style="font-size:15px;"> Traveling the lake shore, I nearly upended a time or two on the crusted snow. It was treacherous going. When I came to a good seat on the evergreens beneath a small spruce, I took advantage of it and proceeded to glass the slopes above the spruce timber.
First sighting was a cow moose with a yearling trailing her down country. While I watched them, I heard the bawling of caribou calves. It took me a few minutes to locate where all the noise was coming from. In a high basin I spotted seventy-five or more cows and calves. Across the lake ten Dall rams were in different positions of relaxation, and farther down I counted eleven lambs and nineteen ewes. Satisfied that there was plenty of game in the country, I trudged down to the stream and followed along its banks, through the hummocks of low brush, until I came to where it poured invitingly into the lower lake.
I waded out a few steps. My boots did not leak, but almost immediately the chill seeped through the woolens inside them. I cast a few times, letting the small metal lure ride out with the current, then retrieving it jerkily with twitches of the rod tip. Several more casts. Nothing.
Thumping a gouge chisel with a spruce chunk mallet to fashion a perfect notch.
Then it happened with the suddenness of a broken shoelace. As the lure came flashing toward me over the gravel, a pale shadow, almost invisible against the bottom, streaked in pursuit. Jaws gaped white, and the bright glint of the lure winked out as they closed over it. The line hissed, the rod tip hooped. The fish swerved out of the shallows, rolling a bulge of water before him as he bolted for the dropoff. He slashed the water white as I backed away with the rod held high, working him in to where he ran out of water and flopped his yellow spotted sides on the bank. A nineteen-inch lake trout. I thumped its head with a stone, and it shuddered out straight.
As I dressed it out, I examined its stomach. Not a thing in it. It is always interesting to see what a fish has been eating. Several times I have found mice in the stomachs of lake trout and arctic char. Now how does a mouse get himself into a jackpot like that? Does he fall in by accident, or does he venture for a swim? Tough to be a mouse in this country. From the air, the land, and the water his enemies wait to strike.
On the way back to the cabin, I repaired the log bridge over Hope Creek. All it needed was shoring up with a few boulders rolled against the log bracings on each end, which was easier to do now while the water was low.
I popped a batch of corn in bacon fat, salted and buttered it, and munched on it while I studied the sweep of the mountains. Before I left for the construction job, I shaped my biscuits, put them into a pan, and covered them to rise for supper. You always have to think ahead with biscuits and a lot of other things in the wilderness.
If I can fit eight logs a day, the cabin will go along at a good rate. That’s sixteen notches to cut out and tailor to fit. It is important to put the notch on the underside of a log and fit it down over the top of the one beneath. If you notch the topside, rain will run into it instead of dripping past in a shingle effect. Water settling into the notches can cause problems.
The sun shining on the green lake ice was so beautiful I had to stop work now and then just to look at it. That’s a luxury a man enjoys when he works for himself.
Browned trout filets, sourdough biscuits, and honey for the first fry of the spring.
For supper, I cut the trout into small chunks, dipped them into beaten egg, and rolled them in cornmeal. They browned nicely in the bacon fat, and my tender crusted sourdoughs did justice to the first fish fry of the season.
May 28th. Frost on the logs when I went to work at six a.m. I had to roll many of them around to get the ones I wanted. Sorting takes time, but matching ends is very important if the cabin is to look right.
The wind helped the ice along today. The upper lake is nearly two-thirds ice-free now.
Had my first building inspector at the job. A gray jay, affectionately known as camp robber, came in his drab uniform of gray and white and black to look things over from his perch on a branch end. The way he kept tilting his head and making those mewing sounds, I’d say he was being downright critical. I welcomed his company just the same.
May 29th. Only a few chunks of ice floating in the lake this morning. By noon there was no ice to be seen. It was good to see the lake in motion again. It was even better to slip the canoe into the water and paddle to work for a change, gliding silently along over a different pathway.
My logs are not as uniform as they could be. They have too much taper, which makes much more work. Just the same I like the accumulation of white chips and shavings all over the ground and the satisfaction that comes from making a log blend over the curve of the one beneath it as if it grew that way. You can’t rush it. I don’t want these logs looking as though a Boy Scout was turned loose on them with a dull hatchet.
This evening I hauled out Spike’s heavy trotline, tested it for strength, and baited its three hooks with some of the lake trout fins. I whirled it a few times, gave it a toss, and watched the stone sinker zip the slack line from the beach and land with a plop about fifty feet from the shore. Let’s see what is prowling the bottom these days.
It was raining slightly when I turned in. There’s no sleeping pill like a good day’s work.
May 30th. A trace of new snow on the crags.
After breakfast I checked the trotline. It pulled heavy, with a tugging now and then on the way in. Two burbot, a fifteen-incher and a nineteen-incher. A burbot is ugly, all mottled and bigheaded—it looks like the result of an eel getting mixed up with a codfish. It tastes a whole lot better than it looks. I skinned and cleaned the two before going to work and left the entrails on the beach for the sanitation department.
The cabin is growing. Twenty-eight logs are in place. Forty-four should do it, except for gable ends and the roof logs. It really looks a mess to see the butts extending way beyond the corners, but I will trim them off later on.
The burbot looks like an eel mixed up with a codfish. It’s ugly, but it has firm white flesh.
Rain halted operations for a spell.
When I started in again, I made a blunder. My mind must have been on the big ram I had been watching. I’d just finished a notch, had a real dandy fit, and was about ready to fasten it down when I noticed it was wrong end to! I tossed it to one side and started another. Guess a man needs an upset now and then to remind him that he doesn’t know as much as he thinks he does. Maybe that’s what the camp robber was trying to tell me.
May 31st. A weird-looking country this morning. The fog last night froze on the mountains, giving them a light gray appearance. That loon calling out of the vapor sounds like the spirit of Edgar Allan Poe.
The contrary log of yesterday carried over into today. I carefully fitted and fastened it down, and was selecting logs for the next course when I looked up and saw it was still wrong end to! How in the world did that happen? Two big ends together are proper but not three. I pried it off and flung it to the side. But why get shook up about it? It’s better to discover it now than when it’s buried beneath a course.
Thirty-five logs in place. Nine to go and I will be ready for the gables—those tricky triangular
