George Henry Warren

“ There has been no attempt to do more than to give a plain recital of some of the events that have occurred in the experiences of one man while pioneering in this special field of the great timber and lumbering industry of the Northwest. Another, engaged in the same pursuit, might easily relate his personal experiences of equal or greater scope than have been herein portrayed, for not all has been said that might be of the woodsman's secluded life.
The occupation of this type of man is fast being eliminated, and soon his place will be known no more. ”

“ Having placed all my belongings in my birch canoe, I pushed out into the lake without the dog, who tried hard to follow, and, as the canoe went farther from the shore, the homesick animal commenced to whine at his loss of companionship. By every means possible to a dumb beast, this dog had expressed his dislike for his enforced environment and his longing to be back with the white man. ”

“ Warren is the first white woman to penetrate so far on the frontier of wild Northeastern Minnesota, and though never before subjected to uncivilized life, or the primitive mode of travel, she endured the walks over the portages, slept soundly on beds of balsam fir boughs, ate with a relish the excellent fish and [158] wild game cooked at the camp fire, and returns to her home in the city with health much improved, and enthusiastic over the many beauties of nature in this yet wild, but attractive portion of Minnesota. ”

“ Such days, with such scenes and emotions, do come in the life of the woodsman, the land hunter, who is alone in the forest, except that if he be at all sentimental, he approaches nearer to the Great Creator than at almost any other time in his life's experiences. ”

“ As the fire increased and the flames rose higher, the Indian's feet began to twitch, and to draw up closer to his body. Soon the heat was so tremendous that the tent was in danger, when, [133] like a missile, thrown by a strong spring, the Indian shot out of his blanket and into the woods, muttering his imprecations in Chippewa. He did not swear, for praise be to the Chippewa language, it contains no such words; but a madder Indian and a happier white man are seldom seen. The sequel to this episode was plenty of good fuel to burn during all of the following nights of this cruise in the forest. ”

“ It is shown in the government's reports that forty-eight per cent of the total lumber output of the United States in 1908 was pine. If something near this ratio is to be maintained, it must be by planting and growing the trees. Under the present system of taxation, neither individuals nor corporations will undertake the work. The investment, at the shortest, is one of thirty years before returns may be looked for, while twice that time is better business. Owners of pine forests are obliged now, and have been in past years, to cut their timber lands clean because of excessive taxation. ”

“ Partly by swimming and partly by wading, we reached the coveted shore, wetter and wiser than when an hour before we had taken an old canoe that was not our own, in which to cross the stream, instead of spending considerably more time to construct a raft on which we could safely and with dry clothes, have reached the opposite shore. The usual woodsman's process of drying clothes was again gone through with, since it was too cold, at that season of the year, to travel all day in our wet garments. ”

“ The saving of time is always important to the land hunter, since he must carry his provisions, and wishes to accomplish all that is possible before the last day's rations are reached. It was not strange, then, if we first tried the depth of the water in the pond by wading and feeling our way. While we could keep our pack sacks from becoming wet, we continued to wade toward the opposite shore, meantime remembering or keeping in sight some object on the opposite shore, in the direct course we must travel, which we had located by means of our compass before entering the water. ”

“ I have said that the country tributary to the waters of the Wisconsin River constituted a good field for the selection of valuable government pine-timbered lands. It is equally true that it was a country where the custom had grown among lumbermen to enter a few forties of government land, sufficient at least to make a show of owning a tract of timber on which to conduct a winter's operation of logging, and then to cut the timber from adjacent or near by forty-acre tracts of land yet belonging to the government. ”

“ It is never necessary for surveyors whose work is in the timber, nor for timber hunters, to carry tent poles, because these are easily chosen from among the small trees; yet nine of our party one time in October, with the rain falling fast and cold, found themselves, at the end of the four mile Cut-foot Sioux Portage, on a point of land where there were no poles. All of the timber of every description had been cut down and used by the Indians. The Indian chief and several of his family relations lived on this point. They had built the house of poles and cedar bark, in the shape of a rectangle. ”

“ Here is a refreshing bit of natural pine forest, owned and preserved by the state of Minnesota, where he and his friends may find shelter for the night, and for a longer period if desired.
In concluding this subject, I am actuated by a desire to manifest my appreciation of the fine manhood possessed by many men whom I have [181] known, the best part of whose lives has been spent similarly to my own, in the extensive forests that once beautified and adorned the great Northwest.
The occupation is one which demands many of the highest attributes of man. ”

“ Had the pigeon not been left on the section line, or had it not been discovered by the competing land hunter, the man with the hobnails in his boots would have been the victor, and his would have been the joy of having won that which he had striven hard to attain. ”

“ Those only, who have been through the experience, can fully realize how anxious the land looker is to secure the descriptions of valuable lands that he has found when out on one of his cruises, for he knows full well that it is probable that he is not the only man who is in the woods at that time, for the same objects as his own. Sometimes, but rarely, two such men may meet in the forest while at their work. ”

“ The aim will be to take the reader along on the journey of the pioneer woodsman, from comfortable hearthstone, from family, friends, books, magazines, and daily papers, and to disappear with him from all evidences of civilization and from all human companionship save, ordinarily, that of one helper who not infrequently is an Indian, and to live for weeks at a time in the unbroken forest, seldom sleeping more than a single night in one place.
The woodsman and his one companion must carry cooking utensils, axes, raw provisions of flour, meat, beans, coffee, sugar, rice, pepper, and salt ”

“ It was not possible to calculate the day's work so as to be sure that we could reach camp before nightfall, but, owing to the intense cold that prevailed at this time, it was only the part of wisdom to plan so as to return to camp while we could yet see where to travel. Nearly every day's work was, in part at least, over a new tract of land, to which a new trail must be broken in the morning as we went out to the work.
One day our work lay directly north of our camp, through the woods, out onto a small lake, and again into the woods. ”

“ The men's wages are the highest paid for common labor, while the wages of compassmen are much more. The wages of the man of experience and knowledge sufficient to conduct a survey, as well as to judge correctly of the quality and quantity of timber on each subdivision of land selected for purchase, are from seven dollars to ten dollars a day. He must determine the feasibility of bringing the pine logs to water sufficient to float them when cut, and the best and shortest routes for the logging roads to reach the banks of the rivers, or possibly the lakes where the logs are unloaded ”

“ It was once more demonstrated that hunger is a good cook. After having partaken of the unselfishly proffered food, and, after most of our party had smoked their pipes, all lay down about the fire, and fell asleep. Even the presence of Indian dogs, occasionally walking over us in the night, interfered but little with our slumbers. The next morning our party started out without breakfast, and by ten o'clock reached the Lawrence camp, where the cook set out, in a few minutes' time, a great variety of food, and an abundance of it, of which each man partook to his great satisfaction. ”

“ It is not always possible for the frontiersman to reach his goal on the day that he has planned to do so. An instance in point occurred next day, when our surveying party was moving out to Grand Rapids. The snow was deep and the weather intensely cold when we broke camp that morning, hoping before nightfall to reach one of Hill Lawrence's logging camps. Some Indians had been hired to help pack out our belongings. Our course lay directly through the unbroken forest, without trail or blazed line, and the right direction was kept only by the constant use of the compass. ”

“ Every man of the party seemed to become more rugged and to possess greater endurance as the cold increased. It became the common practice to let the camp fire burn down and die, as we rolled into our blankets to sleep till the morning hour of arising. ”

“ He must be skillful enough as a surveyor to always know which description of land he is on, and where he is on that description. He must be a good judge of timber, able to discern the difference between a sound tree and a defective one, as well as to estimate closely the quantity and quality of lumber, reckoned in feet, board measure, each tree will likely produce when sawed at the mill. ”

“ In justice to the Indians as compared with white men, I am glad to be able to say, that, after mingling with them more or less for many years, and becoming sufficiently familiar with their language to be able to use it on all necessary occasions, I believe that the Indians are as honest and as honorable as the men with whom they mingle, who have not a copper skin. ”

“ No matter how rainy the weather may be, or how deep the snow in winter, if the frontiersman is fortunate enough to be camped in a grove of live birch, he knows that this ever friendly and useful birch bark will afford him a sure means of kindling a fire. It carries much oil and burns readily when a match is applied to it. The fire was fixed for the night, and Patrick and I lay down in our tent under our blankets to sleep. ”

“ E. G. Cheyney, Director of the College of Forestry in the University of Minnesota, states: "Like everything else, a tree does better on good soil, but the pine tree has the faculty of growing well on soil too poor for any other crop.... On the best quality of soil the white pine tree has produced 100 M feet per acre in Europe. On the third quality soil it makes from 40 to 60 M feet. Our forest soils are, on the whole, of better quality than those devoted to forests in Europe. ”

“ Is he required to furnish an illustrious example to prove the worthiness of his chosen occupation, let him cite to the inquirer the early manhood days of George Washington, who penetrated the forests from his home in Virginia, traveling through a country where savages roamed, pushing his course westward to the Ohio River in his search for valuable tracts of land for investment, and surveying lands for others than himself. ”

“ Personal experience leads me to believe that man is safe, nearly always, except when such animals are suffering from hunger.
Early one spring, while the snow was yet deep in the woods, I was scaling some trespass of timber that lay about three miles away from my headquarters camp. In going to my work, mornings, I passed along a trail near to which, in the deep snow, was the carcass of a horse which had belonged to the owner of a near-by lumber camp. ”

“ After leaving Grand Rapids about the middle of August, we saw very few white men for many months following. In October, on our survey, local attraction was so strong on part of our work, that it was necessary to use a solar compass. This emergency had not been anticipated; it, therefore, became necessary to go to Minneapolis to secure that special instrument. Philip B. Winston, afterwards mayor of Minneapolis, and I started in a birch canoe, and in it, made the whole distance from our camp on Bow String Lake to Aitkin, Minnesota, on the Mississippi, the nearest railroad station. ”

“ The moralist might point with justification to the fact that had we not rested on Sunday, more than likely we should not have known of the presence of any competitors in the field, and should not, therefore, have worked so many long hours in our boat on that windy day, nor should we likely have reached the land office in advance of the two men who arrived there only a few hours later than ourselves. ”

“ We were far in the woods, and away from every human inhabitant. It was as easy to proceed to Grand Rapids as it was to retrace our steps to Duluth. A decision was soon made, and that was, that we would cut and split, and bring inside the wigwam a large pile of good wood, with plenty of kindling, and would leave the poor woman supplies from our pack sacks, of things most suitable and most convenient for her to use, as whatever she did, must be done on her hands and knees. ”

“ The state of Minnesota has some excellent laws to prevent the destruction of game animals by the pothunter. Notwithstanding this fact, a greater or less number of market hunters have been able to subsist by killing unlawful game and selling the meat to the lumber camps at about five cents per pound. Many men interested in the ownership of timber lands, have been aware of this fact and have been desirous of preventing the unlawful killing of moose and deer. ”