Wild Northern Scenes Part 1

Wild Northern Scenes.

by S. H. Hammond.

TO JOHN H. REYNOLDS, ESQ., OF ALBANY.

You have floated over the beautiful lakes and along the pleasant rivers of that broad wilderness lying between the majestic St.

Lawrence and Lake Champlain. You have, in seasons of relaxation from the labors of a profession in which you have achieved such enviable distinction, indulged in the sports pertaining to that wild region.

You have listened to the glad music of the woods when the morning was young, and to the solemn night voices of the forest when darkness enshrouded the earth. You are, therefore, familiar with the scenery described in the following pages.

Permit me, then, to dedicate this book to you, not because of your eminence as a lawyer, nor yet on account of your distinguished position as a citizen, but as a keen, intelligent sportsman, one who loves nature in her primeval wildness, and who is at home, with a rifle and rod, in the old woods.

With sentiments of great respect,

I remain your friend and servant,

THE AUTHOR.

INTRODUCTORY.

There is a broad sweep of country lying between the St. Lawrence and Lake Champlain, which civilization with its improvements and its rush of progress has not yet invaded. It is mountainous, rocky, and for all agricultural purposes sterile and unproductive. It is covered with dense forests, and inhabited by the same wild things, save the red man alone, that were there thousands of years ago. It abounds in the most beautiful lakes that the sun or the stars ever shone upon. I have stood upon the immense boulder that forms the head or summit of Baldface Mountain, a lofty, isolated peak, looming thousands of feet towards the sky, and counted upwards of twenty of these beautiful lakes--sleeping in quiet beauty in their forest beds, surrounded by primeval woods, overlooked by rugged hills, and their placid waters glowing in the sunlight.

It is a high region, from which numerous rivers take their rise to wander away through gorges and narrow valleys, sometimes rushing down rapids, plunging over precipices, or moving in deep sluggish currents, some to Ontario, some to the St. Lawrence, some to Champlain, and some to seek the ocean, through the valley of the Hudson. The air of this mountain region in the summer is of the purest, loaded always with the freshness and the pleasant odors of the forest. It gives strength to the system, weakened by labor or reduced by the corrupted and debilitating atmosphere of the cities. It gives elasticity and buoyancy to the mind depressed by continued toil, or the cares and anxieties of business, and makes the blood course through the veins with renewed vigor and recuperated vitality.

The invalid, whose health is impaired by excessive labor, but who is yet able to exercise in the open air, will find a visit to these beautiful lakes and pleasant rivers, and a fortnight or a month's stay among them, vastly more efficacious in restoring strength and tone to his system than all the remedial agencies of the most skillful physicians. I can speak understandingly on this subject, and from evidences furnished by my own personal experience and observation.

To the sportsman, whether of the forest or flood, who has a taste for nature as G.o.d threw it from his hand, who loves the mountains, the old woods, romantic lakes, and wild forest streams, this region is peculiarly inviting. The lakes, the rivers, and the streams abound in trout, while abundance of deer feed on the lily pads and gra.s.ses that grow in the shallow water, or the natural meadows that line the sh.o.r.e.

The fish may be taken at any season, and during the months of July and August he will find deer enough feeding along the margins of the lakes and rivers, and easily to be come at, to satisfy any reasonable or honorable sportsman. I have been within fair shooting distance of twenty in a single afternoon while floating along one of those rivers, and have counted upwards of forty in view at the same time, feeding along the margin of one of the beautiful lakes hid away in the deep forest.

The scenery I have attempted to describe--the lakes, rivers, mountains, islands, rocks, valleys and streams, will be found as recorded in this volume. The game will be found as I have a.s.serted, unless perchance an army of sportsmen may have thinned it somewhat on the borders, or driven it deeper into the broad wilderness spoken of.

I was over a portion of that wilderness last summer, and found plenty of trout and abundance of deer. I heard the howl of the wolf, the scream of the panther, and the hoa.r.s.e bellow of the moose, and though I did not succeed in taking or even seeing any of these latter animals, yet I or my companion slew a deer every day after we entered the forest, and might have slaughtered half a dozen had we been so disposed. Though the excursion spoken of in the following pages was taken four years ago, yet I found, the last summer, small diminution of the trout even in the border streams and lakes of the "Saranac and Rackett woods."

I have visited portions of this wilderness at least once every summer for the last ten years, and I have never yet been disappointed with my fortnight's sport, or failed to meet with a degree of success which abundantly satisfied me, at least. I have generally gone into the woods weakened in body and depressed in mind. I have always come out of them with renewed health and strength, a perfect digestion, and a buoyant and cheerful spirit.

For myself, I have come to regard these mountains, these lakes and streams, these old forests, and all this wild region, as my settled summer resort, instead of the discomforts, the jam, the excitement, and the unrest of the watering-places or the sea sh.o.r.e. I visit them for their calm seclusion, their pure air, their natural cheerfulness, their transcendent beauty, their brilliant mornings, their glorious sunsets, their quiet and repose. I visit them too, because when among them, I can take off the armor which one is compelled to wear, and remove the watch which one must set over himself, in the crowded thoroughfares of life; because I can whistle, sing, shout, hurrah and be jolly, without exciting the ridicule or provoking the contempt of the world. In short, because I can go back to the days of old, and think, and act, and feel like "a boy again."

THE RIFLE AND THE ROD.

CHAPTER I.

A GREAT INSt.i.tUTION.

"It is a great inst.i.tution," I said, or rather thought aloud, one beautiful summer morning, as my wife was dressing the baby. The little thing lay upon its face across her lap, paddling and kicking with its little bare arms and legs, as such little people are very apt to do, while being dressed. It was not our baby. We have dispensed with that luxury. And yet it was a sweet little thing, and nestled as closely in our hearts as if it were our own. It was our first grandchild, the beginning of a third generation, so that there is small danger of our name becoming extinct. A friend of mine, who unfortunately has no voice for song, has a most excellent wife and beautiful baby, and cannot therefore be said to be without music at home. It is his first descendant, and everybody knows that such are just the things of which fathers are very apt to be proud. He was spending an evening with a neighbor, and was asked to sing. He declined, of course, giving as a reason that he never sang. "Why, Mr. H----," said a black-eyed little girl, of seven--"why, Mr. H----, don't you never sing to the baby?"

Sure enough! I wonder if there ever was a civilized, a human man, who never sang to the baby. I do not believe that there was ever such a paradox in nature, as a man who had tossed the baby up and down, balanced it on his hand, given it a ride on his foot, and yet never sang to it. I do not care a fig about melody of voice, or science in quavering; I am not talking about sweetness of tone; what I mean to say is, that I do not believe there is a man living, even though he have no more voice than a raven, who is human, and yet never sang to the baby, always a.s.suming that he has one.

"A great inst.i.tution," I repeated, half in soliloquy and half to my wife.

"What in the world are you talking about?" said Mrs. H----, as she took a pin from her mouth, and fastened the band that encircled the waist of the baby. The nurse was looking quietly on, quite willing that her work should be thus taken off her hands. Will somebody tell me, if there ever was a grandmother, especially one who became such young, who could sit by, and see the nurse dress her first, or even her tenth grandchild, while it was a helpless little thing, say a foot or a foot and a half long? The nurse is so unhandy; she tumbles the baby about so roughly, handles it so awkwardly, she will certainly dress it too loosely, or too tight, or leave a pin that will p.r.i.c.k it, or some terrible calamity will happen. So she takes possession of the little thing, and with a hand guided by experience and the instincts of affection, puts its things on in a Christian and comfortable way.

"A great inst.i.tution!" I repeated again.

"I do believe the man has lost his wits," remarked Mrs. H----, handing the baby to the nurse. "Who ever heard of a baby less than three months old being called an inst.i.tution?"

"Never heard of such a thing in my life," I replied, "though a much greater mistake might be made."

"What then, in the name of goodness, have you been talking about?"

inquired Mrs. H----.

"The COUNTRY of course," I replied.

I had just returned from a business trip to Vermont--who ever thought that Vermont would be traversed by railroads, or that the echoes which dwell among her precipices and mountain fastnesses, would ever wake to the snort of the iron horse? Who ever thought that the locomotive would go screaming and thundering along the base of the Green Mountains, hurling its ponderous train, loaded with human freight, along the narrow valleys above which mountain peaks hide their heads in the clouds? How old Ethan Allen and General Stark, "Old Put," and the other glorious names that enrich the pages of our revolutionary history, would open their eyes in astonishment, if they could come back from "the other side of Jordan," and sit for a little while on their own tombstones in sight of the railroads, and see the trains as they go rushing like a tornado along their native valleys.

I had made up my mind that morning, all at once, to go into the country. It was a sudden resolve, but I acted upon it. Going into the country is a very different thing from what it used to be. There is no packing of trunks, or taking leave of friends. You take your satchel or travelling bag, kiss your wife in a hurry at the door, and jump aboard of the cars; the whistle sounds, the locomotive breathes hoa.r.s.ely for a moment, and you are off like a shot. In ten minutes the suburbs are behind you; the fields and farms are flying to the rear; you dash through the woods and see the trees dodging and leaping behind and around each other, performing the dance of the witches "in most admired confusion;" in three hours you are among the hills of Ma.s.sachusetts, the mountains of Vermont, on the borders of the majestic Hudson, in the beautiful valley of the Mohawk, a hundred miles from the good city of Albany, where you can tramp among the wild or tame things of nature to your heart's content.

I had for the moment no particular place in view. What I wanted was, to get outside of the city, among the hills, where I could see the old woods, the streams, the mountains, and get a breath of fresh air, such as I used to breathe. I wanted to be free and comfortable for a month; to lay around loose in a promiscuous way among the hills, where beautiful lakes lay sleeping in their quiet loveliness; where the rivers flow on their everlasting course through primeval forests; where the moose, the deer, the panther and the wolf still range, and where the speckled trout sport in the crystal waters. I had made up my mind to throw off the cares and anxieties of business, and visit that great inst.i.tution spread out all around us by the Almighty, to make men healthier, wiser, better. I had resolved to go into the country.

That was a fixed fact. But where?

There stood my rifle in one corner of the room, and my fishing rods in the other. The sight of these settled the matter. "I will go to the North," I said.

"Go to the North!" said Mrs. H----. "Do tell me if you've got another of your old hunting and fishing fits on you again?"

"Yes," I replied, "I've felt it coming on for a week, and I've got it bad."

"Very well," said my wife, "if the fit is on you, there's no use in remonstrating; your valise will be ready by the morning train." And so the matter was settled.

But I must have a companion, somebody to talk to and with, somebody who could appreciate the beauties of nature; who loved the old woods, the wilderness, and all the wild things pertaining to them; to whom the forests, the lakes, and tall mountains, the rivers and streams, would recall the long past; to whom the forest songs and sounds would bring back the memories of old, and make him "a boy again." So I sallied out to find him. I had scarcely traversed a square, when I met my friend, the doctor, with carpet bag in hand, on his way to the depot.

"Whither away, my friend?" I inquired, as we shook hands.

"Into the country," he replied.

"Very well, but where?"

"Into the country," he repeated, "don't you comprehend? Into the country, by the first train; anywhere, everywhere, all along sh.o.r.e."

"Go with me," said I, "for a month."

"A month! Bless your simple soul, every patient I've got will be well in less than half that time; but let them, I'll be avenged on them another time. But where do _you_ go?"

"To my old haunts in the North," I replied.