Alone in the Wilderness: Part II

I had made it through my first year living alone in the wilderness.

My little cabin had kept me warm and comfortable.

With the arrival of spring, it felt good to get back to work again.

I must restock the lumberyard, for I had cache building on my mind,

something I had thought about all winter long.

I think it will be the answer to keeping those critters out of my food supply.

Folks say that axmanship is a lost art,

but I like to think I've found it again in these cool spruce woods.

The pull of the pack board straps felt comfortable against my woolen shirt

and I could feel the warmth of the spring sun on my face.

It was real bull work, but I never felt any better.

I wondered if there was anyone in the world as free and happy as I was.

I would spend the rest of the afternoon ripping boards from my well-seasoned logs.

I would need seven or eight to provide me with a

solid and level foundation for the cache building.

With six boards ripped, it was time to take a break.

I would see if I could catch a fish for supper.

In the last few days, the Hope Creek has eaten a big opening into the lake ice.

I could see the pool of open water growing before my eyes.

A pair of harlequin ducks swam out fromshore as I passed by,

and began talking to me.

I worked a metal spoon deep into the current,

jerked it toward me, and let it drift back.

Not a strike after several casts.

Then a snag.

Then it moved.

I knew I had a fish.

A 15-inch grayling.

Enough for my needs.

A few sticks of wood on the coals and I would be back in business again.

The little stove that Brother Jake built is good company and works well.

The proof of a good stove is in the heating, and this one is amazing.

Very little fire, but it keeps my water boiling in the kettle.

For my supper tonight, it would be fried trout and a batch of biscuits,

made from the sourdough starter that Mary Allsworth had given me last spring.

It's hard to believe it's been one year ago today

that Babe brought me here to Twin Lakes in the little T craft.

I remembered it was a beautiful day

and we had sat and talked on the gravel bar at the upper end of the lower lake.

I had backpacked two loads that day to Spike's cabin,

and I had even picked up a sunburn from the sun on the snow.

It was the first day of what I believe has been the most interesting year of my life.

While waiting for my biscuits to raise

I will catch up on my journals and a few overdue letters to send back home.

Tomorrow just might be a good day to prepare for the cache building.

I had many poles to cut and peel today, before the cache construction begins.

I had cut many of them last November, on the far side of Hope Creek.

They had been seasoning all this time.

I had cut four other heavier logs about 15 feet long.

These would be my stilts, to hold the cache aloft.

I finished the post holes and set in the big stilts.

Like the fireplace and cabin, I can see the cache up on the poles already.

The first course of logs was notched and nailed to my foundation planks.

I cut notches for four stringers, and hewed the stringers to fit.

The logs fit snugly into their custom-made notches.

Thirty in place.

The cache is now 29 inches high.

Now, for some roof poles.

Everything has a good snug fit down here on the ground.

I hope it goes together with no trouble

when I climb the ladder with all the pieces.

It's May 18th.

Strange to wake up before three in the morning

and feel that daylight is being wasted.

This is Red Runt's country, and I am the invader.

And hardly a day passes that he does not remind me of this with his chatter.

It's good to see bears on the mountain again.

I spotted a big blonde bear, and then another chocolate color, and another.

Until there were three, standing half as tall as their mother.

Cubs, but not this year's.

I studied them through the 60-power eyepiece

and finally talked myself out of climbing up there to see them at close range.

I had a cache to build.

I went to the woodshed and ripped out planks for the doorframe,

and some inch-and-a-half planks for the door.

I then cut two sets of hinges out of a stump of wood.

I was ready to take my little house apart

and put it back together again on top of its nine-foot stilts.

I used my meat-pole ladder for a scaffold.

Soon, number one log was resting atop the stilts.

The logs fit perfectly.

Forty-penny spikes went into the heavy ends,

and sixteen pennies into the small ends.

Next, the door.

All that remained was to cut the logs in between,

and I had an opening for the door.

I finished off the roof with tar paper and a good layer of moss.

I am really proud of that piece of work.

For all practical purposes,

my miniature cabin on stilts was complete.

Today, I had better check the lake ice,

for I've been expecting Babe in with supplies any day now,

and I would hate to see him sink out of sight.

He once said to me, when the ice is safe for landing,

put the oil drum out on the ice.

So I did.

Ten weeks later, he came in and asked, why the oil drum on the ice?

He has a good memory, but it isn't very long.

The ice was still thirty-two inches thick, so I formed a huge OK,

so Babe could easily see it from the air.

Today, I would take a hike up country.

My pack made up and lashed on the GI pack frame.

Along with the bolex and heavy tripod,

I packed five hundred feet of film,

some smoked fish, and the big pistol.

Around forty pounds, I would guess.

I was away by seven-thirty.

Past Bell's Point, and up the lake,

I spotted the rear half of a moose sticking out from a spruce.

A big old cow.

And she made no effort to leave,

even though I was no more than a hundred yards.

Hiding in the brush was a new calf,

and I just had to try for pictures of that cute little guy.

I kept trees in mind that I could get behind,

just in case the mother got ornery.

Just how much would she put up with?

Then the hackles from ears to shoulders stood on in.

And here she came, ears back and nostrils flared.

At fifteen feet, she whirled past me

and trotted back to the calf, bawling as she went.

That was enough to get my heart pumping.

I figured it was a good time to be moving on.

Lots of loose rock,

so it was slow climbing.

When I came to the edge of a big basin and peeked over the edge,

three full-curled rams were staring back at me.

They had me pegged.

They were in their chosen isolation,

wild mountain dandies,

living high off the grass and far away from the women and kids

and well out of reach from the wolves.

They watched me as if they were surprised to see something else

as high up on the mountain as they were.

The whining sound of the boleks seemed to make them nervous

and they disappeared up and over the ridge with ease.

What a view from up here.

Rugged mountains as far as I could see

and many glaciers.

I walked the ridge to keep warm and to look for more game.

To see animals, you must move a little and look a lot.

I came to a good view of Allen Mountain.

So I stopped to glass it for a bear.

Right away, I saw something not right.

And with the binoculars,

I saw it was a bear all right.

Not far away were two little cubs,

a good-looking sow grizzly with twins.

The cubs romped and chased each other without a care in the world.

While Mom constantly had her nose in the air,

always on the lookout for danger.

Nothing will make a grizzly leave the country faster than the scent of a man.

Now, if only she would stick around all summer.

I had wandered a long way from the cabin today.

My pedometer read 22 miles.

It was time to head home.

I shouldered my pack and headed down.

Today, I feel like a man inspired by a sermon that came to me firsthand,

that came out of the sky

and the many moods of the mountains.

My left foot was getting sore,

so I stopped and pulled off my boots and socks

and buried my tired feet in the snow for a few minutes.

Cold for just a little while will make your feet good for many more miles.

The caribou seemed content today and show no fear of me.

I wonder what he thinks about.

Is his brain just a blank as he lies there blinking in the sun

and chewing his cud?

I wonder if he feels, as I do,

that this small part of the world is enough to think about.

I was home and would sleep good tonight.

My gear put away and my starving birds fed.

It had been a pretty good day.

My ladder project had priority today,

and before I finished, it started to snow.

Surely just a shower.

I used a perfect, well-seasoned pole,

ripped it down the center and put my ladder together with the flat sides in.

The steps were short logs,

flat side up and level.

A ladder a man could walk up instead of climb.

There was four inches on the ground when it finally stopped.

Hopefully this was the last good snow of spring.

The cloud cover broke and a big blue spot opened up in the sky,

and the sun feels good on my face.

A good day to do some tin bending.

I have surprised myself with what I could make

with simple tools when a definite need arose.

And my need today was a new pan to heat water on the stove with.

My old wind is now starting to show a bit of rust.

I have made all kinds of things from empty fuel cans.

It seems that I always have a good stockpile of them in the woodshed.

Bush pilots have discarded many over the years.

And like they say, one man's trash is another man's treasure.

I don't think a man knows what he actually can do until he's challenged.

I do think a man has missed a very deep feeling of satisfaction

if he has never created something or at least completed

something with his own two hands.

We have grown accustomed to work on pieces

and parts of things instead of taking things to completion.