612 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Oct. 21, 1911. 
A Hike With a Fire Patrolman 
By CHARLES A. GIANINI 
I N August the fire patrolman of the Wihnurt 
district, having to make an extended trip 
through the woods, invited me to go along, 
and as this was a good excuse for a little holi¬ 
day, I was glad to accept the invitation. 
This particular patrolman is Trume Haskell, 
the well-known guide of this district, and on a 
clear and beautiful Saturday morning we left 
his home with pack and camera. His home, by 
the way, is the old Wilkinson place on the 
Jock’s Lake road, and forty or fifty years ago 
was well known to the sportsmen who made 
their annual pilgrimage to the lake. When the 
Adirondack League Club took over this lake 
it was given the more fashionable name of 
Honnedaga, but it wiil remain Jock’s Lake to 
the old-timers to the end. 
Our plan was to travel up the West Branch 
of the West Canada Creek, to its headwaters, 
the West Canada Lakes, and then take a south¬ 
westerly course to Honnedaga Lake and from 
there home. The first day’s travel took us up 
the creek along surging rapids and placid sti'l- 
waters—past the Frazer clearing, where the 
camp of Johnny Leaf, the Indian, who died a 
couple of years ago, still stands. At the Swan¬ 
son dam we were able to get a League Club 
boat and in this we paddled up the first still- 
water, a matter of two miles or better, then up 
the trail again to the Mitchell dam, where we 
got another boat. And in this up to the head 
of the second Stillwater, where, in a League 
Club camp, we proposed to spend the night. 
This country was lumbered over some years 
ago and these different dams were built at that 
time for flooding purposes; about the Frazer 
clearing and the first Stillwater there still re¬ 
mains considerable dead and bleached standing 
timber, but the second Stillwater is fairly free 
of this and looks more as nature intended. 
The stream winds through a beautiful and pic¬ 
turesque valley with high hills and ridges on 
both sides, and in some places the bases of the 
wooded slopes are washed by the creek. The 
camp where we remained that night is built on 
a bluff overlooking an immense marsh through 
which the creek turns and crooks, and on which 
we were disappointed at not seeing any deer, 
as it is said to be a great feeding ground. On 
the opposite shore are the remains of a big clear¬ 
ing known as the Frenchman’s Farm, from the 
fact that a number of years ago a venturesome 
Canadian cleared the land and farmed it. 
Trume said we were now on good fishing water, 
and putting together my light fly-rod, we pad- 
died up stream a little ways and in an hour’s 
time had a nice mess of trout for supper. A 
few of the fish would go a half pound, and as 
we had no landing net, we saved all the well 
hooked fish by shoving the boat ashore, jump¬ 
ing out and landing them on the beach, where 
we could lay hands on them. We put in a very 
comfortable night on spring beds, and early 
morning found us ready for the trail. 
That day’s march led us up the creek, which 
we crossed when we got by the Buck Pond 
Stillwater, and then on a very poor and little 
used trail until we arrived at the first of the 
Canada Lakes. On our way we made a side 
trip to the Mica Lakes, probably half a mile 
to the left of the trail, and at the large lake, 
where we sat and watched for about an hour, 
we saw five deer. This is a small lake with an 
island in it, and this latter place seems to be a 
favorite one with the deer, as several we 
watched swimming about, eventually landed on 
the island. In trying for some photographs I 
drove them off and snapped one in the water, 
but. unfortunately, it does not show up very 
plainly. I would have liked to spend the day 
at this very beautiful and wild lake, for it is 
seldom visited by any one and is a great resort 
for deer in the summer. 
The West Canada Lakes consist of a group 
of three lakes—West Canada, South Canada 
and Mud, and the overflow of their waters 
forms the West Branch of West Canada Creek. 
They are fair sized lakes, but by far the West 
Canada Lake is the largest and most beautiful. 
It is situated in a pocket with mountains on all 
sides and the virgin forest meeting the water. 
The other two lakes have considerable marshy 
shore to them and in my mind this detracts 
from the natural beauty of a wilderness lake. 
West Canada Lake can lay claim to one in¬ 
habitant. Louis Seymour, or French Louis, who 
is pretty well known to the natives and sum¬ 
mer visitors at Speculator and Lake Pleasant. 
Louis visits the settlements about once a 
month and admits himself that he has a rip¬ 
roaring time when he does. This old Canadian 
is seventy-nine years of age and to-day is as 
spry as a young man. Forty-two of these years 
he has spent in these woods, so it goes with¬ 
out saying that he knows this part of the coun¬ 
try. His shanty here is quite a good sized one, 
and this and another on Pillsbury Lake to the 
east he calls his home camps. In addition to 
these he has a number of smaller camps 
throughout the surrounding country on various 
ponds and streams, so that when tramping on 
his trap line in the fall and winter he can al¬ 
ways find shelter at night. He does consider¬ 
able trapping and usually is fortunate in getting 
two or more bears in a season, and the meat of 
these beasts is never wasted, for he claims it 
to be better than venison. 
I11 addition to his various camps, Louis has 
about thirty-five boats of all kinds placed on 
different waters, so that in any journey he may 
make before ice comes he can go part way by 
boat. These same boats came in very handy 
for us the following day. for we availed our¬ 
selves of no less than four. Apropos of his 
boats, there is a story told of Louis: For 
many years he had been a stanch democrat and 
every one soon learns this fact, so that when 
the members of the Geological Survey-—all re¬ 
publican appointees—worked in this part of the 
woods, he was unable to obtain any employment 
from them. However, he had his innings, for 
one day a Mr. Walker, the head of the topo¬ 
graphical part of the survey, came to Louis 
and asked if they could hire his boats to aid 
in their work. “Do I go along with the boats?” 
asked Louis. “No; we can do all the work 
ourselves,” was Walker’s answer. “Then my 
boats are all democrats,” rejoined Louis. 
Louis, being an old friend of Trume’s, was 
delighted to see us, and how his tongue did 
rattle! Nothing would answer but that we 
should remain there that night. We reached 
there about mid-day, and after lunch, Trume 
and I with fish rod went over to Mud Lake to 
try for a trout and to investigate a matter which 
Louis had told about. The water was then 
very low in this lake and the banks low and 
marshy with a wide shore of soft mud. Into 
this the deer coming to the lake sink, are un¬ 
able to get out and perish. Since this low water 
Louis claimed that about ten deer had died in 
this way. and that we should see a couple dead 
ones. We looked for these bodies as well as 
we could from our boat, but failed to find them; 
however, we might have overlooked them, as 
we could not get very close to shore in many 
places on account of shallowness. The summer 
was extremely dry, and in consequence the 
lakes and streams were lower than in many 
years—hence this condition. Louis also told us 
of a number of dead deer he found late in the 1 
winter; we ourselves in our travels had noticed 
a scarcity of winter feed. It would be a wise 
provision if part of the money derived from 
hunters’ licenses was devoted to feeding our 
starving deer in the hard winters. Balsams 
lopped down here and there through the woods 
would be the means of saving many deer. 
Our fishing trip on the lake and in one of the 
inlets was a failure, so we returned to the 
shanty and spent the balance of the afternoon 
and evening listening to Louis’ stories. For a 
man so much out of touch with the outside 
world, Louis is fairly well informed on many 
matters, and from having traveled with Bar- 
num’s circus and worked on canals in his 
younger days, has had some “experiences.” 
The following day our host elected to travel 
along with us, and if the truth was known, he 
was hungry for company and hated to have us 
leave, so up the lake we paddled, over the 
height of land we climbed until we reached a 
fine body of water called Brook Trout Lake. 
This lake is only about three-quarters of a mile 
from the other, yet its waters eventually reach 
the Moose River. A short walk from the lake 
brought us to the Indian River, and working 
down and fishing the different stillwaters, we 
spent the day. The first Stillwater winds 
through an immense swamp, the others between 
wooded hills, and one in particular consists of 
numerous bays and backwaters, making many 
pretty views. We saw many signs of deer and 
did see one—a doe crossing on a sandbar. We 
caught during the afternoon a nice mess of fish, 
which we reserved for our next breakfast. That 
night we slept in a hunter’s camp which a year 
or so ago Louis, in prowling about, had found. 
Although he has been here a number of times, 
he has never met the owners, but from the re¬ 
mains of old deer hides it is very manifest that 
they use it and kill a number of deer. 
The next morning, after a very uncomfortable 
night in the damp camp, very much to his re¬ 
gret, we parted with Louis—he to fish a little 
and we to continue on out of the woods. 
Our course this day led us down the river to 
the head of Louis’ Stillwater—named for the old 
Canadian, which we crossed and then through 
the woods until we struck Cobblestone Creek. 
