One man’s wilderness (26 page)

Hope Creek is beginning to ice up. I put the thermometer in the creek mouth. Thirty-one degrees. If the creek stopped moving, it would freeze up in no time.

I did a lot of cleaning around the fireplace site today. Picked up all the rocks I didn’t use and put them into a single pile away from the cabin. Cleaned up the seams of my last day’s work and washed it down. Really looks first-rate.

Now the test for the draft. I took a sprig of fireweed with the seeds ready to fly and shook it in front of the hearth opening. The seed feathers drifted slowly down, then into and up the chimney. I could visually study the flow of air by watching them. Some circulated over the smoke shelf before going on up. This will be a working fireplace, I am sure.

September 24th
. Twenty-five degrees. High, thin overcast.

No pressure now. I might just as well get breakfast in the daylight.

I have decided that rather than put another course of stones on my chimney I will extend the height six inches by making a liner from a gas-can tin. One gas can would do it. I would push it down inside the chimney and insert a few cross ties to make it more rigid.

I was cutting through a seam, which is tough going for a small snips. I was pushing and bearing down hard when it happened. The snips suddenly broke through. My right thumb was sliced open on the back side.

I could move it, so I had missed the tendons, but it was a deep cut just the same. I tied it together with a couple of Band-Aids and wrapped a rag around it. Then I went back to my project. Lucky I didn’t have on my good leather gloves which were on the bench beside me. I would probably have cut the right one open, and it wouldn’t grow back together as I hope my thumb will do. Soon the addition to the chimney was complete.

No harm in building a small fire under the green chimney, I figured, so I got some shavings and started one. It was satisfying to see the smoke go up and increase in speed as it passed through the throat. Then it started to smoke inside the cabin a bit. I discovered that with the cabin shut tight, air was going up the chimney faster than it was coming in. Opening the window or the top half of the door a whisker corrected the trouble. I am not sure how long I should let the mortar cure before building a normal fire, but I had better wait several days.

About noon I spotted a canoe with two hunters paddling up the far side of the lake through the reflections. In the middle of the canoe was a huge caribou rack, and they were riding low in the water. They must have been thankful for the still water.

I heard a plane leave the lower end. Surely that is the last of the hunters. Tomorrow I will go on a scavenger hunt.

September 25th
. Thirty-five degrees and overcast. Strange to be free of frost this morning.

Doctored my injured thumb. Washed it thoroughly with soap and warm water and changed the dressing. The slash looks clean. Can’t afford any complications. No house calls out here.

I paddled down to the lower end to the remains of the tent camps there. I brought my round-point shovel along.

Why men come into this big clean country and leave it littered the way they do, I will never know. They claim to love the great outdoors but they don’t have respect for it. Beer cans, bottles, and cartons were scattered all over the
place. Look at the sharp edges of the mountains in the crisp clean air, listen to the creek pouring water you can drink over the stones. Then look around and see all this junk. It’s enough to turn a man’s stomach. I cleaned up several areas, digging many holes and burying those ugly reminders of thoughtlessness. There were a few rewards, however. I found a big Styrofoam chest with a box of wooden matches inside and some dry soup mix, and collected several empty gas cans. Always a use for them. And finally a bonus, a small roll of haywire.

Seven miles later, on the upper end of the lake, I found the same disregard for the purity of the wilderness. I did my best to erase the ugly scars the visitors had left in their wake.

Must have traveled close to twenty miles today, but it was something I felt I must do. It was payment for the useful items I had found.

September 26th
. Overcast and thirty-eight degrees. Lake water forty degrees, down two degrees from a week ago.

Today I would cut wood to build up my supply. This business of taking wood out of the savings bank and putting none back has been bothering me no end. I filed the one-man crosscut and sharpened the axe to a razor edge with my stone. Then I dropped a few spruce snags. All day long sharp tools ate into wood, and by evening the woodshed had the look of plenty. In its vicinity, beneath the spruce trees and leaning against their trunks, were many logs standing on end, awaiting the saw when the snow deepened.

Plenty of meat hanging from the meat tree, plenty of wood, my cabin tight and warm. I looked forward to freeze-up.

Freeze-up

November 28th
. Thanksgiving day. Clear, calm, and a minus four degrees. The stars are still out at eight o’clock this morning. The lake is white with frost and in front of the cabin, frozen to a depth of one inch during the night. I could hear the ice groaning on the lower lake, which is shallower and had started to ice over as early as November 2. I hiked along the beach beyond the point to check the upper end of the lake. There was ice along the shore but a big lead of open water beyond Glacier Creek, and a cloud bank of fog was rising where Beaver Creek empties into the upper end.

A special meal today. Fresh suet for the chickadees and a few generous handfuls of meat dust on the stump for the camp robbers and the spruce squirrel. I sawed off loin chops for the main course. The rest of the menu was mashed potatoes and brown gravy, a salad of chopped cabbage, carrots, and onions; sourdough biscuits and honey; sourdough shortcake with fresh blueberries for dessert; and all this washed down with a cup of hot chocolate topped with my last marshmallow. I still had room, so I opened a two-pound tin of cookies that I have been saving since early September. As a result of all this I felt more uncomfortable than I have for a long time.

In preparing for freeze-up, I made a sled out of spruce poles, using the spruce runners I had put in traction. The frame was held together with pegs and short pole bracings. I planed the runners smooth and painted them with a film
of wood glue. With its deck poles, handles, and crossbar, it would be a vehicle in which I could push a good-sized load. Too bad I didn’t have a pet caribou to pull it.

I mended my snowshoes with the dollar-a-string babiche I had brought in with me. Soaked in warm water for a spell, it became very pliable, and I was able to replace the weakened strings. A fresh coat of shellac and the webs looked ready for miles of trail.

I made a snow shovel out of a fifteen-gallon oil drum Babe had left me. With the wide chisel I cut out the ends, then split the cylinder down the middle. At twenty-two inches around the arc, I split it again. I took some of the curve out of the lower half to give it the proper contact with the ground. For a handle I used twin spruce poles spaced about six inches apart with two crossbars for grips.