A trip on the Great Lakes; description of a trip, summer, 1912

Contents

Chapter. Page.

I. The Start From Black River ........ 15

II. Canadian Customs 23

CHAPTER I. The Start From Black River

FOR a good many years I have been longing to make a trip on one of the Great Lakes. I had had glimpses of Lake Erie on two or three occasions, and a faint memory of life on the shore of that lake when I was a boy. The thought of going in some, kind of a little craft around the coast of one of the fresh water seas came whenever I looked at a map showing any of them, but it was not till last summer that my opportunity came.

Then I determined to take an outing of some kind, and at last I saw my way clear to realizing on my dream of a Great Lake trip. My intention was to go up on Lake Ontario and have a rowboat trip along its shores, of which I knew nothing at all. Then if there was time, I would make a few miles along the north shore of Lake Erie. I bought a double v/ool blanket, a folding cot, several ten cent cooking utensils — a pail, frying pan, knives, forks, spoons, plates, etc., and packed them into a $2.00 camp chest, and started on July 17 for Jefferson county, New York, with my mind only half 'made up about what I should do in the way of an outing. In Jefferson county, I have relatives at Carthage, Black River, Philadelphia, Felts Mills, and Cape Vincent, and more relatives at Pulaski, some of whom I had not seen in fifteen or twenty years, and some of whom I had never seen. I made up my mind to see them all.

A Trip on the Great Lakes.

The Start From Black River. 17

Uncle George, on his way home from a G. A. R. encampment, came off the cars at Little Falls a few days before I started, and he said I shouldn't be in any hurry to buy my skiff, for he knew a man at Black River who had built a skiff for his own use, and had never had it in the water — Fd better look at it before buying anywhere. Now Black River is about 15 miles from the lake, and I wasn't quite sure that anybody fifteen miles from big water would build a boat that I should care to go afloat in where the wind has a clean sweep of 150 miles or so, but I wouldn't hurt Uncle George's feelings by saying so, for anything,

I had to go to see Cousin Min, and Kate and Aunt Anne, and Smiley — all the folks, and had two or three weeks in which to make up my mind. Well, I went and saw the relatives — and about everybody knows what lots of fun that is, especially if one has a Cousin Ernest, and Ernest is a game protector on his job. I began to get outdoors at Felts Mills, with Ernest, and saw the other Chamberlain boys whooping along the road on a motor cycle — 70 miles an hour ! They go eleven miles to Carthage to get a shave tefore breakfast, and go courting girls all the way from Lowville to Pulaski, two hundred miles or so — they go fishing, two at once, on the motor cycle, and hunt gray squirrels and grouse and other game all over Northern New York, riding on that motor cycle; moreover they go to Watertown mornings to work, and home at night. I wished they'd write up their real experiences hunting and fishing on motor cycles, but 'That's nothing!" That's the way with people who know all about any thing!

In due course, I got to Uncle George's at Black River, and he took me up to a little frame work shop, and there, covered with burlap and a buffalo robe was the boat, which Mr. Keppler had built. It M^as 16 feet long, 16 inches deep, sharp at both ends, 42 inches wide amidships, triple painted and the gunwale strakes of natural oak wood, varnished with spar varnish, rock elm ribs and basswood planking — just as pretty a boat as ever I laid eyes on.

I had expected to pay about $25 or $30 for a secondhand boat, but I couldn't get $40 down on this boat too suddenly, for it was

A Trip on the Great Lakes.

The Start From Black River. 19

of beautiful model, fit to ride any waves I'd be likely to dare or be caught sleeping by. With my boat purchased, my outfit on hand, and everything settled for a rov^ on Lake Ontario, I sauntered around among my relatives some more and so used up a few days more of time. I was just going to trip around Lake Ontario, understand.

Well, on July 30, I was ready to set the boat afloat. My start was made on James Simser's one horse wagon, out of Black River. I had unpacked and shipped my camping chest and rifle back home.

I'd better tell about that rifle. It's a 25-20 trombone Marhn which I got a year ago. I intended to take it into Canada with me, and enter it at the customs, and not take out any hunting license because I had no intention of shooting any game — I've been a game protector myself, and don't propose to break any game laws. At the last minute, I reasoned with myself: "If I take the rifle to Canada, I may be badly tempted, or some game overseer may be tempted to get some money out of me, or any one of many things may happen." So I shipped the rifle back home, and did not regret it more than forty or fifty times. I don't know what would have happened — probably nothing. But in practice, as in New York, some protectors arrest a man for carrying a gun, whether he is hunting or just going out to shoot at a mark, and this is a shameful violation of the Constitution which says the right to bear arms shall not be infringed upon. To save a few paltry head of game — to save a little work on the part of protectors, every man who carries a gun a-field without a hunting license is liable to be arrested and fined.

Well, I shipped the rifle back home, and when I started from Black River in a wagon, I had no firearm with me. We rode on the wagon to Dexter, through Watertown, to the mouth of Black river. At Dexter there is a dock, and from this dock, we launched the skiflf and I loaded my duffle into it. Then I went to a grocery and bought supplies — bacon, butter, crackers, canned soups, and so on. After a luncheon at a restaurant, I bade Simser good-bye and bent to the oars. Before bending, the local boat livery man called attention to sundry defects in the arrangement of the boat.

Now there are some things about every craft which need shifting and changing to bring them into tune with one's own personality. Already I had begun to make changes. When one has an Uncle who can do anything with carpenter tools, files and machinery, why not have things fixed right according to one's own and one's Uncle's ideas?

The original oar locks were Y-shaped, with pins through the oars, holding the blades perpendicular, so they presented the broad surface to the wind on the recovery, and holding the boat back by that much resistance. I wanted my oars free in the locks so they could be turned edge to the wind on recovery — feathered, as they say. I bought a pair of brass locks — the only kind I could get of the style I wanted, and Uncle George rabbited the sockets into the other locks to get the right size of holes. I put three brass cleats on the boat, so that when I came to put up my waterproofed muslin, I'd have something to tie the lines to. I had 100 feet of half-inch rope, large enough to hold a forty foot launch, and later I swapped that off for f inch rope. Uncle George made me two basswood hoops, to go over the boat, on which to draw the cover under which I expected to sleep more or less with the boat swinging at' anchor in sheltered nooks. He leathered the oars, too.

The liveryman said I ought to row the boat backwards and raise the seats a little higher — and always, it is worth while listening to advice, whether one takes the advice or not. Sometimes advice is better than one's own inspiration,

I couldn't change the seats myself just then, so I pulled down Black River toward Black River Bay. As I rounded the first bend and found myself among the islands, afloat on the black water, there came such a feeling of relief as outdoor folks all know. It was just one great big burst of exhuberance and delight on being so close to nature, so free from conventions, so encompassed by the sky and water.

It had been several years since I had sat at the oars of a boat, and I wondered how long it would be before I could get their swing. Shortly, I knew that the boat was "down by the head," and that the

The Start From Black River. 21

seat was too low — it had been built for fishing, not for traveling, for two or three, rather than for one person. I didn't worry, for I had to go to Cape Vincent where another cousin, Leon Peo would fix my boat for me.

I rowed down the river, and the Bay opened out before — a great wide bay, it looked, with reed grown marsh, and gravel and sand shores and beyond the lake itself — Lake Ontario. I could see myself then on the border of fairylands of content. What could be better than tliis venture along the shores of my dreams, for I had hoped for years that I might some day go on the Great Lakes, and see them as I was seeing Lake Ontario, from a little rowboat which I could drag upon the beach if the wind was too strong.

I had not pulled two miles before I met the wind — and was glad of it! The wind came out of the west, an afternoon wind, which increased steadily as I went down the Bay, and which kicked up waves that made my little boat buck and jump, and kept me hugging close to the shore where there was a kind of lee, and after a while the wind was so strong that I found it difficult to make much headway against it. Then I ducked into shore, in a little bay, ate a bit of lunch, and rested up — for when one is not used to rowing, he soon feels the pull against even a moderate headwind.

I wanted to get to Cape Vincent in time for the motor boat races two days later, and the Cape was some thirty miles distant. I therefore had to hurry, when it would have been better to take my time. I pushed on down the wind to Bull Rock Point, and essayed to get around the point in the wind. The waves were breaking heavily — as it looked to me — and one wave after another came hissing along the sides of my boat, splashing over. When a wave broke over the bow of the boat and wet me from head to foot, I retreated to a little cove, and in the dusk, put up my folding cot on the beach, drew down my blanket, and spread out the waterproofed muslin.

I was tired and sleepy, and with the crash of waves in my ears, I fell asleep. Of course, I did not sleep many hours. No one sleeps from dark to dawn. I stirred about 10.30 o'clock, and found the wind was laid, and that the wash of the waves had become faint and small. I jumped up, broke camp, shoved my skiff out into the water, and by the light of the moon resumed my journey which the wind had interrupted.

Nothing- gives me the same taste of adventure as does the night, and, those few hours that I rowed that night are among the most vivid memories in weeks along the north shore. The waves rocked me along the shore sounded the menace of the breakers, and ahead of me were unknown beaches of whose landings I knew nothing. I rounded Bull Rock Point, passed the dark gloom of Pillar Point, and landed at last down in the entrance to Chaumont Bay, where there were no swishing waves pounding along the shore. There I put up my cot again, and went to sleep.

I had made a good start, on my trip, and If there was any feeling of disappointment, it was because it was not "wilderness," for where I put up my cot was within 150 yards of a farm house, and even by moonlight, the shores and fields beyond the shores could not be called "wild" in appearance. That first night I was haunted by a suspicion that I should not find much wilderness on Lake Ontario, and that made me question the trip, but when I looked out across the waters and saw the waves heaving darkly, there could be no mistaking their untamed freedom. Whatever the land might have to offer, at least the lake was as it always had been. Moreover, if I could go along the North Shore of Lake Erie, I should no doubt find there woods after my own desires.

CHAPTER II. Canadian Customs

ALWAYS, the first night out on a trip is crucial; always the first day brings out one's undiscovered misfits and mistakes. I had been indoors practically for a year, and now that I was on the water, with the sun of the day and the wind of the night sweeping down upon me — oh, but the burn was hot ! My face turned the color of cherries — red cherries. Had I been wise, I should have accustomed m.y face to the wind and sun for an hour or two a day for weeks outdoors before I started on the trip.

I did not have much opportunity to enjoy my sufferings for I had a long row that second day, and starting before my breakfast appetite had come, I left Chaumont Bay along the shore at dawn, and when my appetite came, at about 8 o'clock, I went ashore and cooked a good breakfast. I've found that it is sometimes better to have breakfast after hitting the day's journey than before starting. The resting to get breakfast was a joy, and when I had washed out the soup pail and the frying pan, I was ready for a long pull — and I was surprised how soon my long day came to an end.

I had about twenty-five miles to row that day and had expected it to take until night to make it, but I rounded the light into St. Lawrence River soon after noon. I ate a lunch, shaved and loitered an hour or two on the river bank, and then came down to the dock about 2 o'clock — Peo's dock, where I was to visit cousins.

Leon Peo has a launch and yacht factory, boat livery and minnow tank where most of the sport fishing on the Upper St. Lawrence River begins and terminates. Some twelve or fifteen river guides are always there, and these guides are the aristocrats of fishing, I think, for they get $8 a day for their guiding, and they have skiffs that startle the folks who knew the St. Lawrence River of old. Time was

A Trip on the Great Lakes.

Canadian Customs, 25

when the St. Lawrence skiff was a famous little row boat, fit to take a prize as a safe, speedy little pleasure craft. Now they have 25-horse power engines in their little skiffs, and they go to the fishing grounds at the rate of twenty miles or more an hour.

It didn't seem right to me, making race courses of the routes to the fishing grounds, but the argument was put up that if the fishermen saw a squall coming, the skiff going twenty miles' an hour could beat the squall to shelter, and besides, with the fast skiffs the fishermen could go further and fish longer — hours longer than in the old days when navigation was with oars or sails, or both. At least the sports who come a-fishing are more than satisfied with the motor boats, and they're the ones who pay the bills.

The tendency of the day is to make the man who rows a boat by strength of his own arm feel as though he was of another age. Companies that used to build hundreds of rowboats now build nothing but motor boats of all sizes.

From the number of motor boats I saw on the St. Lawrence River, the ferries, guides, boats, camp boats, store delivery boats, excursion boats, errand boats — all kinds of boats — it was clear that the march of progress has assailed the out-door man along the water front. Now and then some trapper tells of building a gasoline boat, and no doubt the water sets of the near future, except on waters which cannot be navigated, will be made from motor boats.

With a motor boat making six or seven miles an hour a man can easily cover forty miles a day, while twenty is a good day's travel in a row boat. The result is that in country where the trapping is along open shores a large part of the season, the motor boat will come into play, just as surely as the motor boat is driving in all the rowboat and handboat market fishermen. Even in Canada, where trapping no more than begins when the freeze-in comes, the transportation of supplies through the lakes and up rivers is being done in large measure by gasoline boats.

My good friend, John B. Burnham, formerly chief game protector of New York, and now president of the American Game Protective and Propagation Association, told me two or three years ago about

A Trip on the Great Lakes.

Canadian Customs. 27

going moose hunting in Canada. There were ten canoes in the party, and one canoe had a little removable gasoline engine on it. The engine was about a horse power, I think, and that little engine towed the ten canoes, saved all the paddling and made as good time.

The motor boat races that I saw at Alexandria Bay were a new experience to me. There were several hundred motor boats there carrying passengers and the shores were lined with spectators. Many of the boats were little cruisers and some were large yachts, but most of them were little o::en boats for running around and fishing or visiting. Leon's boat was a little cruiser, staunch, and would make about nine miles an hour. He has a faster boat but preferred, in that mob, a safe boat to a prettier one.

The racers were odd-looking creations, mere thin shells full of engines that roared and thumped and pounded and drove around the course like scared cats.

It was curious to see the craft climbing over the waves with all but a foot or two of their sterns out of the water — and I enjoyed the ride down the river and home again in the stout little cruising launch. I saw a fool launch take a place just ahead of a 200-foot freighter that was going faster, and saw another fool launch circle around the first, and then there was a collision, and the launches all but sank under the bows of the freighter. Why do men show off at the risk of their lives — if their lives are not worthless?

On August 7, Wednesday, I was ready to cross the American line into Canada. It was a fair day with a little wind. My cousin took the line and towed me across the St. Lawrence to the head of Carleton Island, where he cast off, waved his hand and flipped out of sight at the rate of fifteen miles an hour or so — and I was on my way into the "wilds."

As I leaned to the oars, heading toward the bay from which the old canal leads across Wolf Island, I was a little perturbed, for Canada is a foreign land, with customs officials, and with laws and ideas new to me. It was delightful rowing and the heaving of the little waves was exhilarating.

So far as I was concerned it was exploration — a new world, but disappointingly tame and subdued. There were acres of marsh, however, and along the edge of the water I could see little hummocks on which muskrats sat to eat roots. The runways and swimways through the cat-tails and joint-grass were as open as good roads, though on a small scale and crooked as a rat could desire. There were rat houses, too, and in one place I could see where an otter was a visitor. No doubt mink were there, too; not a place where one would expect big game, but the edge of farm and pasture land. In those marshes, I learned later, there were plenty of trappers in season, and one who had a cabin on the Wolf Island canal caught a good year's wages there every winter and spring.

The canal was growing up to weeds but there was a fair way through the weeds through which it was clear motor boats occasionally went, and I could row steadily, though my oars picked up weeds on both sides. Leon had raised the seat and shifted it and my boat was in good balance now, down by the stern and up by the head. A nice, comfortable rowing boat.

As I was pulling along I heard a sudden shot ahead of me, and turning to look saw the smoke and a flock of black ducks coming toward me on the dart. This was before the duck season opened, and I knew somebody was hungry for roast duck. A little later I passed a few feathers on the water and a hole in the cat-tails, and I knew that whoever it was had departed in haste, not having seen me till after the shot was fired. A little later, at Marysville, on Wolf Island, I made some cautious remarks, and the way folks bristled up at the thought of some one shooting ducks out of season indicated divided public sentiment.

Now, I had to go through the Canadian customs, and those intending to trip through Canada may well attend ! I landed at Marysville, and asked for the customs officer, and I found him in his house not far from the dock. The Canadian government has recently changed politically, and Mr. Fawcett was a newcomer on the job; but he knew his business. He said I should have to have a permit to take my boat into Canada and to cruise along the Canadian shores. I

Canadian Customs. 29

might have to make a deposit on it, but I'd better see the Kingston customs officer, as he did not have the cruising permit blanks. He looked my boat over and my outfit, and I went to Kingston to see the customs people there.

They are kind at the Canadian customs office. They explained the requirements, and these were that I might not use my boat for profit, and that on my camp outfit I must deposit a bond to return the outfit to America. When they learned that my outfit was worth about $8, or less (folding cot, blanket, cooking utensils, etc.), they scorned the idea of a bond — too little to bother with. I might, at least, have had twenty dollars worth ! But I hadn't.

They gave me a permit that was open till October 1, and I solemnly engaged not to violate the revenue or navigation laws of Canada and to return the permit when it should have expired.

That was all there was to it. Then I went around to the game overseer to see about fishing. He was in a sporting goods store and he wanted me to pay a $5.00 license. That is, if I was to live on my own boat, live on imported supplies and not patronize the Canadian producer and merchant, I should pay $5.00, but when I explained that I didn't expect to camp out all the time, but would patronize folks who would take a transient boarder and that I would buy my camping-out supplies — grub — in Canada — or starve, he relented and let me have a $2.00 fishing license. I may add that I caught about forty cents worth of fish on the $2.00 license, but as I had $1.60 worth of fun, I broke even, the fishing tackle, a twenty-five cent line and a trolling spoon being extra.

I would have been all ready now to start if it hadn't been for two things. First, when I left Cape Vincent, I forgot to bring my suit case and had to wait and have it sent in by express. Again I went through customs and the officer pawed down through the suit case and found nothing to increase Canada's revenues — just clothes and personal outfit. The other thing that held me up was weather! Oh, but weather looms large in skiff-boating on miles-wide waters! Wind and rain held me at Marysville nearly a week, and I was constrained to get me a waterproof coat and to sit me down under shelter to wait till the clouds rolled by.

I sat me down but was not idle. I asked questions about the lakes and the shores and sailors told me to watch out and to get a chart of the lake — and in all traveling, first of all, one should have maps — there are maps of most every place, and any map is better than no map at all. Already I had a map of the Bay of Quinte and of the east end of Lake Ontario. Now, I bought United States War Department charts of all the Great Lakes — of all the lakes, observe!

I had had heaved into me a most astonishing and bewildering suggestion. A firm of publishers had asked me to write a book of adventure for them. I suggested that I would go up to Lake Ontario and while taking my vacation, make observations of what a boy would likely see. From them now came the suggestion that I not only see Lake Ontario, but also all the other Great Lakes as well, and so it was up to me.

No more dilly-dallying, no more lolling at my ease while the waves whispered in my ears — no more regard for wet weather and tired shoulders! I'd got to the point where I must see all the Great Lakes, if possible, and see them right, not merely from the view-point of an idle pleasure seeker and summer rester, but from that of sailors, tourists, trappers, fishermen, hunters, 'long-shore folks and all. Naturally, when a man must, he must — but when I saw that this was August, and that I had thousands of miles to go, and hundreds of miles of lake shore to visit and view intimately, I caught my breath. Autumn is surely a wild time to cruise the Great Lakes in a rowboat !

SHORE" OF LAKE ONTARIO.

CHAPTER III. In the Bay of Quinte

WHEN I found that my little pleasure jaunt was turned into a dash half way across the continent and back again, more or less, I felt like a friend of mine, and a little more.

This friend had two dog pups, and the pups were rearing through all the shoes, stockings and other chawables on the farm. As he chased the pups out of the house with a stick of stove wood, my friend turned to remark :

"You take a pup, and raise him right; then you've got something!"

I'd undertaken a little hundred-mile rowboat trip, nourished it and treated it kindly — but, ho law, how it had grown !

"You'd better go to Lake Superior first," a sailor told me. "It's a good deal colder on Lake Superior than down this way."

But I hated to go up there first rip, and the rowboat in the water and the Bay of Quinte calling. I thought I'd go up the Bay first, and I was thinking that if I could get a trip up the lakes on a freighter, I would see phases of the lake not seen by most tourists and lake travelers. At Kingston I tried to get up the lakes on a freighter, but there was no chance. So I went afloat from Wolf Island in my rowboat, pulled out past Garden Island and headed across to Penitentiary Point, where stands the famous Ontario prison, in which the desperadoes of the province are confined.

Out in mid-stream, for this was on the Upper St. Lawrence, the shores were far away, and the waves rocked with the swell from the lake. In a way it was nerve-trying, not a test of courage. A venture into unknown places does afflict the soul with doubts as well as with delights. I could not help wondering where night would overtake me, and the look of the land did not reassure me. It was too well cultivated, too good farming land, once I was out of the city limits. The