One man’s wilderness (10 page)

First things first. I prepared the wolf track. It should be ready by the time I get back from stalking the caribou. The mud was very wet and I wondered if the plaster would set, but I filled the track up anyway with the thick mixture.

As I climbed through the timber, the herd started to move down country. There were at least 150. The breeze was in my favor, with plenty of cover to get close. I never saw so many caribou in the viewfinder at one time. There they were, bedded down in that wild setting, and when they started to move suddenly, the whole land seemed to move with them. I should have some good footage from that show. On the way back to the canoe I looked back and there were the tail-enders trailing up through the pass.

The plaster had not set up in the track. It was as soft as when I had put it down. I cut a piece of cardboard from a box I had in the canoe, for a base. I cut around the track and the plaster, pushed my fingers under from opposite sides, lifted up, and set the whole blob like a cake onto the cardboard.

A breezy tailwind helped me paddle home.

More good luck. The trotline pulled heavy. A twenty-inch burbot. I’m back in the fish business.

June 20th
. A fog barrier hid the peaks.

There’s more chinking to do around the filler blocks and the roof poles, around the purlin logs where they go through the gables, and at the corner joints on the inside as well as the outside.

Next was a job I had been thinking about, a table top, a counter top, some window ledges, and some shelves. I could split the logs straight enough but there were many slivers, and it was a real chore to get them halfway smooth. I made two, then decided to try ripping one with the ripsaw. That was the answer. I could go down the middle of a log five inches in diameter and forty-two inches long in fifteen minutes. Couldn’t complain about that.

I think I have sawed nearly everything that I need. Now to trim the edges and start building.

A few rain showers forced me to get the sixteen-foot by ten-foot tarp of polyethylene, and I covered the overhang in front of the cabin with it. A dry place to work, and my tools will keep as well.

What about that! One of my spuds has appeared!

June 21st
. A big surprise this morning. A white frost and a good one. The leaves of the rhubarb were white. I wondered how my garden would fare with this sneak attack. When the sun started bearing down, I would know.

I was sitting in my doorway filing the teeth of the ripsaw. When I looked up for a moment, I noticed a movement on the gravel path leading up from the lake. At first glance I thought it was the squirrel, but the movements were even more furtive and the animal was too skinny to be a squirrel. Surely enough, it was a weasel. He stopped within six feet of me. His eyes held the glint of black beads as they peered at me out of a triangular-shaped head. His ears were rounded. He was wearing his summer coat of pale brown with white undertrimmings. His tail was black from the tip right on up to the middle of it.

My hand moved to brush at a gnat crawling on my eyelid. In a flash the weasel was off, scampering over the hummocks of moss.

The squirrel chattered from the very top of a spruce. There he was against the sky, sitting on his haunches, tail curved over his back, nibbling on a spruce cone that he held in his forepaws. The scales were raining down on the boughs below him.

“Quiet up there,” I warned. “You better watch out. That bloodthirsty guy will have you for breakfast.”

A day to make lumber. Hew off the round side of my slabs and trim the edges. I ripped out two planks for my door, and will need two more. Soon I will be ready to put things together.

The frost seems not to have hurt the garden one bit but something else almost did. Fresh moose tracks that just missed. I hope the frost didn’t bother the blueberries.

June 22nd
. Got up before the sun and watched it light the peaks of the shadowed mountains.

The sound of a plane. In came Babe, landing downwind. I saw his boy, Glenn, climb out on the pilot’s side. That little fellow in the eighth grade next year was flying the old T-craft!

They’d brought lots of groceries—rhubarb and oranges and grapefruit and bananas—and mail. Some spikes and two goodhand saws. Also a cake from Mary Alsworth.

Babe was satisfied the cabin was coming along fine. We sat on the beach for a spell. He would be using the old Stinson to ferry gas for a prospecting outfit. Did I want anything big flown in? Could I use a fifty-gallon barrel or two? Good to store stuff in, so the varmints can’t get at it. I allowed they might come in handy.

I watched them go out of sight over the volcanic mountains.

I got some really sad news in my mail. Senator Robert Kennedy was assassinated.

I must admit Mary Alsworth bakes a better cake than I do.

June 23rd
. Sunday. A day to take up the slack.

Saws to sharpen. That’s an easy job. Then a hunt for a log to make some two-inch planks for my cabin door. I found one in my wood supply. It would make two planks nine inches wide. With the two I already had, that should give
me enough. I marked out the planks. It would take some ripping to make three cuts fifty-one inches long and ten deep. But I went at it and in time the job was done. I could use the slabs for bench tops or stool tops, or whatever. I loaded the whole business into the canoe and paddled down to the cabin.

Fog wisps around the peaks, and a sprinkle dimples the calm lake this evening.

June 24th
. A dusting of new snow on Spike’s Peak.

A few more boards to hew out and then I will start on the inside. Window ledges for three windows. A five-foot shelf over the door and the start of the kitchen counter cut out and ready to put on the wall. I augered one-and-a-half-inch holes into the wall logs to take the supports for the counter. There will be no legs on the floor. Tomorrow I will do what I can toward the construction of the table, make the door, and then the double-deck bunk.

More spuds waking up.

A strong breeze is coming down the lake this evening. Best repellent I know; it keeps the mosquitoes grounded.

June 25th
. Sunlight on the slopes down country. A beautiful day.

Put some finishing touches on the door planks I made Sunday. Now the door is ready to put together. I think I shall make it a Dutch door. I made the legs for a table. All I have to do is auger four holes and it will be ready to assemble. Installed three window ledges and cut the window sash to fit the frames. I installed half the kitchen counter framework. Made and put up three shelves in the kitchen area. Tomorrow I will work on my double-deck bunk. To look around at what you have accomplished in a day gives a man a good feeling. Too many men work on parts of things. Doing a job to completeness satisfies a man.

June 26th
. A cool morning. My garden is like a turtle with its head pulled in. It needs the warm sun to respond.