“Noy. 27, 1884.) 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
8483 
orrather mistaking it for a slough. We ought to have 
made a camp there, for we afterward learned that the 
Hemlock and dam on the point is one of the best trout 
grounds in that region. Let future explorers profit by our 
blunders. 
Carrying our boats over the high embankment of the dam, 
and taking lunch we started afresh, and after an hour’s pad- 
dle came upon the first of the Hemlock rapids. We had 
heard of these famous rapids, and in many mysterious warn- 
ings had been apprised of the dangers thereof, But all our 
information was of the vaguest kind; nobody seemed to know 
exactly where they were, or exactly what were the perils 
attending them. Indeed, that whole country seemed a ter7a 
incognite to the few men whom we ran across. 
We therefore nerved our hearts for war when we heard 
the water thundering ahead, and paddled with caution. Vain 
was our fear, A massof black water was coiling like a 
corkscrew in our front, but plunged unbroken between the 
breakers on either side, The descent was sharp but short. 
We steered into the black water, and avoiding one or two 
rocks obstructing the entrance, our boat darted down the in- 
cline and shot out into the smooth water below without 
shipping a drop. Encouraged by this success, we advanced 
upon the second rapid, which lay three-quarters of a mile 
beyond, As we drew near [I saw the birch canoe drawn up 
on the beach, and the guide walking along the shore recon- 
noitering the ground, Hobomok hailed him and interro- 
gated him respecting his opinions in tiis wise: 
“Portage, John?” 
And he answering, replied: ‘‘Hasier than t’other,” 
Whereat we proceeded, the current caught us, and the 
trouble began. 
And here, for the benefit of posterity, will I describe the 
character of that rapid. The river here is flowing approxi- 
. mately due south. An outcropping ridge of metamorphic 
rock runs across the country east and west, consequently at 
right angles to ihe river and consequently crossing it. 
Through this ridge the river has worn its channel, but in 
following the softest rock and seeking the most advantageous 
places for eroding the same, it describes a half circle to the 
westward before passing the barrier and resuming its south- 
erly course. Between the rocky walls of this half circle lie 
the Hemlock Rapids—the first where the riyer strikes the 
ridge, the second ati the middle point of the above-described 
arc, and the third and last at the end thereof, where the 
river makes its final jump and clears the ledge. Parallel 
ridges of the upturned rock extend across the stream, the 
edges of the layers facing the descending water, which, by 
wearing away the softer under part, has left a sharp serrated 
line above, and between the ridges large bouiders brought 
down from above find anchorage, and so thickly strew the 
bed that to pick 4 channel among them is next to impossible. 
And, lastly, there is the whole water of the river breaking 
and plunging about these obstructions so fiercely as to defy 
any attempt at navigation, 
Parenthetically, 1 remark that IL have an abiding belief 
that in an mnlouded boat I could shoot that rapid without 
particular risk; but in a boat loaded as ours was, the passage 
came under the head of extra hazardous. 
The currents sucked us down on the boulders and though 
we ayoided the first, the boat immediately bumped on 
another, img there, swong around broadside to the stream 
and careened uutil ine water began to rush in, But in the 
same Instant we had leaped overboard, lifted the boat bodily 
off the rock and held her trembling and palpitating in the 
current. 1 left Hobomok there holding the boat which 
tugyed at the painter like an unruly steer, and scrambled 
back to the first ledge of rock to warn the other boats. The 
roaring water drowned my voice but my gestures were 
sufficiently eloquent and convincing. The rest of the party 
landed, and ranging themselves along the bank jeered at our 
struggles and shouted advice and suggestions which we 
fortunately could not hear, I returned to the boatand with 
great difficulty we drew her through the maze of rocks to a 
smooth deep basin where the river took temporary breath 
preparatory to making another jmp. Crossing the basin, 
we baled out the boat and started afresh, this time cautiously 
holding on at bow and stern, The water varied from ankle 
to arm pit and ran so fiercely that it was scarcely possible to 
keep a footing on the slippery stones. A few steps further 
on and the bottom dropped out altogether. Rocks ahead of 
us showed their ugly faces so thickly that it was vain to 
think of threading them, smooth perpendicular walls on 
either side forbade our landing. 
We stood in the water holding our dancing boat, cogitating 
stupidly on the best mode of escape, but the water was too 
cold to indulge in any protracted discussion and we took 
the chance of total wreck by scrambling into the boat and 
going it blind. There was a big rock standing high out of 
water about a hundred feet below us and to this we steered, 
hoping to make a landing upon it, and let the boat down by 
her long painter to the first rock she would strike and there 
let her hang until we could reach her and carry her to the 
smooth, still water now closeat hand. And this we succeeded 
in doing, but not without taking water, nearly ruining the 
eareo and getting a ducking ourselves. 
We then turned our attention to the other boats and their 
cargoes, which we painfully packed along the shore. It was 
late in the day when we had completed the passage of 
the rapid, and we went into camp at once tu recuper- 
ate, supposing that our portaging wus done and that 
we were now clear of the dreaded Hemlocks. But the next 
day a still larger rapid was discovercd only a quarter of a 
mile ahead of us. It was much like the one just above us, 
but longer and wider, and broken by an island in mid-stream, 
making two channels and less water. It was clearly imprac- 
ticable for our boats, without taking an account of the 
further fact that a log jam was bridging the stream for 
several hundred feet. It was evident that here we would 
haye to carry our boats through the woods. There ought to 
have been a well-deiined and well-beaten trail, for doubtless 
that rapid has been portaged ever since the day when Astor 
and the Hudson’s Bay Company sent their trappers and 
courriers du bois into that region for peltry. And a trail 
there was, but what a trail! Rocks incumbering it, under- 
brush concealing it, bogs breaking it, and windfalls across 
it. Show me the man who alleges there is any fun in mak- 
ing a portage, and [ will shoot him—or at him, and trust 
to luck for the result, ; 
_ After a day's fishing we broke camp and paddled down to 
the head of the rapid. We landed the baggage, carried 
our boats up the bank, and then unanimously settled upon 
divers seductive logs and took a solemn smoke. Which 
done we began work. 
__ The baggage rolled up in formidable packs was strapped 
. on our shoulders, and then each man, carrying some smaller 
articles in his hands, commenced the toilsome journey. It 
was a quarter of a mile, no less, that we had to march over 
the rocks, windfalls and bogs aforesaid, but we made it event- 
These were rigged with 
poles projecting over bow and stera like bowsprits, which 
ually, and returned for the boats. 
poles were then placed on the collar bones of two unhappy 
wretches (the writer being one) who with woe depicted on 
their countenances and profanity escaping from their lips, 
stuggered off and fell into the first bog, Forttmately a berry 
patch was close at hand and the miserable men were soon re- 
vived and proceeded. But this is a painful theme, and I for- 
beat. Suflice it that we made the portage. 
There is a lumber camp at the head of that rapid and an- 
other a couple of miles below it, and for the benefit of who- 
ever may be inclined to visit that recion, [ would remark in 
passing, that he may pitch his tent to advantage at either 
After leaving the rapid we paddled to the lower 
camp. <A party of hunters, however, were already in pos- 
Session, and as a cnrsory inspection of their camp disclosed a 
place, 
package of alleged tobacco labelled ‘‘Miner’s and Puddler’s 
Best,” we incontinently fled and went into camp some eighty 
rods to windward. 
On the river bank overhanging the water at the spot where 
our boats were beached stood a blazed cedar, and in the blaze 
written with pencil were the words: ‘Section Line between 
Sections 25 and 26.” As the Paint is a meandered stream we 
had frequently found such witness trees, but the inscription 
upon this one enabled us to locate our position with mathe- 
matical certainty, for reference to our map instantly showed 
that the only sections of those numbers on the Paint River 
were in towuship 44 north of range 84 west. 
As to the fishing at that point I will not speak, for my rod 
remained untroubled in its case, and its owner divided his 
time equally between smoking and sleeping in the comfort- 
able bend of that same overhanging cedar. To a Chicago 
min such glorious rest and indolence is far better fishing 
than is offered by the stream. 
While in camp there a large pool was discovered a mile or 
so back in the woods, and two of the party one frosty morn- 
ing formed an ambuscade for deer. They killed none, but 
brought back several ducks and a large quantity of rasp- 
berries. ‘‘We cannot shoot deer in the close season,” says 
one, and truly, after I had witnessed several ineffectual 
attempts to do su, 1 began to think there was reason in 
him. 
Eastward of our camp lay a lake which, for reasons ob- 
scure, is called Lost Lake, and near it is a store and semi-hotel 
belonging toa lumber company. We learned this from a wild 
Milesian who visited our camp on a prospecting tour for 
whisky. He was a man to whom every event of life was a 
new source of melancholy, but he was communicative withal, 
and having boned a handful of tobacco trom Hobomok, 
he poured forth the full tale of his woes. We condoned 
with him and then turned bis attention to the country round 
about. Of that he knew but little, but according to his 
hearsay testimony, the number of deer about Lost Lake was 
something wonderful. Somebody (a Crystal Falls man 
zealous for the enforcement of the game laws) had killed 
three deer there last Sunday, and why shouldn’t we? Thus 
reasoned Paddy. But we were not after deer out of season. 
We had tried it and seen the folly of our ways. Had they 
not crossed the muzzles of our guns daily, and yet returned 
to their fawns unharmed? Truly, why should we tramp 
six miles to Lost Lake for deer. But we availed ourselves 
of Mickey’s information to visit the Lake House, ¢s the store 
is called, and get a supply of piteb for our boats. 
Our next camp was some eight miles below the Hemlock 
Rapids, and opposite the mouth of the Chicagon River. The 
water between the two points was deep and tranquil, with 
hardly a shoal or rapid breaking the smooth quiet reaches of 
the river, a fact which our late experience had taught us to 
appreciate profoundly. 
The spot chosen by us had evidently been but lately aban- 
doned by some other party, for we found there a bower of 
birch trees carefully set in a square about the place where 
their tent had been, and tent poles and pegs ready made to 
our hands. There, too, was a well-built fireplace, the sparks 
of a recent fire still living in the ashes. The place was evi- 
dently the favorite haunt of Indians, relics of their wigwam 
and the rubbish and debris appurtenant thereto being not a 
hundred yards from our tent. The buildings of a logging 
camp also stood at some distance down stream, and from 
them we unblushingly faked three stools and a Jong bench. 
The day following our arrival was marked by alternate 
thunder storms and sunshine, the former predominating, 
much to the discomfort of the guide and the Milwaukee 
man, who had gone to Crystal Falls for supplies. The rest 
of us passed the day in awaiting their return, for the weather 
gave us no encouragement to explore the country. There 
are no trout in the Paint at that point, nothing in fact but 
pickerel, of which we caught an ample supply. Game there 
Was none, except deer, which we did not molest, and ducks 
which we could not recover from their marshes. 
The Chicagon River is a splendid place for ducks, The 
stream is sluggish and half choked with lilies and marsh 
weeds, and wild rice and cat-tails line the swampy shores: 
but without a dog, the hunter has little chance of filling his 
bag from the flocks of birds thal he will find there. At least 
such was our experience. The Indians are reputed to make 
this stream a regular highway between Chicagon Lake and 
the Paint, but 1 question if it be navigable for anything but 
a muskrat. 
On the third day we struck our tent and resumed our pad- 
dies. A small rapid and a little shoal water encountered at 
the outset, were the only breaks in the deep water of the 
river for threé miles. We passed a log slide on the bank 
where men were working, and fiye minutes after came in 
sight of a log bridge and a logging camp which we knew to 
be but three miles above the fall. We love to and consulted. 
It was not our desire to end our journey that day, so we 
made for shore and pitched our tent, and spent the next 
twenty-fours in refreshing idleness, 
A brief spell at the paddles the next day brought our boats 
as near Crystal Falls as the cataract from which the village 
takes its name would allow. Here ended our voyage. We 
shipped our baggage and the birch canoe to Chicago, and 
gave the other boats to the guide, who instantly con- 
verted them into coin of the realm, and—pbut I will not re- 
late the subsequent performances of that thirsty soul. In 
the woods, no man could direct his course more truly; what 
matters it then if in town he had recourse to triangulation in 
getting about? 
If Ihave made little or no reference in the aboye to our 
exploits with rod or rifle, the omission is not accident, it is 
design. Not that I would have it supposed that there is no 
game in the country, or that we lacked skill to procure it, 
it were grievous error to indulge in any such supposition. I 
purposely omitted such details for the reason that the river 
and the nature thereof were the part I wished to make prom 
inent, to the end that whoeyer may desire to follow our 
tracks may do so with better knowledge of the coun a than 
we had. 15 A be 
Curicaco, Tl., 1884, 
UP THE CUPSUPTUC. 
apes Parmachenee-Oupsuptic (Cupsuptue, I prefer to 
spell it, as it is on Dill’s map) record, in Forrst anp 
STREAM of Noy. 13, is good. The carry is certainly six 
miles, many callit eight, 1 diditin August, 1882, and it 
took two hours and forty-five minutes. We were delayed, 
however, the last half of the way by a heavy shower. What 
rendered the carry: hard then was not so much rocks and 
roots of trees as slipperiness, from the fact that the path was 
not much worn. But difficult or not, it is well worth the 
cost of walking, both from the interest and beauty of ap- 
proach, and the delectableness of Lake Parmachenee and 
John Danforth’s camp at the other end, To my mind, of 
all the boarding camps in the Rangeley region, John Dan- 
forth’s at Parmachenee, and Capt. Barker’s af Bemis, on 
Mooselucmeguntic—called Camps Bemis because there are 
some ten or a dozen separate cabins—bear the palm. I know 
nothing of the kind more delightful than to arrive at. Bemis 
by the captain’s little steamer in the edge of evening, and 
be ushered into one of his cabins so deftly made of logs and 
birch bark, with a bright blazing fire in the open fire place, 
and a comfortable bed behind a partition, the whole cabin to 
yourself, or yourself and your companion, and all as neat as 
a pin; or to reach Camp Caribou, John Danforth’s, afler the 
toils and delights of the trip up the Cupsuptuc, over the 
carry and up the lake to the island on which the camp is 
situated, and be welcomed by Lewis Ficket and his wife to 
good fare and one of the most uwuique and delightfully situ- 
uated camps in the world, 
Jobn Danforth is a genius in architecture as well asa first- 
class hunter and guide. His cottage, as it deserves to be 
called, is a triple building, in one part two stories, for the 
keeper and his wife, the others one story, one part a good- 
sitting room for his guests, warmed by a large, open stove, 
and one divided into sleeping rooms with comfortable beds, 
and all ingeniously put together by axe and auger and per- 
haps crosscut saw, from the lumber on the spot, and as neat 
and convenient as one would wish. 
But the carry record reminded me of my trip over the same 
ground in August, 1882, and I sat down to write some of 
the recollections of it for the Forest aND STREAM. 
We were three, of whom Monatiquot was the elder and 
the fisherman, and the other two, a young Unitarian minis- 
ter, of Boston, and a Harvard student, his parishioner, were 
along for the health and pleasure of the jaunt. We came 
down from Kennebago to Haines’s on the 16th, and by 
arrangement Capt. Barker’s little yawl steamer, with Elmer 
Thomas in charge, was on hand the next morning at 
8. AS we were going light, and the two non-fishermen 
did not care for a man at Parmachenee, we took but one 
guide, Eugene Herrick, of Rangeley, it being agreed that 
Elmer should take the oars for us above the falls. 
It was a delightful morning and our little craft, about the 
size of a large rowboat, steamed away from Haines’s with the 
kindly farewells and God-speed-yous of mine host Richard- 
son and his guests. With Bugene’s kand on the helm, and 
Himer’s care at the engine and lookout, we headed northward, 
passed Pine Point, and between the mouth of the Rangeley 
stream on the east and Senator Frye’s camp prettily perched 
on the rocks on the west, and entered Cupsuptuc Lake. And 
here Our voyage came near an all too early and sorrowful 
end. Hlmer, standing by the boiler, suddenly shut off steam 
and shouted to port helm, and, before the words were fairly 
out of his mouth or any of us had seen anything amiss, he 
was overboard, standing on a rock whose surface was just 
under water and throwing all his weight against the boat to 
prevent her striking, It was done as quick as thought, and 
showed Himer to be a young man of presence of mind and 
prompt action, The boat struck, but happily not with suf- 
ficient force to stave a hole or start a leak, and, after picking 
up Elmer’s cap which had set off in the fray on a voyage of 
its own, we moved onward again up the lake three miles or 
so and entered the Cupsuptuc River. The following hour’s 
sail was charming beyond my ability to describe. Imagine 
our little craft puffing away and pushing a tiny wave before 
her up a winding opening in the dense woods on the perfectly 
smooth jet black water, in whose depths the trees on either 
bank with every limb, leaf, or cluster of hanging moss, and 
the pure blue of the sky above, were perfectly mirrored, and 
now and then a startled duck making a path straight away 
with clattering wings and spattering feet, or kingfisher keep- 
ing a little before us for a time, crossing from bank to bank 
and shrilly chattering his displeasure, and you have it as well 
as I can give, At the foot of the falls the steamer was moored 
and left, and we “‘carried” one-fourth of a mile—the same 
carry was as much as two miles three years before when I 
helped take a boat up to the top of the falls. 
From this point up to the Parmachenece carry the stream 
in shallow, often rapid, and very winding, with once or 
twice a fallen tree across, and nothing hut the lightest 
stream boats and patience can get one on at the rate of more 
than two miles an hour, Oné of the two boats we found 
{here had _bow-facing oars, and being the lightest, into it 
were put Harvard and the luggage with Eugene to row, 
while Clericus and Monatiquot took the other with 
Elmer. Eugene was to have taken the lead, but bow-facing 
oars were nof in his experience, and while he was whirling 
round, and backing, and filling, trying to get his craft’s hea 
up siteam and keep it there, Elmer got ahead. It was mirth- 
provoking to all but poor Eugene, He, however, in time 
mastered the situation, and now and then, when Hlmer was 
getting his boat’s nose out of the bushes or off a sandbank, 
or was dragging her over a shallow, his boat’s bow would 
heave in sight and we would exchange halloos and anxious 
inquiries, When, however, at 1:40, we reached the landing 
he was not far behind, and roundly asserted that after all, 
on such a stream as the Cupsuptuc above the falls, bow- 
facing oars are the thing, and they doubtless are. Of this 
part of the trip I must say that, notwithstanding noyelty of 
experience and interest of sights and incidents, the last half 
gels to be slightly tedious. One wants to bend his limbs and 
change his method of locomotion—in a word, ‘‘to be there,” 
One thinks a dozen times that the landing place must have 
been passed, but it hasn’t. You are sure to know it when 
you come to it. 
A good lunch, Elmer dispatched to his steamer, the first- 
named walk over the long carry in two hours aud three- 
quarters, with hard rain the last half, boat on the Megal- 
loway and the lake, and we were at Camp Caribou at 
5:45 P, M. Monatiguot, 
