810 
FOREST AND STREAM 
Dec. 28, 1912 
BURIAL PLACE OF JOHN DENNISON, TRAPPER. 
covered with duck and a top cover of the same. 
Painted brown and varnished, they are water¬ 
proof. The third package consists of miscel¬ 
laneous stuff such as fishing rods, tackle, an axe, 
etc., strapped up in a waterproof covering. The 
second canoe has a duplicate outfit. One pack 
basket contains a little of all food supplies in 
daily use, and always packed on top of the food 
was a simple cooking kit of two handleless fry¬ 
ing-pans, four aluminum plates, four panikins, 
four cheap tin pails from two to six quarts that 
nested, knives and forks and four dessert spoons. 
Tea and coffee we made in the small pails. The 
second basket carried our reserve supplies. 
Labeled canvas bags held tea, coffee, rice, flour, 
in fact everything except baking powder, small 
cans of cream and a specially made tin box with 
trays holding six pounds of butter. 
Food supply is largely a question of appetite 
and fancy of the individual, and an outing supply 
of food that suits one person will not answer 
the other fellow; but the following is what our 
party of four takes and this, with what fish we 
catch, carries us through two weeks all right: 
Six pounds bacon, 6 pounds pork, 3 pounds cof¬ 
fee, 1 pound tea, 6 pounds butter, 10 pounds flour, 
10 pounds corn meal, 4 pounds rice, 2 pounds 
beans, 5 pounds granulated sugar, 1 pound bak¬ 
ing powder, 2 pounds wheatena, 1 pound salt, l /\ 
pound pepper, 1 pound dried peaches, 2 pounds 
prunes, 10 small cans cream, 2 cans condensed 
milk, 2 pounds onions, a very few potatoes, y 2 
dozen candles and a few bars sweet chocolate. 
At noon we were at the old dam at the lower 
end of Annie’s Bay, an arm of Great Opeongo 
Lake. We met lively water all the way up, and 
the boys waded in some places and towed the 
canoes. Where the water was too deep they 
took a line from the shore. There were a few 
short paddling stretches, just enough to give a 
little breathing spell. The shores are well 
wooded and the trip interesting, though some¬ 
what strenuous. As soon as we landed, the light 
rod fishermen got busy, and quickly secured a 
fine mess of speckled trout from some pools 
where the water breaks away from the dam in 
its rush for McDonald. Then the dinner, fried 
trout and bacon, and pancakes and tea. Could 
anything be better with appetites, trained to the 
minute with our forenoon’s work? 
Passing up the long narrow bay we stopped 
at an interesting old lumber camp, a deserted 
little village, the former habitation of several 
hundred men. The buildings of logs included 
cabins, offices, cook houses, mess buildings, black¬ 
smith shops, stables and storehouses wholly aban¬ 
doned several years ago, apparently, and about 
everything dropped, in the way of tools, just as 
the men quit work. As we rounded the point 
and faced the broad lake, we found whitecaps 
aplenty, and we were compelled to go ashore, 
and we remained tied up on that point two nights 
and a day. When we finally got away early one 
morning, the lake was still pretty rough, but we 
made the other shore and the shelter hut “Sunny 
Side’’ all right, but it took some careful paddling 
to do it. Opeongo kicks up a big sea when the 
wind blows and the canoeist must beware. 
Years ago, when trapping was unrestricted 
in the Province of Ontario, John Dennison pene¬ 
trated the wilderness in the region of the “thou¬ 
sand lakes,” and built a log cabin on a neck of 
land dividing portions of Great Opeongo Lake. 
(Opeongo is an Indian word meaning narrows 
connecting two big lakes.) He set his traps, 
cleared a little land, and as the years went by, 
children and grand children grew up around him. 
When the buying seasons came, trapper Dennison 
followed the blazed trails and water by-paths 
leading to the edge of civilization, well loaded 
with the pelts of the beaver, the otter and the 
mink. 
With no neighbors within many miles, ex¬ 
cept the wild animals of the woods, Dennison 
trapped on, growing old and gray. One day, using 
a dugout canoe, he visited his numerous traps, 
for Opeongo is sixteen miles long and has many 
deep bays. The old trapper had with him his 
eight-year-old grandson who often accompanied 
him on his trips. Nine miles from home, up 
under dark shores on Black Creek, a big bear was 
found in one of the traps, and Dennison under¬ 
took to kill the animal with a club just as he 
had done in many cases in years gone by. But 
the bear was unusually large and fierce, and in 
an unguarded moment ugly claws drew the old 
man into an embrace more vicious than the steel 
jaws of the trap that gripped the hind leg of 
the infuriated beast. Well knowing that he had 
tended his last trap, Dennison ordered his grand¬ 
son to go home, and the terrified little fellow, 
half dead with fright, fled to the canoe, with the 
fierce growls ringing in his ears, and managed 
to find his way back to the old log house in a 
faraway section of the lake. 
With the eight-year-old guide to lead them, 
the family made a brave attempt to find and aid 
the old man, but darkness of the forest night had 
blotted out head lands and trails, and it was not 
until the light of early morning had come that 
the stricken members of the Dennison family 
reached the scene. The bear was still in the 
trap, alive and fierce, and in his embrace the life¬ 
less form of the old trapper. With much labor 
they took him tenderly back to the clearing and 
laid him to rest not far from the log house, hew¬ 
ing out of pine a thick crude marker with a 
peculiar-fashioned top and surrounding the 
mound with a fence of cedar. 
This is a true story of a wilderness tragedy 
that has been told to the writer many times by 
fire rangers met during our annual trips to what 
is now known as the Algonquin National Park of 
Canada. During our stay at the log shelter hut 
on Opeongo Lake—our first visit to that locality 
by the way—we had a friendly call one afternoon 
from Richard Owen and William Arnott, fire 
rangers who happened to be in that vicinity. 
When the conversation turned to the Dennison 
tragedy, our visitors suggested that we visit the 
spot where the old man was buried and volun¬ 
teered to guide us to the place a mile away. So 
we tramped up the hillside over a winding trail 
among the evergreens and birches, and as we 
wound down the slope on the other side and 
neared the clearing, several deer broke for cover 
as the watchful bluejay sounded notes of warn¬ 
ing. 
I11 order that our cameras might have full 
play, the rangers removed some of the rails sur¬ 
rounding the grave, and standing about the little 
inclosure, the story of trapper Dennison was re¬ 
told substantially as we had heard it many times 
before. There is a fine bit of sentiment about 
the incident, as fire rangers, strangers to the Den¬ 
nison family long since gone, as they pass and 
repass in that region, seem to feel it a duty to 
care for the old trapper’s burial place, kindly 
hands keeping the rustic fence about the plot in 
repair. The surroundings of that lone grave are 
impressive and the solitude fairly eats into the 
visitor. The mound is on the crest of a small 
clearing which slopes gently to the east, meeting 
Beaver Bay, fringed thickly with poplar trees and 
falling away to the west to an evergreen-lined 
shore. Over the grave and marker a self-sown 
balsam spreads its friendly branches. While the 
beaver builds its home undisturbed and munches 
buds and barks on the Opeongo, John Dennison, 
the old trapper, sleeps peacefully on. 
SCOTT LANDS SALMON TROUT. 
