FOREST AND STREAM. 



[JAN. 2S, 1891. 



IN THE REGION ROUND NICATOWIS. 



lA-.— OTCATOWIS. 



EVERYBODY knows where Mcatowisis, how to reach 

 it, and what he can get when he is there; but why is 

 it that so few know how to spell it? It is Nicatowis, not 

 Nicatous, nor Nickertous— as may easily be demonstrated. 

 Nicatow, in Indian, is the fork, and primarily the junction 

 of the east and west branches of the Penobscot at Med way, 

 which itself was formerly called Nicatow. "I asked the 

 fellers down there if that was the place called Nigger- 

 town," said old Derb, the Kennebec cook on the survey 

 of '61, "and they laffed at me." Nicatowzs is the diminu- 

 tire — the Little Fork. It was formerly applied to the con- 

 fluence of the main stream Passadumkeag and what is 

 now called the Nicatowis Bra.nch. The lake above was 

 Giassobpe, or Clear Water Lake, into which flowed Gias- 

 sobeesis— Little Clear Water Lake — now corrupted into 

 Gassobeeis. This latter name is evidence on its face that 

 a larger lake of the same system, which could have been 

 nothing but the present Nicatowis, must have been called 

 Giassobee, for is or sis is strictly a comj)arative term, ex- 

 actly equivalent to lesser. So that not only is Nicatowis 

 a misnomer in its root meaning, but we can prove that 

 another name must necessarily have been applied to the 

 lake, which name was Giassobee. It is now too late to 

 correct the error in names, but the spelling should be 

 reformed to Nicatowis, which is good Indian and repre- 

 sents the correct pronunciation. 



Not that hundreds of people do not say Nicatous, but 

 they mean to use the other form. A clear cut and ele- 

 gant pronunciation is not characteristic of Maine people; 

 they clip and slur their words whenever possible. 

 Strangers usually make too hard work of their Indian, 

 like the one who called Mattawamkeag, Matwampsump- 

 kehac; the native-born soften Passadumkeag to Papsy- 

 dunky or even to Parsdunky. Olamon becomes Old Lemon, 

 Nesowadnehunk, Som-dyhunk; Chesuncook is Suncook, 

 and Caucomgomocsis, familiarly known as "The 

 Sis." No wonder there is difficulty in deciding the proper 

 foriu. Again sometimes three or four names for the 

 same place are in current use, as Little Telos Lake, 

 which is called Telosilos, Telosinis and Tellisannis, as 

 well as Pataquongamis and Round Pond, Abol also is 

 known by fom* or five different names. There is no 

 standard authority for either spelling or pronunciation. 

 The State maps and reports are hopelessly incorrect; the 

 pronunciation of the people is hard to catch and often 

 corrupt or abbreviated beyond recognition; most of the 

 Indians themselves do not know what the names mean; 

 and most of the well-intentioned people who ha ve tried 

 to help us out of the mud have only made matters worse 

 by becoming mired themselves. The notable exceptions 

 have been Thoreau and Mr. Hubbard, who have probably 

 done more than all others taken together to give iierman- 

 ence to some of our Indian names and secm'e for these a 

 uniform orthography. Yet, now and then, though rarely, 

 an error has crept past even theii" vigilance. For ex- 

 ample, to the rounded hill with one sheer side which 

 rises above the wooded level east of Chesuncook, 

 Mr. Hubbard gives the name Sowbunge Mountain, prob- 

 ably copying, and undoubtedly copying correctly, the 

 form given by some lumberman or hunter; but where in 

 Sowbunge does one find the beauty and the elegance of 

 the original Sowangawas, the Eagle's Nest? Who shall 

 say what Mattagoodus and Pattygumpus once were, or 

 whether there ever was any poetry in Crosshuntic? 



For sins of ignorance and sins of omission no doubt 

 there is pardon; but what shall be said of people who de- 

 liberately rename us; who come on trips of exploration, 

 and, going home, announce themselves the discoverers of 

 lakes which were lumbered and hunted on before they 

 were born; who, perceiving that our ponds are lakes, 

 wrench away the name which some pioneer had left to 

 the pond of his choice as his only memorial, to dub it 

 Echo Lake, or Eagle Lake, or Green LakeV Aren't there 

 enough such prosy names in the world already without 

 prosy people being allowed to make more of them? Bet- 

 ter Shin Pond, Tumble-down-Dick, Pollywog and Poke- 

 Moonshine to the end of their days than to be added to 

 the list of Echo Lakes, Long Lakes and Mud Ponds which 

 already exceeds in length the line of Banquo's progeny. 

 Two names, supplanted by accident it may be, should be 

 restored in the next edition of Hubbard's map. Both lie 

 in Seven in Fifteen — Rowe Pond of the map, which is 

 Ross's Pond, named for John Ross, the Bangor lumber- 

 man; and Poland Pond so called, which is by good rights 

 Island Pond, as the large island in it shows. The Sapomp- 

 keag of the map is the Napompkeag of the white hunters, 

 but the Indians call it Labombic and say that it means 

 rope. These are most likely printers" errors and excus- 

 able; but when it comes to malicious rechristening — why, 

 how would you feel if your name were St. Vincent and a 

 stranger told you that it was Robinson, or if not that it 

 ought to, and he would see to it that you came when he 

 called you? 



In a country where all communication must be by 

 water, those places are most important which command 

 the routes between the most rivers. Nicatowis does this 

 preeminently. From it, by short carries, one may reach 

 Brandy Pond on the head of Union River, the Sabao 

 Lakes on the West Machias, and, by way of Gassobeeis, 

 the Middle Machias Lakes; through these the St. Croix 

 •watex'S are easily accessible. Nicatowis is also not far 

 distant from the head of the Narraguagus. Thus it is 

 the highway to all the principal canoeing waters in east- 

 ern Maine. Chamberlain in the north and Nicatowis in 

 the east are the two strong points in the Maine woods — 

 aTid Darling holds the latter, not by accident let us be- 

 lieve. 



But Nicatowis itself, though the principal feeder of the 

 Passadumkeag, is on the shorter of the two branches. The 

 other, known as the Main Stream, wanders down a 

 general southwesterly course through broad meadows, 

 rising in ponds, but principally dependent upon its brooks 

 — Brown, the two Taylors, Wyman and others — until it 

 receives the Nicatowis Branch at the Fork about twelve 

 miles below the lake, thence it flows westerly, still 

 through low land and meadows, enlarged by the tribute 

 fjtt the two Lord Brooks, the Mattagascal, Scootahzin and 

 Cold Stream — a placid course, little broken by rapids and 

 only once expanding into a lake, emptying into the 

 Penobscot about thirty-five miles above Bangor. 



Last yeaj when Darling was arrested, several news- 



papers published the statement that Nicatowis is "fifty 

 miles from the. nearest railroad station, and to reach it 

 one must travel over a rough road." Without attempt- 

 ing to state the actual distance, it may be said that we 

 hauled from Enfield to the Gilman House, seven miles 

 from the lake, in four hours and a half, including stops, 

 and the road was as good as any of equal length in eastern 

 Maine. Those who gave the information may take either 

 horn of the dilemma on which they prefer to hang them- 

 selves, but these are the facts: it is not a very long nor a 

 very hard day's walk to go f x'om the railroad to Nicatowis. 



Though neither a handsome nor an ugly lake, the 

 friends of Nicatowis are safe when they praise its good 

 looks. It has featui-es, and some lakes have none. It is 

 a wooded lake, surrounded by low swells which nowhere 

 approach the dignity of mountains; very irregular in 

 shape, indented with long points and further broken by 

 islands; bounded by hard shores, which, though sheer and 

 without sunken rocks, are nevertheless forbidding to the 

 canoeman and afford camping places only where inter- 

 rupted by some little beach of gravel or disintegrated 

 granite. It is a granite lake — shores of loose granite, 

 ledges of granite, islands with solid foundations of the 

 best of granite, and a back country full of it. Now gi-anite 

 never has any suggestions of soft corners and cosiness; it 

 is rugged and dowgright — real New England stuff: on the 

 other hand, it always presents a tidy appearance. It may 

 be because granite abounds that the first impression of 

 Nicatowis upon a stranger is that it is rough but clean. 

 Of its irregularity nothing need be said, for such matters 

 are not made clearer by description. For one item, two 

 sets of narrows divide it into three parts of almost equal 

 length, and these are further subdivided by points into 

 bays and coves, one of which, West Lake, is recognized 

 by a name of its own, while others, like Duck Cove, 

 though smaller, are still of considerable extent. When 

 we went up the lake I attempted to map it, and succeeded 

 fairly well in getting in most of the islands and curves as 

 far as Norway Point, by aid of all the information I could 

 extract from the others as to which were islands and what 

 main land and what was out of sight; but when from 

 Darling's we saw the lake spread out with all its bays and 

 islaijds, and knew that there was much more unrevealed, 

 my map terminated suddenly with the remark, "And so 

 on, to infinity." 



v.— "TO GASSOBEEIS AND CAMPED." 



AVhen we started Wednesday morning the loons were 

 flying overhead, which we usually account a sign of wind, 

 but we made the run to Darling's with only a light breeze 

 following. We stopped there a moment for old acquaint- 

 ance sake, but, as Mr, Darling was in Lowell, stayed only 

 long enough to get a view of the lake and to look at the 

 establishment which has been built since father was 

 there last. It seems superfluous to write any description 

 of Darling's— -a log house of one room, a lean-to and a 

 loft; situated on a rocky promontory running out between 

 West Lake and the main Nicatowis; clean and comfort- 

 able within, and well supplied with tables and benches; 

 but we greatly admired the strong strategic value of the 

 place and in the selection recognized Darling's well- 

 known astuteness. Surrounded on three sides by water 

 it commands an extensive view of every avenue of 

 approach by water, while on the fourth side a cleared 

 field, extending back many rods, is well defended, if one 

 can judge from the lay of the land, by thick and tangled 

 woods, diificult to penetrate. 



Gassobeeis Stream, for which we were heading, lies 

 about east from Darling's behind the long point which 

 runs out from the east shore, forming part of the upper 

 narrows. The stream is usually rather shallow, so that 

 in several places the passengers commonly have to get 

 out and "farm it" while the guide "waits on her," to use 

 technical terms. But this year the water was high and 

 had been raised artificially by putting in two little dams 

 which flowed out part of the rapids. One of these caused 

 no trouble, but concerning the other there is a tale. 



Father is better than a guide book to tell you in ad- 

 vance what you are coming to, for he never forgets a 

 place once having seen it, and he knows Gassobeeis 

 Stream perfectly, every rock and turn in it. Accord- 

 ingly, before we reached the place, he told us of some 

 shoal water ahead, past which he and I must walk. 

 There was a steep bank at the lower end of the carry, he 

 said, and at its head an old dam with a sluiceway built 

 high for gates; below it was a hollow log which Sebattis 

 used to call his cannon. We came to the foot of the 

 quick water. The bank was there with a path running 

 up it through plenty of buckhorn brakes nearly waist 

 high and as wet as rain could make them. We went up 

 the hill and down it, and then the carry dived under 

 water for a space. Father was amazed; that carry never 

 had been flowed in his day. Then I told him that from 

 the top of the hill I had seen a small dam just round the 

 turn below which we got out. "But the dam was not 

 there," objected he, as willing to believe that the water 

 was running up hill as that he was mistaken. Neverthe- 

 less a dam I had seen, and this was the flowage of it. So 

 we struck out for the stream, through "squaw bush" 

 (Cornus stolonifera), alders and blue joint grass, all very 

 wet and sufficiently thick, got loganned, backed out and 

 tried again, found a place at last where, by venturing on 

 some old, slimy, and presumably rotten, sticks, I got 

 across dry-footed and he with one boot full of water; at 

 last got to the canoe again, Father still insisting that the 

 place wasn't natural. Soon we met bubbles floating 

 down. "That means quick water," said he, "but there 

 can't be any above this, for the dam is the head of 

 things." Then, suddenly, round a tm-n, as if to speak for 

 itself, up rose the old dam, shining and black as of yore, 

 with the water running through the old sluiceway and 

 Sebattis's "cannon" still there. The dam below, which 

 Father had not seen at all, was one of the temporary 

 affairs, and as Job and I were both strangers to the place 

 our testimony had not served for his enlightenment. 



Gassobeeis is pretty as such streams go. All navigable 

 streams are apt to be disappointing to those whose ideas 

 are drawn entirely from pictures and their own fancies, 

 who look for noble forests free from underbrush, traversed 

 by clear streams with gravelly beds on which lie "silver 

 scalit fishes," 



"With (ynnys Bcbynaad broun as synopar 

 And chyssell talys." 

 Such are seldom met in i*eal life. Real streams are apt 

 to run through meadows, bogs or flowed land; or if other- 

 wise it is usually the worse for the canoeman. Their 

 banks are thick with alders and scrub growth; were it 



not so that would be the worse for the hunter. And 

 their dark waters suggest bullfrogs and mud turtles in- 

 stead of the red-finned trout which actually inhabit them. 

 The lower part of Gassobeeis Stream runs through alder 

 ground and birches; the upper part is a bog brook and 

 must have been a famous beaver country in the old days. 

 Lambkill, sweet gale, leather leaf , rhodora and all the 

 heaths grow in abundance along the banks, giying a soft 

 and pleasant tone to the landscape. I like bogs; they are 

 very restful to look at, and always mean "plain sailing," 



When we reached Gassobeeis Lake we found that 

 Father's old camp ground among the Norways on the left 

 had been burned over, and the rain recommencing, we 

 were forced to take the first spot available. Yet not even 

 camping in the rain is a hardship; it only makes work 

 more the livelier. All help in unloading and covering the 

 goods, one looks for the ridgepole, one for the crotches, 

 tent pins are cut from the nearest bush and in how short 

 a time the tent is up. No matter if it is damp at first, 

 it soon dries. And the water shakes off the boughs so 

 thoroughly that the bed is not very damp. , It is one of 

 Father's fancies always to have some splits of cedar or a 

 piece of spruce bark or canvas to lay down along the sides 

 of the tent for the double purpose of preventing small 

 articles being lost and keeping the camp stuff dry. We 

 always carry something of the kind in the canoe with us, 

 abandoning it only when we come to a carry. He also 

 leaves on the back tent-pole an inch or two of the side 

 limbs, which make strong and convenient hooks for hang- 

 ing clothing and guns. 



We carry as little baggage as we can and then always 

 have too much. The tent and blankets, a firkin for small 

 groceries and a box for flour and bacon, cooking utensils 

 and clothing make up considerably more than the bulk 

 of the outfit. There is no room in one canoe for three 

 people and the luxuries of camping out, if by these one 

 understands folding camp-stools and rubber air beds, ad- 

 justable tables and patent camp stoves, frying-pans with 

 hinged handles and all the other folding and unfolding 

 nuisances which are advertised to make miserable the 

 lives of sportsm.en. Place your load with a two-mile 

 carry always in mind, and there's many an indispensable 

 will stay at home in the corner without being missed 

 When the books and opera glasses and sun umbrellas be^in 

 to appear, the old stager knows you are green and pities 

 your guide. Don't take too many clothes. You are per- 

 suaded into it in the vain belief that you will want to 

 change now and then, or that when you come out you 

 will want to put on something different from the clothes 

 you have worn and slept in for a month. It is a delusion. 

 Cleanliness is no more natural to the uncivilized man than 

 godliness. You wiU find that you can always pick out 

 the guide because he is the best dressed man in the party: 

 and, on the other score, after four weeks' jaunting in a rub- 

 ber bag, your best suit might very well be mistaken for 

 your worst; in either case, all you have on smells of smoke 

 and fir boughs, and will smell of it for weeks to come, 

 though you may be unconscious, so that you need not sup- 

 pose that your fellow travelers do not know where you 

 have been. If you take extra clothing on chances of 

 getting wet the chances are ten to nothing that if you are 

 wet enough to shift it will be by a general capsize and your 

 spare clothes will be as wet as the others; or you may be 

 drowned and so not need them after all. But if you 

 persist in carrying what you do not want, don't take old 

 ones. "The woods is the worst place in the world to wear 

 out old clothes," say the hunters. For myself I shall 

 never again take an extra dress. With a short skirt for 

 the woods and a long one for occasions, a woman can go 

 into the woods and return as far as Bangor in safety if 

 not without shame. I have tried it. 



We do not carry any canned provisions except con- 

 densed milk. They are heavy and inconvenient to pack, 

 and we would rather have simpler fare and fewer turns 

 on the carries. Flour and potatoes -will preserve life, and 

 the Spartan discipline of being obliged to procure your 

 luxuries or go without them, adds flavor to them. Father 

 declai"es that when his pole and gun will not supply him 

 something with bones in it, he will no longer go in the 

 woods. So far, for the first day or two, we never have 

 failed at a single meal to have meat or fish of some kind 

 in the kettle, though sometimes thrift has caused the rem- 

 nants or the supper to coldly furnish forth the breakfast 

 table. But we are not too proud to accept a gift, which 

 helps out sometimes. Fannie P. Hardy. 



THE WOODCOCK'S WHISTLE. 



Editor Forest and Stream: 



Woodcock shooting has been my particular and favor- 

 ite sport for now nearly seventeen years, and never for 

 an instant have I doubted the ability of the bird to pro- 

 duce the whistle with his bill, or correctly speaking, with 

 his throat, which explains why some who have held the 

 live bird up by the bill, and hearing it whistle, have 

 naturally thought that the sound was caused by the flap- 

 ping of the bird's wings. But if you stop to consider, the 

 whistle is one continuous quivering soundj made ever so 

 much faster than the wings of the bird are at the time 

 moving. To produce this continuous unbroken whistle 

 they would have to move with such rapidity that the eye 

 could not follow them. Imagine a kingfisher being able 

 to move his wings quick enough to produce that long 

 shrill chuckle which he gets off just after having darted 

 down and picked up a minnow. This whistle, chuckle 

 or yell of his is done while the fish is being carried in his 

 bill, and we all know that his laugh is not caused by the 

 wings; and the bill being closed to hold the fish the sound 

 must come from the throat. 



I turn to my record of woodcock shooting and note 

 that on Sept. 33, 1885, Mayor Brooks and myself were at 

 Nine-Mile River, and that we brought to bag twenty -two 

 cock and five grouse; and on that occasion I recollect per- 

 fectly, as we were coming out of the cover to the open 

 field to lunch one of my spaniels put up a cock. I just 

 caught a glimpse and let go, and on picking the bird up 

 found that I had broken one of his wings; so I carried him 

 out to the field, and while we were eating lunch let him 

 run about, as I was interested in getting the position of 

 his tail and wished to see him spread it out and turn it 

 up over his back since I desired to mount one in a correct 

 woodcock position. If I went near the bird up would 

 go his tail, down woul4 djrop his uninjured wing, and he 



