One man’s wilderness (6 page)

Ho, hum. I’m anxious to get started on that cabin, but first things first. Tomorrow will have to be a woodcutting day.

May 25th
. The mountains are wearing new hats this morning. The rain during the night was snow at the higher levels.

I built up the wood supply yesterday and this morning. There is a rhythm to the saw as its teeth eat back and forth in the deepening cut, but I must admit I enjoy the splitting more. To hit the chunk exactly where you want to and cleave it apart cleanly—there’s a good sound to it and satisfaction in an efficient motion. Another reward comes from seeing those triangular stove lengths pile up. Then the grand finale! Drive the ax into the block, look around, and contemplate the measure of what you have done.

Breakup was not the spectacular sight it was last year. A big wind would have cleared the thin ice out yesterday. As I loaded tools on the packboard this afternoon, the rotted ice began to flow past in quiet exit.

At the construction site several hundred yards down the lakeshore, I found my logs were not as badly checked as I had first thought. The checking was
only evident on the weathered sides. The logs were well seasoned and light in weight for their length.

When you have miles and miles of lakefront and picture views to consider, it is difficult to select a building site. The more a man looks, the fussier he gets. I had given much thought to mine. It sat atop a knoll about seventy-five feet back from a bight in the shoreline. There was a good beach for landing a canoe, and a floatplane also could be brought in there easily.

The wind generally blew up or down the lake. From either direction the cabin would be screened by spruce trees and willow brush. The knoll was elevated well above any visible high-water marks. Just over 100 yards away was Hope Creek, and even though the water from the lake was sweet and pure, Hope Creek carried the best ever from the high places. At its mouth could usually be found fish, too.

There were two things that bothered me just a little, and I gave them serious consideration before making the final decision. It was possible that after a continuous heavy rain and the resulting runoff from the mountains, Hope Creek could overflow and come churning through the timber behind me. If that happened, I felt I was still high enough to handle the situation. Perhaps some engineering would be necessary to divert the flow until the creek tamed down and returned to its channel.

It was also a possibility, though quite remote, that a slide or a quake might choke the Chilikadrotna River, which was the drainpipe of the Twins. Anytime the volume of water coming into the country was greater than what was going out, the lake level was going to rise. If the Chilikadrotna were to plug seriously, the country would fill up like a giant bathtub. I didn’t like to think about that. Finally I decided such a catastrophe would rule out any site, and if a man had to consider all of nature’s knockout punches, he would hesitate to build anywhere.

So I had taken the plunge and cleared the brush. I had grubbed out a shallow foundation, had hauled up beach gravel and had spread it to a depth of several inches over an area roughly twenty feet by twenty feet. I felt I had made the best possible choice.

I stood with hands on hips looking at the plot of gravel and the pile of logs beside it. The logs were decked, one layer one way and the next at right angles to it so air could circulate through the pile. On that floor of gravel, from those logs, the house would grow. I could see it before me because I had sketched it so many times. It would be eleven feet by fifteen feet on the inside. Its front door would face northwest, and the big window would look down the lake to the south and west. It would nestle there as if it belonged.

A pile of logs. Which ones to start with. Why not the largest and most crooked for the two side foundation logs? They would be partly buried in the gravel anyway. Save the best ones to show off to the best possible advantage. I rolled the logs around until I was satisfied I had found what I was looking for.

One log in particular required considerable hewing to straighten it. I must say white spruce works up nicely with axe and drawknife, much like white pine. If I keep the edges of my tools honed, it will be a pleasure to pile up chips and shavings.

I bedded the two side logs into the gravel, then selected two end logs, which I laid across them to form the eleven-by-fifteen-foot interior. Next I scribed the notches on the underside of the end logs, on each side so the entire pattern of the notch was joined and penciled. Everything inside the pencil patterns would have to be removed. Four notches to cut out.

To make a notch fit properly, you can’t rush it. Make several saw cuts an inch or two apart almost down to the pencil line and whack out the chunks with the axe until the notch is roughly formed. Then comes the finish work, the careful custom fit. I have just the tool for the job. At first I thought the character in the hardware store gouged me a little when he charged more than seven dollars for a gouge chisel (half round), but next to my axe I consider it my most valuable tool. Just tap the end of its handle with the spruce mallet and the sharp edge moves a curl of wood before it, right to the line. It smooths the notch to perfection.

The four notches rolled snugly into position over the curve of the side foundation logs beneath them.

Well, there’s the first course, the first four logs, and those notches couldn’t fit better. That’s the way they’re all going to fit.

Enough for this evening. The job has begun. It should be good going from here up to the eave logs and the start of the gable ends. Tomorrow should see more working and less figuring.

I wanted a salad for supper. Fireweed greens make the best, and fireweed is one of the most common plants in this country. Its spikes of reddish pink brighten the land. They start blooming from the bottom and travel up as the season progresses. When the blossoms reach the top, summer is almost gone.

I went down along the creek bed where a dwarf variety grows. None were in bloom yet. I squatted among the stems and slender leaves and picked the tender plant crowns into a bowl. Then I rinsed them in the creek.

Sprinkled with sugar and drizzled with vinegar, those wild greens gave the red beans just the tang needed.

May 26th
. I should have a fish for this evening’s meal. It was a good morning to try for one down at the connecting stream.

There was still ice on the lower half of the lake. The way the ice was moving yesterday I thought the lake would be clear of it. Something is stalling the ice parade.

Traveling the lake shore, I nearly upended a time or two on the crusted snow. It was treacherous going. When I came to a good seat on the evergreens beneath a small spruce, I took advantage of it and proceeded to glass the slopes above the spruce timber.

First sighting was a cow moose with a yearling trailing her down country. While I watched them, I heard the bawling of caribou calves. It took me a few minutes to locate where all the noise was coming from. In a high basin I spotted seventy-five or more cows and calves. Across the lake ten Dall rams were in different positions of relaxation, and farther down I counted eleven lambs and nineteen ewes. Satisfied that there was plenty of game in the country, I trudged down to the stream and followed along its banks, through the hummocks
of low brush, until I came to where it poured invitingly into the lower lake.

I waded out a few steps. My boots did not leak, but almost immediately the chill seeped through the woolens inside them. I cast a few times, letting the small metal lure ride out with the current, then retrieving it jerkily with twitches of the rod tip. Several more casts. Nothing.

Then it happened with the suddenness of a broken shoelace. As the lure came flashing toward me over the gravel, a pale shadow, almost invisible against the bottom, streaked in pursuit. Jaws gaped white, and the bright glint of the lure winked out as they closed over it. The line hissed, the rod tip hooped. The fish swerved out of the shallows, rolling a bulge of water before him as he bolted for the dropoff. He slashed the water white as I backed away with the rod held high, working him in to where he ran out of water and flopped his yellow spotted sides on the bank. A nineteen-inch lake trout. I thumped its head with a stone, and it shuddered out straight.

As I dressed it out, I examined its stomach. Not a thing in it. It is always interesting to see what a fish has been eating. Several times I have found mice in the stomachs of lake trout and arctic char. Now how does a mouse get himself into a jackpot like that? Does he fall in by accident, or does he venture for a swim? Tough to be a mouse in this country. From the air, the land, and the water his enemies wait to strike.

On the way back to the cabin, I repaired the log bridge over Hope Creek. All it needed was shoring up with a few boulders rolled against the log bracings on each end, which was easier to do now while the water was low.

I popped a batch of corn in bacon fat, salted and buttered it, and munched on it while I studied the sweep of the mountains. Before I left for the construction job, I shaped my biscuits, put them into a pan, and covered them to rise for supper. You always have to think ahead with biscuits and a lot of other things in the wilderness.

If I can fit eight logs a day, the cabin will go along at a good rate. That’s sixteen notches to cut out and tailor to fit. It is important to put the notch on the underside of a log and fit it down over the top of the one beneath. If you
notch the topside, rain will run into it instead of dripping past in a shingle effect. Water settling into the notches can cause problems.

The sun shining on the green lake ice was so beautiful I had to stop work now and then just to look at it. That’s a luxury a man enjoys when he works for himself.

For supper, I cut the trout into small chunks, dipped them into beaten egg, and rolled them in cornmeal. They browned nicely in the bacon fat, and my tender crusted sourdoughs did justice to the first fish fry of the season.

May 28th
. Frost on the logs when I went to work at six
A.M
. I had to roll many of them around to get the ones I wanted. Sorting takes time, but matching ends is very important if the cabin is to look right.

The wind helped the ice along today. The upper lake is nearly two-thirds ice-free now.

Had my first building inspector at the job. A gray jay, affectionately known as camp robber, came in his drab uniform of gray and white and black to look things over from his perch on a branch end. The way he kept tilting his head and making those mewing sounds, I’d say he was being downright critical. I welcomed his company just the same.

May 29th
. Only a few chunks of ice floating in the lake this morning. By noon there was no ice to be seen. It was good to see the lake in motion again. It was even better to slip the canoe into the water and paddle to work for a change, gliding silently along over a different pathway.