One man’s wilderness (32 page)

When I turned in at ten o’clock last night, it was fifty-four below zero. Now the moon is past the full. I think this will be the record low temperature for the winter.

At these low temperatures my binoculars frost up so quickly that I can use them for only a few seconds at a time.

The camp robbers were here, with streaks of frost back from their eyes. They didn’t appear very hungry, just disinterested balls of feathers decorating the spruce boughs. The magpie deserves a lot of credit. Robber that he is, he really works at making a living. He sits there and pecks away at that frozen moose meat in the fifty-below.

Snow blowing from the peaks and ridges. In a very short time some of the high places lost their solid whiteness. That should make the sheep happy. Feed is being uncovered up there.

I snowshoed across the lake to investigate a track below the rock face. There was a sun dog on either side of the sun as the overcast darkened. Trailing up through the deep snow, I was showered by more snow from the spruce. As soft and loose as the snow is, a snowshoe rabbit sinks in only about three inches. I startled a flock of spruce grouse and they exploded, knocking snow from the limbs in their panic. A few minutes later I struck the trail of a lynx. He sank deep and dragged his big feet toward the rock face. He had made those mystery tracks.

My trail to the cabin was all but drifted shut in the wind and driving snow, but the thermometer back at the cabin read plus ten. The cold spell is broken.

February 6th
. Plus eighteen degrees. Quite a variation in twenty-four hours, from minus forty-eight to plus eighteen.

The wind is roaring across the peaks. Snow is streaming from them like
smoke from a grass fire. The thickness of the ice is now thirty-six inches, and the temperature of the water is thirty-one degrees.

I nailed the forked roots of a spruce stump on the end of the ridge log above the door. I call it the spruce buck. It will make a good perch for the birds.

I had to break out another jar of oatmeal. Surely I must hold a record for consuming the largest quantity of rolled oats in a few month’s time.

February 12th
. A strong breeze and plus twenty-five degrees.

Today I would carve a big wooden spoon for Mary Alsworth in exchange for the heavy boot socks. I dug out a likely piece of stump stock from the deep snow and went to work. She wanted a spoon with lots of curve so that is the way it would be. While I worked, the camp robbers kept me company. When they come a-begging, I always have time to feed them. They seem to have found the spruce buck perch to their liking. A kettle of beans simmered away on the fire, and when they were done, so was the spoon.

The break in the cold gave my windows a chance to shed their buildup of ice today. Good to have them clean and dry again.

February 13th
. Snowing. From down the lake a strong wind is blowing big flakes. Plus thirty degrees.

When the lake is open, you do not hear the wind in the mountains. Today the sound of it was like the roaring of a great waterfall.

February 14th
. The heat wave continues. Plus thirty degrees.

An old visitor in his winter overcoat came to call today, his slender body doubling and stretching as he bounced over the snow. Out of respect for his new robe, I will call him an ermine instead of a weasel.

I think I know where the squirrel went. The ermine must have killed him. I saw the ermine snake into the squirrel’s nest.

A camp robber was inside the cabin. When I came through the door, he flew to the bunk post. I approached him. He didn’t fly. I picked him up and he
struggled a bit in my hand. I held a meat scrap in front of him. First he pecked at my finger and then at the meat. For a moment he sat there in the palm of my hand. Then with a sudden takeoff he flew out the door to a spruce branch, where he sat very quietly as if puzzled by the experience.

February 15th
. Clear and calm and plus six degrees.

A camp robber swooped inside and grabbed up a meat scrap while his two companions hesitated on the spruce buck. Those characters must have been talking things over.

The ermine has taken over the squirrel’s quarters. He left as I opened the door, then returned cautiously, climbed back into the box, crawled into the nest, reached out to get a mouthful of moss, and closed his door. I tempted him with a meat scrap. A little wary at first, but his belly got the best of him. He latched on to the opposite end of the scrap, and when I didn’t let go with his tugging, he came right on up and went for my fingers. He’s not one to back into a corner. There’s a tiger in that little body.

February 21st
. Plus twenty-six degrees. Snowing and blowing.

Twenty-seven inches of snow on the level. My snow shovel works well. My paths are beginning to look like small canyons with steep white walls.

It’s a good thing that a weasel is not the size of a fox. He is a powerhouse for his size. The little ermine’s body can’t be more than ten inches long, yet he can wrestle a meat scrap that weighs several pounds. I saw him flashing in and out beneath the mortar tub where the moose meat was stored. Such a racket! Every now and then he would bolt right up straight and look around to see if he was attracting attention. The magpies give him a lot of room. He could easily kill one, and they don’t give him a chance to prove it. He is compact savagery. The way he moves he must have voltage in his veins instead of blood.

I snowshoed the airstrip down and outlined it with small spruce boughs. Not really necessary, but the roughing up of the surface and the boughs help a pilot’s depth perception.

February 23rd
. Minus sixteen degrees.

I was halfway down the lake when I heard a plane. Sure enough, it was the little Black Bird. Babe made two circles coming down and scooted in on my airstrip. I reached him just as he unpacked the last item. We turned the plane around facing the sun and covered the engine. He was in no hurry today.

“You know when I left here in the cold last time,” he said, “I had oil temperature but no oil pressure until I climbed up high. Man, you live in a deep freeze!”

All kinds of mail and packages. Some extra warm mittens and mukluks from brother Jake. Two small bags of nuts with a tag, stale nuts for squirrels.

Right away I remembered a story Hope Carrithers liked to tell. A little boy was watching another little boy eat a big red apple. “Can I have the core?” he asked. The other boy answered, “Ain’t gonna be no core.” That is what I will tell the squirrels. They can’t read, and they don’t know nuts are for squirrels anyway.

A new pair of Eddie Bauer shoe pacs from Spike. Cookies from home. Some special peanut brittle. My order from Sears, which included some new stovepipe. And last but not least, a big package from brother Jake—a cast-iron log rack for my fireplace.

I popped some corn and broke out the can of peanut brittle. We swapped yarns and I worked on my outgoing mail while Babe lowered the can of peanut brittle.