A Canoe Voyage to Northward 



joying the changing effects of the weather on the drip- 

 ping wilderness. Strolling a little way back into the 

 woods when we went ashore for luncheon, I found fine 

 specimens of cedar, and here and there a birch, and 

 small thickets of wild apple. A hemlock, felled by 

 Indians for bread-bark, was only twenty inches thick 

 at the butt, a hundred and twenty feet long, and 

 about five hundred and forty years old at the time it 

 was felled. The first hundred of its rings measured 

 only four inches, showing that for a century it had 

 grown in the shade of taller trees and at the age of one 

 hundred years was yet only a sapling in size. On the 

 mossy trunk of an old prostrate spruce about a hun- 

 dred feet in length thousands of seedlings were grow- 

 ing. I counted seven hundred on a length of eight 

 feet, so favorable is this climate for the development 

 of tree seeds and so fully do these trees obey the com- 

 mand to multiply and replenish the earth. No wonder 

 these islands are densely clothed with trees. They 

 grow on solid rocks and logs as well as on fertile soil. 

 The surface is first covered with a plush of mosses 

 in which the seeds germinate; then the interlacing 

 roots form a sod, fallen leaves soon cover their feet, 

 and the young trees, closely crowded together, sup- 

 port each other, and the soil becomes deeper and 

 richer from year to year. 



I greatly enjoyed the Indian's camp-fire talk this 

 evening on their ancient customs, how they were 

 taught by their parents ere the whites came among 

 them, their religion, ideas connected with the next 

 world, the stars, plants, the behavior and language of 



[ 123 ] 



