FOREST AND STREAM 
637 
December, 1920 * 
countered a big moose track that 
crossed my trail where it came out 
upon a desolate, wind-swept tundra 
about four miles wide. I determined 
at once to trail the big fellow and 
give him battle, for moose meat is 
always welcome north of 63°. Pulling 
the sled a short distance off the beaten 
trail I filled my pack with the barest 
necessities of a three days’ sojourn with 
the elements, cached the rest of my out- 
lit in a tree and insured it against mo- 
lestation by wandering wolverines by 
placing three large steel traps at the 
base of the tree. 
Equipped with my gun, an axe, a can- 
vas tarp and three blankets, a hunting 
knife, a little tea, oatmeal and bacon, 
two small tin pails and a frying pan, I 
struck off on the track. It was cold — 
the fringe of my parka hood was white 
with my crystalized breath and I had a 
hard time to keep my feet from going 
on a strike. The snow was barely three 
feet and the bull seemed to have had 
little difficulty in wallowing through it. 
On I went, now picking my way easily 
through the spruce and white birch, now 
fighting my way through a maddening 
tangle of alders and willows where the 
chase led across a swale or brook. The 
moose seemed to be going cross country 
without stopping to feed, but I hoped to 
get a shot at him next day. Owing to 
the short days in winter, an Alaskan 
musher does not heed the noon time call 
to lunch, but swallows his hunger and 
makes the most of the daylight. I did 
not, therefore, stop for lunch, but mushed 
along industriously till twilight. Then I 
had to hustle for some fire-wood and 
supper. 
When the mercury is two inches be- 
low zero the solitary musher who must 
camp in the open on the snow, chops 
wood with a great zest. It means sc 
much to him to have a cheerful, glowing 
fire, and it is an emphatic nuisance to 
be compelled from sheer want to get up 
at all hours of the night to cut more 
wood. After the fire, the next considera- 
tion is the canvas shed. This is easily 
constructed by fastening a cross pole to 
two trees about eight feet apart. If 
I could find a branch at a suitable 
height upon which to rest the ends of 
the cross-pole I would make a seam at 
the desired height by driving the bit 
of my axe as deeply as possible into the 
tree parallel with the grain. Into this 
opening I would drive a dry, wooden 
wedge to act as a crotch to receive the 
pole. Dry wood wedges are the best be- 
cause the wedges made of frozen green 
wood, by virtue of their glassiness bound 
out of the opening as fast as you can 
drive them in. Four or five straight 
poles about ten feet long are next laid 
from the cross pole to the snow. This 
forms the skeleton of the shed. The 
canvas tarp is thrown over the frame, 
stretched and the edges firmly weighted 
down and banked with snow. A thick 
carpet of fragrant spruce boughs spread 
on the snow under the shed, and it is 
ready to receive the blankets. With the 
fire crackling and glowing and the heat 
reflected from the roof of the shed to 
the blankets, how comfortable you feel 
Crossing a glacier stream in Alaska 
as you watch the tea pail for the first 
signs of boiling, and feast your olfactory 
nerves on the savory odor of sizzling 
bacon and the hot oatmeal gruel! For 
genuine enjoyment that leaves no regrets, 
can you beat it on Broadway? I guess 
not, nor anywhere else. 
1 learned a new trick in fire building 
from an Alaskan sourdough; new, I 
mean, to me. It is called the self-feeding 
fire, and is constructed along these lines: 
Just before retiring build up a compact 
wall of green back-logs. Then, having 
replenished the fire, take six or eight 
good-sized sticks about five feet long and 
lay them across the fire from the back 
wall to the ground in front of the fire. 
As the logs burn in two, they automatic- 
ally fall down and feed the fire. 
A T daylight the next morning I again 
took the trail, and when twilight 
drove me to cutting wood again, I 
was still hungry for moose meat. That 
night it snowed and I awoke to find a 
soft downy blanket eight inches thick 
over my thin canvas roof. The fire still 
glowed, and I soon had breakfast. The 
snow was still falling when I again took 
the now almost obliterated trail of the 
moose. By noon it was impossible to 
follow the track any further so I sadly 
though sensibly retraced my tracks to 
the scene of my bivouac the night before. 
Here I found that I could still follow 
my old snowshoe tracks and after thank- 
ing the elements for shutting off the 
snow, retired under the same shed that 
had housed me the night before. My 
grub was reduced to a negligible quan- 
tity of oatmeal when, at the end of five 
days I returned to the cache to find a 
large lynx caught in two traps. He ap- 
parently did not think that one would 
hold him, so he got into both. 
T HOSE who have known Alaska, who 
have lived in her remote places, 
can never again think of the days 
spent amid such vast stretches of wilder- 
ness without having a keen desire to go 
back and know once more the freedom 
that such places afford. Many a time, 
while closely pressed in a crowded city 
I have paused and let the wonder vision 
sweep over me as I recall the glorious 
days and quiet nights I have spent on 
the silent trails of the Northland. 
Looking at an outcropping of coal along the trail 
