JUNE, 1917 
FOREST AND STREAM 
255 
hope of finding a claim worth staking. Ten 
months of the year he is a respected Cana¬ 
dian professional man: two months each 
summer he is a true Canadian pioneer, his 
home a log cabin; his principal support his 
rod and rifle; his real work prospecting. 
Have you never been prospecting?—then 
you know little of the real joy of seeking 
wealth! The glory of successful competi¬ 
tion in business; the fascination of putting 
over a big deal; the thrill of a plunge in 
the stock market, all these pale before the 
feelings that surge over you as you stand in 
the midst of the Great Outdoors, miles from 
the nearest man, and hold in your hand 
a jagged bit of quartz streaked with little 
threads of gold—pure, raw, yellow gold. 
To go ,into a gold country is to contract 
the gold fever. It is more infectious than 
the plague, and the symptoms are unmis¬ 
takable. It becomes second nature to 
kick the moss off a quartz ridge, to pick 
up stray rocks everywhere. You cannot 
pass a bar in a tumbling stream without 
scooping up a handful of the pebbly 
sand and cradling it in your hands in the 
rushing water, hoping to find a tiny resi¬ 
due of glittering, golden grains. You 
develop a perverted taste for traveling 
through new burnings and you delight to 
plough through .begriming cinders and 
choking ashes because the fire has strip¬ 
ped the country, leaving its rocky ribs with 
their golden marrow bare. You will spend 
half the night studying the Geological 
Survey maps or the blueprints of the 
claims registered with the Department of 
Mines and half the day gossiping about 
where Andy is prospecting, and why Bill 
believes he should locate a pay-vein in the 
second ridge behind a certain lake, and 
what Jacques expects his new claim near 
the head of such-and-such a creek to assay. 
The Doctor is a victim of this virilent dis¬ 
ease, and I caught the gold fever from him. 
W E started over the old trail blazed Joy 
the fur trader through this newly 
discovered gold country in modern 
style, crossing the length of thirty-mile 
Penache in the Doctor’s motor boat. At 
the dam across the lake’s outlet we left our 
companions, and they chugged off, dis¬ 
puting who should be the pilot and who 
the engineer, and calling back that they 
would come back to the dam in five days 
should we decide to return the same way 
we went down. 
Over the rocks, around the dam and the 
log shoot, we carried our canoe and dun¬ 
nage, and storing our supplies we pushed 
off on the glassy water of Walker lake. 
We paddled across into a little bay where 
we started a buck drinking. He threw 
up his fine head and looked at us, and 
then suddenly wheeling about, bounded 
over the hills into the bush. Hardly an 
hour passed during the whole trip that 
we did not come upon a deer, or buck, or 
doe, or fawn. 
We followed the twisting outlet of 
Walker lake into Little Bear lake and 
worked our way along its jagged north¬ 
ern shore. Open, almost bare, the country 
rolled away from the lake—not a pretty 
country, but with the strange beauty of a 
great wilderness. All that afternoon and the 
next morning we passed through this rug¬ 
ged, scarred region of thick underbrush 
and naked rocks, all spiked with blackened 
stumps. Rough and inhospitable it seemed, 
without the trees, but it is the home of 
countless deer and moose; the section too 
where the gold seekers are. 
At the head of the Long Lake rapids, on 
a flat rock, stood a little pyramid of 
neatly piled stones, some sign a wandering 
band of Indians had left for their com¬ 
rades ; and we built our fire over the still 
warm ashes of their last camp. It threat¬ 
ened rain, so while I cleaned a big bass 
hooked in the rapids and cooked supper, 
the Doctor put up our little canvas square 
and made two thick balsam beds under its 
shelter. During the night it showered, but 
neither of us knew it ’til in the rosy haze 
of the early morning we clambered over 
the damp rocks to our bath in the lake. A 
quick breakfast, two loads over the port¬ 
age around the rapids, a few moments to 
stow the duffle away, and we were off 
again. Five minutes later we were stand¬ 
ing knee-deep in the water beside the 
plunge into Long lake, with pole and rope 
letting our canoe carefully through the 
rush of black water. Down the great 
stretch of this lake we paddled all morn¬ 
ing, fighting all the long way against a 
strong head wind. 
Across the lake we spied a tiny log 
shack tucked cosily under a protect¬ 
ing hill at the head of a little cove, 
and we stopped to investigate. On the 
crude little wharf lay a box full of mineral 
specimens. We fell on our knees beside 
it and eagerly pawed over the collection; 
lots of good copper and some gold, but 
the prospector Rad probably picked out the 
best samples of both. We climbed the 
path to the cabin. A green deer skin was 
nailed to the wall, and through the win¬ 
dow we saw two great bundles of bear and 
deer hides and a table strewn with more 
mineral samples. 
N the door a bit of paper, dated two 
days before, announced: “Have gone 
to Whitefish—Pete O’Brien.” In lieu 
of calling cards, we countersigned it with 
our names and the date. 
Four or five miles further down the lake 
we found another prospector, living with 
his wife and son in a big, fine, clean cabin 
on a knoll overlooking the water. He 
was doing assessment work on claims he 
had sold to city speculators, and he showed 
us some fine samples. For an hour we 
sat on the bench outside his cabin and 
swapped gold gossip. He begged us to 
stay for dinner, and when we told him we 
must press on he described the marks of 
the portages ahead and gave us a great 
thick venison steak. 
Just as we reached Long Lake falls the 
rain burst upon us and all afternoon we 
slipped and slid over an endless succession 
of short portages through one shower after 
another. But the rain could not dampen 
our spirits. Each slip on the muddy trails 
was a joke, and the heavier our soaked 
duffle grew, the louder we sang at the 
work. And it was work, plugging through 
the dripping woods over a trail as slippery 
as ice, with a sixty pound pack and your 
half of the canoe. Nothing is wetter than 
the wet woods, and there is no more efficient 
way of pouring water down your neck and 
up your sleeve than to carry an up-turned 
canoe in the rain; so we were soaked to 
the skin. We scrambled down the last 
steep portage into Charlton lake just as 
the sun came out to set, and we were almost 
dry when we reached the fire ranger’s shack 
at the head of the Whitefish river. Here 
we crossed the railroad, and here we 
(continued on page 278) 
Big, Bewhiskered Dan 
Sheehan, the Lord 
of Penache. 
Ten Months of the Year the Doctor Is a Respected Canadian Pro¬ 
fessional Man; Two Months Each Summer He Is a True 
Canadian Pioneer—His Home a Log Cabin. 
Dave Is a Good Indian 
and Knows the White- 
fish Trail. 
