Oct. 25, 1913. 
FOREST AND STREAM 
525 
Camping Along the Old Northwest Trail 
I N the early spring of 1912 a trip was planned, 
which would take the writer together with 
three others, all from the offices of a large 
manufacturing firm, into the very heart of that 
wild and picturesque country in upper Minnesota, 
forming the Superior national forest and game 
reserve. 
Several exceedingly interesting articles on 
fishing and camping in this territory have been 
published in Forest and Stream from time to 
time, all of which were read with increasing 
interest by the writer, until finally the publica¬ 
tion of an article entitled, ‘‘The Land of Pierre 
De La Verendrye,” by Robert E. Pinkerton, 
proved to be the last straw, and right then it 
was decided that a trip to this country was abso¬ 
lutely necessary. With this point in view, the 
several articles were carefully looked up and 
gently cast under the very noses of the three 
others with the result that they were all hooked 
and landed in the following order—-Leo, Walter 
and Boarch. Preparations were begun at once 
with the result that we were all ready to start 
long before the 1st of September, the date set 
for our vacations. However, our enthusiasm was 
kept up by frequent meetings at which various 
routes were discussed, and it was finally decided 
to outfit at Ely under the supervision of James 
Moonan and proceed to Winton by wagon, then 
to paddle down Fall Lake portage into Newton 
Lake, then into Basswood Lake, then into Bass¬ 
wood River into Crooked Lake, and if we had 
time to proceed an into Lac Le Croix. 
At last one of the longest summers on 
record slowly wore away, and the 1st of Se- 
tember found the four of us comfortably settled 
in a Pullman of the Columbia special, and we 
were off on the long looked for journey. The 
train had scarcely covered sixty miles out of 
Milwaukee before it came to a standstill, and 
there it stood for four long hours, and during 
all this time we were impressed with the fact 
that we only had one hour for connections at 
St. Paul and the same length of time at Duluth. 
This stop resulted in a twenty-four hours’ delay. 
However, this delay was practically forgotten 
when we were finally settled in comfortable 
chairs on the rear end of the observation car 
on our way from Duluth to Ely, sliding along 
through the beautiful wild country of Northern 
Minnesota. 
We passed through virgin forests of pine, 
dotted here and there with beautiful lakes, whose 
clear blue waters containing the swiftly travel¬ 
ing reflections of the dark green forest went far 
toward making one of the finest moving pictures 
it is possible to conceive of. We were passing 
through one of the wildest districts far from a 
station, when Boarch suddenly spied an air valve, 
and reaching over, pulled it open, at the same 
time remarking, “What do you suppose that 
thing is for?” There was a rush of air and 
the train very quickly came to a stop. With the 
sudden stopping of the train, together with cer¬ 
tain remarks from the conductor, it slowly 
dawned upon the operator as to what the little 
valve was used for, and he will probably never 
By T. S. ALLEN 
forget either as said valve was often referred 
to during the remainder of the trip. 
Arriving at Ely on time, we proceeded to 
hunt up Mr. Moonan, and the job of outfitting 
was finally completed, and the drive to Wintcn 
was made without mishap, but on unloading the 
duffle at the dock of the St. Croix Lumber Co., 
it was found much to the writer's chagrin that 
a small brown bag containing all of said writer’s 
fishing paraphernalia had been left behind, pre¬ 
sumably at the hotel in Ely.’ After an hour’s 
delay the bag was finally secured by means of 
a livery rig and two dollars, together with a 
great deal of more or less sarcastic remarks, 
coined mainly for the benefit of the owner of 
the bag. 
We finally got started, and after some diffi¬ 
culty got clear of the log boom, which practi¬ 
cally filled the west end of Fall Lake. We 
paddled down about two miles before making- 
camp for the night. A camping site was se¬ 
lected on the east shore of a bay at the end 
of the logging railroad leading over to Basswood 
Lake and in plain view of the town of Winton. 
Between our camp and the lake shore 
was a large launch in drydock being sup¬ 
ported by a pile of railroad ties, and we were 
so unfortunate as to build our camp-fire directly 
in line with the launch and the town of Winton. 
Scarcely had the fire started before we were 
aware that there was something seriously wrong 
over in the town, as bells began to ring and 
whistles to blow. A large tug put out, together 
with a small high speed launch, which made 
directly for our camp much to our alarm, as 
we arrived at the conclusion that we were on 
private property and would soon be ousted. Our 
fears were soon allayed, for on the arrival of the 
small launch we found that our c.amp-fire had 
routed out the whole fire department under the 
supposition that the large launch in dry dock 
was on fire. 
The joke was on the fire department, but 
they didn’t seem to consider it as such, so we 
waited until they were gone to do our laughing. 
This added one more funny incident to our start¬ 
ing, which, together with many others happening 
during the trip, furnished subjects for numbers 
of happy camp-fire talks. 
The next morning we were up bright and 
early, and as this was the first night in camp, 
the sleeping was rather limited. We got started 
about 7 a. m., and as we paddled down the lake 
we passed the falls from which the lake gets its 
name. We did not stop, as they were on the 
opposite shore, and we expected to stop there on 
our way out. After a two hours’ paddle we 
reached the lower end of the lake, and here we 
experienced considerable delay in finding the 
opening in a large log boom stretching across 
the mouth of a large bay. However, after final¬ 
ly getting through the boom without unloading, 
we paddled along the left shore to the outlet into 
Pipestone River and here we had to make our 
first portage. Here the river tumbles over large 
(Continued on page 540.) 
THE EVER HELPFUL GUIDE. 
