Sam Keith

One Man's Wilderness, 50th Anniversary Edition


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a towel and spread it over the biscuits for about two minutes to tenderize the crust. The last biscuit mopped up what was left of the onion gravy. Mmmm.

      When will I ever tire of just looking? I set up the spotting scope on the tripod. Three different eyepieces fit into it: a 25-power, a 40-power, and a 60-power. That last one hauls distant objects right up to you, but it takes a while to get the knack of using it because the magnification field covers a relatively small area.

      This evening’s main attraction was a big lynx moving across a snow patch. I had seen a sudden flurrying of ptarmigan just moments before, and when I trained the scope on the action, there was the cat taking his time, stopping now and then as if watching for a movement in the timber just ahead of him.

      I switched to a more powerful eyepiece and there he was again, bigger and better, strolling along, his hips seeming to be higher than his shoulders, his body the color of dark gray smoke, his eyes like yellow lanterns beneath his tufted ears. Even from the distance I could sense his big-footed silence.

      I went to sleep wondering if the lynx had ptarmigan for supper.

      May 23rd. Dense fog this morning. A ghostly scene. Strange how much bigger things appear in the fog. A pair of goldeneye ducks whistled past low and looked as big as honkers to me.

      After breakfast I inspected the red beans for stones, dumped them into a fresh pot of water from the lake, and let them bubble for a spell on the stove. I sliced some onions. What in the world would I do without onions? I read one time that they prevent blood clots. Can’t afford a blood clot out here. I threw the slices into the beans by the handful, showered in some chili powder and salt, and stirred in a thick stream of honey. I left the pot to simmer over a slow fire. Come suppertime they should be full of flavor.

      I took a tour back through the spruce timber. It didn’t take much detective work to see how hard the wind had blown during the winter, both up and down the lake. Trees were down in both directions. That was something else to think about. Did the wind blow that much harder in the winter?

      Hope Creek has cut a big opening into the lake ice. That could be where the ducks were headed this morning. Was it too early to catch a fish? I took the casting rod along to find out. The creek mouth looked promising enough with its ruffled water swirling into eddies that spun beneath the ice barrier. I worked a metal spoon deep in the current, jerked it toward me and let it drift back. Not a strike after several casts. If the fish were out there, they were not interested. No sign of the ducks either.

      When the fog finally cleared the face of the mountain across the ice, I sighted a bunch of eleven Dall ewes and lambs. Five lambs in all, a good sign. A mountain has got to be lonely without sheep on it.

      The rest of the day I devoted to my tools. I carved a mallet head out of a spruce chunk, augered a hole in it, and fitted a handle to it. This would be a useful pounding tool, and I hadn’t had to pack it in either. The same with the handles I made for the wood augers, the wide-bladed chisel, and the files—much easier to pack without the handles already fitted to them.

      I sharpened the axe, adze, saws, chisels, wood augers, drawknife, pocket knife, and bacon slicer. The whispering an oil stone makes against steel is a satisfying sound. You can almost tell when the blade is ready by the crispness of the sound. A keen edge not only does a better job, it teaches a man to have respect for the tool. There is no leeway for a “small” slip.

      While I pampered my assault kit for the building of the cabin, the sky turned loose a heavy shower and thundered Midwestern style. The echoes rumbled and tumbled down the slopes and faded away into mutterings. The shrill cries of the terns proclaimed their confusion.

      The ice attempted to move today. Fog and thunder have taken their toll. I can see the rough slab edges pushed atop each other along the cracks. The winter freight will be moving down the lake soon, through the connecting stream and down the lower lake to the funnel of the Chilikadrotna River.

      After supper I made log-notch markers out of my spruce stock. They are nothing more than a pair of dividers with a pencil on one leg, but with them I can make logs fit snugly. This is not going to be a butchering job. I can afford the time for pride to stay in charge.

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      These simple hand tools would challenge anyone’s self-reliance.

      I sampled the red beans again before turning in for the night. The longer they stay in the pot the more flavor they have.

      The woodpile needs attention. I must drop a few spruce snags and buck them up into sections. Dry standing timber makes the best firewood.

      Ho, hum. I’m anxious to get started on that cabin, but first things first. Tomorrow will have to be a woodcutting day.

      May 25th. The mountains are wearing new hats this morning. The rain during the night was snow at the higher levels.

      I built up the wood supply yesterday and this morning. There is a rhythm to the saw as its teeth eat back and forth in the deepening cut, but I must admit I enjoy the splitting more. To hit the chunk exactly where you want to and cleave it apart cleanly—there’s a good sound to it and satisfaction in an efficient motion. Another reward comes from seeing those triangular stove lengths pile up. Then the grand finale! Drive the ax into the block, look around, and contemplate the measure of what you have done.

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      Bedding the side foundation logs in the beach gravel cabin site. Soon the cabin will be born.

      Breakup was not the spectacular sight it was last year. A big wind would have cleared the thin ice out yesterday. As I loaded tools on the packboard this afternoon, the rotted ice began to flow past in quiet exit.

      At the construction site several hundred yards down the lakeshore, I found my logs were not as badly checked as I had first thought. The checking was only evident on the weathered sides. The logs were well seasoned and light in weight for their length.

      When you have miles and miles of lakefront and picture views to consider, it is difficult to select a building site. The more a man looks, the fussier he gets. I had given much thought to mine. It sat atop a knoll about seventy-five feet back from a bight in the shoreline. There was a good beach for landing a canoe, and a floatplane also could be brought in there easily.

      The wind generally blew up or down the lake. From either direction the cabin would be screened by spruce trees and willow brush. The knoll was elevated well above any visible high-water marks. Just over 100 yards away was Hope Creek, and even though the water from the lake was sweet and pure, Hope Creek carried the best ever from the high places. At its mouth could usually be found fish, too.

      There were two things that bothered me just a little, and I gave them serious consideration before making the final decision. It was possible that after a continuous heavy rain and the resulting runoff from the mountains, Hope Creek could overflow and come churning through the timber behind me. If that happened, I felt I was still high enough to handle the situation. Perhaps some engineering would be necessary to divert the flow until the creek tamed down and returned to its channel.

      It was also a possibility, though quite remote, that a slide or a quake might choke the Chilikadrotna River, which was the drainpipe of the Twins. Anytime the volume of water coming into the country was greater than what was going out, the lake level was going to rise. If the Chilikadrotna were to plug seriously, the country would fill up like a giant bathtub. I didn’t like to think about that. Finally I decided such a catastrophe would rule out any site, and if a man had to consider all of nature’s knockout punches, he would hesitate to build anywhere.

      So I had taken the plunge and cleared the brush. I had grubbed out a shallow foundation, had hauled up beach gravel and had spread it to a depth of several inches over an area roughly twenty feet by twenty feet. I felt I had made the best possible choice.

      I stood with hands on hips looking at the plot of gravel and the pile of logs beside it. The logs were decked, one layer one way