North American wilderness

“ To the westward, the vast plains, as yet scarce pressed by the adventurous feet of white explorers, faded away into a mysterious unknown country, roamed over by countless tribes of savages; to the northward lay an unbroken wilderness for hundreds of leagues, save for a few scattered traders at Green Bay, until the military outpost at Mackinac was reached; to the eastward rolled the waters of the Great Lake, storm-swept and unvexed by keel of ship, an almost unsurpassable barrier, along whose shore adventurous voyagers crept in log and bark canoes ”

“ Many adventurous white men became trappers and traders, and through their energy, and the rivalry of the trading companies, we owe much of the first exploration of the northwestern and northern wilderness. The stockaded fur-trading stations were the outposts of civilization across the continent to the shores of Oregon and north to the Arctic coast. At the same time the presence of the sea-otter brought the Russians to occupy the Aleutian Islands, Sitka, and even northern California. ”

“ The seasons come and go; grass grows and flowers die; the fire leaps with tiger bounds along the earth; the snow lies still and quiet over hill and lake; the rivers rise and fall, but the rigid features of the wilderness rest unchanged. Lonely, silent, and impassive; heedless of man, season, or time, the weight of the Infinite seems to brood over it. Once only in the hours of day and night a moment comes when this impassive veil is drawn from its features, and the eye of the wanderer catches a glimpse of the sunken soul of the wilderness; it is the moment which follows the sunset ”

“ Picnic nooks and camp grounds are plentiful, fish abound in the rushing mountain streams, and big game awaits the hunter throughout the forest lands. The primitive virgin wilderness is preserved in its natural state, accessible only by pack trip, in the Gila Wilderness area of the Diablo and Mogollon mountains north of Silver City and the Pecos Wilderness area east of Santa Fe in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. ”

“ The richness and variety of wild flower life in all zones, each of its characteristic kind, astonishes the visitor new to the American wilderness. Every meadow is ablaze with gorgeous coloring, every copse and sunny hollow, river bank and rocky bottom, becomes painted in turn the hue appropriate to the changing seasons. Now blues prevail in the kaleidoscopic display, now pinks, now reds, now yellows. Experience of other national parks will show that the Yosemite is no exception; all are gardens of wild flowers. ”

“ As a hunting-ground the Great North Wilderness, as it is often called, is probably the best now to be found anywhere in the United States, abounding as it does in deer, bear, panther, wolf, wolverene, and immense numbers of smaller game, so that whether lost or found, a man with a loaded gun need never go hungry in the Adirondacks. ”

“ The spot for a shanty is selected. This side shall be its opening, towards the lake; and in front of it the fire, so that the smoke shall drift into the hut, and discourage the mosquitoes; yonder shall be the cook's fire and the path to the spring. The whole colony bestir themselves in the foundation of a new home,—an enterprise that has all the fascination, and none of the danger, of a veritable new settlement in the wilderness. The axes of the guides resound in the echoing spaces; great trunks fall with a crash; vistas are opened towards the lake and the mountains. ”

“ On every hand “unconquered peaks” challenge the daring climber; and, hidden away amongst their recesses, lie lakes which seem the very acme of loneliness. The hunter, the scientist, the recluse, the seeker for adventure, can each strike out a trail for himself in British Columbia, or, if he so desires it, can shut himself up apart from other men in the wilderness of mountains; and sometimes stern necessity compels wild journeys through the unexplored maze of height and precipice and canyon. ”

“ Most of the territory of North America is still comparatively a wilderness; but in the United States the forests have been so extensively invaded, that they seldom exhibit any distinct outlines, and few of them possess the character of unique assemblages. They are but scattered fragments of the original forest, through which the settlers have made their irregular progress from east to west, diversifying it with roads, farms, and villages. The recent clearings are palisaded by tall trees, exhibiting a naked outline of skeleton timber, without any attractions. ”

“ APPENDIX B. The Outfit for Travelling in the South American Wilderness
South America includes so many different kinds of country that it is impossible to devise a scheme of equipment which shall suit all. A hunting-trip in the pantanals, in the swamp country of the upper Paraguay, offers a simple problem. An exploring trip through an unknown tropical forest region, even if the work is chiefly done by river, offers a very difficult problem. ”

“ Among the multitude of knolls a few are eminent with rocks and shrubs, but there is no central assemblage, and the green wilderness wantons in such disorder that you might believe the pools there to be, not belonging as they are to the same running water, but each itself a small separate lakelet fed by its own spring. True, that above its homehills there are mountains—and these are cliffs on which the eagle might not disdain to build—but the range wheels away in its grandeur to face a loftier region, of which we see here but the summits swimming in the distant clouds. ”

“ But this is only the edge of the musk-ox country: the rocky wilderness stretches far towards the north and east to the Arctic Ocean, uninhabited except by a few wandering Esquimaux close to the coast. Into this desert the winter hunters can never penetrate, as it lies too far beyond the tree-line to admit of wood being hauled on dog-sleighs. ”

“ Above, rise in sublime confusion, mass upon mass, shattered cliffs through which is struggling the dark foliage of stinted shrub-cedars; while below you spreads far and wide the burnt and arid desert, whose solemn silence is seldom broken by the tread of any other animal than the wolf or the starved and thirsty horse which bears the traveller across its wastes.
The principal streams that intersect the Great Prairie wilderness are the Colorado, the Brazos, Trinity, Red, Arkansas, Great Platte and the Missouri. ”

“ Joining some band of Indians and trappers he would have plunged into the northern wilderness to make his way, in a birch canoe, by a chain of rivers and lakes, with portages short and long, to Lake St. John, Mistassini, Hudson's Bay, or even the Frozen Ocean. After many years, if he did not leave his bones in the wilderness, he might return, bronzed and battered, to his old home. ”

“ Most travelers content themselves with what they may chance to see from car windows, hotel verandas, or the deck of a steamer on the lower Columbia—clinging to the battered highways like drowning sailors to a life raft. When an excursion into the woods is proposed, all sorts of exaggerated or imaginary dangers are conjured up, filling the kindly, soothing wilderness with colds, fevers, Indians, bears, snakes, bugs, impassable rivers, and jungles of brush, to which is always added quick and sure starvation. ”

“ Wearily we dragged our baggage back to the canoe, and loaded her again. Then,291 casting out into the current, we ran swiftly down the remainder of the cañon, and shot from beneath the shadows of its sombre walls. As we emerged from the mouth into the broader river, the sheen of coloured blankets struck our sight on the south shore.
In the solitudes of the North one is surprised at the rapidity with which the eye perceives the first indication of human or animal existence, but the general absence of life in the wilderness makes its chance presence easily detected. ”

“ The sun looks down brightly on a little forest settlement, around whose expanding fields the great American wilderness recedes each day, withdrawing its bears and wolves and Indians into an ever remoter distance,—not yet so far but that a stout wooden gate at each end of the village street indicates that there is something outside which must stay outside, if possible. ”

“ How vast the distances appeared through that clear, sun-illumined atmosphere, and how pronounced and distinctive were the varied colors spread to the full vista of the eye, contrasts of shine and shadow « 257 » no human brush, however daring, would venture to depict on canvas. A primitive land this, idealized by distance, vast in its wide, sweeping plains, its boundless sea, its leagues of glistening sand, and, bending over all, the deepest, darkest arch of blue that ever mirrored so fair a picture of the wilderness. ”

“ I must acknowledge that one must have a large lot of curiosity to visit these one-fourth civilized regions (that are by far worse than any real wilderness) , for, although they are getting settled at an incredible speed, they don't offer to the mere lover of the beauties of nature, or improvement of human civilization, any great charm. Here nature is rich, but, farmerly or businessly speaking, killingly prosaic--no romance--no Lake Superior water--no scenery--nothing, finally, that could captivate a poetical glance. ”

“ About noon, timber line, 11,720 feet, was reached, and by four o'clock they stood on the mighty summit, 14,108 feet above 225 the sea, and 8000 above the plains, and could see on the east the prairie ocean melting into the limitless distance, while on the other hand spread away a broad chaos of peaks, canyons, valleys, fading into the depths of the unknown Wilderness. Vast clouds of grasshoppers were flying over the peak, sometimes so dense as almost to obscure the light. After about half an hour on the majestic summit, now reached by a prosaic railway, the descent began. ”

“ Close beside it are the primeval forests of the wilderness, where only the wild beasts, and Indians in perpetual warfare with each other, have their dwelling. Close beside it are those immense prairies, the flowery deserts of the Mississippi valley, where the grass waves like heavy billows, far, far away towards the distant horizon, untouched by human hands, because here there are no human hands to mow, not one thousandth part. ”

“ The dogs and sleds have been left behind and now, with Jaquis the half-breed "boy" leading, followed closely by Smith the Silent, we go deeper and deeper each day into the pathless wilderness.
To be sure it is not all bush, all forest. At times we cross wide reaches of wild prairie lands. Sometimes great lakes lie immediately in front of us, compelling us to change our course. Now we come to a wide river and raft our outfit over, [Pg 55] swimming our horses. Weeks go by and we begin to get glimpses of the Rockies rising above the forest, and we push on. ”

“ I close my eyes, and I am back in another world. I see the Great Lone Land—its rivers and lakes, its plains and peaks, its boundless leagues of wilderness stretching from sea to sea. I sniff the fragrant odors of snow-clad birch and pine, of marsh pools glimmering in the dying glow of a summer sun. I hear the splash of paddles and the glide of sledge-runners, the patter of flying moose and deer, and the scream of the hungry panther. ”

“ Then, the trees of the forest, in one unbroken denseness, was the sole home of the savage, and wild beast, and waved in solemn mournfulness over the wintry landscape; while few other than nature’s sounds disturbed the stillness of the wilderness. Now, the dark forest has disappeared and human habitations of comfort and luxury thickly stud the land. The wild beasts, as well as the original owners of the territory, have almost disappeared. The snow of the ice-covered bays and streams no longer remain unbroken by human foot. ”

“ Seldom is anything but an Indian canoe met, for days no signs of a settlement are seen along the quiet fiords, and, making nocturnal visits to 290small fisheries, only the unbroken wilderness is in sight during waking hours. The anchoring in strange places, the going to and fro in small boats, the queer people, the strange life, the peculiar fascination of the frontier, and the novelty of the whole thing, affect one strongly. Each arm of the sea and the unknown, unexplored wilderness that lies back of every mile of shore continually tempt the imagination. ”

“ We owe it to future generations to keep alive the noble and beautiful creatures which by their presence add such distinctive character to the American wilderness. The limits of the Yellowstone Park should be extended southward. ”

“ We were ten days upon this forest journey, from the time of our crossing the Maumee; and they were hard days, even to those of us long habituated to the hardships of border travel. Indeed, I know few forms of exertion that so thoroughly test the mettle of men as journeying across the wilderness. There are no artificial surroundings, either to inspire or restrain; and insensibly humanity returns to natural conditions, permitting the underlying savage to gain ascendency. ”

“ He looked out upon an absolutely unknown portion of the Wilderness,—an area many times that of Spain, which still claimed it. Escalante had been from Santa Fé to Salt Lake valley, but west and north of his route, to the head of Fraser River, no white man had ever penetrated. ”

“ One night, one midnight out on the black waters of a Newfoundland harbor, the million stars above, and on the wretched vessel’s deck the hoard of half-drunk, soul-starved men saying their passionate farewells,—on the dull plain of their life a flash of lightning revealing an abyss;—this night on the still, dark cove of Resurrection Bay, rimmed with wild mountains and the wilderness, strong men about you, mad, loosened speech and winged, prophetic vision,—God! but sane daylight seeing seems to touch but the white, hard surface of where life is hidden. ”