Sintamaskin: A Midwinter Fairyland

THE early morning of Thursday, the last day of January, was clear and still. The heavy snowstorm of the day before had ceased during the night, leaving a new layer, a foot in depth, upon that which already lay deep over mountain and lake, and piling itself high upon every branch and twig of the dense forest about us. I had awakened at three, still conscious of the effects of yesterday’s long tramp, when Peter and I had followed for eight hours the fresh tracks of a herd of seven caribou, far over steep hills, through heavy timber, and in deep, soft snow, only to find that the waning day bade us strike out for camp ; for the further route of our game was still to be disentangled from a labyrinth of tracks made where they had stopped to feed. We had eaten our lunch as we marched, delay being a thing to avoid, and fire out of the question on so fresh a trail; and when we reached camp again, just as darkness closed in, we were a tired and hungry pair. So it was with difficulty now that I summoned up resolution to perform the duty of which the biting cold upon my face and the snapping of the log walls of our camp apprised me, and resisted the insidious argument that I really was not awake. To leave the snug shelter of warm blankets in order to rake together a few almost extinct embers, nurse them into a glow, and pile the stove full of wood is not an alluring task at such a time ; but camp-fire etiquette, sometimes relaxed in the milder autumn season, must be rigidly adhered to, even indoors, in these long, frigid winter nights. Therefore my companion and I had made the usual agreement that he who woke first should forthwith replenish the fire, and as his deep breathing was now proof that nothing was to be expected of him, I conquered my slothful disinclination, and a roaring blaze at last rewarded my efforts. Then I opened the door upon such a night as only the northern winter can show.

Silence, absolute and supreme; the rich purple-black of the sky revealing its immeasurable depth, in which hung, clear and round and at many distances, the myriad stars which filled it; in the north the great pale arc of the aurora reflected faintly on the white snow lying over the open space of the river in front of us. But the keen air allowed little time for more than a swift glance; then a match lighted showed the mercury at eighteen degrees below zero, — not extreme, but cold enough to make blankets desirable; so I got back into them without further delay, and fell asleep.

The next thing I knew, some one else was poking the fire ; the room was warm, and the light of day came through the windows. I turned and saw the red "tuque,”straight black hair, and copper skin of Peter lit up by the flames as he bent over the stove. Seeing me stir, he remarked that breakfast was nearly ready, and that the morning was “ varry cold.”Signs of life now appeared in George, my companion, and soon we were at breakfast, with that appetite which surely is not the least boon of a woodland life. Peter was right about the cold. It was nearly eight o’clock now, and the thermometer stood at twentyseven degrees below zero, but the cloudless sky and perfectly still air were a promise that this would be the best of all days for a winter tramp. The journey we had planned was a rather long one and offered a considerable variety of snow-shoeing, but we were in good trim for it, and had no fear of rough climbing or tangled windfalls.

The use of snow-shoes is not a difficult matter even for the beginner. Like every other form of athletic pursuit, it requires some practice to overcome the awkwardness of first attempts, and to acquire familiarity in dealing with the little complications of woodland travel, such as windfalls, thick bush, and steep places. But the same is true to some extent of all walking, and there is no reason why any one who likes wholesome exercise, and can ride a horse or a bicycle, row a boat or paddle a canoe, should hesitate about making a winter hunt through fear of the much-exaggerated difficulties of snow-shoeing.

I write this because I have so often been asked by my fellow sportsmen whether the art of snow-shoeing were not so difficult as to stand in the way of a winter camping-trip. I think this idea arises partly from the fact that some writers have mistaken their own lack of skill or want of competent instruction, or perhaps their pig-headedness, for an inherent difficulty in the sport they describe ; and I think I have even detected occasionally traces of a desire to magnify their own exploits by exaggerating the difficulty of what they have done; but these exaggerations are to be deplored when they tend to discourage others from wholesome enjoyments. To return to our day’s journey.

This was the last day of the open season ; to-morrow the law would stand between our rifles and the game, — no obstacle, perhaps, save to a sportsman’s conscience. George was safe from a blank score, — he had killed his caribou, a young bull, two days before ; but I had not yet had a shot. Peter had urged upon me strongly the desirability of our taking up again the tracks of yesterday where we had left them, back in the mountains, saying, “Ah ’ll t’ought he’s not go varry far; sure he ’s got wan varry large caribou ; that’s good chance for find ’um : ” and had this not been our last day I should probably have adopted this plan. But the trip decided upon was to a point which I had long wished to reach, and it had been postponed from day to day since our arrival here, for various reasons. It offered, moreover, a fair probability of seeing game, — caribou, that is, for we had found no sign of moose upon any of the hills, which we had explored in many directions. So Peter’s views did not prevail.

Now as for the place we were going to, I knew little more than that, some years before, when poring over a map of this region, lost in speculations concerning the distant lakes and rivers, my fancy had been captivated by a name, the name of a lake, — Sintamaskin,¹ — which lay some distance beyond the farthest point I had then reached in my brief camping-trips. Names are misleading. This is a country of many lakes, greatly diverse in character and of very varying degrees of beauty ; and I had no reason to suppose that this lake possessed any special charm to distinguish it from the hundreds of others about it. Yet the name lingered in my memory, and in those sudden waves of longing that come to all of us who love the woods it would recur to me with a strange wild flavor of the far-away northern forest. Gradually, however, it faded from my recollection, and had not been recalled to me until a few days ago, when, as we were setting out upon our trip, a friend, familiar with all this region, said, “You ’d better go over to Lac Sintamaskin ; ” and after describing it he added. “You’ll see fine timber there; you know, it has never had a dam on it.”Just what this meant can best be realized by those to whom our northeastern wilderness is known. The first act of the devastating lumberman, about to ply his trade on any lake and its tributaries, is to build across the outlet of that lake a big dam, which, through the indifference of improvident legislatures, he is allowed to leave, and which remains, for years after his operations are concluded, a hideous monument to the brutality of man. By means of the dam the water of the lake is raised far above its natural level; the shores are drowned, and their original beauty is forever destroyed. The waters recede, but they leave behind them a ghastly fringe of bare stones and dead gray trees, to take the place of the banks carpeted to the water’s edge with velvety many-hued mosses ; the lovely grassgrown beaches of pebbles and white sand; the graceful boughs of the innumerable forest trees which hung over all and mirrored their shimmering foliage in the tranquil waters. Sometimes indeed it happens, as in the ease of one exquisite jewel of the wilderness I have in mind, — the Little Wayagamac, — that a lake has an outlet which for some reason cannot be dammed, but which furnishes enough water without a dam to float away the logs on the spring freshets. In these cases the heavy hand of the impious and wasteful lumberman falls less cruelly, and if fire does not follow in his train, destroying all, we dismiss him from our thoughts, with curses upon him only for having cut down all the pines. But Sintamaskin, I learned, falls within neither of these categories. High upon the very summit of the hills, and distant only some three miles from the main river, it discharges its waters down the steep mountains in a tumbling, rockstrewn flood, and dam or no dam, the lumberman cannot handle his logs in that precipitous descent. Some day he will find another way, perhaps, but for the present nature’s defense holds good and this spot is still inviolate. So it seemed that I might look for some sort of confirmation of my fancies concerning it. To be sure, now that the deep snow had blotted out all but the boldest shore-lines, we could hardly hope to realize one of the greatest beauties of this still unmolested lake. But my resolve to go there was none the less firm, and even George, to whom the whole country was a new wonder, caught something of the infection, so that now both our voices were raised against the proposal of the Indian to take up again the trail of yesterday, and our start was made upon the road to Sintamaskin.

For the first time since our arrival in camp we set forth all together, George and I and our two Indians, whom, since they were both named Pierre, we distinguished by calling one Peter and the other Pierre Joseph. They were both typical members of the Abenaki race. Pierre Joseph, whom we found here, is a somewhat morose and taciturn creature, given, say those who know him, to fits of impracticable sullenness at times, which make him an undesirable partner. Hence he tends his traps alone, which are scattered through the woods to the west and north of us, on the upper branches of the Wastaneau and the waters flowing into the Vermilion ; and in this vast waste he leads his solitary life, unsolicitous of human companionship, making day by day the round of his traps, with the leathern strap across his forehead by which he drags the toboggan carrying his furs and his supplies. At the end of the day’s journey he finds shelter in one of the little round-topped bark wigwams that he has built in convenient places. He is universally conceded to be a skilled hunter, and despite his rather gloomy reputation he was always obliging enough while with us.

Peter is a character, an old friend of mine, a tall man of quiet movements. His complexion is somewhat ruddier than is usual among his degenerate people, and his features have something of the aquiline which typifies the Indian. His expression is of both dignity and sweetness, his courtesy unfailing, and his industry untiring. He has the keenest sense of humor and is a most entertaining story-teller; his voice soft and musical. Altogether he has a winning personality, whose only fault is the old one that has been the ruin of his race, and that has led him into serious trouble more than once upon his return to the haunts of men. And yet so ingratiating is this personality that time and again, by sheer virtue of that alone, he has restored himself to favor among those who had every reason to exhibit only severity. He is a descendant and bears the surname of that captive from the neighborhood of Deerfield, Samuel Gill, whose story Parkman tells in A Half-Century of Conflict. Now, after nearly two centuries, here was I, in part the descendant of that nation which, through the ferocity of its bloodthirsty savage allies, had been so bitterly hated and so desperately feared by the struggling colonies, and with me as guide in the trackless Canadian wilds was this child of the wilderness, this descendant of the little Massachusetts Puritan.

The first three miles of our journey were northward down the river upon which our camp faced, the south branch of Wastaneau. At this point, about a mile below the lake of the same name, it is a quiet, winding stream, flowing between banks that in summer are low and grassy, with the hills rising behind them on either hand ; but now the snow had in great part obliterated the distinction between river and bank, and we cut off many turns of the stream, passing over land where a few isolated twigs, sticking at random from the white surface, were all that indicated the thick hushes I should see when paddling my canoe here the following September. Gradually the bills approached the river and the low banks disappeared ; one or two rocks showed their heads in a narrow place. The men went slowly, sounding with poles through the snow to see if the ice were good, — the first premonition of what lay but a little way beyond ; for there the river leaped suddenly over the brink of a ragged wall of rock, and, turning sharp to the east, went dashing and roaring down into a deep gorge, through which it swirled in foaming whirlpools and cascades. Cliffs and great walls of forest-clad mountain rose sheer above it; between them we saw it far beneath us, to where it turned around the shoulder of a mountain and ran off again to the north, to its junction with the other branches, the Rivière du Milieu and the Rivière du Nord. Thence the three streams, united, flow eastward into the St. Maurice — Madoba-lod’nitukw, the Abenaki call it—some twentyfive miles below La Tuque, ancient gathering-place of the dreaded Iroquois in their bloody raids upon their northern neighbors.

At the falls we left the river and began our climb up the mountain. It was a long and toilsome ascent, guided only by the blazed trees, — for there was no other sign of portage, — and as steep as it is practicable to climb on snow-shoes. We pulled ourselves up by branches and the trunks of trees, often holding to them with one hand, and reaching back with the other to grasp the extended rifle of the man below and haul him up ; continually fearful lest the soft snow might slide with us bodily and send us rolling helpless downward. We were up at last, however; and now our path was easier, though still rough and along the side of steep slopes, and up and down many sharp pitches. We were passing through a heavy forest, our course to the east, about parallel with the ravine of the river. We went, of course, in single file, the men taking turns at leading, for the work of him who “ breaks track is much the hardest. The snow was about four feet deep on a level, and far more than that in places. It was soft, and though our snow-shoes were large — very different from the slender toys one sees in the shop windows of Montreal — our tracks were at least a foot in depth. This meant heavy going for us, though it did not seem to impede the caribou. The trees on our left opened, and our path led near the edge of the ravine. It was just at the point where it turned to the north, and through the snow-laden branches we caught glimpses of a marvelous distance : long walls of mountain, russet and gray with the naked limbs of great hard-wood trees, or deep green with tier upon tier of spruce and fir ; here and there the light green of a pine, — all hoary with snow lying high upon every branch, even to the very top of the tallest trees ; then farther lines oi hills, their banks of evergreens showing an unimaginable deep blue in this intensely clear air ; beyond all, in the extreme distance, faint, translucent hills of blue and violet melting into the sky, and one clear note of rosy white, a far-away burned mountain.

Next we plunged into dense forest of deep green: the ground was level; were it summer we should be walking on spongy green moss. All about us the tall straight stems of spruce and fir rose high into the air, their dark branches interlacing overhead. Among their feet were the little balsams, an endless wealth of Christmas trees; but here their fragrant branches were adorned only with snow, piled upon them so deep that they were pyramids of white, merely flecked here and there with a green which by contrast looked black and colorless. So thick they stood that we could see for only a few yards, and their branches brushed our faces and sent heavy showers and lumps of snow upon us as we passed. The hoarse croak of a raven overhead brought to my mind visions of Norse gods, skin-clad and with black wings upon their heads.

Then the ground lifted again, the birches and moosewood reappeared, the forest was more open and more varied, the ground rough and broken. And so, now on rocky hard-wood ridges, again through sombre swamps of evergreens, went our way, nearly three miles in all, until at last a sudden downward slope brought us to the border of a little lake. We crossed first this, and next a narrow strip of spruce-grown land, and we had reached Lac Clair.

This is a large, open lake, with fine woods about it arid some picturesque low cliffs along its eastern shore, but not on the whole a very interesting spot. We crossed it in a northeasterly direction, two miles, carefully scanning its unbroken white stretch for signs of game. We found nothing but tile record of a little woodland tragedy : the footprints of a hare bound across the lake, at first near together, then suddenly far apart as he had leaped for his life ; approaching, at an angle, other tracks, those of a marten ; then the two mingled, a disturbed place in the snow, drops of blood ; and last, the tracks of the marten back to the shore, partly obliterated by the wide trail of the object he had dragged along.

Off the lake and another climb, stiff as the first, but shorter, three quarters of a mile through heavy forest, and then Lac Long, head of the waters we had followed. As its name implies, it is a long and narrow lake, through which we passed, and here we saw tracks of caribou, made before yesterday’s snow, however, so that they were not of great interest to us. Another short stretch of woodland and we came to Lac aux Truites. This was Sintamaskin water, and here for the first time we saw the pine in any quantity. Opposite us, about half a mile away, the eastern shore rose abruptly in a bold cliff, and upon its brow and on every ledge and projection of its face the pines stood in rows, their green plumes clear and beautiful against the blue of a cloudless sky. The cliff extended to the north, past the lake, and formed one wall of a ravine through which the outlet flowed ; down this we went toward the object of our journey, a mile away, — down a short way, then along a level stretch. The forest was heavy, here and there a big pine, many tall spruces, and massive, splendid gray birches, whose rough bark, always full of color, was now, against the snow, of intense vividness of rose and violet. Then the last slope downward, rough and rocky, and here stood the trees which are, to my mind, perhaps the greatest glory of Sintamaskin, — white birches, not the slender saplings of our local woods, but magnificent great fellows, two feet in diameter, their wonderful bark curling in scrolls where, in its exuberance, it bad peeled away ; silvery white in summer,—or now against the blue sky, — by contrast with the snow they were salmon and golden, their color intensified by the lumps of snow piled up on every projecting edge of bark. They grew even to the shore, where they mingled with the cedars, whose feathery branches overhang the clear green water in summer-time, but whose lower limbs were now buried beneath the sloping snow.

We came out upon a long and narrow bay, the southwestern corner of the lake. On the left was a ridge covered with spruce and hard wood ; on the right a high and precipitous wall of cliff and tumbled masses of granite, upon which rose rank upon rank of the sombre-hued and rigid spruce and fir, and high above all the graceful forms and lighter green of the pines.

In single file we advanced, —Pierre ahead, then I, George next, and Peter bringing up the rear,— and as we neared the mouth of the bay the great expanse of white opened before us ; we saw that its farther shores were thickly wooded and the hills not very high to the east, for the lake lies well up at their tops. In front of us was an island, five hundred yards away ; to the north, others. They were rocky, fringed with cedar, and above these, again, were the birch and pine.

Further examination of the scenery was cut short; for as we reached the open and turned northward along the western shore, Pierre Joseph and I, who were somewhat ahead of the others, saw what brought us to a halt, namely, fresh tracks. They led across our path straight for the nearest island. The caribou were not long gone, and we instinctively lowered our voices to a whisper as we discussed the probability of their being behind the island. But no ; as I looked ahead again I saw another line across the snow. We advanced ; these tracks led back from the island to the shore, and were so fresh that at the bottom of each deep hoof-print the water which overlay the ice under the heavy snow was not yet frozen, — a significant fact with the temperature still well below the zero point. There was no whispering now; we raised our eyes to the shore, which was in shade and fringed with a dense growth of cedars. Too bad, — they had gone up into the woods ; it was past midday and too late to follow them far ; if we had only got here a little sooner ! But hold on ! What ’s that ? In the gloom of the dark cedars I saw a dim gray shape, motionless ; then another. And now I realized that I had done a foolish thing, one that some years of experience should have taught me to avoid : I had left the cover on my rifle. Slowly and cautiously I drew it off, not daring to make a sudden movement, but breathless with the fear that the game might start; for one jump into the bush and the only chance would be gone. My heart was beating so that I wondered if the caribou would not hear it, when just as I got the rifle free they started, — not two of them, but three, and not into the woods, but straight across us out over the lake, about a hundred yards away. They were running, and with a swiftness that demanded quick shooting, and that was surprising in snow which, though less deep here than in the timber, still was such that a man would be practically helpless in it without snowshoes. They sank so deep that as they ploughed ahead the movement of their legs could hardly be seen, but was more than suggested by the flying lumps and clouds of snow that rose about them. Their thick-set bodies loomed large and dark against the dazzling surface beyond them, and contrasted sharply with their long hoary manes. I sighted on the leader and fired, and as I saw him stagger perceptibly I heard another shot. George had come up and was beside me, opening fire on the second. I kept on at the first one, shooting as long as he moved ; but at the third shot he pitched forward and lay in the snow. Then as I turned my head I saw George’s beast sinking, and we both fired almost together at the third, now a good long shot, but after another volley down he went, too. Luck, pure and simple, after all ; but then we had expended considerable skill during the past week with little to show for it, and this we considered our fairly earned reward. Then we made the tour of our quarry, — three bulls. No coup de grâce was needed ; they were stone-dead. I hey lay upon their sides, with heads outstretched, and the tumbled snow covering up their heavy powerful legs and big round black hoofs which carry them abroad when all other deer are fast bound by impassable barriers of snow. Their sleek sides glistened in the sunshine, and we saw the color of their bodies, — a hue the exactest balance between brown and gray ; an absolute neutral, which, with their white heads and long-haired gray throats, makes them seem of the very essence of the northern forest and the winter rime.

Our guides began at once to busy themselves with the preparations for luncheon, always to me one of the most interesting episodes of a winter day’s journey. The foot of a bold rock on the shore was selected as a suitable place against which to build the fire ; the snow about it tramped down to make it more firm. The men drew little axes, shaped like tomahawks, from the sashes wound about their waists : one of them attacked a dry dead tree which stood near by, his unerring strokes ringing clear and sharp on the still air ; the other vanished within the woods, where he selected a fir-balsam and cut it down. We heard the crashing as it fell, and saw a cloud of snow-dust rise among the trees. Presently he reappeared, bearing upon his shoulder a length of the trunk, which he threw upon the snow before the rock ; then away again, to return with a great load of the thick green branches, which he piled upon the log. This was to be our seat. Then he turned to help his comrade, who was chopping up the thy wood of the dead tree. They brought loads of this ; it was built up against the rock ; strips of fat bark were torn from a birch and thrust under and among the sticks, the match was applied, and in a moment the crackling flames were shedding a heat more than grateful to him who, warm and a little tired with the toil of long and heavy tramping, soon had begun to chill under inaction in the keen cold. Meanwhile, one of our Indians had taken the tin pail and gone oat a way upon the lake. He took off one of his snow-shoes and used it as a spade to dig a hole in the snow ; at the bottom he found slush, through which he broke with a few blows of the head of his axe. Below again was water, a few inches deep, and under that the ice. He dipped his pail full and returned to the fire. A green pole was driven into the snow, and from the end of it the pail of water was hung over the flames. This was to make the tea, universal comfort and mainstay of the sojourner in the wilderness. The tin cups and plates were spread upon the green boughs ; a plate of cold bacon and pork was set near the fire to warm ; a loaf of bread was cut into generous slices, which were toasted at the flames upon the ends of sharpened sticks ; and in an incredibly short time, since it was beginning to seem that this was a pretty bleak place after all, we were basking in the warmth of a roaring fire, and partaking heartily of hot drink and smoking food. Then pipes, lit with hot coals, were never better, and at last we rose, strengthened and refreshed, ready to set out upon the long tramp home, more than ten miles away. It would be long past nightfall before we reached it ; but the hills on our homeward trail sloped downward, the moon would be high in a cloudless heaven, and though weary we should be happy: so the rapidly lengthening shadows gave us no uneasiness as we turned our faces away from Sintamaskin.

When next I came it was in the blue and golden haze of a sunny September afternoon. We had toiled slowly up the long portage from the St. Maurice, three miles of continuous steep ascent, the men and I heavily laden ; we had reached the lake, and the men had returned for another load. I agreed to meet them at the portage on the farther shore, and then we two, my wife and I, embarked in a tiny birch canoe. We were in a little landlocked bay, so closed at the farther end by narrows as to seem a pond ; beyond them it opened out again, and again narrows appeared beyond ; thence we passed by deep winding channels among many islands which border the eastern shore. The water was crystal-clear and green ; the rocks were mottled with lichens and carpeted with velvet moss, emerald-green, white, and crimson ; the drooping boughs of aromatic cedars curved over the limpid depths ; against their deep green the scarlet berries of the mountain-ash blazed in the sun, and among them stood the silvery steins of giant birches, their exquisite tops shimmering green and gold against the blue of the sky. And above all, upon every little island and over all the hills, rose the stately pines, in whose topmost branches the soft west wind sang the song it sings to all upon whom the wilderness has laid its spell, calling upon us to return again, with a voice that can never be long denied.

To many this is a fine, large lake, well wooded, but in which unfortunately there are no fish ; to a few of us Sintamaskin is a fairyland.

C. Grant La Farge.