MOONSCAPE – Part one
By: Ray Hansen
The scene was something like you might have seen on the 50’s television show “Death Valley Days”. Maybe that is before your time. Compare it to one of the desolate planets Spock and Captain Kirk visited before Kirk returned to Earth, retired from space exploration, and got a job as a partner in a law firm on Boston Legal (and James Spader took Spock’s place.
Vast open stretches of bare dirt spread out for thousands of yards in all directions. Strangely, it is lined with deep cracks as though it was a desert even though until recently it held millions of gallons of water. Sprinkled here and there are the skeletons of huge trees, whitened and split by exposure to the sun after many years submerged beneath the tannic stained water. Massive stumps squat silently in all directions, their roots spiraling off in a circle like so many octopi sitting on the ocean floor.
The site I’m describing is the reservoir formerly backed up behind the Boney Falls Dam, on the Escanaba River some miles upstream from my home. Now drained of water, it contains just a single thin river channel running through its center like a main artery snaking through a parched skeleton. The water level has been lowered so necessary repairs can be made to the dam that normally holds the river back.
The bottom of the reservoir – now exposed to the sun and wind for the first time in many years – holds traces of its history for those who can read the clues. Wearing high-top rubber boots and poking through the ruins, Kate and I find the remnants of a very old wicker basket style fishing creel. This is a kind of basket with a long shoulder strap that trout anglers once used to keep their catch fresh. Wet moss was placed in the container and fish placed on it. Cooling by evaporation helped keep them from spoiling. Indian tribes in this area also made baskets for various purposes, but theirs were fashioned from intricately woven and intertwined willow branches. The piece of basket we found was made of flat wooden strips. In any case, I’m certain the owner despaired losing it.
Signs of the old logging days lay settled into the drying sediment all around us. Big pine logs with hand-hewn notches near the cut ends spoke of smoky cook shacks dimly lit by oil lanterns. A pine pole with a neat row of branches, each cut cleanly at three inches, whispered that big, black cast iron skillets had been hung there through holes in the handles. A big horseshoe, rusted and thinned by so many seasons under water gave silent witness that three-quarter ton draft horses once stabled here. Look closer and maybe two faint lines would reveal the course of a logging trail etched into the ground by clydesdales, morgans, percherons, and belgiums straining against leather collars. These massively muscled horses pulled drays filled with logs so big two lumberjacks could not encircle them with their arms outstretched.
An old boat wedged between two big pine stumps drew our attention. It’s not ancient, but is a very early aluminum model in a long, narrow “johnboat” style. Vintage 1950’s I’d say. We wonder how it got here? It’s upside down. Does it speak of tragedy? The transom shows no evidence that an old green Johnson Sea Horse outboard motor was ever clamped there, so it must have been used as a rowboat.
Was it tethered to a small dock with an old hemp rope that gave way in a storm? Is there a skeleton in the mud beneath it? Did the wild wind and relentless river current push it against the stumps until it tipped enough to fill with water and slip beneath the surface? Well… at this point it is just the Escanaba River version of the Edmund Fitzgerald that was lost on nearby Lake Superior. The hull has been found but the story of its sinking remains a mystery.
End of part one – come back tomorrow for the conclusion of this blog. Thanks for reading!
Copyright Ray Hansen, 2008
Showing posts with label logging road. Show all posts
Showing posts with label logging road. Show all posts
Thursday, November 6, 2008
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
GUT INSTINCTS AND MORNING COFFEE
Author's Note: In the next few blogs, I'm going to describe a typical half-day bow hunt based on an actual day I recently enjoyed in the woods. The routine described here would take place when I drive to my friend Duane's home and we go to the hunting area from there. In other cases, we would be staying in a camp and hunting near there, or I would be going out alone.
GUT INSTINCTS
Three hours before sunrise: I get up, stretch, and wander out to the screen porch to take a look at the sky. I see no stars and conclude that it is overcast. We do not have television and I don’t watch the Weather Channel. I could fire up my computer to see what the forecast is, but I’m not invested in what they might report. This is hunting in the old way. I’ll go by what my guts say; what the sky looks like; what I might hear on the pre-dawn breeze; and what experience tells me about hunting with a bow and arrow at this time of year.
5:20 a.m.: I’m in the truck, driving toward Duane’s place. I see lots of deer on the ten-mile drive. They seem quite active today. I hope this carries through into the hours I’ll be out in the woods.
MORNING COFFEE
5:30 a.m.: Duane and I have a cup of coffee. We have a long-standing and fundamental disagreement about coffee strength. My preferred recipe is one heaping handful of fresh grounds per person, boil for thirty minutes then throw a horseshoe into the seething cauldron. If the horseshoe sinks, add more coffee. This is called “campfire coffee” or “cowboy coffee” at times.
Duane on the other hand, starts with a full pot of water on Monday, using just three miserly, tiny, teaspoons of grounds. This brews something – certainly not worthy of being called coffee – that one can easily read a newspaper through.
On Tuesday, and each subsequent day, he sprinkles a few additional grains of finely ground coffee on top of the soggy grounds remaining from the previous day. The result is the creation of some unknown heated liquid that he relishes each morning.
PRE-DAWN DEPARTURE
6:15 a.m.: We head out to the woods in my truck. Sunrise is not until just before 8 a.m. and we have a long hike through the woods in the dark so we can be in our stands well before it is light enough to see. Watching the woods come alive on frosty autumn mornings is a treat not many people take advantage of. It is especially enjoyable from a small platform twenty-five feet up a large spruce tree. (Yes, I’m still climbing trees at my age!)
6:40 a.m.: We park on an old logging road adjacent to a large marsh flooded by beavers some years ago. We suit up in camouflage coveralls, gloves, and camo facemasks. After that we spray down with scent-blocking spray from plastic spritz bottles and put on eighteen-inch high rubber boots. Deer have an incredibly well developed sense of smell, and that is the number one thing hunters have to try to defeat if they plan on seeing any animals.
Copyright Ray Hansen, 2008
GUT INSTINCTS
Three hours before sunrise: I get up, stretch, and wander out to the screen porch to take a look at the sky. I see no stars and conclude that it is overcast. We do not have television and I don’t watch the Weather Channel. I could fire up my computer to see what the forecast is, but I’m not invested in what they might report. This is hunting in the old way. I’ll go by what my guts say; what the sky looks like; what I might hear on the pre-dawn breeze; and what experience tells me about hunting with a bow and arrow at this time of year.
5:20 a.m.: I’m in the truck, driving toward Duane’s place. I see lots of deer on the ten-mile drive. They seem quite active today. I hope this carries through into the hours I’ll be out in the woods.
MORNING COFFEE
5:30 a.m.: Duane and I have a cup of coffee. We have a long-standing and fundamental disagreement about coffee strength. My preferred recipe is one heaping handful of fresh grounds per person, boil for thirty minutes then throw a horseshoe into the seething cauldron. If the horseshoe sinks, add more coffee. This is called “campfire coffee” or “cowboy coffee” at times.
Duane on the other hand, starts with a full pot of water on Monday, using just three miserly, tiny, teaspoons of grounds. This brews something – certainly not worthy of being called coffee – that one can easily read a newspaper through.
On Tuesday, and each subsequent day, he sprinkles a few additional grains of finely ground coffee on top of the soggy grounds remaining from the previous day. The result is the creation of some unknown heated liquid that he relishes each morning.
PRE-DAWN DEPARTURE
6:15 a.m.: We head out to the woods in my truck. Sunrise is not until just before 8 a.m. and we have a long hike through the woods in the dark so we can be in our stands well before it is light enough to see. Watching the woods come alive on frosty autumn mornings is a treat not many people take advantage of. It is especially enjoyable from a small platform twenty-five feet up a large spruce tree. (Yes, I’m still climbing trees at my age!)
6:40 a.m.: We park on an old logging road adjacent to a large marsh flooded by beavers some years ago. We suit up in camouflage coveralls, gloves, and camo facemasks. After that we spray down with scent-blocking spray from plastic spritz bottles and put on eighteen-inch high rubber boots. Deer have an incredibly well developed sense of smell, and that is the number one thing hunters have to try to defeat if they plan on seeing any animals.
Copyright Ray Hansen, 2008
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