Ill 



OO-KOO-HOO'S EL DORADO 



OUR WINTER CAMP 



BEAR LAKE was beautiful. Its shores were fringed here and 

 there with marshy reeds or sandy beaches; and its rivulets, 

 flowing in and out, connected it with other meres in other 

 regions. At dawn moose and caribou came thither to drink; 

 bears roamed its surrounding slopes; lynxes, foxes, fishers, 

 martens, ermines, and minks lived in its bordering woods. 

 Otters, muskrats, and beavers swam its inrushing creeks; 

 wolverines prowled its rocky glens, and nightly concerts of 

 howling wolves echoed along its shores. The eagles and the 

 hawks built their nests in its towering trees, while the cranes 

 fished and the ruffed grouse drummed. Nightly, too, the owls 

 and the loons hooted and laughed at the quacking ducks and the 

 honking geese as they flew swiftly by in the light of the moon. 

 Salmon-trout, whitefish, pike, and pickerel rippled its placid 

 waters, and brook-trout leaped above the shimmering pools of 

 its crystal streams. It was Oo-koo-hoo's happiest hunting 

 ground, and truly it was a hunter's paradise ... a poet's 

 heaven ... an artist's home. 



"What fools we mortals be!" when we live in the city! 



The site chosen for the lodges was on one of two points jutting 

 into the lake, separated by the waters of Muskrat Creek. On 

 its northwest side ran a heavily timbered ridge that broke the 

 force of the winter winds from the west and the north, and thus 

 protected Oo-koo-hoo's camp, which stood on the southeast side 

 of the little stream. Such a site in such a region afforded wood, 



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