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THROUGH DARKEST AMERICA. THE STORY AS TOLD BY MRS. KATHERINE WHITE. mrs. white. Y OU will never stand it in the world!” “It’s the wildest thing ever heard of!” “You will surely starve to death or be drowned!” These were some of the encouraging re- marks made by friends when we talked of a sum- mer’s outing in Canadian woods. The decision to go was not fully made. There were advantages and disadvantages to be considered. It was a wild part of the country through which the pro- posed route extended and the trip would be a long and necessarily hard one. All the information possible had been gathered in regard to the character of the woods and waters, the game, fish, and, most important of all, the wild ani- mals and Indians. Oh yes! there were wild animals in abundance. Bears and wildcats went roaming through those dense north woods, snakes would cer- tainly be lurking in every thicket on the lookout for unwary travelers, and the mosquitoes and black flies were ac- knowledged to be a universal pest. So there seemed no possibility that we would escape death in some horrible form. And then, said the most sym- pathizing friend of all, “how will you do your cooking and,” in an awe-struck tone, “who will wash the dishes?” Well, the advantages, too, were care- fully considered and not found want- ing. There was first the novelty. The country was comparatively unknown. It would all be so different from everyday life. The pine-woods, the canoeing, the hunting, fishing and the camp. To live for weeks in the open air and sleep at night with nothing overhead but the white canvas tent, that would mean to grow strong and healthful. On this point all were alike agreed. We believed that the difficulties could be overcome and the decision was made. Of course the first question to pre- sent itself to the woman’s mind was what to wear. A flannel dress was at once proposed. With a short skirt, blouse and blazer what could be better? It would be the most sensible thing imaginable, and the comfort and free- dom would be unquestionable. All this I presented in its most alluring light for my husband’s approval, but it was promptly and emphatically vetoed. The forests would be so thick, and the trails so overgrown with briers and brambles that it would require many skirts to withstand the wear and tear. I must for one summer adopt masculine attire. The suit named for me was to con- sist of a helmet-shaped canvas cap, dressed for the wilds.

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THROUGH DARKEST AMERICA.

THE STORY AS TOLD BY MRS. KATHERINE WHITE.

mrs. white.

“YOU wi l ln e v e rstand iti n t h e

world!” “It’s thewildest thing everheard of!” “Youwill surely starveto death or bedrowned!” Thesewere some of theencourag ing r e -m a r k s m a d e b yfr iends when wetalked of a sum-mer ’ s ou t ing inCanadian woods.The decision to gow a s n o t f u l l ym a d e . T h e r ewere advantagesand disadvantagesto be considered.It was a wild part

of the country through which the pro-posed route extended and the trip wouldbe a long and necessarily hard one.All the information possible had beengathered in regard to the character ofthe woods and waters, the game, fish,and, most important of all, the wild ani-mals and Indians. Oh yes! there werewild animals in abundance. Bears andwildcats went roaming through thosedense north woods, snakes would cer-tainly be lurking in every thicket onthe lookout for unwary travelers, andthe mosquitoes and black flies were ac-knowledged to be a universal pest. Sothere seemed no possibility that wewould escape death in some horribleform. And then, said the most sym-pathizing friend of all, “how will youdo your cooking and,” in an awe-strucktone, “who will wash the dishes?”

Well, the advantages, too, were care-fully considered and not found want-ing. There was first the novelty. Thecountry was comparatively unknown. Itwould all be so different from everydaylife. The pine-woods, the canoeing,the hunting, fishing and the camp. To

live for weeks in the open air and sleepat night with nothing overhead but thewhite canvas tent, that would mean togrow strong and healthful. On thispoint all were alike agreed. We believedthat the difficulties could be overcomeand the decision was made.

Of course the first question to pre-sent itself to the woman’s mind waswhat to wear. A flannel dress was atonce proposed. With a short skirt ,blouse and blazer what could be better?It would be the most sensible thingimaginable, and the comfort and free-dom would be unquestionable. All thisI presented in its most alluring lightfor my husband’s approval, but it waspromptly and emphatically vetoed. Theforests would be so thick, and the trailsso overgrown with briers and bramblesthat it would require many skirts towithstand the wear and tear. I must forone summer adopt masculine attire.

The suit named for me was to con-sist of a helmet-shaped canvas cap,

dressed for the wilds.

THROUGH DARKEST AMERICA. 397

flannel jacket and shirt, canvas knee-breeches and oil-tanned horsehide bootsthat laced over a bellows-tongue andcame to the knee. The feet of the bootswere made like Indian “paces.” At theknickerbocker knees were buckles. Theentire suit from cap to boots was of thesame “dead grass” color. At first itseemed impossible for me to accede to

of bug. The outfit was purchased ac-cordingly. A seven by nine white can-vas wall-tent was selected. We wereexpecting to spend many days in campand would then want an ample shelterfor ourselves and belongings. Theweapons of offense and defense con-sisted of a gun, rifle and revolver, withammunition enough surely to extermi-

an indian pilot.

this arrangement. But after many per-suasions it was finally agreed that oursuits should be ordered alike with theexception that Mr. White’s would becanvas throughout. And so the questionof clothes was settled.

Next came the selection of the camp-ing outfit. All the friends who hadever spent a night in the woods calledupon us to give the benefit of theirexperience. Many and varied were thesuggestions made. One whose particu-lar interests lay in the rod and linebrought forth his collection of fishing-tackle and flies, millers, and beetles ofall colors, shapes and sizes. We wouldneed a large supply of these equipments.Rods would get broken, trolling linesentangled and lost, and each species offish must have its corresponding species

nate all the bears in Canada. Themagazine rifle of thirty-eight calibrewas my particular pride. As I lookedat it all my fears of bears and bugbearsvanished. Then came all the manysmall necessaries, such as whistles, com-passes, drinking-cups that telescope, tarand pennyroyal in copious quantities toprotect ourselves from the mosquitoes,and the all-important medicine chest.It contained remedies for every ill, frommalaria to a bee-sting—liniments, oint-ments, bandages for sprains, tobacco forcuts, and whisky for snake-bites, to saynothing of the instructions carefullycopied of “what to do in case of drown-ing,” etc. The last preparation wascompleted, and, with many admonitionsfrom anxious parents to be very careful,we started.

398 O U T I N G F O R F E B R U A R Y .

Nothing in the way of novelty pre-sented itself until we left St. Paul. Thispart of the country was not new to us.The ride from St. Paul to Duluth is along one, and the scenery consists ofpine-woods, a great part of which havebeen burned by the forest fires untilwhat were once lofty trees stand onlygaunt, white poles. Some of the pineshad turned a peculiar reddish brown.Mingled with the green trees they wouldhave relieved the monotony, had theynot been so evidently marked with signsof decay.

In and out among it all sparkled thelittle lakes dotted over with myriadswhite and yellow water-lilies. Whenwe came into Duluth and left the warmcar we realized that we had reached acolder climate. Wednesday night weleft Duluth by steamer en route forPort Arthur. Nothing could be wilderthan the northern shore of Lake Supe-rior. During the night many points ofinterest had been passed, and now, inthe cold, clear morning, most of thepassengers were on deck, straining theireyes for a faint glimpse of some settle-ment. But not many appeared. GrandPortage was the first one that came inview. The captain pointed it out, butall it looked like from the steamer wasa few clusters of white stones. Aftera while we passed the mouth of PigeonRiver, and or the first time in my life Ifound myself in a foreign country.

That point marked the boundary be-tween the United States and Canada.When we passed Victoria Island it was thenearest approach to land since leavingDuluth. It seemed so desolate with itslonely light-house, the only sign of hu-man habitation. But as the steamerpassed within hailing distance, outrushed the keeper’s children to see andbe seen. Not many incidents happen tobreak the monotony of their young lives,And a sadness filled my heart as Ithought how dreary the days must seem.Would they grow up characterized bytheir surroundings, cold, hard and stern,or perhaps only robust and care free,from the close contact with nature.However that might be, a life thus spentin keeping bright the lights which guidesailors to safe harbor is certainly wellspent.

When at last we reached Port Arthur

one on the lookout for some friend, amidall the passengers were on deck, every

much laughing and waving of handker-chiefs. The boat was made fast to thedock; we went below, and after a fewwords of explanation to the generous lit.tle custom-house officer, we were ready toland and look about us. The first unus-ual things that greeted our eyes were twoIndians standing on the dock. Theylooked civilized enough and another fearvanished. Port Arthur, small and notover-enterprising, is not an attractivetown in itself. Hotels seem to outnum-ber all the other buildings in the place,for the reason, as we afterward learned,that they are the only institutions li-censed to sell liquors. The surroundingcountry furnishes the chief interest tovisitors. The scenery is beautiful andchanging. But our desire was to pene-trate deeper into the beauties of thisCanadian nature, and so we began ourfinal preparations. Our provisions, cook.ing utensils and blankets were yet to bepurchased. We could take only neces-saries in provisions, but two people caneat a large quantity of those in sixweeks’ time.

When pound after pound was weighedout it began to seem that we had over-estimated the capacity of the canoe.Flour makes a bulky package, and afew pounds of ham very soon become aload.

Then came cans of condensed milkand coffee, tea, oatmeal, rice, salt, pep-per, sugar, baking-powder, potatoes,crackers and dried fruit. These wereto go all the distance, and by way ofluxuries at the beginning were two cansof strawberry jam, one glass of jelly andone dozen hard-boiled eggs. To pre-pare these for eating we took one fry-ing pan, with the handle removed andan iron ring riveted on in its placethrough which to run a long stick for ahandle. This gave more room in pack-ing, and enabled me to stand at a longerdistance from a hot fire. The otherdishes were three pails that nested, fourtin plates, two cups, knives, forks andspoons. Then we remembered that wemust have at least four bars of soap,Three pairs of gray blankets and sev-eral yards of mosquito netting were nextadded to the list, and our camp equi-page was complete.

We had one more day in which toview some of the scenery of the sur-r o u n d i n g c o u n t r y . T h e n e x t d a ydawned perfect, and in company with

THROUGH DARKEST AMERICA. 399

some newly-made friends we started fora drive to an abandoned silver mine,The road lay through a stretch of beau-ti ful woods. On either s ide i t washeavi ly bordered with giant ferns,which would have seemed more athome in some luxuriant Southern gar-den than there in Canada. The minewas reached and our explorations be-gun. Peering down dark, damp shafts,hunting eagerly through every pile ofstones, in the hope of finding a straysilver nugget or amethyst, examiningthe little miners’ huts, with their rudecots covered with mosquito netting, wespent a merry morning. One of ourfriends made a wonderful discovery, anugget that weighed fully a pound,which his more experienced partnerassured him must be worth its weightin gold, or its own silver at least. Itwas carefully placed in the carriage,and we started back to a more unro-mantic destination—the hotel dining-room. The road we chose returninglay through a rocky part, and the car-riage went bounding and bumping ina most terrific manner. Cloaks werethrown out, and with them the prizedsilver specimen. Our friend; was incon-solable and insisted upon returning insearch of the missing nugget, but a slywink from his partner disclosed thej e s t . The p rec ious s tone was on l yworthless rock. But for all that dis-appointment we did not return emptyhanded. Great bunches of flowers hadbeen gathered, daisies, ferns, pond-lilies, and one peculiar red flower ofwhich no one knew the name. It seemedthat it must partake of the nature ofthe pine-woods in which it grew, itsformation was so exactly like that ofthe trees.

Sunday night, July 26th, we donnedour camping att i re , left our trunk,with oft-repeated directions to have itsent to Rat Portage, the end of ourjourney, and took the train for WhiteFish Lake. It was a construction trainwith no accommodations.

When we reached our destination atWhite Fish Lake, the terminus of theroad, at one a. m., Mr. Conmee, the rail-road contractor who had been on thetrain with us, undertook to providelodgings for us and for Mr. and Mrs.Griffis and their little girl, who had alsobeen fellow-travelers with us. Theywere on their way to a new mine be-

longing to them, a few miles from here.There was no settlement here except afew log-houses dimly seen in the moon.light.

Mr. Conmee went to the most preten-tious-looking of these huts, pushed openthe door and called “Singler! Singler!”It struck me that it was a more forciblethan polite way of seeking hospitality.But when “Singler” finally made hisappearance and found that there werewomen to be cared for, his hospitalitywas given with the free good will thatcharacterizes all these children of thebush. One poor sleepy fellow wasrouted out of bed, cool, clean sheetswere brought and soon we were takingthe grateful rest that only tired bodiesand sleepy eyes can appreciate. Butone thing disturbed our repose and thatcame in a form hideous and hungry,with gaunt body, sharpened beak, andwings that buzz with that never-ceasingmonotony which no other exasperationcan exceed—the unrelenting, inevitablemosquito. In the morning I dimly won-dered if one mosquito could bring somuch misery, how could we cope withhosts of them. These miners’ housesare queer affairs. They are built ofpine-logs, roughly hewed and con-structed with a view to comfort ratherthan art. The crevices are filled withpieces of wood and the sides and ceil-ing hung with white cloth. The win-dows are tightly covered with cheese-cloth, keeping out the air as well as themosquitoes and black flies.

After breakfast the canoe was uncratedour camp equipage gathered togetherand we launched our little craft onthe first lake in our course—White Fish.However, this did not mean that out laketrip was begun. Our intention was topaddle to the other side of the lake, selecta camp and spend a few days on the edgeof civilization, getting accustomed to theways of camp life. Our landing wasmade on the opposite shore at anotherlog-house dignified by the name ofhotel. This one was somewhat morepretentious than the one at which westaid the previous night, although themode of construction was the same.The time before dinner was spent insearch for a camping-ground, and WhiteFish Lake surely affords no lovelier spotthan the one chosen, a clear, smoothgrassplot, just open enough for the sunto peep down among the dark ever-

400 OUTING FOR FEBRUARY.

life in the woods had begun. We dinedgreens. Here we pitched our tent and

at the hotel and afterwards were invitedto take a sail.

There is nothing in the world so per-verse as a sail-boat in a head-wind.This particular boat was no exception,and the wind could not have been moreentirely in the wrong direction had thetrip been planned for a May-day picnic.The unsteady craft veered from right toleft, tilted and plunged, with the sailfirst on one side, then on the other, andall the time our companion regaled uswith the most harrowing tales of wrecksin the history of White Fish.

“It was in this very boat,” he said,“that one poor fellow had ventured outon just such a day, and after vain effortsto reach the shore, at last had fallenoverboard and was drowned."

But this unfortunate one had beenimbibing too freely of the hospitality ofthe hotel bar-room and was consequentlynot in a proper condition to manage hissails. I cast a hasty glance around theboat, but seeing no dark bottles tookcourage that we would sleep that nighton our couch of pine-boughs instead ofat the bottom of White Fish’s muddywaters. And so it proved. We return-ed to camp and began arranging it forthe night. Oh, how many boxes andbund le s and packages the re were !enough to set up housekeeping on nosmall scale.

If they all went with us, camp-mak-ing and camp-breaking every day wouldtake a great deal more time than wewere willing to spend on it. And it wasdecided to pack a box in the morning tosend back. One evening’s experiencehad taught how many things naturesupplies that surpass all the mechanic’sefforts. I was a novice at camp-makingand only looked in admiration at thepreparations Mr. White made for ourcomfort. First the fireplace was made.This was done by falling some straight

branches and cutting two pieces, eachyoung birch trees, trimming off all the

about three feet in length. These wereplaced on the ground over a s l ighttrench, about six inches apart; otherwere l a id a c ro s s them and I hada stove neat and cozy as could be de-sired. The only drawback was that thefire required constant replenishment,The best way is to have a big fire atone side from which to keep your stove

supplied with live coals. This seems agreat deal of work and many prefer alarge log-fire that demands little atten-tion. The old saying is that the Indianlaughs at the white man for building abig fire and getting far from it, whilethe red man builds a little fire andcomes close to it. But my observationsamong the Indians proved the fallacyof this saying. Without exception everyIndian I had the opportunity to seemake a fire, piled up great logs, filledthem in with twigs and birch-bark andhung his kettle on a crane over theblaze.

I am afraid my first camp-cookingproved more of an experiment than asuccess. When the wind seemed per-fectly still and no moving leaf could beseen, up would come a provoking littlegust to blow the ashes and smoke in myeyes, and no matter on which side ofthe fire I stood, the smoke would followin the most tantalizing manner, until Iwas quite ready to believe in the totaldepravity of inanimate things.

Our first night in camp was a strangeexperience for me. While I preparedour evening meal, Mr. White cut andarranged the boughs for our evergreencouch, and no more perfect a resting-place could be imagined. The softspringy branches were piled up untilthe hard ground was entirely unfelt,then the rubber blanket spread overthem to keep the moisture from reachingthrough. The woolen blankets werenext spread and tightly tucked in, thenthe mosquito net was drawn over aframe at the head of the bed, made byplacing a smooth stick across two forkedones driven in the ground on eitherside, and the warm blankets invited re-pose. As night settled down over thedark pines and all nature took on thatdreadful stillness only known in deepwoods, I could not repress a feeling ofloneliness, half of fear, half of awe. Itseemed that we must only speak inwhispers, the silence was so intensebroken only by the melancholy call ofthe night-birds. Soon, however, thetent flaps were drawn and fasteneddown securely, candles lighted and thelittle white house seemed very cheerful.This was my first night in the woodsbut when sleep came, it was sound andrefreshing. After a few days spent here,we broke camp, sailed across WhiteFish Lake and entered our first por-

THROUGH DARKEST AMERICA. 401

tage, and this one was to prove thehardest trail of the whole trip.

However, tears could not stay long.

The trail begins in a swamp and con-Our guide had gone for another pack and

tinues for a mile and a half through awould soon return, hungry and tired too;

marsh of moss and fallen trees. Notso while Mr. White struggled to kindlea fire with the damp wood, I prepared

being entirely out of the pale of civiliza-tion yet and having a guide with us over

the lunch, and we soon were enjoying awelcome repast of ham and sandwiches

cashawa falls.

this first trail, I still clung to my wo-man’s attire, and a sorry plight it wasin when the end of that portage wasreached. Wet, torn and exhausted, whatwas there left to do but

Wish I were dead now,Or up in my bed now,To cover my head now,

And have a good cry.

and hot coffee. Our guide had left usand we were at last alone in the wilder-ness, ready to take fortune, good or ill,as we found it. We were getting accus-tomed to the new life; camp-makingcame easier, the potatoes were notburned quite so often, and the buck-wheat cakes tasted more like the onesmade at home.