CHAPTER XII

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Some Michigan Trips.

Owing to the recent fires (1905) in the northern portion of Michigan, which have undoubtedly killed many of the smaller fur bearing animals in that section, has called to mind experiences I had trapping and hunting in both the Lower and Upper Peninsulas of that state. In the fall of 1868 on the first of October, a party of four of us took a boat at Buffalo, New York, and went to Alpena on Thunder Bay, Michigan, where we purchased provisions for a winter's campaign hunting and trapping.

We engaged a team to take our outfit up the Thunder Bay River, a distance of about twenty miles, where the road ended. The road was an old lumber road and rather rough over those long stretches of corduroy. We camped at the end of the lumber road the first night and the team returned home the next morning. We took our knapsacks with some blankets and grub and went up the river to find a camping ground to suit our notion.

Mr. Jones and myself took the one axe that we carried with us and began clearing a site to build the camp on. Mr. Goodsil and Mr. Vanater went back after more of the supplies, which included another good axe and a crosscut saw. They cut out a road as they returned so that we could drive to camp when it became necessary. At the end of a week we had up a good log cabin, and all was ready to begin to slay the deer and skin the fur bearers. Two of the boys now went down to Alpena to get the mail and send letters home. On the boys' return next day they brought word that we would not be allowed to ship any deer out of the state. This put a wry face on Goodsil and Jones, for deer hunting was their delight. It was not so bad with Vanater and myself, for we could find plenty of sport with the traps and tanning a few deer skins. Vanater was an expert at it, graining the skins in the water and using the brains of the deer and coon oil for tanning and then smoking the skins.

We did not kill many deer though they were plentiful, but venison was so cheap in Detroit and other Michigan cities that it did not pay one for the trouble. By the last of October there was quite a fall of snow and Mr. Goodsil, who was a gunsmith, suddenly came to the conclusion that he was neglecting his business at home and we could not persuade him to stay any longer. It was only a few days later when Mr. Jones also concluded that he was neglecting his business and left us. Now I began to wonder if Mr. Vanater or myself would be the next to get the home fever, but knowing the metal Charley was made of, I expected that I would be attacked first.

Charley and I being now left alone began building deadfalls for mink, marten, fisher and lowdowns for bear. I will explain that a lowdown is one of those affairs, half pen, half deadfall, which are built by first making a bed of small poles, then placing on this bed notched together the same as for a log house. The logs should be about twelve inches in diameter, and two tiers will make the pen high enough. The space inside the pen is usually made about seven feet long, two feet high and twenty inches wide. The roof is made of poles or small logs pinned to cross logs, the one at the back end of the pen forming a roller hinge. The cover is raised up and fastened with the usual lever and hook trigger, which the bait is fastened to. The bear in order to get the bait goes over the logs into the pen. I wish to say that while this sort of a trap is quickly made, I do not like them, as the bear will rub the fur madly in its struggles, and they are an inhuman sort of an affair at best.

[Illustration: BUILDING A BEAR "LOWDOWN."]

To get back to my story, Charley and I did fairly well in catching mink and marten, but the bear had either migrated or gone into winter quarters. The coon had also gone into winter quarters. The snow was getting quite deep as it was now past the middle of November, and it now proved to be my luck to be left alone in camp. One night when we were coming to camp, we had to cross a stream on a small tree which had fallen across the creek. There were several inches of snow on the log and Charley was carrying a small deer on his back. I was behind him carrying the guns. Charley worked his way carefully across the log but just as he was about to step off the log on the opposite bank he slipped and fell striking his left leg across the log, breaking the bone just above the ankle joint. Fortunately we were only a short distance from camp so that Charley hobbled to camp, using his gun for a crutch.

When we got in camp it did not take long to see that the bone was broken. I fixed wood, water and food as convenient as possible for Charley and took a lantern, a lunch in my pocket and started for Alpena, reaching there shortly after daylight the next morning. Engaging a team without any delay we started back to camp. Reaching camp about three o'clock in the afternoon, we found Charley quite comfortable and feeling quite chipper under the circumstances. While the team was eating we fixed both blankets on the straw and a mattress which we had brought for the purpose from town, and fixed things as comfortable as we could. We were soon on our way back to town, which we reached about midnight. The next morning the doctor set the broken limb with but little difficulty.

After staying two or three days and making arrangements with a young man to come to camp every Saturday and bring mail and word from Charley, I returned to camp, where I found things all right. While out to town I bought a pair of snow shoes. I had never used them, and for the first few days it was who and who to know which would be on top, myself or the snow shoes. I finally mastered them and found them a great help in getting about in the deep snow. It kept me pretty busy attending to the traps.

One night after Charley had been gone about three weeks, on nearing camp, I saw a big smoke coming out of the chimney. I first thought the cabin was on fire, but I soon saw that that was not the case, and knew some one had started a fire. When I got there I saw some one had been there with a team. When I rapped on the door Charley called out, "Come in, I am running this camp now." Well, I tell you I was pleased to hear that voice call out, "Come in." It was some time before we thought it best for Charley to go out very much, but he could keep camp and I had company. We stayed in camp until the middle of May, thinking that we would have a big catch of bear in the spring, but were disappointed for we only caught three; but we caught quite a lot of coon. We did not trap any for muskrat.

My next trip to Michigan was to Kalkaska County, and I had two partners, Moshier and Funk by name, and both were residents of the state. Our camp was on the Manistee River near the Crawford and Kalkaska County line. This trip was some ten or twelve years later than the one previously mentioned, probably 1878. We killed some thirty odd deer, and Mr. Moshier having some friends living down close to the Indiana line, he shipped our venison down to his friend and he sold it for us. I do not know where he sold it but the checks came from a man by the name of Suttell, N. Y. We caught 11 bear during the fall and spring. We caught a good number of mink, coon and fox, also a few marten.

I should have said that on my trip on Thunder Bay River we caught several beaver, but on the Manistee we saw no fresh beaver signs but plenty of old beaver dams. We would make an occasional trip on to the Boardman and Rapid Rivers for mink. On Rapid River two or three miles above Rickers Mill was a colony or family of three or four beaver, but we did not try to catch them.

My third trip to Michigan was to the Upper Peninsula, in Schoolcraft County. A pard of mine by the name of Ross and myself had a boat made at Manistique, and started the first of September. We poled and rowed the boat up the Manistique River for a distance of about a hundred miles, according to our estimate. The boat was heavily loaded with our outfit, and we were nearly a month making the trip up the river to where we built our camp on a small lake about one-half mile from the main river. We found mink, marten, beaver and coon quite plentiful, but from what I read bear and wolves are more plentiful there now than they were about 1879. At that time there was not a railroad in that section, nor scarcely a tree cut in the northern part of the Upper Peninsula, with the exception of up about the Iron Works where they were cutting timber and burning coke and charcoal. In fact, I found bear more plentiful in Lower Michigan.

About the fifteenth of October we had the camp in shape and a big pile of wood cut and piled close to the door. We now began to explore the country for the best sites to set our traps, mostly Nos. 2, 3 and 4, besides seven bear traps, all Newhouse. We would build deadfalls along the line, for we would not set a steel trap only where we were quite sure that we would make a catch. We used the water set mostly for wolves and fox, and of course, for mink and coon.

Good springs were not so common where water sets could be made as in Pennsylvania. We could find occasionally a good log crossing where we could get in a set for wolf, but suitable places of this kind were not plentiful. We worked for beaver all we could. We would break a notch in their dams and then set a trap just on the edge of break in water just deep enough so the beaver would spring the trap. It was while trapping here that I learned to make the bait set for beaver. This is to use the kind of wood beaver were feeding on for bait.

We caught three or four wolves on the ice close to the bank. Sometimes the ice would settle along the banks and the water would run over the ice too close to the shore and then freeze. This made a good path, or rather place for the wolf to travel. Now, where a spruce or cedar tree would fall into the lake so as to leave a narrow space between the boughs on the tree and the bank, was a good place to set. We would watch the weather and when it began snowing we would go to one of these trees from the ice or water side, cut a notch in the ice, put in some ashes or dry pulverized rotten wood. The notch cut in the ice must be just deep enough to let the trap down level with the surface. The clog was concealed under a bough of the tree.

Now, I wish to say that I was never able to catch a timber wolf unless I was able to outwit him, and in order to do this the conditions and surroundings must be perfect for making the set. Where we found good places to make a set of this kind we would place the carcass of a deer several yards from shore out on the ice. This would entice the wolves to come around, and of course increase our chances of making a catch.

We were bothered some by having a wolverine follow a line of deadfalls, tear down the bait pen and take the bait, but we did not allow him to do his cussedness long before we would put a trap in the way.

We would sometimes have the parts of a deer taken down by a lynx where we had hung up venison so that it would be convenient to use for bear bait. We never objected much about it for we were willing to trade venison for a cat almost any time, for deer were very plentiful.

In April, when we were taking up our traps and getting ready to start down the river as soon as the water dropped so that we dare start, we were going onto a stream one day to take up three or four traps that we had set for beaver, our route led us across the point of the ridge. The point faced to the southeast, and the snow was off in spots on this point. When we went over this point in the morning we saw many deer run from these bare spots, so when we came back along in the afternoon we were as careful as possible and kept the highest ground so as to get a good view on this bare point to see how many deer we could count. There were upwards of forty in sight at one time. How I wish I could have had that picture.

We did not dare to start down the river until the first of June, on account of the high water. We had been told that there was a camp on the head of the river where they were cutting wood to be burned into charcoal. While we were waiting for the water to drop we took a knapsack of grub and some fishing tackle and started to find the wood choppers' camp, which we did on the second day after leaving camp. We stayed ten or twelve days at this camp, and while there a Frenchman invited me out to a lake two or three miles from their camp and fish for bass. He said he would take along a couple of traps and we would have some rats for breakfast, as we were going to camp at the lake over night. I did not say much about rats for breakfast, as I thought the man was joking. But sure enough, we had rats for breakfast, also plenty of fish.

Well, after the man had argued and plead the case of the rats from all points of view, and I had done a good deal of snuffing and smelling, I tasted, yes, I ate a piece of muskrat and I must confess it was of a fine flavor and would be splendid eating if it was not a rat. However, I have not tried any more from that day to this. I prefer partridge, and I have never been in a place where there were as many partridges as there were in Upper Michigan.

It is remarkable how long and well one can live on one hundred pounds of flour, twenty-five pounds lard, ten pounds salt and some bacon, (tea and coffee if one thinks he can't get along without it), in a good game and fish country with a good gun and fishing tackle.

We started on our return trip down the river on the second day of June. There had not been a man to our camp during this time. We were well satisfied with our catch with one exception, that being bear, as we only got four and they were all rather small. We had a splendid journey on our return trip down the river. We would see deer at almost every turn and once we saw a bear swimming the river. We caught lots of fish, all we could use, with hardly an effort.

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