From the late February edition of The North Woods Call
After several days of sub-zero temperatures and a couple feet of lake-effect snow, the thermometer reached a blistering 24 degrees.
I had recently returned from Sunday morning worship services and it seemed like a good time to walk on water—frozen water, that is—so I pulled out the old Alaskan trapper snowshoes and took a hike around the property.
There’s nothing like a little fresh air and exercise to energize the body and soul. Or so I thought.
I wandered through the hillside pines behind The North Woods Call office, across an open meadow and down into the wetlands along Spring Brook. Along the way, I followed the tracks of assorted woodland creatures that meandered back-and-forth across the surface of the snow.
The field mice and cottontail rabbits seemed to have an easier time of it. They stayed pretty much on top and ran from place-to-place without much impediment. White-tailed deer, on the other hand—with their thin legs and sharp hooves—had sunken a foot or more beneath the crust as they waded between browses and the shelters they found under low-hanging pine boughs.
I didn’t do much better, although my snowshoes only sank a few inches into the white powder. After only about an hour of constant motion—stopping occasionally to snap a photograph of the pristine landscape—my lungs and leg muscles were beginning to complain and I was looking forward to a cup of hot tea beside the pellet stove.
Maybe it’s the peril of advancing age, or perhaps I’m just a bit out-of-shape these days compared to the glory years of my youth. Whatever the reason, I found myself contemplating previous generations of outdoorsman and lamenting the increasing softness of modern man.
Take the voyageurs, for example. These were tough men—mostly French Canadians who transported goods and supplies by canoe through the Great Lakes and northern wilderness during the fur-trade era of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Unlike me—with the possible exception of the masonry work I did year-round during my late teens and early 20s—they lived a harsh life of toil. Among other things, they had to carry at least two 90-pound bundles of fur over portages that were a half-mile, or longer, and some carried four or five bundles at a time. Their wooden canoes were commonly 25 to 36 feet long and weighed 300 to 600 pounds empty. On top of that, the vessels carried three tons of cargo.
The men often rose as early as 2 or 3 a.m. to begin their typical day’s journey, and were expected to work 14 hours before bedtime and paddle at a rate of 55 strokes per minute. Danger was at every turn and not just because of exposure to outdoor living. Drowning was common, along with broken limbs, compressed spines, hernias and rheumatism. They did not have time to live off the land by hunting and fishing, so they carried their food with them, and often faced swams of annoying black flies and mosquitoes.
Then there were those who took to the northern wilderness to seek their fortune in gold nuggets. It is said that more than 100,000 people started off for the Klondike, but less than 30,000 actually made it to the gold fields in the Yukon Territory. The difficulties of the Chilkoot and White Pass trails forced many to turn back. Most found no gold at all, because—by the time they arrived—most of the good stakes had already been claimed.
Jack London, of course, got several good stories out of the experience, but most others went home broke—if they went home at all—discouraged and defeated by the land they sought to tame.
Such is often the fate of man against nature.
Nature will ultimately be the victor, says a friend of mine, an outdoorsman and bush pilot in Alaska. That’s why we must always work WITH her and not AGAINST her, he says.
Yet, in this age of Kevlar canoes, lightweight camping gear and freeze-dried food, it’s tempting to believe that the odds are beginning to tilt in man’s favor.
Some, of course, are better suited to hold their own in the great outdoors than others, but it’s still relatively easy to get into trouble if we forget our place when venturing into the wild.
There really wasn’t much danger in a short snowshoe hike from my doorstep. And it was indeed invigorating—for body and soul—to drink in the pure February air and warm my complacent muscles.
But there were lessons to be learned, just the same, as I thought about advances in civilization and the great distance we have come from the earth that sustains us.
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