One man’s wilderness (29 page)

The red fox is a regular visitor now to the moose handout. I believe he will get even tamer as the country gets more hungry.

About eight inches of snow on the level now.

December 16th
. Plus four degrees. Four more inches of snow during the night.

I have a tenant in the john. I heard a racket in there and glimpsed the squirrel flashing over the ridge log. Very soon he was back, his mouth looking like a powder puff. He was carrying moss from the roof. Inside he went, rattled around some, then back out and back in with another load, really working at high speed. While he was gone, I opened the door and looked in. A box of shavings for starting a fire sat just inside the door. It now contained moss as well. He is setting up winter quarters.

December 17th
. Minus nineteen degrees and not a twig stirring. The sun lit the high peaks across the lake at nine-thirty this morning.

Very early this day I felt the cabin begin to shake as if some monster was tossing around beneath it. I heard a low roaring. The lake ice had been noisy, but this sudden earth tremor quieted it for several hours. Along toward daylight I felt another jolting. A look around after sunup convinced me all the mountains were still in their proper places.

That spruce squirrel is working like he has a deadline to meet. A big wad of moss in the shavings box now and a small round hole right in the middle of it.

Wood to saw and split every day. Got to keep up my payments at the Firewood Trust if I want to stay warm this winter. No real problem at all. Some folks had led me to believe it would be an everlasting job—cut wood all day to keep warm all night.

December 19th
. Plus thirty-two degrees. The cold is preferable to a spell like this, with heavy wet snow being dumped from the spruce boughs all through the day.

There is now twenty-three inches of ice.

A bad day for traveling. A good day for little jobs and a chance to catch up on my reading.

December 21st
. Plus four degrees. The shortest day. The sun lighted Allen Mountain across the lake down to the timber line, then dropped out of sight. It will be a pleasure to watch the sun line creep on down to the opposite beach and one day light up my cabin again.

December 22nd
. Wolves on the ice.

I first saw them as little specks close together. Then the leader broke away and the others dropped back to each side to form a wide triangle. They stopped often to turn and look at the stillness surrounding them. Now they came on in a trot. Through the spotting scope I could make out the narrow heads, the erect ears, the long muzzles. I would like to see those green eyes up close. I moved. They froze like statues, 100 yards away. Suddenly one bolted nervously and loped down the ice. The others followed. Too bad I had been in the open when I first saw them. I think I would have gotten a closer look.

December 24th
. Clear, calm, and plus four degrees. I do believe winter at Twin Lakes is better than summer.

Sheep were walking the skyline of the big pasture on Falls Mountain.

I crossed a wolverine track that was headed for Low Pass Creek. I must be on the lookout for that character.

December 25th
. A very white Christmas. No hard feelings toward anyone.

I chopped up some moose meat and scattered these presents for the magpies, the camp robbers, the chickadees, and the squirrel.

Out on the ice I examined a pressure ridge. It was a buckled wall of ice blocks at odd angles about a foot wide and at least four feet high. Some of the slabs of ice had beach rock imbedded in them.

A plane! It was Babe’s 180 Cessna. He looked like a skinny Santa Claus as he
landed and stepped out with sacks and boxes. He asked how long the lake had been frozen over. Lake Clark had closed up only three days ago.

Lots of mail and grub. Nearly a sack of packages and letters. Six four-pound packages of rice, two large boxes of corn meal, four dozen eggs, plenty of spuds, carrots, lettuce, apples, and celery. Fifty pounds of flour and two slabs of bacon. Cheese, candy bars, and cocoa.

Babe was having roast goose at home so he had to hurry back.

I opened packages and read letters until I had to light the lantern to keep on reading. A Christmas I will never forget. The most no-nonsense Christmas I have ever had.

Babe had given me a time correction. My watch was fifteen minutes fast after no check for four months.

December 27th
. The northern lights last night. No big display. Just a golden glow over the mountains to the northeast. Very much like the breaking of dawn in summer.

It was minus five degrees when I decided to hike down to the lower end. The connecting stream was still open. I saw the bow waves of trout scooting for cover as I walked the bank.

The water ouzels were working as usual, probing the crevices of the stones along the stream edge, then setting sail like miniature ducks, puddling, pirouetting, and disappearing. Moments later, out they came, powder dry and flying into the subzero air with something wriggling in their beaks. They are like big gray waterproof wrens.

Nothing else in sight on the great expanse of snow and ice down country.

The spruce squirrel seems to have a ball of moss for a door. I saw it move when I went to get my fuel to fill the lamp, and out he slipped over the eave log in the rear. I heard him return a few minutes later. In the flashlight beam I saw his “door” was closed. I think he grabs the moss edges at the opening and pulls them together. He will sleep warm tonight even though the temperature is minus ten degrees.

December 28th
. Sheep tracks on the lake. A single sheep had come from the direction of Allen Mountain. Must be a young ram out to see the world. It was the first sheep track I have ever seen on the ice.