Archive for the ‘Hunting’ Category

The Passadumkeag River

The Lovely Rivers And Lakes Of Maine
by George B.Wallis

O, The lovely rivers and Lakes of Maine!
I am charmed with their names, as my song will explain;
Aboriginal muses  inspire my strain,
While I sing the bright rivers and lakes of  Maine-
From Cupsuptic to Cheputmatticook
From Sagadahock to Pohenegamook-
‘gamook, ‘gamook, Pohenegamook,
From Sagadahock to Pohenegamook.
For light serenading the “Blue Moselle”,
“Bonnie Doon” and “Sweet Avon” may do  very well;
But the rivers of Maine, in their wild solitudes,
Bring a  thunderous sound from the depth of the woods:

The Aroostook and  Chimmenticook,
The Chimpanaoc and Chinquassabamtook-
‘bamtook, ‘bamtook,  Chinquassabamtook,
The Chimpassoc and Chinquassabamtook,
Behold how they  sparkle and flash in the sun!
The Mattewamkeag and the Mussungun;
The kingly Penobscot, the wild Woolastook,
Kennebec, Kennebago and Sebasticook;
The pretty Presumpscut and gay Tulanbic;
The Ess’quilsagook and little  Schoodic-
Schoodic, Schoodic; The little Schoodic;
The Ess’quilsagook  and little Schoodic.

Yes, Yes, I prefer the bright rivers of  Maine,
To the Rhine or the Rhone or the Saone or the Seine;
These may do  for the Cockney, but give me some nook,
On the Ammonoosuc or the  Wytopadiook.
On the Umsaskis or the Ripogenis,
The Ripogenis or the  Piscataquis-
‘aguis, ‘aguis,
The Piscataguis. “Away down South,” the  Cherokee
Has named his river the Tennessee,
The Chattahoochee and the  Ocmulgee,
The Congaree and the Ohoopee;
But what are they, or the  Frenchy Detroit,

To the Passadumkeag or the Wassatoquoit-
‘toquoit, ‘toquoit, The Wassatoquoit,
To the Passadumkeag or the  Wassatoquoit-
Then turn to the beautiful lakes of Maine
To the Sage of  Auburn be given the strain,
The statesman whose genius and bright fancy,  makes
The earth’s highest glories to shine in its lakes;
What lakes out  of Maine can we place in the book
With the Matagomon and the Pangokomook
”ommok, ‘ommok, The Pangokomook,
With the Matagomon and the  Pangokomook?
Lake Leman, or Como, what care I for them,

When  Maine has the Moosehead and Pangokwahem,
And, sweet as the dews in the  violet’s kiss,
Wallahgosqueqamook and Telesimis;
And when I can share in  the fisherman’s bunk
On the Moosetuckmaguntic or Mol’tunkamunk?
And  Maine has the Eagle Lakes, Cheppawagan,

And the little Sepic and the little  Scapan,
The spreading Sebago, the Congomgomoc,
The Milliemet and  Motesoinloc,
Caribou and the fair Anmonjenegamook,
Oquassaac and rare  Wetokenebacook-
‘acook, ‘accook

Oquassac and rare  Wetokenebacook.
And there are the Pokeshine and Patquongomis;
And there  is the pretty Coscomgonnosis,
The Pemadumook and the old Chesuncook,
Sepois and Mooseleuk; and take care not to miss
The Umbazookskus or the  Sysladobsis.
‘dobsis, ‘dobsis, The Sysladobsis.

O, Give me the rivers  and lakes of Maine
In her mountains or forests or fields of grain,
In  the depth of the shade or the blaze of the sun,
The lakes of Schoodic and  the Basconegun,
And the dear Waubasoos and the clear Aquessuc,
The  Cosbosecontic and Millenkikuk-
‘kikuk, ‘kikuk, The Millenkikuk,
The  Cosbosecontic and Millenkikuk!

Transcribed by Janice  Farnsworth

“The rivers of Maine, in their wild solitudes, bring a thunderous sound from the depth of the woods.”     The places of the wild solitudes shrink every year yet  the Passadumkeag and the other rivers of  Maine still have them.  You can still canoe around a corner on a misty morning, gliding by the steaming banks to surprise a moose, or a bear, or have your fishing line tighten with the bite of a wild brook trout.

Before the highways and byways of our time, waterways were used for travel, and America’s history is full of tales of the rivers used for travel and trade.

When you look at a topographic map of Maine, you can begin to easily pick out the routes that our forebears used to travel from one place to another. The Passadumkeag River’s translation to the native tongue means above the gravel bar, and is named for a distinct gravel bar in the Penobscot River. That gravel bar is an old river highway exit sign when traveling upstream. The Passadumkeag River was a very important route as it allowed for easterly travel. The Native American language also incorporates an easy way for you to tell whether or not the river is hard or easy to paddle by the name itself. If the river is relatively easy to paddle, it has a “keag” at the end – such as Passadumkeag, Mattawamkeag, and Kenduskeag. If the river is hard to paddle it has a “hunk” at the end such as Nesowadnehunk, Madunkehunk, and O’zwazo-ge-hunk streams. Interestingly the translation of O’zwazo-ge-hunk is “when they come by here they wade their canoes”. So, the Native American names for rivers and lakes in Maine are not named randomly – they all have a specific meaning, worth looking up if you can before attempting a first paddle. My experience with the Passadumkeag begins where the entrance of Cold Stream enters the river a few miles up from Route 2. The river is flat, calm, and deep here and has a marshy/boggy area that extends some distance on either side. Paddling up Cold Stream is fun as well, winding through the marsh. I have yet to paddle down, but someday I want to paddle the length of the stream from Cold Stream Pond down to the Passadumkeag, I think it would be a great paddle.

Last year while slowly paddling and trolling upriver there was quite a disturbance on the bank to my right. I watched for a bit as the commotion continued, and got a glimpse of what I thought was an otter. I whistled and gave a little call out, and shortly a mother otter appeared, steaming across the water with two babies rapidly following her right towards the canoe! They got close enough for me to get a little nervous and she alternated between whistling and hissing at us. She and the young would swim far out, and then back again to the boat, vocalizing all the while. I pulled up my line, and when she would go under, I would give chase, stopping when she came up. We then alternated, and I would paddle away fast with her giving chase. Finally they tired of the fun and swam off downriver in search of other adventures. Otters are such curious creatures – their curiousity is quite similar , in my opinion, to that of a cat, if not more so. My friend Peter once saw one playing with a stray balloon on a stream in the middle of nowhere.

I’ve also seen some large moose roaming the banks in the summer time, and found it interesting that back in the day the Passadumkeag “had some of the best hunting in Maine.” It certainly is teeming with wildlife.

I learned something new when I was looking at things to write about the Passadumkeag. On the knoll that overlooks the Passadumkeag and Cold Stream confluence there is a small farm (Hathaway Farm) and there is also an old cemetery there, references for the cemetery and history of the region can be found here, here, and here.  Take the time to scroll down and through the last link – it’s a good read.

 

And interestingly in reading about the cemetery there on the hill they talk about the “Red Paint People”, a mystery in and of itself. The Red Paint People flourished between 3,000 and 10,000 BC and were found from Labrador to New York on the coasts and rivers. For their time, they had elaborate burial ceremonies and used Red Ochre to paint shrouds and gravesites. Olamon stream, which is very close to the Passadumkeag and also flows into the mighty Penobscot translates to “Red Paint” and is known for its naturally occurring Red Ochre. They used tools, but did not have pottery or metal. They fished the Passadumkeag before the pyramids of Egypt were even built. They are somewhat of a mystery because they seem to have disappeared without much of a trace, other than their elaborate burial ceremonies and leaving lots of speculation as to what happened.

I find it very fascinating that a cemetery used by the Red Paint people is overlooking my little piece of the Passadumkeag River where I love to go fishing, and apparently where people have loved to go fishing since 10,000 BC. Now that’s transcending history!

Posted by fuck0500 in Canoeing, Fishing, Hunting, Maine Life

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The Rhyme of a Remittance Man

Egypt Stream

A somewhat obscure, but decent poem written by Robert Service .  The text of the poem is below.

 

 

There’s a four-pronged buck a-swinging in the shadow of my cabin,
And it roamed the velvet valley till to-day;
But I tracked it by the river, and I trailed it in the cover,
And I killed it on the mountain miles away.
Now I’ve had my lazy supper, and the level sun is gleaming
On the water where the silver salmon play;
And I light my little corn-cob, and I linger, softly dreaming,
In the twilight, of a land that’s far away.

Far away, so faint and far, is flaming London, fevered Paris,
That I fancy I have gained another star;
Far away the din and hurry, far away the sin and worry,
Far away — God knows they cannot be too far.
Gilded galley-slaves of Mammon — how my purse-proud brothers taunt me!
I might have been as well-to-do as they
Had I clutched like them my chances, learned their wisdom, crushed my fancies,
Starved my soul and gone to business every day.

Well, the cherry bends with blossom and the vivid grass is springing,
And the star-like lily nestles in the green;
And the frogs their joys are singing, and my heart in tune is ringing,
And it doesn’t matter what I might have been.
While above the scented pine-gloom, piling heights of golden glory,
The sun-god paints his canvas in the west,
I can couch me deep in clover, I can listen to the story
Of the lazy, lapping water — it is best.

While the trout leaps in the river, and the blue grouse thrills the cover,
And the frozen snow betrays the panther’s track,
And the robin greets the dayspring with the rapture of a lover,
I am happy, and I’ll nevermore go back.
For I know I’d just be longing for the little old log cabin,
With the morning-glory clinging to the door,
Till I loathed the city places, cursed the care on all the faces,
Turned my back on lazar London evermore.

So send me far from Lombard Street, and write me down a failure;
Put a little in my purse and leave me free.
Say: “He turned from Fortune’s offering to follow up a pale lure,
He is one of us no longer — let him be.”
I am one of you no longer; by the trails my feet have broken,
The dizzy peaks I’ve scaled, the camp-fire’s glow;
By the lonely seas I’ve sailed in — yea, the final word is spoken,
I am signed and sealed to nature. Be it so.

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The Story of Hugh Glass

 

Buried in the annals of American history is the amazing survival story of Hugh Glass.   For me, it ranks up in the top ten alongside stories like that of Ernest Shackleton,Touching the Void,and Beck Weathers.   Interestingly though  is that it doesn’t seem to be as famous as the other death defying  against all odds survival stories out there.

Not much is known about the early life of Hugh and is awash in lots of speculation.  Most accounts of his early life agree that he was born in Pennsylvania, sometime around 1783.  As a young man working as a seaman he was captured by the pirate Jean Lafitte and was forced into piracy, escaping by swimming to shore in 1818 near Galveston Texas.  He managed to avoid the hostile Karankawa Indians, but was finally captured by the Pawnee. They “adopted” him and taught him about living in the wilderness.

William Ashley of the newly formed Rocky Mountain Fur Company placed an ad looking for mountain men to journey up the Missouri River in the hope of establishing fur trade routes, and Hugh was one of the party in that venture .   One morning as Hugh was picking berries away from the main party he surprised a female grizzly bear with cubs, and was severely attacked.  He managed to fire point blank with his Hawken rifle, but the shot did not kill the bear and he had to repeatedly stab it with his knife as it continued to attack him.  Having finally killed the bear, Hugh lay there dying himself.  He had massive wounds and was bleeding profusely.  Some accounts have his ribs exposed in places, and his scalp mostly removed by the vicious attack.  The men sewed him up as best they could, but were convinced that he would succumb to his wounds within a day or two.  Jim Bridger and John Fitzgerald were assigned to stay with him until he died so they could give him a decent burial.   There was one problem however – Hugh wouldn’t die.  Fitzgerald became increasing stressed that hostile Indians would find them and after five days of waiting by the comatose Hugh, convinced Bridger that they had to leave immediately.   Convinced Hugh would die they took all of his possessions – rifle, powder, knife, and supplies.  Everything a man would need to survive.  Then, they left him beside a shallow dug grave. Hugh continued to lie in a coma for an unknown time period – but eventually he came to and upon realizing he had been abandoned for dead, he got really angry – and vowed to kill the two men that had left him.  He set his own broken leg, and began crawling to Fort Kiowa which was some 200 miles distant.  200 MILES.  He crawled near water as much as possible so that he could drink – ate berries, roots, and at one point feasted on fresh buffalo calf that had been killed by wolves.  Eventually regaining some of his strength he was able to with the aid of a crutch, get up to a standing position.   Maggots ate the diseased flesh off of his back, and he could feel them crawling there.

Accounts at this point differ and are various – but I believe this one is the true one, and the one that makes the most rational sense.

A party of traveling Sioux found him, and nursed him back to health, and with their assistance, he was able to return to Fort Kiowa on Oct 8 1823 and re-outfit himself on credit.  Bridger and Fitzgerald were not at the Fort at that time, he heard they were at Fort Henry.   Hugh departed on foot for Fort Henry, a month long journey, with the intention of killing Bridger and Fitzgerald.  He arrived  at the end of December in the evening  – walked into the Fort announcing himself as Hugh Glass and that he was there to kill Bridger and Fitzgerald.  Fitzgerald was not there at the time, but Bridger was, and the color drained from his face as he realized that it was indeed Hugh Glass, a man he had left for dead, standing before him.  He began apologizing profusely and explained that it was Fitzgerald that had convinced him to leave Hugh.  Hugh believed the account and forgave him.

After leaving Fort Henry Hugh learned that Fitzgerald had joined the Army and was stationed at Fort Atkinson.   Upon his arrival and announcing that he was there to kill Fitzgerald, the Captain at the Fort that he would see Hugh arrested and hanged if that happened.  After being assured that Hugh would not kill Fitzgerald, the Captain arranged a meeting between the two men, where purportedly Hugh demanded his gun back and warned Fitzgerald never to leave the Army.

Glass returned to the Rocky Mountains to trap and was once again wounded in 1825 by a Shoshone arrow, and transported 700 miles via river to get the arrowhead removed.  He was presumed killed in 1833 by the Arikara – Johnson Gardner captured several of the Arikara that were in possession of Hugh’s equipment, and he was never heard from again.

There is a monument for Hugh Glass in South Dakota, which you can see here.

An amazing story of life and survival, fit for the legends of history.   I find it ironic that Jim Bridger went on to be famous and the story of Hugh Glass is seemingly buried in history.  He was, in all senses of the phrase, a true American Bad Ass.

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Tales of An Empty Cabin

Tu es mon compagnon de voyage!
Je veux mourir dans mon canot
Sur le tombeau, près du rivage,
Vous renverserez mon canot!

When I must leave the great river
O bury me close to its wave
And let my canoe and my paddle
Be the only mark over my grave.

Translated by Oliver Call.

 

I can’t recall for sure where I first came across the book Tales of an Empty Cabin, written by Grey Owl. It was possibly just a random book search. I’m glad I did though, because it is a remarkable book, and extremely well written. Grey Owl’s entire life was a bit of an enigma. The world first heard of him through his writing, and then eventually speeches that he was asked to give. To the world he presented himself as a Native American who had an Apache mother and moved to Canada to join the Ojibwa and first was a wilderness fur trapper, who then turned conservationist. His writing is very pervasive, romantic, and tugs at the heartstrings. For me the pendulum swung the other way – I started out as a conservationist, swung to a trapper, and now things are evening out between the two. Time will tell where that ends up for me.  If you choose to read the book, keep in mind the time frame that it was written. In the early 1900’s beaver populations were drastically reduced due to exploitation. With the benefit of conservation laws, seasons, and limits, the beaver population is back with a vengeance. Here in Maine current laws are very liberal for the taking of beaver as the state has a large population. I believe that the ambivalence lies within all who take to the woods to some degree, and the pendulum can swing fast or slow in the process. Certainly reading Grey Owls account of listening to the mate of the beaver they had shot calling out through the night for its mate is very emotional.   In the story one of the people in the traveling party kills a beaver, and during the night they hear it’s mate calling out for it.  The member of the party sleeping next to Grey Owl asks what that noise is, and Grey Owl dismisses it to him as nothing.  But he knows what it is.

Trappers understand animals and their habits more than anybody, and it’s often hard to explain the conundrum of being able to empathize and befriend a creature of the wild whilst running a trapline for another. I guess I can empathize somewhat more with the coyote with mange, or the beaver with mallocclusion. Beaver, like other rodents have teeth that continuously grow, and they need to gnaw to keep them sharp, and the correct length. Mallocclusion is when one becomes out of alignment, or grows past the point where the beaver can gnaw it back, and the creature is left unable to eat, and sometimes the teeth grow long enough to puncture the skull. I’ve seen it.

My favorite story in the book is The Tree. The author describes in great detail the very long life of a tree, from when a squirrel accidentally dropped a nut on the ground, to the deer browsing it’s neighbors, the rabbit eating its bark, and the moose using it for sparring practice. It goes on to describe the native American that visited it, the white man that explored it, and the road coming through that killed it. It is a fantastic story that puts a lot of life and time into perspective for me.

Grey Owl is most famous for his cabin at Ajaawan Lake, where a beaver house was incorporated into the cabin, and he was made Honorary Warden for the protection of the beaver colony. The story is in the book, and is a well regaled account of the daily activities of the beaver, who were allowed to roam the cabin. It is also probably the first case study of its kind on beaver behavior. I love the stories of the beaver tetter-tottering around the cabin on their rear legs carrying mud for the lodge, of how the male would become aggressive and jealous of the author when the female would come into heat, and the stories of chairs and other woodwork being eaten and chewed in the authors absence. It must have been some interesting times, and it is great to be able to share them in the book.

Grey Owl never made it to his 50th birthday. For someone that passed so young, he had an incredible life. After his death, the enigma of his life was discovered. He was born in England in 1888, and had no Native American ties at all,  a fraud that dented the conservation movement he had created, but certainly did not change what he did, or his experiences.  It’s just who he wanted to be, and what he became.

Here is a video of Grey Owl, his cabin, and the beavers – I wish I could hear the real sounds in the video, the narration is a little cheesy, but the video makes up for it -

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And a short video of his cabin and the lake;

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And apparently I missed the memo when the movie came out – but one did – I’ll be watching it soon – here is the trailer:

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A Beast Caged in the Heart of the City

I long to awake in the morning, and put on an old flannel shirt and corduroy pants that are mended and moccasins covered with dirt – I care not a cuss where the place is, nor how far away it may be, so long as its up in the open where I can unleash and be free.

Anon 1947

I remember a line in a book I was reading years ago that said you could blindfold someone and put them on the tarmac in any city, and all they would be able to tell you is where they weren’t.   If you think about that for a minute you’ll realize it’s true.  Everything looks the same, there is no uniqueness or individuality.   As much as people complain (yet still go) to Wal Mart, as Americans we’re essentially living in one to some extent.

It always surprised me at the University of Maine when a student from an urban area of a different state would exclaim that there was nothing to do here.  It’s true that you can’t go hit a few comedy clubs at 11pm if you want, and there is a small part of me that misses that too.  But had I gone to college in an urban setting I would have said there is nothing to do here too.  We had a great time in college – we hunted, fished, explored, snowmobiled, and canoed.  I’ll always remember cutting classes on the first day of partridge season to go hunting in the warm October sun, and hanging out in the (now defunct) Rams Horn and Oronoka listening to live music in an intimate atmosphere.

Kids growing up these days aren’t exposed to the “other “ side of life that much anymore, and it wanes with each passing year.  As Aldo Leopold aptly said – “There are two spiritual dangers in not owning a farm.  One is supposing that food comes from the grocery store, and the other is that heat comes from the furnace.”  I would propose that his quote has more meaning today than ever.   With the unstable economies around the world, food prices being jacked up out of site because our nation’s corn is being converted to ethanol, and fuel prices never going back to the levels they were before, I think it behooves all of us to revisit the skills of our past.  There is a fantastic book called “back to basics” that pretty much has everything in it you would ever need to know on how to take care of yourself and become independent again.

Land in rural areas of this country is still cheap to buy.   When I built my cabin I had very rudimentary carpentry skills and yet with some determination was able to clear and stump a spot, cut, peel, and lug out of the woods each cedar log, and build it from scratch using hand tools.    Imagine no mortgage, no utility bill, and a small food bill.  Imagine the satisfaction of being independent, of not being tied to the latest woes of the economy.  Imagine no longer being a beast caged in the heart of the city.

Here is a video of camp going up.  I started harvesting the wood in 2003 and 2004.  In the fall of 2004 the cement piers went in – 2005 it got build, and in early 2006 I finished the inside.

 

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I’m Scared of it All – Robert Service

I want you to hear the rush of wind.  The whisper of legends and stories untold. I want you to know the ancient one, this land, whose voice is likened to a thousand spirits chanting.

Bernadette Norwegian

“Tales of Sunkhaze”

A recent trip through a city and driving in traffic reminded me (I even recited some of it I think)  of this poem, another one of my favorites by Robert Service.  For any fans of the poem for the recitation I left off the “forming good habits” last line – for me I just think it sounds better to have it end with “Goodbye for its safer up there.”   The text of the poem is below.

I’m scared of it all, God’s truth! so I am;
It’s too big and brutal for me.
My nerve’s on the raw and I don’t give a damn
For all the “hoorah” that I see.
I’m pinned between subway and overhead train,
Where automobillies swoop down:
Oh, I want to go back to the timber again –
I’m scared of the terrible town.

I want to go back to my lean, ashen plains;
My rivers that flash into foam;
My ultimate valleys where solitude reigns;
My trail from Fort Churchill to Nome.
My forests packed full of mysterious gloom,
My ice-fields agrind and aglare:
The city is deadfalled with danger and doom –
I know that I’m safer up there.

I watch the wan faces that flash in the street;
All kinds and all classes I see.
Yet never a one in the million I meet,
Has the smile of a comrade for me.
Just jaded and panting like dogs in a pack;
Just tensed and intent on the goal:
O God! but I’m lonesome — I wish I was back,
Up there in the land of the Pole.

I wish I was back on the Hunger Plateaus,
And seeking the lost caribou;
I wish I was up where the Coppermine flows
To the kick of my little canoe.
I’d like to be far on some weariful shore,
In the Land of the Blizzard and Bear;
Oh, I wish I was snug in the Arctic once more,
For I know I am safer up there!

I prowl in the canyons of dismal unrest;
I cringe — I’m so weak and so small.
I can’t get my bearings, I’m crushed and oppressed
With the haste and the waste of it all.
The slaves and the madman, the lust and the sweat,
The fear in the faces I see;
The getting, the spending, the fever, the fret –
It’s too bleeding cruel for me.

I feel it’s all wrong, but I can’t tell you why –
The palace, the hovel next door;
The insolent towers that sprawl to the sky,
The crush and the rush and the roar.
I’m trapped like a fox and I fear for my pelt;
I cower in the crash and the glare;
Oh, I want to be back in the avalanche belt,
For I know that it’s safer up there!

I’m scared of it all: Oh, afar I can hear
The voice of my solitudes call!
We’re nothing but brute with a little veneer,
And nature is best after all.
There’s tumult and terror abroad in the street;
There’s menace and doom in the air;
I’ve got to get back to my thousand-mile beat;
The trail where the cougar and silver-tip meet;
The snows and the camp-fire, with wolves at my feet;
Good-bye, for it’s safer up there.

To be forming good habits up there;
To be starving on rabbits up there;
In your hunger and woe,
Though it’s sixty below,
Oh, I know that it’s safer up there!

written by Robert Service

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The Dangerous River

“This book is the story of the Nahanni country in the Northwest Territories of Canada and of an attempt to find the lost gold of that little-known land.  The attempt failed, so this must also be the story of a failure – but it was a failure that succeeded in so many other ways that, if life could be entirely filled with such defeats, I for one would never ask for any victory.”

R.M. Patterson.

If ever there was a book written about self-reliance, exploration and survival, it is Dangerous River by RM Patterson.   In the mid 1920’s Mr. Patterson left a comfortable career as a banker in England to explore the Nahanni  River in the Northwest Territories of Canada prospecting for gold,  and to explore a vast untouched wilderness.    Today the river is part of a Canadian National Park, and they run guided raft trips down the amazing river.

What a sight, and life it must have been for RMP.  His exploration and description of river life is recanted in very well written detail.   He was there for adventure and gold prospecting, and although he didn’t find any gold, he did find lots of adventure exploring, cabin building, wintering over, hunting and trapping.  He also was interested in the legends and mysteries of the region.  Tales of lost gold and haunted valleys emerged after two headless corpses of prospectors (Willie and Frank McLeod) were found in the region and the legend was bolstered by the mysterious deaths of other prospectors.  The McLeod brothers had gone up the river in 1906 in search of gold with a third partner, Bobby Weir whom they had convinced to break his contract with the Hudson Bay company to join them in a search for gold.   The trio never came back in the fall, and relatives assumed they were wintering over, and would be back in the spring.  When they again did not return, a search party was sent out, and the headless skeletons of the two brothers were discovered.  Rumors soon circulated that they had found the mother lode of gold, and had been killed by the other member. No one knows whatever happened to Bobby, but a Native hunting party found a decomposed body a year later about a half a mile away from the brothers bodies.  In neither case did the Royal Mounted Police conduct an investigation.   Other mysterious deaths followed bolstering the legend of the area.  A prospector by the name of Martin Jorgensen was found a few years later beside the burnt remains of his cabin along the Flat River.   John O’Brien, a trapper, was found with matches still held in an icy grip next to an unlit campfire, frozen to death, and several others.

 

McLeod brothersThe McLeod Brothers

 

Testament to the legends  can be found in the names of the regions along the river; Headless Range, Deadmen Valley, Headless Creek, and Funeral Range.

There are three stories within the book that I find fascinating – the first being Hells gate rapid, also known as  the figure eight rapid, and the original native translation – the rapid that runs both ways.

As described by RMP;

“The mass of water was hurled clean across the river in a ridge of foaming six foot waves, to split on this point of rock on the right bank, thus forming two whirlpools, the upper and the lower.  It would be equally difficult, one could see, to run this rapid either upstream or downstream.”

The author contemplates for a while, puts his gear on shore for fear of losing it in an upset, and then tries to run the rapid that goes both ways.  He fails, and tries twice more before coming to terms with the fact that he is not going to make it.  So, what does our intrepid banker do next?  He takes out his ax, and cuts a portage trail around the rapid, finishes and portages everything by nightfall.   I consider myself to be rather persistent about exploring, and finding a way to get where I want to go, but I’ll be damned if I’ve ever hacked out a portage trail with an ax to get around a rapid. RM Patterson is a person of an ilk that isn’t made anymore.   He was tough, and I admire that greatly.

Here’s a helmet cam video of fourth canyon rapid on the Nahanni.  Remember that RMP would have been in a wood and canvas “freighter”, not the composites of today that can take the punishment this type of water can dish out.

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The story of building the cabin with  woods partner Gordon Mathews, and the adventures there and on the winter trapline make you feel like you are there with them on the adventure.  As does the other story I was impressed with – RMP’s  winter exploration of the Meilleur river.   Camping in temperatures of -40 and -60 he explored the canyon.   His description of the cold can make you shiver as you sit next to a hot  woodstove at night.

The third adventure whose story I am fascinated with is the trip from the cabin to Fort Simpson.  After celebrating Christmas early in the cabin, Gordon was to go to Fort Simpson for the year’s mail and some trapping supplies.  Sounds like an easy trip – except that Fort Simpson was 200 MILES away.  Can you imagine?  When was the last time you strapped on a pair of snowshoes or a dogsled team in the Northwest Territories winter, and went 200 miles one way to get the mail?  After a false start, Gordon final gets going on the trip, and RMP plans to spend a month alone.   Time passes, and Gordon is overdue to return.  RMP waits it out for a few days, and then becomes more worried about his friend, and finally decides to strike out for Fort Simpson to hopefully find him, or at least get news of him.  Our intrepid banker goes on foot with snowshoes.  The trip is hellacious and full of trial and misery.  As RMP describes in part; “The stretch of trail from Ram Creek past the little Butte and down onto the cache riffles was the nearest thing to hell on snowshoes that I have ever struck.  There was a three inch crust on top of the drifts, but it was not strong enough to hold a man on a five foot shoe, still less to take the pull and heave of a man with a heavy pack climbing out of a hole in the snow.  For it was into a hole in the snow that you fell when you broke through that crust-you were in up to your waist and your next step was on a level with your belt.”   200 MILES!   I would have keeled over after 10 of this kind of travel. Blizzards, heavy winds, and -40 temperatures.

After all, as RMP  says, At this time the Nahanni legend was in full flower: this was Deadmen Valley, from which no traveler was confidently expected to return, and men said good-bye to you at Fort Liard or Fort Simpson and wished you the best of luck, much as one might shake the hand of a man about to mount the scaffold, wishing him a pleasant visit and a speedy return.

After much trial and tribulation RMP makes it to Fort Simpson in one piece.  Shortly after he arrives an unrelated Royal Canadian Mounted Police  patrol arrives at the Fort as well, and Gordon was part of the patrol.  RMP recounts the ensuing conversation between them;

“Gordon here tells me that you’ve just broken trail for us all the way from South Nahanni, and you traveled alone?”  “Yes”. “Well, shake hands again!  And let me tell you this – if you’re ever overdue or in any trouble up in those mountains of yours, don’t count on the police sending a patrol to look for you.  After this solo trip of yours we’ll just figure that you’re alright where-ever you are and that you will show up sometime!”

I can imagine the swell of pride that I would feel receiving such a comment from a dyed in the wool man of the woods.  RMP describes it as “One of the greatest compliments I’ve ever had paid to me.” Indeed.

Here are some nice shots of the Nahanni;

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The Old Man and the Sand Pit

 

I knocked on the door, and the old man opened it and seeing  the big ham I had for him said “what’s that for?” “You” I replied.  “Jeez, you didn’t have to do that” he said in his downeast Maine drawl.   You didn’t have to show me how to get to that pond either” I said as I handed him the Christmas ham.  “Now we’re even”.   “Ha Ha, ok then, we’re even” he said as he shut the door.

I wonder if that term came from the Great Depression, or even before, when people did a lot of bartering and trading instead of just outright buying things.  It certainly has persisted here in Maine.   “Making it right”, “settling up”, and “we’re even” are still used quite a bit.   Often times a passer by will do something to help someone out, for example, a few years ago my truck slid off the road during a snowstorm and one of the people in town that was driving by helped to tow me out.  A few days later I bought him a bottle of rum.  I “made it right”.

The old man owned a sand pit where he would crush rock and then sell it.  He had  a big front end loader and a dump truck.  It appeared that he did all the work himself.  There was a small road going through the pit that led to a very large tract of woodland that I was using for hunting and fishing.   I was always thankful when he wasn’t there when I drove by, I had the impression that he was ornery.  It appeared that he had been irritated by the ATV’s that had been accessing the same woodland that I was, so he went up there with a back hoe and dug a big hole so they could get through anymore.   In addition, he took a chain saw to one of the  old wooden logging bridges up there as well.  I didn’t want to cross him.

I was on vacation for a week from work, and was up there each morning.  And each morning he would drive up near where I was, and then loop back around to where he was going to work for the day.  I thought it was a little odd.  So, one morning I walked up to his truck as he was looping around.  He rolled down the window, and showed a bit of surprise when I asked him if I was in his way where I was parking.  “Hell no” he said sticking his head out the window.  “What are you doing up in there?”  he asked, looking me over.  I replied that I was doing a little hunting.  “Do you ever hunt coyotes?” he asked.  “Sometimes….”  “Well”, he replied, “the state ought to give you a medal for doing that.”  I laughed.  We actually talked for some time, and I could tell that he thought I was OK.  Finally he put the truck into drive, and as he was pulling away he told me to park there any time I wanted.

We would see each other on and off when I would go up there – now he would wave from inside of the cab on the loader.  He was a Mainer, tried and true.   An old cap jaunted to one side, with a black lab that was always with him.  Pierce blue eyes that had energy in them, and looked younger than the rough skin surrounding them. The inside of his truck had probably never been cleaned, and had a layer of dust, receipts, and other flotsam and jetsam within it.

There was a pond up there I had spied on a map that I wanted to get to.  I looked at the layout of the land surrounding it, and tried to make it in there on a couple of occasions without success.  One day I was talking with the old man and I mentioned I was trying to get in there to check it out, but I couldn’t seem to make it.  “What do you want to go way up in there for?” he said and without waiting for a response  – “you can’t find a place like that on your own, someone has to SHOW you….c’mon hop in”.  It wasn’t really a question, so, I hopped in.  As we rode down the woods road he was telling me hunting and fishing stories, and reminiscing about what it was like there when he was a kid.  Finally we got to where we couldn’t drive anymore and we got out and started walking.  The path was barely discernible and quickly faded out as we headed deeper into the woods.  He told me it was a very old hunting trail, and showed me the faint axe marks on the trees made many years before by the people that hunted in there to mark the way.  Eventually, he seemed to be lost, and started swearing.  I was a little nervous that he was going to have a heart attack from the exercise, or that we would end up spending the night out there, lost.  But eventually after much meandering we found a couple of the marks on the trees and pushed on, eventually making it to the pond.  It was beautiful and remote, just as I hoped it would be.  I looked down and found a giant moose antler  there near the bank. We looked around a bit and then made our way out.

I wonder why the gruff and ornery old man decided to show me how to get to a place that was obvious a place that he considered “his” .  Perhaps he was showing me because he thought I would use it “right”, or perhaps because he couldn’t get up there much anymore.  Regardless, he was passing information to me that he considered secret and sacred.  So, when Christmas came a month later, I bought a big ham and delivered it to his house for him and his family.

We were even.

Posted by fuck0500 in Fishing, Hunting, Maine Life, Trapping

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The Chesuncook Lake Gun

Going over Roll Dam

As I approached the lip of the falls I had second thoughts about going over them, but it was too late for that.  Suddenly I was thrown into the maelstrom and tossed about as if in a washing machine.  I felt myself moving forward and opened my eyes briefly to see the rocks on the walls of the trench I was in whizzing by, and quickly closed them again.  Then the current slowed, and my lifejacket popped me to the surface of the river.  I grabbed the rescue rope and pulled myself to shore to join the others.

We were starting a Boy Scout trip down the West Branch of the Penobscot River, and one of the rights of passage to beginning the trip was going over the washed out Roll Dam in nothing but a lifejacket and a helmet.  How fearful and exhilarating it was to swim out into the water above the falls, and feel the strong current grab you and pull you to the brink.  Better than any amusement ride out there.   This was my first long canoe camping trip, and I was quickly hooked.  I remember a couple of highlights of camping on an island in the river and feeding fallfish we had caught to a nearby soaring osprey.   One evening I went out for a paddle up a stream next to where we were camping, and on the way back down a huge moose crossed the stream just in front of me.  It was amazing for me to watch, and I so wanted to move to Maine and see this every day.

The upper west branch that we were paddling drains into Chesuncook Lake, a reservoir formed by Ripogenous dam.  It’s about 22 miles long and 1-4 miles wide, with a maximum depth of 150 feet.  I’ll never forget coming  around the corner into Chesuncook and seeing the Chesuncook Lake House, smack dab in the middle of nowhere it seemed so big.  We pulled in to the grassy shore and went up to the house to check it out.  They rent rooms and cabins, and at the time I was there,  had a small store where we bought homemade root beer and homemade bread.  We sprawled out on the grassy lawn overlooking Chesuncook and ate and drank our root beer.  My Dad as a joke mentioned to be careful drinking the root beer, as it contained a tiny bit of alcohol, and after that one of the kids in our troop started acting like he was a little drunk.  It was pretty funny.  Chesuncook Lake House  has a webcam that you can see here – this is the view we had while on the grass that day.  Chesuncook is a crossroads of sorts, you can head down past Ripogenous gorge ( where they whitewater raft) into the Penobscot River, you can head north to Umbazookus Lake into Mud Pond , carry  to Chamberlain and then down the Allagash, or you can head up to Black Pond, into Caucomgomoc Lake  and then up stream to Round Pond which is what we did.  I remember  climbing the firetower overlooking Allagash Lake and picking fresh strawberries to put in the pancakes for breakfast.  I paddled way up one of the brooks in the area, dragging over rocks and pulling upstream for a long ways.   Suddenly, perched on a rock in the middle of nowhere was an old rusty lamp, probably from the logging days.  It was magical almost, as if I was drawn to it somehow.

On the way back down from Round Pond  to Chesuncook the wind was behind us, and we lashed the canoes together and raised a large tarp and sailed the 22 miles down the length of Chesuncook.    This was one of my first encounters with the region, and the north woods with its adventures and secrets still calls out to me.  Those of you who hear it know what I’m talking about.

The region is full of rich history, tales and characters, most notably Hiram Johnson.

The following story  was printed in the Bangor Daily News on 12/19/2005, written by Wayne Reilly;

Mainers never cease to be fascinated by hermits. There have been an abundance of them immortalized in local histories or in the minds of older residents in nearly every community in the state. Most of these folks were harmless eccentrics, as was Hiram Johnson until one day in 1959 he shot and killed the logging contractor who had employed him near the bank of Chesuncook Lake, northwest of Mount Katahdin. Then he killed himself after setting his shack on fire.

Howard Collins knew Johnson when he was a boy growing up in Chesuncook Village. He recently discovered what is believed to be the only photograph of the hermit in existence. Johnson is displaying an auger, the device he used to bore holes in the ends of boom logs that were chained together and used to corral floating logs on their way to market. Why this stubborn, solitary man allowed his picture to be taken seems as much a mystery as the rampage that ended his life some years later.

Johnson was 70 years old and reportedly hard of hearing when he killed Leslie E. Spear after the logging contractor tried to enter the “horse hovel” he occupied. Spear was accompanied by two deputy sheriffs and an employee, according to the contemporary report in the Bangor Daily News on Sept. 22, 1959. The dispute, said the newspaper, was over pay, apparently aggravated by a second disagreement about whether Spear could take his logging equipment past Johnson’s squatter’s dwelling, located on land owned by Great Northern Paper Company. Today it is impossible to sort out all the nuances of this emotional dispute.

Howard Collins remembers Johnson well from when his father used to take him fishing near the hermit’s hovel, which was across the lake from Chesuncook Village, behind Gero Island. He lived in a clearing beside the lake in what is called the Cuxabexis region after a stream that flows into Chesuncook from a smaller lake by the same name. Collins recalls a man far different from the crazed “elderly woods recluse” portrayed in the newspapers in 1959.

“Hiram was not a bad guy. Some who didn’t know him just painted him that way because of the murder. All of the so-called ‘old timers’ at Chesuncook Village liked Hiram,” recalled Collins, who worked for Great Northern Paper Company for 32 years and still owns a camp in the area. “He lived in a small cabin at the south end of the village. Shortly after the end of World War II, perhaps 1948 or 1949, he moved to Cuxabexis. … The reason Hiram left the village was he felt it was becoming too crowded for him. … His cabin at the village burned and, needing a place to live, he knew of the horse hovel at Cuxabexis.”

“He was to say the least a very stubborn man,” said Collins, recounting a story about a large pile of scrap iron that Johnson had collected and piled by the side of the lake in the hopes of making some money. He built an enormous raft from 28-foot-long boom logs and piled the tons of iron on the raft. He poled and paddled the craft all the way down the lake, taking a week or more to get to Chesuncook Dam. Someone had called ahead to a junk dealer from Greenville. Johnson rejected the dealer’s offer and laboriously propelled the load back up the lake, unloading it on the shore.

Collins was surprised to run across the photograph of Johnson. It was strange that Hiram would pose for someone to take a picture of him, Collins said. But a viewer can interpret things differently. Perhaps Johnson did not consider the picture to be of him exactly, but of the tool that he was extending in a mittened hand at the end of his rigid right arm toward the camera, as if indicating the photographer should keep his distance. This photographer may have surprised him, saying, “Hiram, let me take a snapshot of that auger you use so well.” Johnson’s first impulse being pride, he posed stiffly, perhaps before he had a chance to think too much about it.

You can see that only photo of Hiram here.

I delved into the story a little further, and found the account from 1959.  It appears there are numerous accounts as to what really happened, for instance some stories say it was a shotgun, some say a rifle. Nevertheless, apparently Leslie Spear hired a deputy to fly him out via seaplane to Hiram’s cabin to talk to him about money the old hermit said that Spear owed him.  Hiram warned them away from his cabin and then fired a shot at Spear, killing him instantly.  The deputy ran back to the plane and radioed Greenville, where more deputies, fire wardens, and woodsmen formed a posse and flew in.  A doctor got close enough to Spear’s body to determine he was dead under covering fire, and amidst threats from the hermit.  Gunfire was exchanged throughout the morning, and then they lobbed tear gas into the cabin, prompting Hiram to run for another shack 100 yards away to take refuge.  The posse waited for nightfall to close in on the shack but in the meantime it caught fire.  They found Hiram in the remains of the shack, with a self inflicted gun shot wound.

Hiram was known for his feats of strength , often hiking to Greenville through the woods some 40 miles in distance for supplies.  He was said to have hauled 1100 pounds of grain up the ice on the lake “just like a horse”.    One of Maine’s many interesting characters.

Dad and I returned to Chesuncook some years later to do some camping and fishing.  The summer had been very dry, and the lake was extremely low.  You could see on the rocks where the water level usually was way up on shore.  We encountered a strange phenomenon while fishing there one day.  The Lake was very calm, and we were some distance from shore, when suddenly large waves appeared out of nowhere, almost as if a large boat had gone by and left a wake.  We rode out the waves successfully and talked about where they could have possibly come from.  Much later, after returning home, we learned that it was a phenomenon called Seiche, which can happen on large lakes when one side of the lake has a different atmospheric pressure than the other.  The phenomenon is described well here.

The next day we were on the opposite shore of the lake paddling and trolling for fish.  I was absent-mindedly staring at the bottom as it went by, bottom that would usually not be visible except that the lake was so low, when I spied something.  I shouted to my dad to look, and he saw it too.  We back-paddled and hovered over it trying to figure out what it was.   It looked like a gun case.  With paddles and fishing poles, we managed to fish it out, and not only was it a gun case, it had a gun in it.  A 30.06 rifle.  There was a barely visible name on the case that slowly faded from view as I read it.  The gun was quite rusty, and had been on the bottom for quite some time.  We brought it back to camp with us.  Later that evening we heard a motorboat out on the lake, and it was headed in our direction.  The man landed at the campsite, and talked with us about how the fishing was, the weather, and the lake level.  After some time, he introduced himself, and it was the same name that was on the gun.  I was just a kid at the time, and immediately told him that we found a gun with his name on it.  He picked up the gun and looked at it, and thanked us for finding it, and said that he had lost it while duck hunting the previous fall.  Despite being young, it seemed that the gun had been there longer than that, and I knew that you do not use a rifle to hunt ducks, you use a shotgun.   After getting the gun back, he shortly hopped back in the boat and left.  Dad and I thought about when we found the gun and realized that we had been within sight distance of a camp on the shore when we picked up the gun, although it was some distance away.  I’ll never know the true story behind that gun, dropped into the water at a depth where we wouldn’t have ever seen it, except the water level was low that year.  Another North Maine Woods secret that will never be told.

 

 

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Into the Woods of Maine

Early in the year 2000 I had an epiphany that changed everything. It took every facet of my life up to that point and combined it into a single focus. It forever changed the way I viewed the world, how I think, and how I react to the physical world. It took the small picture I had been seeing all those years and blew it up to the “big picture”. It allowed me to see sights that I never would have imagined seeing before. It got me in shape, toughened my body, and sharpened my mind with what I learned, and had to figure out. It brought me into the woods of Maine, back to basics, made me free, and instilled a kindred historical spirit in me that I cannot put into words. A friend once told me the reason he enjoyed it so much was instead of waiting for things to happen, he was making things happen and that makes all the difference in the world. Indeed it does. He also said that doing it made every day like Christmas. And you know what’s funny? I used to hate it. When I came across the subject in a magazine or catalog I would immediately turn the page. I thought it was wrong. And you know what else? At one point in your life you’ve probably done it on a small scale. What is it you ask? First, let me back up for a second.

The history of our country is ripe with exploitation and romanticism.  From the moment the Europeans hit shore they exploited the Native Americans the land and all of its resources. Our nations wildlife was no exception. We hunted and trapped many animals to the brink of extinction for greed.   Over the years since our exploitive days we’ve turned things around. Don’t forget that there are a myriad of other reasons besides hunting and trapping that have hurt our animal populations including pollution and habitat destruction. But we’ve come a long long way towards repairing some or even most of that damage. Unfortunately a lot of what people and the media believe today comes from the stories from our exploitive past, and I think at least some of it has to do with our culture today being far removed from our food and clothing sources, instead we let other people do the dirty work for us.  I’m sure at some point in your life you have heard of the success stories of wildlife re-introduction to habitat where they once thrived, but because of habitat destruction, pollution, and exploitation no longer lived there. One of the best reintroduction stories are the river otter in Ohio, a detailed description of which you can find here.

So let me ask you this – How do you think they caught them for reintroduction?  (hint: the linked research article above describes how)

 

To answer the question above, in a seemingly ironic twist animals intended for reintroduction are caught in foothold traps. The most misaligned and misunderstood wildlife management tool.

 

And to answer the first question above, in 2000 I started on my journey as a trapper.

 

It evolved very slowly. As a kid I would plead with my Dad to let the fish go we had just caught instead of taking them home. I once swam out to a float to rescue a grasshopper that I thought would die if I didn’t.   But over time as I matured I realized that things, including us, die. And that  each day, for us to survive something has expired for us to do so.   Whether you do that deed yourself, or whether you have someone else do it for you, something expired.  Being self-sufficient and independent , by the time I got to college I tried hunting, and over the years I got better at it. I liked being outside, exploring, and occasionally getting my own food. Then, one day while deer hunting in 1999 I sat down for a break on a big beaver dam. It was a beautiful fall day..the kind where the leaves are aglow, some floating on the brownish water of the beaver pond, the sun was warm, and the air had a hint of cool to it. I sat there lost in thought, and then I started looking at the beaver house, the dam, and the runways on the bottom they had created. And I started thinking to myself, you know, one of these days you might want to try trapping. Here on the coast of Maine they had just come up with stringent new rules making it almost impossible to get into the lobster industry, and at the time I was upset that I didn’t have the foresight to buy a license when I could have. I had a recreation license to trap lobsters for a while, and I enjoyed it, but the new rules would have made it very difficult for me to get a commercial one. I thought what if they do that with trapping and someday I want to go and I can’t? I thought about it, and decided to look into it when I got home. I grabbed a law book from the town hall and pored it over, and then bought some books on the subject, and I began to get excited about it. The state makes you take an education class to get a license application and I went to one over the winter, and got my license. Now that I had it, I might as well try to go and see if I could catch anything. I bought a couple of traps, and decided to see if I could catch one of the beavers at the dam I had been sitting on the year before, using the knowledge I had read about in books. I eagerly checked them for a couple of weeks, with no catch at all. Turns out trapping is a lot harder to do then I thought. I do think when it comes to trapping, people for some reason think it’s easy. It’s not. You have to be intimately familiar with everything there is to know about the creature you are after. Where it lives, how it travels, why and when it travels, how it thinks, and a whole host of other criteria. It’s hard to do. But now I can tell you when a stream looks “minky”, or when a beaver house is active, or notice the signs that point to a bachelor beaver den upstream. And believe it or not, most sets that trappers set are blind sets – that is to say they are not baited with anything. You have to know a lot to get a creature in the vast forests and streams, to know where they are going to step on less than a square inch spot. So, the first time I went after beaver I caught nothing. The first time I tried to catch a fox he dug the trap up and pooed on it. But I was undaunted and challenged. This was going to be hard, but I was going to learn how. I attended the Trappers weekend that the MTA put on the next fall, and attended all the demos. That fall, everything came together. My love for being outside, canoeing, backpacking,exploring, and learning were all focused. I went hard-core, and old school. Snowshoeing miles in to backcountry beaver flowages, backpacking 60+ pound beavers back out, and cutting ice with a chisel that I packed in. It was unbelievable. For several years when it was clear I saw the sun rise each morning. I learned to skin, flesh and stretch fur. I learned as much as I could about each creatures habits, and how they thought. When I look at a map these days, I instinctively pick out otter routes (an otter typically has a 20-80 mile circuit they run) , and look for crossover trails in the woods.  I can’t drive by a  pond without scanning it for beaver houses.  I saw huge bobcats.  One night miles from anywhere,standing in the frigid and still January air, I watched a small plume of steam rising up from a beaver house silhouetted by the moon.  I met some incredible, down to earth, and trusting people.  I had a “ghost” cat following me one year and visiting all my sets.  I  felt such a connection with history it’s hard to describe.  Trapping is akin to a chess game, except who you are playing against has more pieces than you do.  You are on their turf and in their “home”, and just like you would know if someone had been in your house, they know that someone has been in theirs.  There is truth behind the cliche “outfox a fox”, and on the days when that happened it was great.  I enjoyed the peace of the woods and the freedom.  After a day in the woods things smell better, taste better, and there are always the wonderful and rich stories that come with the adventure, like falling through the ice on a wind chill advisory day.    I had so many rich adventures that first year, that I wrote a story about them.  “Tales of a First Year Trapline” appeared in the Jan/Feb edition of Trapper’s World magazine.

 

There is a little bit of trapper in each of us.  As a nuisance trapper I had interesting clients including a Park Ranger.  He came out to watch the sets be made, and was always ready and waiting when I showed up to check them.  His wife said it was the highlight of his winter to check sets with me.   If my stories have  piqued your interest at all I linked two books below, they are both valuable resources that can get you started, along with your states Association.

 

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Posted by fuck0500 in Hunting, Maine Life, Trapping

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