SOME MICHIGAN TRIPS. 



129 



ing that we would have a big catch of bear in the spring, but 

 were disappointed for we only caught three; but we caught quite 

 a lot of coon. We did not trap any for muskrat. 



My next trip to Michigan was to Kalkaska County, and I had 

 two partners, Moshier and Funk by name, and both were residents 

 of the state. Our camp was on the Manistee River near the Craw- 

 ford and Kalkaska County line. This trip was some ten or twelve 

 years later than the one previously mentioned, probably 1878. We 

 killed some thirty odd deer, and Mr. Moshier having some friends 

 living down close to the Indiana line, he shipped our venison 

 down to his friend and he sold it for us. I do not know where he 

 sold it but the checks came from a man by the name of Suttell, 

 N. Y. We caught 11 bear during the fall and spring. We caught 

 a good number of mink, coon and fox, also a few marten. 



I should have said that on my trip on Thunder Bay River we 

 caught several beaver, but on the Manistee we saw no fresh beaver 

 signs but plenty of old beaver dams. We would make an occa- 

 sional trip on to the Boardman and Rapid Rivers for mink. On 

 Rapid River two or three miles above Rickers Mill was a colony 

 or family of three or four beaver, but we did not try to catch them. 



My third trip to Michigan was to the Upper Peninsula, in 

 Schoolcraft County. A pard of mine by the name of Ross and 

 myself had a boat made at Manistique, and started the first of Sep- 

 tember. We poled and rowed the boat up the Manistique River for 

 a distance of about a hundred miles, according to our estimate. 

 The boat was heavily loaded with our outfit, and we were nearly 

 a month making the trip up the river to where we built our camp 

 on a small lake about one-half mile from the main river. We found 

 mink, marten, beaver and coon quite plentiful, but from what I 

 read bear and wolves are more plentiful there now than they were 

 about 1879. At that time there was not a railroad in that section, 

 nor scarcely a tree cut in the northern part of the Upper Peninsula, 

 with the exception of up about the Iron Works where they were 

 cutting timber and burning coke and charcoal. In fact, I found 

 bear more plentiful in Lower Michigan. 



About the fifteenth of October we had t'.:e camp in shape and 



