346 



RECREATION 



"I just remembered. I notice things as I 

 go." 



"Well, what did you notice?" 



"I noticed the trees and the banks." 



"And what did you notice about them?" 

 cross-questioned I. 



"I noticed as we came up the river from 

 the camp that the banks were high, and we 

 went through white pines and red pines and 

 jack pines. Those tall, scrawny trees down 

 there are jack pines. They grow about 

 anywhere, where other trees won't. We 

 came through them last. When out of the 

 bush and we saw the river again, we had 

 been walking in a swamp. Spruce trees 

 grow in the swamp. I did not see any 

 spruce trees on the way up the river." 



As we paddled homeward, I mused over 

 this artistic woodcraft, and made up my 

 mind to study the white pine, the red pine 

 and the jack pine, so that I, too, could turn 

 them to account. I noted, too, the banks 

 which Pierre had said were high. In fact, 

 they were all the same height ; he had made 

 a mistake as to the banks, but his skill in 

 reading the trees had filled me with so much 

 admiration that I did not mind this lapse. 

 The next day, however, I walked up the 

 river about half a mile inland and then I 

 saw what he had meant. From the charac- 

 ter of the trees he had reasoned that the land 

 away from the shore was high land up to 

 where the swamp in which we had found 

 ourselves began, and he was right. 



The Indians are guided by the trees more 

 than anything else. If you look across a 

 lake, you will see that the tops of about half 

 of the tall pine trees bend slightly toward 

 the east. There is a distinct trend to the 

 forest, always toward the east. On this the 

 Indian relies implicitly, and it does not 

 deceive him. Again, if an Indian, traveling 

 in the forest, makes a loop and intersects 

 his own trail, he knows it immediately, with- 

 out seeing any footprints, because of the 

 character of the timber. One of our party, 

 accompanied by the Indian, Big Paul, as 



guide, shot a moose. Big Paul had never 

 been in that country before, and, as it was a 

 stormy day, without the sun to guide him, 

 he became confused in his sense of direc- 

 tion and had to wander around somewhat 

 in order to find the camp again. But on the 

 following day he led us three miles through 

 the forest to the carcass. He did not follow 

 the back trail but he went apparently by 

 instinct to the moose. I followed him with 

 my compass. He would vary and waver in 

 his course nearly ninety degrees, first to 

 right and then to left, but he went to the 

 moose. Now and again he would point to 

 something he remembered particularly. 

 "Here," he would say, "is the rock where 

 you set the compass down"; or, "This is 

 where we were when we heard the shot." 

 Then he would point to the ground, where 

 to our asphalt-pavement-trained senses 

 there wasn't anything at all to see, and 

 make no comment, but would smile at us a 

 little and go on. By and by he came out 

 exactly at the moose. All I could get out of 

 him was that he went by the trees. 



In addition to noticing everything else, 

 your guide sees trails that you cannot see, 

 and notices the bitten twigs that you do not 

 discover have been browsed off until he 

 points it out to you. When a twig seems to 

 have been very freshly bitten off, he will 

 apply his own mouth to it, and bite it off 

 again. A comparison of the two ends will 

 serve as the foundation for an estimate as 

 to when the^moose went by. If he sees froth 

 on the twigs, he makes a sign to you not to 

 crack so many branches. 



Woodcraft is a science. One who would 

 learn it must learn to know the different 

 kinds of trees, and to recognize them with 

 certainty from afar off, and he must learn 

 to observe everything that he passes. The 

 power to observe is dependent on real and 

 classified knowledge. Having begun to 

 study this science of woodcraft, even the 

 trees that one passes in the railway train will 

 give one pleasure. 



