Chapter 15
Into the Deep Woods
Mid-November brought a string of ten-below-zero nights and five inches of snow. The loggers welcomed the freeze-up. Swamps and creek bottoms could now be crossed and timber sleighs moved with ease. All across the north, the lumberjacks were back to work in the pinery.
“Tim-berrr!” came the call from another sawyer. It echoed off the ridges near the Namakagon Timber Company camp and across the frozen lake. The warning was followed by the thunderous crash of another giant white pine falling to the frozen ground. From dawn to dusk these sounds could be heard throughout the pinery as the majestic trees gave up their long lives in the forest and fell to the earth.
Two of the new sawyers, Klaus and Ernst Verner, young men from Maine, took the honors for most trees felled and bucked. It took two swampers, Frank Rigby and Pete Van Evenhaven, both from St. Louis, to keep up with these veterans. Pete and Frank used their razor-sharp double-bit axes to trim off all branches, clear the brush and ready the logs for the chainer. Spike Andersen, a teamster, brought his own plow horses to the woods for the season. The camp’s best chainer, Thomas Winslow, rounded out the crew. Winslow was one of many Oklahoma cowboys who took work in the pinery after barbed wire came to the southern cattle country, putting an end to open range grazing.
The other lumberjacks did their best to match the number of logs this hard working team brought to the lake, but few came close. The Verner boys knew their trade well. Neither wasted a minute of time nor any of their seemingly endless energy. Rigby, Van Evenhaven and Winslow fit into the Verner boys’ crew like parts of a well-oiled machine.
Frank Rigby was the only married man in the bunch. Frank’s twin sons, Zeke and Zach, were hired on as cookees to help out with the many kitchen chores. At thirteen, they were the youngest in camp—and the least-paid.
Lake Namakagon was already capped by four inches of clear ice, a lot for mid-November. Latecomers to camp could now avoid the long winding narrow tote road by crossing the ice, only a half-hour’s trek with no hills or windfalls to negotiate. Those with horses and oxen still came by way of the woods, wary of the early ice and not wanting to risk their lives and the lives of their animals to the icy depths of the lake.
The Lokens’ four, large birch bark canoes and several smaller canoes brought in by Ojibwe lumberjacks were pulled up on shore, hidden from the elements under the protective boughs of the balsam trees. There, they would remain all winter, upside-down, waiting for ice out. The two, big camp rowboats had been pulled on shore and covered with oiled canvas tarps. Weeks earlier these boats carried load after load of feed for the animals that skidded the logs and pulled the heavy sleigh loads of pine down the ice roads. Soon the hay and oats could be hauled across the ice by horse-drawn sleighs.
A twelve-hundred-gallon, round wooden tank, mounted above ironclad oak runners and pulled by two Clydesdale horses, was already busy spraying lake water on the ice roads. This tanker, its horses, and the teamster would work almost every night until the spring thaw. Without ice in the ruts, the sleighs would not move under their many tons of timber. With roads properly iced, horses or oxen could move the largest of loads with ease.
Smoke drifted up from every chimney in camp. All eighty-eight bunks in the sleep shanty were taken. Each had a mattress made from gunnysacks stuffed with oat straw. Some of the men brought wool blankets for the cold northern Wisconsin nights. Most slept in their clothes, using their mackinaws as blankets. Each man had three pair of socks—two to wear during the day in the cuttings and a third to wear at night while their daytime socks dried near the stove. The stench of unbathed workmen and unwashed socks mixed with the strong smell of pipe tobacco smoke to give the room a dreadful odor. Folks in town swore they could tell when a shanty boy was coming from ten miles away if the wind was wrong. The odor and crowded conditions, along with the bite from graybacks and bedbugs, made the bunkhouse a poor accommodation.
Olaf Loken’s purchase of the extra six sections of timberland resulted in Ingman hiring a dozen more lumberjacks than the previous year. The Loken outfit now employed one hundred men—one hundred and four, counting the Lokens and Chief Namakagon. With the sleep shanty full, the extra workers had to sleep in the horse barn. Although colder than the shanty, the heat generated by more than forty horses and oxen made the barn bearable.
Some of the lumberjacks preferred the barn. If a man covered himself with enough straw, he could stay warm on the coldest of nights. Smoking wasn’t allowed in the barn—no blue stench from tobacco smoke, unlike the bunkhouse. And light sleepers could get a better rest without the endless roar of eighty-eight snoring shanty boys.
One of the men Ingman hired, John Kavanaugh, was a widower from the farm country near Mazomanie in southern Wisconsin. John worked as a teamster and came with his own pair of oxen and his youngest son, John Junior. The same age as Tor, Junior was hired at half pay to help out in the barn and cook shanty.
“Ma died of the small pox,” Junior told Tor one evening in the barn. “It took her and Grandpa and Grandma last year. Took a whole lotta folks in our town. I caught it too, but the doctor said it wasn’t my time. I guess what saved me is when he smoked the disease out of our house.”
“How did he do that?” asked Tor.
“Well, Pa said he put something on our house called a quarantine. I don’t know what it was. Never saw it. But I know he did. Pa said. Then the doc closed all the windows and doors and he took a tin bucket, filled it half full of coal, doused it with fuel oil, and put a match to it. He set it atop the kitchen stove, and when it was going good an’ hot, he poured on this stuff from a bottle he had in his doctorin’ bag. It made this thick green smoke that went through the house and drove out all the small pox. Pa and I had to stay inside and breathe the smoke. Ma did too, but it was too late for her. She died.”
“Ya? My ma was killed in a train wreck,” said Tor. “We were on our way here. One more night on the train and we would’ve made it.”
“You were in a train wreck?”
“Ya. I didn’t get hurt much but Ma did. They couldn’t save her. They sent me on to my pa, but he got laid up when his lumber wagon turned over on him. They told me he died, too. Plunked me in an orphanage in Chicago. I was there pretty long till my Uncle Ingman found me and brought me to camp.”
“Golly. I guess I didn’t have it so bad, then. You got any brothers or sisters?”
“No. You?”
“Ya. I got me a big brother named Billy. Billy Kavanaugh. Pa says he’s down in a place he called Ha-van-nie. I think it’s by Mexico—or maybe Texas. Pa says Billy’s a big shot. He goes from island to island and buys up bananas and sugar and coffee and such. Then he puts it all on ships going to New York and New Orleans and other places. He’s a big shot, all right. Pa says so. Someday I’m gonna go with him and be a big shot, too! Yep, I’m goin’ with him some day.”
“He sells bananas?”
“Bananas, oranges, cocoa beans, Billy buys and sells lots of things. Once he sold a whole boatload of shoes to an island full of natives who always went barefoot. Billy told them that leather shoes was what the fancy people in New York all wore. Within a few days, everyone on that island wanted his shoes. In a wink they were all gone. Billy ended up with a whole boatload of baskets, melons, straw hats, and other goods to ship back. Those islanders all got blisters so bad that Billy dasn’t go back there anymore. Says he’s worried that they’d cook him and eat him. But, boy oh boy, does he make the money! I seen him pull out a big roll of double sawbucks last time he was in Mazomanie. That was before Ma died.”
“Junior, you think they’d really cook him and eat him?”
“Why, sure, Tor! Them islands down there is plenty dangerous. White folks get eaten alive all the time, Billy says. Well, I better git some sleep. Pa wants me to turn in earlier than the men ’cause ol’ Sourdough gits me up so dang early to help with breakfast. My brother Billy doesn’t ever git up early. Big shots don?
??t have to. Yep, Billy’s a big shot an’ I’m gonna be one too, someday. Yes, sir, I am!”
“If the natives don’t cook you and eat you, Junior.”
“I ain’t worried, Billy being a big shot and all. He’ll show me the ropes.”
Tor left the barn and crossed the snow-covered yard. The sky was clear. He stopped for a moment in the center of the yard, looking up at the millions of bright stars. He stood motionless, his exhaled breath the only movement in the yard. As he stared into the sky, the clear howl of a timberwolf came across the frozen lake. A moment later, another wolf replied from the ridge just behind the camp. Even though Chief Namakagon convinced him to not fear wolves, the nearby call sent chills down his spine. He returned to the lodge quickly, wondering if it would be worse to be eaten by island natives or timberwolves.
Tor opened the large door and stomped his feet to knock off the snow. He pulled off his choppers, stuffing them into the pockets of his mackinaw. After hanging the coat and his hat, he kicked off his rubber shoe-pacs, noticing a walking staff leaning against the nearby wall.
With his long, wool socks still pulled up to his knees, Tor stepped into the large, open room. A single oil lamp hung from a hook near the stairway. Across the room his father and uncle sat near the fireplace. Light cast from the flaming maple logs played upon nearby walls and the faces of the men. Each had a glass in hand. Sitting with them, his face hidden by the wing chair, was Chief Namakagon. His two dogs, Waabishki and Makade, lay at his feet.
“Son, come greet our guest.” The chief leaned forward.
“Chief Namakagon! Welcome, sir.”
“Boozhoo, young woodsman. How are you taking to your new life in the pines?”
“No place I’d rather be! Today I helped Charlie Martin ice down the sleigh trails. Must’ve covered fifteen, twenty miles or more. Even made it up to the new cuttings. Sure is a lot of big white pine up there. Saw a bull moose cross the trail ahead of us, too. Antlers wide as the filing shed.”
Namakagon smiled. “It is good to see you are learning the ways of the woods. And learning to spin yarns like the men. Tor, small tales become tall tales in the lumber camps during long winter nights.”
“No, really. It was a big moose. Huge antlers. I swear it. He was a-prancin’ and a-dancin’ across the cranberry bog west of the creek. Charlie said he wished he had his deer rifle. That moose would have made for many a good meal in camp.”
“I believe the moose would tell you that he prefers to run free.” Namakagon turned to Olaf. “Good to see there are still a few moose. There have been three bulls up there since last spring. Like your lumberjacks on a night in town, they try their best to impress potential mates.”
“I’m surprised we don’t see more moose around here,” said Ingman into his glass.
“The timberwolves control the size of the moose herds,” replied the chief. “Wolves are skilled hunters. They work together. Not even the largest bull moose is free from the eye of the timberwolf. Only man can kill with greater efficiency. But, unlike many hunters, the wolf will stop hunting when he is no longer hungry. Too many hunters have not learned this. When the deer and moose are almost gone, perhaps they will understand what the wolf has always known and take only what they need.”
“Like the buffalo out west?” said Ingman.
“Yes, the buffalo. Millions a decade ago, now there are few.” Namakagon waved his hand and both dogs sat up to greet Tor.
“Tor,” said his father, changing the subject, “the chief is going to Hayward for some supplies at daybreak. I want you to go with him.”
“Sure, Pa!”
“You can take the small cutter in to Cable and leave it at the livery. The morning train will have you in Hayward before noon. Stay at Mrs. Ringstadt’s Boarding House overnight. She’ll be happy to see you.”
“Well,” said Ingman, “it’s high time for me to hit the haystack. Breakfast comes mighty early in the cook shanty and I know better than to show up for breakfast two minutes late. Sourdough is yust about as ornery as a woodchuck down a well when you show up late for breakfast.”
Laughing and nodding in agreement, Olaf turned his wheelchair toward his bedroom. Tor grasped the chair back and helped him to his room. His father lit a candle and shouted out a “good night” before closing the door. Tor and his uncle made their way up the stairs, Ingman carrying the oil lamp.
Chief Namakagon watched as the two disappeared into the shadows of the loft. Only the dim light from the coals in the fireplace lit the room now.
Speaking softly, Namakagon thanked Gitchee Manitou for another good day among good friends. He then rolled out a green, wool blanket before the fireplace, placed a small log on the coals, and soon drifted off to sleep, his two large dogs curled up beside him.