86 THE PINE-TREE, OR 



This event we anticipate with as much interest as voyagers 

 are wont to feel when they meet upon the ocean after several 

 months at sea. Letters and newspapers are expected, and, when 

 received, perused with avidity. New acquaintances are to be 

 made, new tools to be examined, and every thing foreign, how- 

 ever insignificant, is an object of interest. 



The introduction of the team to winter quarters is always at- 

 tended with more or less trouble : much less, however, of late 

 than in former years. Then, all the chains and other implements 

 connected with the business, together with provisions for the crew 

 and provender for the oxen, enough to last until the swamps, 

 rivers, and lakes were frozen, so as to allow teams to pass over 

 them, were boated in the manner described in a former chapter, 

 which required many trips, and were continued until a late pe- 

 riod in the fall. 



To the latest trips an additional and most uncomfortable in- 

 convenience is added to the many hardships of boating provisions. 

 This is when the ice makes on our poles while in the act of pass- 

 ing up over rapids. Often our hands become so cold and stiff 

 as to render it very difficult to hold on to the icy instrument. 

 The mariner may stop a moment, even in a gale, while at the 

 yard-arm, to blow his freezing fingers ; but not so with the lum- 

 berman with a loaded boat in a rapid current : every finger is 

 needed every moment, as life and property would be endangered 

 by paying even slight attention to cold fingers. 



"Where the nature of the route will allow it, and an early start 

 is desired, our teams are attached to a long sled, lightly loaded, 

 which is dragged over miry, rough roads. In crossing large 

 streams, we unyoke the oxen and swim them over. If we have 

 no boat, a raft is constructed, upon which our effects are trans- 

 ported, when we re-yoke and pursue our route as before. Our 

 oxen are often very reluctant to enter the water while the anchor 

 ice runs, and the cold has already begun to congeal its surface. 



