Though Heavy-Laden With Flour And Bacon, He Strode
Lightly Along The Rough Trails As If His Load Was Only A Natural
Balanced Part Of His Body.
Our way at first lay along Thibert Creek,
now on gravel benches, now on bed rock, now close down on the
bouldery edge of the stream.
Above the mines the stream is clear and
flows with a rapid current. Its banks are embossed with moss and
grass and sedge well mixed with flowers - daisies, larkspurs,
solidagos, parnassia, potentilla, strawberry, etc. Small strips of
meadow occur here and there, and belts of slender arrowy fir and
spruce with moss-clad roots grow close to the water's edge. The creek
is about forty-five miles long, and the richest of its gold-bearing
beds so far discovered were on the lower four miles of the creek; the
higher four-or-five-dollars-a-day diggings were considered very poor
on account of the high price of provisions and shortness of the
season. After crossing many smaller streams with their strips of
trees and meadows, bogs and bright wild gardens, we arrived at the Le
Claire cabin about the middle of the afternoon. Before entering it he
threw down his burden and made haste to show me his favorite flower,
a blue forget-me-not, a specimen of which he found within a few rods
of the cabin, and proudly handed it to me with the finest respect,
and telling its many charms and lifelong associations, showed in
every endearing look and touch and gesture that the tender little
plant of the mountain wilderness was truly his best-loved darling.
After luncheon we set out for the highest point on the dividing ridge
about a mile above the cabin, and sauntered and gazed until sundown,
admiring the vast expanse of open rolling prairie-like highlands
dotted with groves and lakes, the fountain-heads of countless cool,
glad streams.
Le Claire's simple, childlike love of nature, preserved undimmed
through a hard wilderness life, was delightful to see. The grand
landscapes with their lakes and streams, plants and animals, all were
dear to him. In particular he was fond of the birds that nested near
his cabin, watched the young, and in stormy weather helped their
parents to feed and shelter them. Some species were so confiding they
learned to perch on his shoulders and take crumbs from his hand.
A little before sunset snow began to fly, driven by a cold wind, and
by the time we reached the cabin, though we had not far to go,
everything looked wintry. At half-past nine we ate supper, while a
good fire crackled cheerily in the ingle and a wintry wind blew hard.
The little log cabin was only ten feet long, eight wide, and just
high enough under the roof peak to allow one to stand upright. The
bedstead was not wide enough for two, so Le Claire spread the
blankets on the floor, and we gladly lay down after our long, happy
walk, our heads under the bedstead, our feet against the opposite
wall, and though comfortably tired, it was long ere we fell asleep,
for Le Claire, finding me a good listener, told many stories of his
adventurous life with Indians, bears and wolves, snow and hunger,
and of his many camps in the Canadian woods, hidden like the nests
and dens of wild animals; stories that have a singular interest to
everybody, for they awaken inherited memories of the lang, lang syne
when we were all wild. He had nine children, he told me, the youngest
eight years of age, and several of his daughters were married. His
home was in Victoria.
Next morning was cloudy and windy, snowy and cold, dreary December
weather in August, and I gladly ran out to see what I might learn. A
gray ragged-edged cloud capped the top of the divide, its snowy
fringes drawn out by the wind. The flowers, though most of them were
buried or partly so, were to some extent recognizable, the bluebells
bent over, shining like eyes through the snow, and the gentians, too,
with their corollas twisted shut; cassiope I could recognize under
any disguise; and two species of dwarf willow with their seeds
already ripe, one with comparatively small leaves, were growing in
mere cracks and crevices of rock-ledges where the dry snow could not
lie. Snowbirds and ptarmigan were flying briskly in the cold wind,
and on the edge of a grove I saw a spruce from which a bear had
stripped large sections of bark for food.
About nine o'clock the clouds lifted and I enjoyed another wide view
from the summit of the ridge of the vast grassy fountain region with
smooth rolling features. A few patches of forest broke the monotony
of color, and the many lakes, one of them about five miles long, were
glowing like windows. Only the highest ridges were whitened with
snow, while rifts in the clouds showed beautiful bits of yellow-green
sky. The limit of tree growth is about five thousand feet.
Throughout all this region from Glenora to Cassiar the grasses grow
luxuriantly in openings in the woods and on dry hillsides where the
trees seem to have been destroyed by fire, and over all the broad
prairies above the timber-line. A kind of bunch-grass in particular
is often four or five feet high, and close enough to be mowed for
hay. I never anywhere saw finer or more bountiful wild pasture. Here
the caribou feed and grow fat, braving the intense winter cold, often
forty to sixty degrees below zero. Winter and summer seem to be the
only seasons here. What may fairly be called summer lasts only two or
three months, winter nine or ten, for of pure well-defined spring or
autumn there is scarcely a trace. Were it not for the long severe
winters, this would be a capital stock country, equaling Texas and
the prairies of the old West.
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