Forgotten Treasures #9: TROUTING ON THE BRULÉ RIVER --PART 1

TROUTING ON THE BRULÉ RIVER OR SUMMER-WAYFARING IN THE NORTHERN WILDERNESS*

By John Lyle King.


This one's for you, Jeff.
_________________________________________
PREFATORY AND PERSONAL

The exhaustion that comes of the inordinate and exacting frets and
activities of business, the languor and inertia of summer fervors, the ennui
and satiety that follow the dissipations of social life, may find in the
great wilderness retreats a grateful reprieve and a speedy reparation. When
the haunts of game in the woods and the lairs of fish in the streams incite
the passion for sport to couple itself with the quest and yearning for rest
and vitalization, the wayfarer's pathway in the wilderness becomes a
pilgrimage through abounding scenes of diversion and into a realm of
fascination. The restraints and stress of civilization and the city, for the
time, are exchanged for exhilarating freedom and simplicity of nature. The
respited sportsman, with only the rod or gun as the sceptre of his
commanding will throughout the rude domain, gratifies himself and luxuriates
alike in the footsteps of the advance and in the repose of the halt. He
realizes in a fulness of meaning gained from happy experience, that, indeed,
"there is a pleasure in the pathless woods."

The wildernesses of North-West are free, vast franchises of gunning and
fishing. The many rivers which vein these immense tracts with running
waters, and the numberless lakes in recesses of the woods, are inexhaustible
commons of piscary, of whose affluent stores whosoever will, may, without
let, partake. For an excursion, and on a vacation furlough, to one of these
streams noted for trout, three of the Chicago lawyers in August joined in a
party. These were James L. High, author of the works on "Injunctions,"
"Extraordinary Legal Remedies," etc., Josiah H. Bissell, compiler of
"Bissell's Reports," and the writer, together with Lorenzo Pratt, a Chicago
capitalist....

The outfit and supplies were provided in Chicago, and sent by the Chicago &
North-Western railway to Section Eighteen, a station of that road eighteen
miles beyond Marinette, Wisconsin. The other accessories--a team for the
land route and the guides--were engaged in advance at Marinette, and met the
party at Section Eighteen. The canoes were to be procured at Badwater, on
the Menominee, where the water travel began.

The guides were Indians. One of them was George Kaquotash, a full-blooded
Menominee, muscular, lithe, active--a veteran of the woods and of the Brulé.
The other was Mitchell Thebault, mostly Menominee, with a French infusion of
blood and name, with his complexion paled to a hue a little lighter than the
usual Indian copper tint. Though with the manners and habits, in some
degree, of civilized life, they were essentially, in nature and native
dialect, Indians....

...."Though dear to him the angler's silent trade,
Through peaceful scenes in peacefulness pursued,"

the writer's experiences with the rod have been infrequent and not varied,
and were those of an amateur and not of an adept. While he cannot discourse
generally or didactically on this sport or the pleasure of angling, yet in
portraying the real lights and shadows of a brief period with the rod, and
somewhat with the gun, and the content, the cheer, the fruitions and
happenings of a particular party of anglers while roughing it in the open
air, he may indicate and illustrate some of that charm with which angling
has always enamored so many persons of various pursuits, temperament and
genius, and which has made it a devotion and practice of their lives.

Probably the secret of the infatuation of this amusement to most or many of
the brothers of the angle, is to be found in the close and quiet communion
and sympathy with nature essential to the pursuit of the spoil of the water.
Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton avows that he can palliate the wanton
destructiveness of angling by a consciousness that its pleasures have not
come from the success of the treachery practised towards a poor little fish,
"but rather from that innocent revelry in the luxuriance of summer life
which only anglers enjoy to the utmost." Even that Dryasdust book-worm, the
recluse of Oxford, Burton, has perceived a hint of this, and tells us in the
"Anatomy of Melancholy" of angling, "it is still and quiet; and if so be the
angler catch no fish, yet he hath a wholesome walk to the brook, pleasant
shade by the sweet silver streams; he hath good air sweet smells of fine
fresh meadow flowers; he hears the melodious harmony of birds; he sees the
swans, herons, ducks, waterhorns, coots, etc., and many other fowl, with
their brood, which he thinketh better than the noise of hounds or blast of
horns, and all the sport that they can make."

It needs little experience on the stream to realize that this sympathy and
converse with nature in her myriad forms of air, sky, woods, water, and the
teeming life of bird and brute and fish, are a great part of the boundless
delight of the "angler's silent trade." These mysterious influences and
attractions of nature impart to the use of the rod a refinement and
fascination which elevate it above the rank of a merely gross, illiberal,
and vulgar sport. This is verified in the instances of many noted persons
who while swaying masterly sceptres over the minds of men, have yet also
lovingly plied angling-rods in the secluded and quiet streams.

The recall of a few names will illustrate how even genius has ennobled and
accredited the silent and contemplative recreation. Many men of fame, even
equal to Dr. Johnson's, have been eminent as anglers, and have redeemed and
disculpated angling from his surly and foolish sneer. Gay, author of the
"Fables," and of the "Beggar's Opera," must have fondly haunted and fished
the stream and learned, while swaying a rod, what he has sung in his "Rural
Sports." Who can say how much of the prelate and moralist Paley's
speculations were meditated when he was seclusively and dearly trouting the
streams of Cambridgeshire? He was, as Christopher North says, "a pellucid
writer, and bloody angler--a ten-dozen-trout-a-day man."

We know that Sir Humphrey Davy worshipfully frequented trout-pools and
salmon-streams with boyish delight, and captured their glittering spoil with
rapture akin to that of a successful experiment in his laboratory, and that
he prided himself, perhaps, more on his "Salmonia, or Days of Fly-fishing,"
than he did on his invention of the safety-lamp. The hero of Trafalgar and
the Nile, even after the loss of his right arm, wielded in his left hand an
angling rod with a fervor and success akin to that with which he waved the
sword of war and victory.

When Madame Malibran, a queen of song, felicitated Chantrey on his supposed
con amore chiseling of the marble in his studio, the frank and modest
sculptor ingenuously bespoke a ruling passion when he protested: "I'd rather
be a-fishing!" And who that has read them has not hung with delight over the
glowing pages of Christopher North, author of "Noctes Ambrosianoe," and of
numberless contributions to the literature of brook and loch, lake and
river, that have idealized and poetized angling into a very nobility and
glory of sport? Certainly, an amusement which in itself and in its
accessories has unbended, diverted and charmed minds and men like these,
must be far from gross, ignoble or puerile. It is not wonderful that in its
pursuit many gentlemen sometimes, as Burton also observes, "voluntarily
undertake that to satisfy their pleasure, which a poor man for a good
stipend would scarce be hired to undergo."

Something needs to be said, generally, about the regions and waters
mentioned in the following pages, the modes of reaching and utilizing them,
as introductory to the accounts of the excursions thither. The river of
trout, the Brulé or Bois Brulé, is a small, clear, cold, rocky stream of
sixty miles, issuing from Lake Brulé, running south by east. Not far from
its mouth it is joined by the Paint river, and their commingled waters
flowing four or five miles, and then receiving another affluent, the
Michigami river, as blended tributaries become thence the Menominee river.
This is a tortuous stream of about one hundred and twenty-five miles,
running into Green Bay, with the Michigan town of Menominee and the
Wisconsin town of Marinette at its mouth. Both the Brulé and Menominee
rivers are boundaries between the two states.

The Michigami river has its source in Lake Michigami, in the iron and copper
regions of Lake Superior. Its course is southeasterly. Its length is about
ninety miles. Our party struck this river at Republic, reaching there by
rail from Chicago, and coursed it about fifty-three miles, making thence
overland and water routes by Lake Mary, the Paint river, Mud lake, the Trout
(known also as Sugar) river, Lone Grave (or Bass), lake and lakes Chicagon
and Minnie, to the Brulé, a distance of thirty-five miles. With the
exception of the Hamilton and Merryman lumbering company's camp, about
eighteen miles above its mouth, the Michigami, from the point where the
party touched it, traverses an unbroken wilderness. This can now be reached
by team on a supply road from Badwater, which also extends to the headwaters
of Ford river. The Michigami flows through the richest of forest scenery,
and on its banks are numerous points where deer may be shot, and, at places
where small streams come in, trout are found. Downward canoeing is a most
delightful experience of the rambler on this stream.

The Brulé, formerly, also ran its whole course through a complete
wilderness. It was then reached by overland route from Section Eighteen, on
the Chicago and North-Western Railway, by way of Badwater, on the Menominee,
and in canoes thence. Since that time, several changes are visible in the
few lower miles of the river. About seventeen miles above its mouth at the
Michigami, a dam has been erected, and there is said to be fine trouting at
that point. A mile below that is Armstrong's Camp, and below and latter two
miles is La Montaigne's Upper Camp; three miles further down is Cauldwell's
farm, and five miles from latter is Stephenson's Brulé farm. Here is the log
cabin at which our party made a descent on the cook and his dog....

Quiniseck is already something of a village, and is the depot of several
productive iron regions. From Vulcan, on the Menominee River Railroad, a
supply road runs to Sturgeon river, where both good hunting and fishing may
be had. On Pine river, reached from Twin Falls, there are good fishing and
hunting. From Carney, on the Chicago and North-Western Railway, a road runs
due west, crossing the Menominee at the Peemenee farm of the N. Ludington
Company, to the north branch of Pike River. From the farm, the road
traverses a park-like and picturesque country of pine plains, Norway pines
and scrub oak, and is reputed to be an extremely pleasant and easy route.
The trouting on the north branch of the Pike, as well as on the main river,
is said to be superior. Bass fishing and hunting on Caton lakes are very
fine. There is a good hotel at Carney, where arrangements can be made in
advance, for teams and supplies for parties in quest of hunting and fishing
amusement at points and in regions accessible from that point. The sportsman
may also make a fine trip on the Escanaba river, by reaching it by rail to
Smith mine, and thence down the stream by canoe or boat to the mouth.
Trouting and deer hunting on this river, afford most excellent sport.

In consequence of these recent openings up of mining and lumbering points,
and of roads to them, the sporting realms of forest and stream are made more
easily and directly accessible. A sufficiency or abundance of supplies, the
necessary and proper staples of subsistence, may be obtained at the various
logging and mining points. At Marinette and Menominee a retinue of Indian
guides for a journey and sojourn in the woods, may always be had.

With the exception of the points now mentioned, the regions traversed by the
Brulé and Michigami, are wholly a wilderness, unsettled, even by Indians.
The only landmarks are the trails or portages, impassable except on foot,
and known only to hunters, trappers, prospectors, locators, surveyors or
adventurous sportsmen on summer rambles. There is no sort of habitation or
cultivation. Not more than two or three parties, during a season, penetrate
these forests. For such parties the supplies and appliances of subsistence
must be taken along or obtained at the lumber camps, and must be such as
will admit of being transported in canoes and packed over the carries.

The forests are almost impenetrable, from the dense luxuriant growth,
undergrowth and fallen and decaying timber. There are trails or portages, as
they are indifferently called, between different points, and these are
passable only on foot, and most of them with difficulty in that way. The
canoe is the means of travel. The country is threaded in many directions
with watercourses, and interspersed with lakes and lakelets, and by
portages, the canoes and outfit of the parties can be transported from one
navigating course to another.

In these regions mink, otter, deer, some bear, and waterfowl, particularly
in their season, are found. The sportsman who ventures through the forests
may find in them and along the water a surfeit of booty for his gun or rod.
For the most part he is powerless, except when near some of the points
within railway reach recently opened, to utilize the spoils any more than in
supplying his camp fare as he passes along. Only in exceptional instances,
and usually in limited quantity, his trout, or deer, or ducks, beyond the
needs of traveling consumption, must be wasted or left behind, neither
sufficing for his own prolonged wants or for gifts to friends at home.

As well as a canoe to move him, the traveler must have a tent to house him,
and such outfit of camping appliances and such store of provisions as may
suit his taste, his capacity of transporting them, the length of the route
and the duration of his sojourn. Most essential, too, is the guide, his
cicerone, the impersonated guide-book of the way, the navigator of the
birch-bark, the carrier of the luggage, the tent-builder, the log-heap
fireman, the cook, the baker, the scullion, in fact the indispensable
general utility man and brother. He is, or should be, an Indian or
half-breed, and practically they are the same.

He is a natural born forester. His nature, instincts, training, traditions,
adapt and predestinate him to the vagrancy of the woods. The simplicity and
paucity of his needs, his being a hunter by heredity, specially qualify him
for the services and experiences incident to his position as guide. And
though in contact with civilized life, and sometimes engaged in its
industries, the aboriginal nature is only modified, but never wholly effaced
by his habitancy and associations in town and village; and he still, like
the fox, "ne'er so tamed, so cherished, will have a wild trick of his
ancestors." His ancestry was forest-born and forest-roving, and by
inheritance come his cunning and fitness in woodcraft and forestry. The
white man, in these respects, only compares with him in proportion as he is
Indianized.

The canoe and the redskin are the fitting complement of each other.
Paddle-swinging and poling are necessary contaminants of his aboriginal and
traditional utilization of barks of the trees for a vessel to float him, and
for a tepee to shelter him. He is a canoeist by a sort of evolution of
species. The tent, too, is a variety of his race habitation--the wigwam or
tepee--the easily constructed and readily shifted housing and shelter of
wanderers. His senses are acute and sleepless; of whatever pertains to the
wilderness he will see and hear and scent and feel more keenly and quickly
than those having eyes, ears, nostrils and perceptions schooled in the less
exacting necessities of civilized life. These were our experiences of Indian
guides, and they are confirmed by the similar realizations of other parties.
This, of course, is the Indian of semi-civilization, of Wisconsin and
Michigan, and not the war-whooping, scalp-lifting, thieving savage "tattooed
or woaded, clad in winter-skins," of the great out-West. We found him
docile, patient, willing and zealous, and most satisfying in his service to
us....

The essentials of such a trip are simple and moderate. For apparel, a heavy
suit worn on the person, dark shirts, changes of underclothing, and a few
toilette articles, are sufficient. For provisions, a supply of staples, such
as pork, flour, meal, potatoes, biscuit, coffee and tea, butter and lard,
calculated on the scale of the army ration. A pair of heaviest blankets to
each man and the tent are sufficient for the dormitory. With these must be
the necessary utensils for cookery and a tin service for the table. To all
of these may be added whatever fancy or taste may prompt, consistently with
the portable capacity....

A month's roving and sojourning in the wilderness, as distant as that of the
Brulé, with ample outfit, not stinted of substantials for comfort, including
the compensation of guides, and fare from Chicago and return, and the
canoes, may be easily accomplished by each of a party of four, at a cost of
from eighty to one hundred dollars. Those who have rambled in vacations in
quest of rest, health and sport, in those or similar regions, have no
occasion ever to regret their cost in time and money....

If the lover of woods and waters shall, on perusal of this volume, be
inspired with a desire to go and do likewise--should he perceive the charm
and catch the spirit of idling, rambling and sporting in the
wilderness--especially should the lawyer, wearied and spent in professional
labor, seeking to escape it and the roar and whirl of the city, be led by
the reading to betake himself, for needed recreation and respite, to the
silence and peace of the great forests, and so refresh and vitalize his
wasted forces for his renewed work of the desk or of the re-opened forum,
then the writer's purpose has not been fruitless, his ambition will have
been satisfied, and he may feel that he has in a sense not unmeaning and in
a measure not unimportant, done something towards the discharge of that debt
which Lord Bacon says every lawyer owes to his profession.


___________________________________________

End, Part 1.

*New York, Orange Judd Company, 1880.

The complete text of this book is available from The Library of Congress as
a part of their "American Memory" collection at:
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/umhtml/umhome.html

The map included in the original text is image 21.

The LOC copyright disclaimer for this collection is at:
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/umhtml/umres.html

To the best of my knowledge the use of this material here does not violate
any U.S. copyright law or LOC use policies.
___________________________________________
Wolfgang
Say Ya! to da Yoop, eh?

"Daniel-San" wrote in message
et...


They forgot the alcohol stove! ;-)

For which they paid dearly.....as will be seen in PART 2, coming soon to a
newsgroup near you.

Great stuff. Thanks for posting.

You're welcome.

Wolfgang

Wolfgang wrote:

TROUTING ON THE BRULÉ RIVER OR SUMMER-WAYFARING IN THE NORTHERN WILDERNESS*

By John Lyle King.


This one's for you, Jeff.

wow... thanks...and ya...i'll say: "Ya! to da Yoop, eh?"