One man’s wilderness (31 page)

I had seen no moose in the cottonwoods across the lake since the low slopes had been in shadow, and I wondered if the coming of the sunlight to those levels would signal a return of the big animals.

There were dark objects in the cottonwoods. Moose! Welcome back! I snowshoed up along the brush to get a better look. A huge bull with a majestic rack, a cow, and a young bull with antlers like a buck deer. They moved as they browsed, and when they stopped it was invariably behind brush or a tree. They moved not in alarm but warily, not affording me a view in the clear. In their slow passage they flushed ptarmigan, and the birds croaked their irritation as they scaled away to land farther on.

The ice is now thirty-five inches thick.

January 17th
. Plus ten degrees.

I am having a creosote problem. Too much low fire in the stove. Creosote runs down the stovepipe from each joint. Some of it is even running down on the roof and getting through to my logs.

January 18th
. Almost like summer. A plus twenty-two degrees.

A good day to try to solve the creosote problem. I let the fire go out and took down the stovepipe. Then I relocated the damper and put the pipe back, bottom end up. Now the joints in the pipe lead in instead of out. Can’t be any worse than it was. Time will tell.

January 20th
. Plus two degrees.

Field day. I scoured my table and counter top with Comet powder, soap, and bleach. With Babe always threatening to bring the mission girls next trip, I had better keep this place shipshape.

My stovepipe has been staying clean. No strong odor when I build up my fire for cooking. That’s a good sign.

I saw the squirrel today. He has been making himself scarce. I thought a fox got him, or maybe the weasel, but the little troublemaker is back.

A slice of moon this evening. As that moon becomes full, the temperature will drop like a stone or I miss my guess.

January 22nd
. Three and a half inches of fluffy snow. Plus fifteen degrees.

I made a snowshoe trail down country. When I returned later on the same trail, I found it all but drifted shut. I had a tendency to wander off course in the surrounding whiteness. Far out from shore I came across the trail of a mouse. I think he must have thought that this is a big world.

The fox, the magpies, and some ravens were around the moose meat. They must have an understanding with each other. Sometimes the fox chases the magpies, but it seems more in play than anything else.

Three big rams were above Glacier Creek, standing up to their bellies in the snow. Bare places show where they had foraged for grass.

January 31st
. Snowing. Plus eighteen degrees.

Twenty-eight inches of snow on the level and as loose as feathers. January has not been the cold month I expected it to be. What will February bring?

February 1st
. Fog and snowing lightly. Minus two degrees.

I snowshoed a narrow flight strip for Babe. It is good to have something by which to judge distance and the condition of the snow. This will be the Twin Lakes International Airport.

A small flock of sparrow-sized birds have come in like a flurry of dry leaves
to land and feed on the tips of the buckbrush. They show a rosy color. My field guide pictures them as hoary redpolls.

February 3rd
. Clear, calm, and thank the Lord! Forty-eight degrees below zero. That full moon has brought another chill to this land.

It was a happy sight to see my cabin bathed in sunlight for one-half hour today.

I was sawing wood when I heard a plane. The little Black Bird from Lake Clark. Babe was putting out a longer vapor trail than the last time he came. He made a circle and came in to light on my packed strip. He had trouble taxiing because the aluminum skis had a tendency to stick to the snow.

“Man, it’s cold here!” he exclaimed, beating his mittened hands together. He bounced around in his wolfskin coat and sheepskin pants. He seemed to be causing his own fog bank.

“Can’t stay long or I’ll be part of the scenery,” he said. He was afraid the oil would freeze at this low temperature. Lots of mail and packages. Two more pairs of very heavy woolen socks that Mary Alsworth had knitted. They’re so pretty I hate to think of wearing them. And three big bags of popping corn.

But where were the mission girls? Next time he would bring them for sure.

I broke him loose from the snow and held a wing until he was turned around. Away he went, anxious to climb a few thousand feet to where it was warm.

I thawed a bowl of blueberries, bruised them up a bit for more juice, added some white sugar and syrup, and enjoyed a treat to celebrate the return of the sun.

February 4th
. Minus fifty-one degrees. Clear and cemetery-still.

I find that it is as much as two degrees colder down on the lake than at the cabin, and there is only a difference of four feet in elevation.

I was eager to try a pair of my new heavy socks, along with a pair of insoles in my pacs, one pair of light wool socks, and the heavy ones over them. It was fifty below zero as I followed the trail up the hump, and thirty below on top.
Those sixteen-inch heavy socks with their close knit really kept my feet warm or else I’m getting used to the frost.

Within a few days there will be an hour of sunlight at the cabin.

February 5th
. Minus forty-eight degrees.