636 
FOREST AND STREAM 
December, 1920 
WINTER SIWASHING IN ALASKA 
THE TRUE WOODSMAN CARRIES VERY LITTLE EQUIPMENT WHILE ON 
THE TRAIL AND LIVES AS SIMPLY AND NATURALLY AS POSSIBLE 
By J. W. STOLLE 
HERE are thousands 
of Sportsmen in these 
United States who 
have never really 
camped out in their 
luxurious lives. There 
are a few who are 
real, dyed-in-the-wool 
woodsmen and these, 
when they go a-camp- 
ing, scorn such super- 
fluities as sleeping 
bags, air mattresses 
and thermos bottles. Their idea of 
camping is to get as far away from so- 
called civilization as they can, and to 
not only get close to nature but to live 
as naturally as possible without dis- 
carding comfortable clothing or such ab- 
solute necessities. A man can really 
rough it in 50 below zero weather with- 
out discarding his artificial apparel. 
That would be going beyond the line 
of diminishing returns. 
As a guide in the interior of Maine I 
saw much that was useless brought into 
the woods on hunting and fishing trips. 
Indeed, it was part of my duties to pack 
the maddening stuff over the rough 
mountain trails on hot, midsummer days. 
And often, though not always — thanks 
to those true sportsmen who looked up 
to their guides as their superiors in the 
limitless wild — I have carried, along 
with his grub and other equipment, five 
or six different fly and bait rods and 
three or four rifles for one sportsman! 
And these were not short hikes; several 
that I recall covered over fifty miles of 
torturous trails. 
Perhaps it was during these years of 
my guidehood, when I often ran into a 
proposition that involved the portaging 
of so much useless paraphernalia that 
my ingrown aversion toward superfluous 
camp gear became an ob- 
session. Up in Alaska 
during the winter of 1916- 
1917 I had ample oppor- 
tunity to give rein to my 
love for the Siwash meth- 
od of camping. 
My first adventure at 
Siwashing in Alaska hap- 
pened in a rocky canyon. 
In attempting to pole a 
three by twelve canvas 
scow containing the neces- 
sities for a one-night 
stand, across to a tiny, 
wooded island, I lost pole- 
bottom and, as I drifted, 
struck a submerged rock. 
The result was that I was 
catapulted into the icy, 
muddy, glacial stream. 
After some strenuous ef- 
fort I regained the boat 
and later the pole and my 
hat and after a hard bat- 
tle with the headstrong, silt-laden cur- 
rent made the same shore from which 
I had so lately departed. Darkness was 
filling the mighty canyon and I was 
very wet and cold. My partner, who 
had been an interested spectator of my 
mishap, soon joined me and helped to 
gather driftwood for a life-saving fire. 
October nights in Alaska are chilly, es- 
pecially if one’s clothing is saturated 
from head to foot with glacial water. 
Dry driftwood was extremely scarce, 
but we managed to find enough to keep 
a fire roaring and crackling far enough 
into the night to dry out my ciothes. As 
luck would have it, I had along another 
change of underwear, and squatting un- 
der the shelter of a canvas tarp stretched 
over a shedlike frame of crooked poles, 
I soon felt quite comfortable. 
But here we were, midway up a can- 
yon four miles in length, the rocky, per- 
pendicular walls of which were nearly 
four hundred feet high, convinced of the 
futility of trying to get our outfit any 
further up the maddening stream; rain- 
ing just enough to keep our spirits from 
soaring up and out of the dreary, dismal 
canyon and utterly at a loss as to the 
best way out of our dilemma. Next 
morning we discovered, about half a mile 
down the canyon, a natural trail that 
had been worn out down the side of the 
canyon wall. It took fis all day to pack 
our outfit from the boat to the woods in 
the benchland above. And it was all 
bard, brutal work. 
Just before the freeze-up my partner 
left me. It was fifty-five miles to An- 
chorage, the nearest town. I spent the 
winter on Moose, Eska, Wolverine and 
Little Susitna creeks and I am speaking 
the unalloyed truth when I say that a 
solitary life on the Alaskan winter 
trails is “roughing it” with a vengeance. 
And yet, as I look back upon that mem- 
orable winter, how I miss those white, 
silent trails, crossed here and there with 
the telltale tracks of moose, lynx, fox 
and mink! 
Often I started out from my cabin at 
daylight, and with neck-rope and gee- 
pole, guided and dragged a sled loaded 
with a seven by eight sheet of canvas, 
three or four heavy blankets, an axe, 
cooking outfit and grub enough to last 
three or four days and mushed along the 
mysterious trail till darkness called a 
halt. 
With the first warning of approaching 
darkness I would build a fire, put up my 
canvas shed, spread the blankets under 
the shed on some hastily gathered spruce 
boughs spread upon the snow, and after 
cutting much wood would squat down 
to the pleasure of cooking supper. 
After supper I would sit by the fire 
for hours and gaze at the cold, scintil- 
lating stars or at the greater glory of 
the Aurora, and cogitate on the mystery 
and grandeur of life. ] 
T HE principle of the struggle for ex- 
istence and the apparent survival 
of the morally unfit was very for- 
cibly impressed upon my mind one frosty, 
moonlit night while mushing along with 
my sled and outfit to my home camp, 
a pole and dirt roofed cabin made of 
green cottonwood logs. I was snowshoe- 
ing, for the hard packed sled trail had 
been filled with a foot of new snow. Sud- 
denly the awful silence was broken by 
a shrill, piteous squeal. Just ahead, 
squarely in the trail I saw what at the 
first glance looked to be a wolf. I 
stopped and threw a projectile into the 
firing chamber of my carbine. The sin- 
ister, wolf-like apparition proved to be 
a great horned owl in the act of trying 
to kidnap a fullgrown 
snowshoe rabbit. I emit- 
ted a discouraging shout, 
and the owl in a rage of 
disgust left the lifeless 
carcass of the rabbit in 
the snow on the moonlit 
trail, surrounded by bits 
of scattered fur. How un- 
just it seemed, there in 
the silent cold of the moon- 
lit wilderness 1 The rabbit 
had done most of the 
struggling and the owl 
had survived. The rabbit, 
an innocent vegetarian, 
killed by the owl, who lived 
by murdenng just such in- 
nocents a? the snowshoe 
hare, that harmless, snow- 
like symbol of purity. 
On a cold January mor- 
ning, when my pocket 
thermometer insisted that 
it was 52 below, I en- 
Mushing along with my sled and outfit 
