the seventies, there was no railroad to the shores of Lake Superior in Bayfield County. In January, 1876, it was necessary for me to reach Bayfield on important business. A very poor road had been cut through the woods from Old Superior to Bayfield, crossing the streams running north into Lake Superior. United States mail was carried on toboggans drawn by dogs, and conducted by Indian runners.

The snow was deep, and no trail was broken on the morning that I arrived at Superior hoping to secure some kind of conveyance to take me through to Bayfield, but I found no one who would volunteer to make the journey. In this dilemma I sought the owners of dog teams, and succeeded in purchasing two rather small dogs that were young and full of life, as well as well trained. These I hitched to a toboggan and started on my journey of ninety-five miles to Bayfield. The morning was mostly gone when the start was made, and that night was spent in a small cabin on the Brule River. The cabin had been erected for the use of the Indian mail carriers, and was unoccupied. It contained a stove, however, and wood was handy outside. The next morning an early start was made, and our train reached Bayfield, as I remember, about one o'clock in the afternoon.

The return journey was made by the same route. I had become acquainted with the smart dog team, so that the return journey was rather enjoyable than otherwise. I took advantage of the down grades to get a little rest by throwing myself flat upon the toboggan, dismounting as soon as the up grades were reached. I had become greatly attached to the dogs, therefore I put them in the express car, on my return from Duluth, and brought them with me to Minneapolis. The thought to do this was prompted by thinking of the little daughter at home, then two and one-half years old, and of her baby brother, yet in arms. A suitable sled was at once ordered made, with a seat for little sister. To the sled, the dogs were harnessed abreast, and the dogs and child were never happier than when out on the streets for exercise.

There were only two miles of street car track in Minneapolis at that time, and that little track was remote from the family home. The city was then small. Passing teams on the streets were infrequent, so that it was perfectly safe for her to be out in her tiny conveyance, accompanied always either by her father or by her admiring uncle.

CHAPTER XII.

Wolves—Log Riding

Many experiences of meeting or seeing the more dangerous of the wild animals have been related by men whose occupation as woodsmen has made it necessary at times to go for days, unaccompanied into the woods, and miles distant from any human habitation. Personal experience leads me to believe that man is safe, nearly always, except when such animals are suffering from hunger.

Early one spring, while the snow was yet deep in the woods, I was scaling some trespass of timber that lay about three miles away from my headquarters camp. In going to my work, mornings, I passed along a trail near to which, in the deep snow, was the carcass of a horse which had belonged to the owner of a near-by lumber camp. I noticed, one morning, that it had been visited during the night by a pack of wolves that had fed upon it and had gone away, using the trail for a short distance and then leaving it, their tracks disappearing into the unbroken forest. The following morning, having gotten an early start, on passing this same place, I saw the wolves leaving their feeding place and disappearing by the same route as the tracks indicated on the preceding morning. The animals seemed to be as anxious to get out of my sight, as I was willing to have them. Had it not been for their full stomachs, their actions, likely, would have been different.

Returning, on a subsequent day just before nightfall, tired from a long day's work, and, probably, because of the late hour, thinking of my near by neighbors, the wolves, I committed an act that came near costing me my life. The ice had gone out of the streams, and the spring drive of logs was at its height. To reach camp by the usual way, it was necessary to follow up the stream one mile and cross on a dam that had been constructed by the lumbermen to hold back water to use in driving logs out of this stream, which at this point was about two hundred and fifty feet wide. The gates were open, and the water was running high within the banks of the stream. Seeing, in the eddy close to the bank of the river, a large log that would scale at least one thousand feet board measure, I was seized with the idea that I could, with the assistance of a pole, step onto that log, push it out from shore, and guide it across the stream to the opposite shore. It was a log that had been skidded to the bank of the river and rolled in. On such logs, the bark on the under side is always removed to reduce the amount of friction produced by one end of the log dragging, while it is being hauled to the water's edge. The "log driver" belongs to a class of men that has produced many heroes, and some of their exploits are among the most thrilling recorded among the exigencies of a hazardous occupation. I never was of that class, and was almost entirely without experience in trying to ride logs in open water. I had pushed the log out into the stream some distance and all was lovely, as every minute it was approaching nearer to the opposite shore. Suddenly it entered the current of the river which quickly revolved the log under my feet, bringing the peeled side uppermost, at which instance I was dropped into the stream. The first thing I did on rising to the surface, was to swim for my hat, which had been pulled off as I sank under the water. Having secured it, I commenced swimming for the opposite shore. My clothing was heavy and grew more so as it became soaked with water, so that by the time I had attained the further shore—in the meantime watching constantly to see that no floating log bumped me, thereby rendering me unconscious—I was nearly exhausted.

During these years from 1871 to 1874, the woods of Wisconsin were thoroughly traveled over by land hunters, and nearly all of the desirable timber was entered at the respective land offices, so that there remained no further field for exploit. A new field was therefore looked for, and this I found in Minnesota.

CHAPTER XIII.

Entering Minnesota, the New Field

In the summer of 1874, I went to the head waters of the Big Fork River with a party of hardy frontiersmen, in search of a section of country which was as yet unsurveyed by the United States government, and which should contain a valuable body of pine timber. Having found such a tract of land, we made arrangements through the surveyor-general's office, then located in St. Paul, to have the land surveyed. The contract for the survey was let by the United States government to Mr. Fendall G. Winston of Minneapolis.

The logging operations on the Mississippi River in Minnesota at this period extended from a short distance above Princeton on the Rum River, one of the tributaries of the Mississippi River, to a little above Grand Rapids. To reach Grand Rapids from Minneapolis, the traveled route was by way of the St. Paul and Duluth railroad to Northern Pacific Junction, thence, over the Northern Pacific Railroad, west to Aitkin. From this point the steamboat Pokegama plied the Mississippi to Grand Rapids, the head of navigation at that time. For many years this steamboat was owned and operated by Captain Houghton, almost wholly in the interest of the lumber trade. Later, Captain Fred W. Bonnes became its owner. Subsequently, the old Pokegama burned, when Captain Bonnes built a new boat, using the machinery of the Pokegama, and naming it Aitkin City. At a still later period he built the larger steamer, Andy Gibson.

In those days, the lumber-jack was a very interesting type of man. Men from Maine and New Brunswick were numerous. Scotchmen, Irish-Americans, and French-Canadians constituted a considerable portion of all the labor that went to the logging camps of Minnesota. As early as the month of July, they began their exodus from Minneapolis to the woods for the purpose of building new camps, cutting the wild grass that grew along the natural meadows, and making it into hay for the winter's use for oxen and horses. Some of these men worked at the sawmills in summer, but there was not employment for all at this work, and many spent their time in idleness and not infrequently in drunken carousal. On leaving the city for the logging camps, they were pretty sure to start out, each with one or two bottles of whiskey stored away in his tussock, which was ordinarily a two bushel, seamless sack, with a piece of small rope tied from one of its lower corners to the upper end of the sack. In this were placed all of the lumber-jack's belongings, except what were carried in his pockets, including one or two additional bottles of whiskey. Not all of the lumber-jacks drank whiskey, but this was the habit of very many of them. By the time the train had arrived at Northern Pacific Junction, where a change of cars was made, and where the arrival of the Northern Pacific train from Duluth, west bound, was awaited, many of our lumber-jacks were well under the influence of John Barleycorn. Disputes would frequently arise while waiting for the train. These would be settled by fist fights between the disputants, their comrades standing about to see that each man had fair play.

On one of our trips to the pine forests north of Grand Rapids, we arrived at Aitkin on a train loaded with this class of men, as well as their bosses, and proprietors of the lumber camps. Aitkin at that time was not much more than a railroad station for the transfer of the lumbermen and merchandise to the steamboat. A few men had preempted lands from the government and had made their homes where now is the city of Aitkin. The late Warren Potter was one of them. He kept a large store which was well stocked with lumbermen's supplies, and which was the rendezvous for the lumbermen. His preemption claim was only a short distance in the woods from his store. He had been East to buy goods and had returned by train that day. He found that his preemption claim had been "jumped" by one, Nat Tibbetts, whom he found occupying the Potter cabin. An altercation took place between the two men, resulting in Tibbetts blacking Potter's eye. The only representative of the law was a justice of the peace, a man whose name was Williams. Before him, Potter swore out a warrant for the arrest of Tibbetts, charging Tibbetts with assault with intent to do bodily harm. Potter asked me to act as his attorney to prosecute his case. This honor was politely declined, and I assured him that he would find a better man for the occasion in the person of S. S. Brown, the well-known log jobber, who was in town.

Mr. Brown having consented to act in the interest of Mr. Potter, and Mr. Tibbetts having secured some other layman to defend his case, all parties repaired, as I remember, to an unoccupied building which was temporarily used as a court of justice. As almost the entire community that evening was a floating population of lumbermen of various sorts, waiting for an opportunity to start up the river on the steamboat the following day, it will readily be seen by the reader that this occasion was one of unusual interest and bade fair to furnish an interesting entertainment for a part of the long evening.