May 31, 1913 
FOREST AND STREAM 
683 
reserved strength, dry, save in one corner, where 
a wrinkle has been allowed to accumulate for a 
special purpose. Pete maintains his sympathetic 
human communication with that wrinkle. It is 
the bridge that connects friend and strangers 
with his business-rapt detachment. For his ef¬ 
ficiency and for his silence Peter Gagnon is 
respected; for that wrinkle Pete is liked, and his 
popularity extends up and down the north shore 
and away back into the woods. 
But Pete could not tell much about the old 
trail and the old piers under the water, which 
one can see on a calm day looking down from 
that hill of which Sir Alexander speaks. They 
have always been there—nobody seems to know 
who built them. Four feet under the surface, 
stretching out at an angle with the shore, you 
can follow the line of old timbers piled with 
stones to a point perhaps one hundred yards 
from the beach. Here the pier forms an apex 
like a V, pointing lakewards, and returns at a 
sharp angle halfway to shore. Within the pro¬ 
tection of this angle up to within one hundred 
and some odd years ago, the North West Com¬ 
pany loaded and unloaded their Montreal canoes. 
You can take a boat from Pete's island place 
and row across the bay. The distance is about 
a mile and a quarter. Sight on the high sugar- 
loaf hill in the left-hand bottom corner of the 
bay. When near the beach look down into the 
water. Presently you’ll see a heaped-up pile of 
stones. Follow it, and you will come tO' the 
cribbed square-timbers, notched for cross-pieces, 
bored with augers, and spiked with round iron 
bars. The wood looks as sound and as sharp- 
cornered as new, though a slight mossy growth 
dings in places. At the apex of the piers the 
cross-pieces are still perfect, four feet down. A 
gap for the entrance was left on the eastern side, 
and the eastern pier ends sharply and entirely 
dt this gateway. The longer or western side has 
lost its shore connection through the action of 
the anchor ice, while the top of the pier above 
the stone-weighted foundations—the part that 
Was exposed to the waves and the air—has long 
since rotted and been carried away. 
On the low flat land opposite this old canoe 
harbor can be seen only sandy earth, loose rocks 
and low bushes. But presently you discover 
that the rocks take a certain uniformity of line. 
They appear also always as if in a kind of 
healed-over trench. You distinguish quad¬ 
rangles. These loose, insignificant boulders 
formed the foundation of the old North West 
Company’s trading fort at Grande Portage, at 
one time the most important point on Lake 
Superior, and the last depot for the unclaimed 
country of the great Northwest. 
Behind the flat of alluvial soil on which 
these ruins He, and at the base of the 300-foot 
Laurentian “Sugar-loaf,” extends a cliff of rock 
shale like a wall, forty feet high, and it curves 
at its west end to meet the lake. A trout 
creek runs into the lake on the east end 
of the plot, and along the edge of the 
level ground above the creek, by the straight, 
slightly-ruffled little ridge of mounds, may be 
traced the line of the palisades. The area thus 
inclosed forms an irregular field grown over 
with berry bushes and young scrubby trees, 
killed with fire. The whole space does not con¬ 
tain much more room than a country school 
yard, yet millions of dollars worth of business 
was conducted there one time, and once a year 
busy men swarmed within and without the 
palisades. 
Here to this unmarked spot every summer 
one hundred years ago came the “North Men” 
of the fur trade from the ends of the known 
earth, back-laden with furs, gathered at a time 
when the plains were populous, and northern 
woods and barrens thick with game. Here 
every summer to meet them came the great 
Rabiscaw canoes from Montreal, manned by the 
“Pork Eaters,” laden with Manchester cottons, 
milled blankets, arms, ammunition, twist and 
carrot tobacco, thread, lines and twine, cutlery, 
brass and copper kettles, silk and cotton hand¬ 
kerchiefs, beads, and last, but by no means 
least in those fierce days, rum. Here it was 
that the Canadian fur trade was organized on 
a solid basis, and pushed to the limit that the 
traffic would bear. In the palmy days of Grande 
Portage, the Hudson’s Bay Company was a 
slow-going, semi-dormant institution on the 
shores of the salt waters, with office manage¬ 
ment in London. The North-West Company 
was an aggressive, forceful, ruthless, inland or¬ 
ganization with headquarters at Montreal and 
entrepot at Grande Portage. It was at Grande 
Porta.ge the brains of the business centered. It 
was at Grand Portage the Montreal agents met 
the wintering partners and planned those ag¬ 
gressive campaigns which made the Northwest 
Company the biggest business institution in the 
North America of its day. It was at Grande 
Porta.ge that Scotchmen reorganized the loose 
ends of the French fur trade and put it on a 
system, and the impetus of their example and 
of their competition awoke the James Bay fac¬ 
tors and the London Committee from their long 
sleep. When the two companies merged in 
1821, the merger operated on the old North¬ 
west Company’s Grand Portage lines, and grew 
tp,.y commercial greatness and prosperity un¬ 
known before. And the. Hudson Bay Company 
stands solid to-day, the oldest chartered com¬ 
pany in the world. 
[second carry next week.] 
Out of Doors Near Home. 
New York, May 20. —Editor Forest and 
Stream: I fancy there is no sportsman—no 
one in whose veins runs the real red blood— 
but feels some thrill of excitement when a 
ruffed grouse gets up close to him. The aver¬ 
age Eastern man, from Virginia to Canada— 
and west through the range of that splendid 
bird—believes that the ruffed grouse is the king 
of the game birds, and is eager to have it pro¬ 
tected and preserved, that the days of the 
species may be long in the land. 
In “American Game Bird Shooting” a 
statement is made to the effect that the ruffed 
grouse will long be found in small numbers in 
much of the wooded country that he used to 
occupy in great numbers, and I believe that 
this is true. Only last Sunday I saw something 
that justifies this belief. 
During an afternoon walk we crossed a 
tract of land recently sold for improvement— 
meaning the cutting up into building lots and 
covering with small frame houses—which border 
on woods that have been good partridge 
ground for the last forty years. Close under 
a fence at the back of this lot, but still in the 
open field, is a partridge nest which contains 
eighteen eggs. 
Something that a neighbor had said to me 
with regard to the actions of partridges only a 
few weeks ago led me to go down through this 
piece of land; and a feeling that I can hardly 
explain caused me to snap the chain into my 
dog’s collar, and keep him absolutely in my 
hand. I looked with more or less care through 
a couple of brushy lots, without seeing any¬ 
thing of particular interest, and then, crossing 
over into the lot to be improved, followed up 
the fence which separates it at the back from 
a cedar-grown, pasture knoll. 
I was looking everywhere to see what I 
could discover, when suddenly in a pile of' 
leaves under some rails that had fallen down, 
I saw the eye, and then the whole profile of a 
partridge. She was crouched rather close, yet 
her crest was a little raised, and at the place 
where the nest was, being the highest point 
of a pile of leaves, the bird's tail was clearly 
visible above the leaves. I was perhaps eight 
feet from the bird. As I turned my head to 
speak to my companion, the partridge, which 
had undoubtedly caught my eye. left the nest 
and darted east, with a wavering, hesitating 
flight; presumably with the purpose of inducing 
the dog to follow her. We walked a little closer 
to the nest, which was deeply cupped, and 
which, as I say, held eighteen eggs. May they 
all hatch, and may every one of them survive 
to maturity, and reach the breeding age! I 
shall hope to see this old hen again before her 
chicks are hatched. 
That Sunday there were not a few warblers 
in the trees. The summer residents have all 
come, but the black-polls, black-throated blues, 
chestnut-sided, and perhaps bay-breasted warb¬ 
lers seem still passing along. 
Sitting by an old wall, near what was 
anciently a barway, a little movement on the 
left caused me to turn my head slowly, and 
there, sitting in the roadway, was 'a rabbit, 
which looked about without care, and presently 
hopped along a few yards and again stopped 
and looked, and so kept hopping and stopping 
until he had gone fifty yards or so, when he 
vanished among the thick ferns. 
When we came in at night one of us carried 
a good bunch of lady slippers {Cypripedium 
aeatde), which were very beautiful. 
E. C. G. 
Giving Pleasure to his Friends. 
Ridge Spring, S. C., May iS-— Editor Forest 
and Stream: Inclosed please find check for $3 
for which send Forest and Stream for one year 
to C. M. Asbill, Columbia, S. C. 
Thanking you in advance for prompt atten¬ 
tion and with my very best wishes for the con¬ 
tinued success of Forest and Stream, I am, 
F. G. Asbill, M.D. 
Mats from Hot Water Bottles.—Rubber hot 
water bottles that are past repair make excel¬ 
lent mats to place under flower pots, which are 
liable to dampen a varnished surface. Mats 
may be cut from sides of the water bottle. 
