We went back to Hank’s cabin for a good hot dinner and while we were eating the Chief said that in the fall when the first ice makes, the ice boat, being fast and quiet, would be a fine thing for chasing wolves when they cross the lake. He figured that with a good breeze the boat could outrun any wolf, which is true, and if he was stretched out on the platform with his rifle, he’d run a good chance of getting some bounty money, not to mention pelts. That hit Hank just right for he sees a chance for some fine photographs, so I suspect those two will be wolf hunting on an ice boat the first chance they get.
Hank is not the only one who has been making things. I worked out a new kind of cooking pot I have been wanting to try ever since I read about the kind they make in faraway Tibet. It seems they don’t have much fuel in that country so they have to make a little go a long way. Their pot is supposed to heat a whole stew with not much more than a handful of grass. It is like an old-fashioned tin coffee pot with a flue right up through the middle so that the heat works on the bottom of the pot and the wall of the flue, which gives a large heating surface. We have no way of making such a fine cooking pot, but I had one of those cake pans they call an “angel cake tin,” which has a tapered open cone in the middle. Same idea as the Tibet pot, so we filled it with water and took it out to try. Sure enough, just a good handful of dry balsam and spruce twigs boiled nigh on to a quart of water in about five minutes. I figure we will be using one of those pans on future camping trips. I am going to send away and get a bigger one with the center flue crimped in without solder so it won’t melt out.
Blizzards and Wailing Winds
SNOW lies deep on the land and the lakes, and the branches of the hardwood trees are gray skeletons swaying in the wind. In these parts a blizzard comes like a stalking lynx, quietly at first, then striking with whirling fury, screaming in the hills, clawing at the tree tops. At last it moves on with a wailing sound, leaving the land white and hushed, with sharp-edged drifts and deep wind rings around the trees.
There is no sign of any living thing on the white blanket that stretches away across the lake, up and over the Cache Lake hills, on and on through the dark woods into strange valleys and over other hills that few men know. I wouldn’t enjoy flat country where one always knows what lies ahead as far as the eye can see. I want hills that lead you up to look beyond.
When I get up in the morning now the windows are covered with frosty crystals that sparkle blue and white if the moonlight strikes them. Some of the designs on the glass are like little curving plumes, wonderful miniature fern fronds, and leaves. Others are small balsam twigs on the end of a branch and many are miniature spruce trees of shimmering ice. I have seen some that looked like the spreading tail of a peacock and many that made me think of the geometry problems I had in school many years ago.
You need a microscope to see the real beauty of frost crystals, for some of the lines are too small for the eyes. Last night I picked out oak and maple leaves, the blossoms of tiny flowers, and even a spider web with what looked like a spider near the center. And there were grass blades and moss and many other designs.
If you want to see how frost pictures grow, go into a cold room on a midwinter’s night when the window is coated with frost and hold a candle near enough to the glass to melt the frosty coating. You can do the same thing by blowing your breath on the glass for a few seconds. The warmth will cause the melting frost to form a thin watery film. As soon as that happens step back and almost at once the frost begins to draw new designs. You will notice them beginning to form around the edge of the melted spot. Often they take the form of slender lances or glistening stars, working out toward the center of the clear spot as if some invisible hand were drawing them with white fire.
These designs will form only where the glass is wet and stop at the edge of any dry place. If you observe closely you will find that between the larger designs very fine pictures gradually begin to appear. Some of them look like pieces of coral and others may look like finely cut gems. In time the frost begins to cover the dry places with an even white coating that shows no design and looks at first like sanded glass. This is a granular form of frost and it always keeps away from the beautiful designs as if it didn’t want to spoil them.
Various combinations of temperature and moisture affect the formation of frost crystals and for that reason the designs are never exactly alike. The thickness of a pane of glass or its finish, and whether it is clean or dusty, have something to do with the kind of frost crystals that form on it.
Looking at the wonderful designs on a window pane, it is hard to realize what a powerful thing frost is, for it is frost freezing the moisture in the trunks of great trees that splits them in zero weather with explosions like shots out of a cannon.
We are so used to frost that we don’t often stop to think that it is constantly changing the shape of the land, breaking up the rocky formations, loosening the earth in valleys and on the hillsides so that very gradually through the years the face of the earth changes in localities where the winters are severe. One good example is the long frost crystals that raise the soil several inches in sandy or gravelly places. And you find another kind of frost, fine-grained and very white on the undersides of rocks and logs and often under leaves on the ground. The Indians call December Yeyekoopewe, the Month of the Frozen Mist.
Once in a while I hear the lynx that lives in the tamarack swamp on the other side of the lake and if you look you are pretty sure to see its tracks although you seldom catch sight of the animal. Do you know the difference between a lynx and a wildcat? Well, the lynx has little tufts on the tips of its ears, and a black-tipped tail, whereas the wildcat has no ear tufts and its tail is black-tipped only on top and is white underneath. Furthermore, its legs are shorter and its feet smaller than those of the lynx which has large, furry foot pads that act like snowshoes.
Weasel tracks are plentiful and often mixed in with them you will find the tiny foot pads of a white-footed mouse which is one of the weasel’s favorite foods. The weasels which turn white with the first snow are known as ermine in winter when the pelts are very valuable. They are brown in summer but are known to turn white within a few hours after the first snowfall. It is pretty much the same story with the snowshoe rabbit.
Did you ever stop to think why they change color? Well, of course the white is a protection so their enemies can’t see them so easily against the snow, but the white is also warmer than darker colors, for it lets less heat escape than brown or black. An engineer who came up here to fish once told me if city folk painted their steam radiators black instead of white they would get a whole lot more heat out of them. But womenfolk don’t like black, so you cannot get them to change.
Getting back from women to weasels, maybe you have noticed that though the body of the animal turns a cream color or almost pure white, the tip of the tail is black. The same is true of the snow buntings and ptarmigan, which have dark tail feathers. Now at first you would think those dark spots would show just where they are, but as a matter of fact they keep the enemy’s attention away from the animal. I have proved it by covering the tail of a weasel (he was dead) with snow and just as soon as you do that you begin to make out the outline of the rest of the animal. It is the black spot that catches the eye and fools their enemies. The way nature takes care of its own is something to think about.
The tiny footpads of a white-footed mouse
This is the time when the fur of the animals is at its best and the northern trappers are out on their lines. The fur is now dense and rich in color. You don’t live in the old north long before you discover that under the regular outer fur the animals grow a sort of underwear of soft dense hair that helps to keep them warm. I have read about mountain goats in India that grow a soft fur called pashm, used to make the wonderful soft Kashmir shawls and other fabrics.
The birds that winter up here also have an extra winter covering. The outer feathers lie closer, overlap more, and underneath these feathers they grow a won
derful coat of down—little soft feathers that prevent water from reaching the skin and keep out the cold winds. You see it best in some of the ducks and geese. When winter is over and they shed their underwear the waterfowl pick the soft down from their breasts to line their nests. That is where eiderdown comes from. The eider duck not only lines her nest with the down, but covers up her young ones with it on cold spring nights.
And it is interesting to see how little extra spikes grow on the toes of the grouse to help them walk over the snow and dig deep for berries in the winter. Some birds, like the ptarmigan, have an extra covering of feathers on their feet in the cold months. Almost any day up here you can see grouse running over the snow hunting for berries, cones, catkins, and the like. And they will dig deep through the snow to find such choice food as wintergreen, partridge, and snowberries, as well as the various cranberries you find in certain places. They know just where to dig, too.
Another thing you will notice, when the leaves are off the trees, is that the buds of those that break out their leaves early in the spring are covered with a protective sheath of scales which fall off and release the buds when the first warm days come in April or May.
This is the time of year I think about helping some of my bird-friends, especially the little chicadees. They can take care of themselves in almost any weather, but when an ice storm coats the trees and bushes they can’t get at the bark where they find dormant insects and the like. That is where I come in and they know me for miles around. During the summer I raise lots of sunflowers and dry the seeds and later on I gather the ripe seeds of the wild plants. Then when winter sets in I put up bird-feeders, logs with holes bored in them, covered boxes and brush shelters. I even have a little box with a glass top outside my window. A friend of mine always sends up a bag of wild-bird food, including split pumpkin and squash seeds, which the chicadees love. I also feed them nut meats and the like. For meat I hang an old bone or a piece of bacon rind on a limb and stuff venison suet in the cracks in the bark of pine trees. Smart and cheerful fellows the chicadees are, and full of courage.
One thing I am really proud of is my squirrel-proof feeder. It is a piece of cedar log about three inches in diameter with a pointed top and holes bored here and there to hold the food. It hangs from a piece of wire which is attached to a screw eye in its tip. So far nothing unusual, but here is the squirrel-proofer. Punch a quarter-inch hole in the exact center of an old pie plate and run the wire through it so that the plate, upside down, balances on the point. The minute a squirrel slides down the wire and touches the plate it tips on its side. There’s nothing for him to hold on to and try as he will there is no way to get around that teetering pie plate. The only thing left is to make a jump for the ground or climb back up the wire and if there is one thing that is funny it is a squirrel going up a slippery wire hand over hand and slipping back every few inches. So far not one has passed the plate—for himself.
On Christmas Hank, the Chief, and I always decorate a big spruce with bits of the favorite foods of all the birds that stay with us, and sprinkle seeds beneath the boughs for the ground feeders.
One of the little problems of living in the woods in winter is coming home and having to get a fire going and wait for a meal to cook when you are hungry enough to chew rawhide. Well, I’ve got that one beaten, for I made myself a fireless cooker and now when I am away for a day I come back to a hot meal ready for me the minute I step in the door.
I don’t know who invented fireless cookers, but they have been used for a long, long time, especially in the Scandinavian countries, where they were usually insulated with hay or straw and called “hay boxes.” A fireless cooker is simple and inexpensive to make, for any kind of box that is tight or even a keg or a barrel will do. The important thing is plenty of good insulation to hold the heat in, and you can find the right kind wherever you are. I used well-dried sphagnum moss, but sawdust would have been all right. In addition to Straw or hay, crushed paper, wool, ground cork, excelsior, or cotton batting are all good for insulation. Many of the materials made to keep houses warm, especially mineral wool and fluffy asbestos, would also do well as insulation for a fireless cooker.
The first step in building a cooker is to decide on the pot or pail you plan to use regularly, for on its size depends the kind of box you will need. Make certain the pot has straight sides so it will slip in and out of its compartment easily, and it must have a tight-fitting cover. Enamelware, aluminum, or stainless steel utensils are all fine for the purpose. The best type of pot is one which is about as wide as it is tall, for you don’t want any more surface to radiate heat than you can help.
A fireless cooker does a much better job if you use a preheated round, flat stone, the diameter of the pot and about an inch thick, at the bottom of the cooking hole. Sometimes you can find a soft stone that can be chipped to size, but I cast one an inch and a half thick by mixing a little cement with sand and pouring it into a circular cardboard mold. I made a little hollow in the middle and set in a loop of wire so it could be lowered into place with a hook.
Once you have your pot you will know how big a box is needed, for the cooking well that holds the pot must be surrounded by at least four inches of insulating material, top, sides, and bottom. Before doing anything else, line the bottom and sides of the box with heavy paper, and then fill the bottom with four or five inches of insulating material. Next place the pot on top of the heating stone on the insulation in the center of the box and pack insulation evenly and not too tightly around the pot until it comes up to the rim and no more. Then work the pot around carefully until the hole is slightly larger, so it will slide out easily. Now slip in a cylindrical liner of cardboard to form a smooth wall for the cooking compartment.
When the insulating material has been packed to the top of the pot, cover it with heavy building paper or cardboard with the edges turned down and pasted to the sides of the box, the edge around the cooking hole turned down and glued to the cardboard liner. Then you make a cloth cushion four inches deep to fit the top of the box and stuff it with four inches of insulating material, for this top pad is very important. The last step is to make a hinged lid for the box that presses down snugly on the top insulating pad. Make a hook to hold it down, for the tighter the cooker the better it will work. If you want to make two cooking compartments make a partition in the middle and have a separate top insulating cushion for each side.
Once you have a fireless cooker you must know how to use it properly to get the best results. Of course you start your food on a stove and bring it to a boil, meantime heating the stone for the bottom. Then get it into the fireless cooker as quickly as you can—instantly is none too fast. That’s the real secret!
Another important thing to remember is that you will get much better results if the food fills your cooking pot instead of being half or three-quarters full, for wherever there is an air space, heat will be lost. Beans, cereals, stews, and soups are best cooked from eight to twelve hours, but many foods need only two or three hours in the cooker. You don’t know how good food can be until you have tasted it from a fireless cooker, which keeps in all the fine flavors that usually steam away on a stove.
And if you are interested in fine flavors you would surely enjoy my overnight buckwheat griddlecakes. I would not want you to think I am taking credit for them because they are made by a recipe my aunt gave me.
But I don’t want you to take my word for it, so I am going to give you my aunt’s rule to try for yourself. Every year she sends me up a few pounds of buckwheat flour and I have griddlecakes almost every Sunday morning. Here’s her rule:
2 rounded cups buckwheat flour
1 rounded cup white corn meal
1 cup boiling water
¾ cup milk
1 teaspoonful salt
½ yeast cake
¼ cup milk slightly warmed
½ teaspoon soda
1 teaspoon molasses
The first thing to do is to dissolve the yeast in ab
out a quarter cup of lukewarm milk. It really should be fresh milk, but I find evaporated milk works pretty well. Be sure it is only warm and not hot, for heat kills yeast. Then take three-quarters of a cup of milk and mix it with a cup of boiling water. The next step is to mix the buckwheat and corn meal, which should be white if possible, and after adding salt, stir into the hot water and milk mixture. Now add the dissolved yeast and beat the mixture for about ten minutes.
All this is done the night before and when you have the batter mixed you put it in a warm place where it won’t be chilled and let it stand overnight. Just before you cook the cakes add the baking soda and molasses and give the batter a good beating. The only thing you need is a good hot frying pan, but I want to warn you not to over-grease it. That is what spoils most griddlecakes. If you have butter it is extra nice. Put a little on a wad of cloth and rub it on the frying pan after each batch is cooked, but if you have no butter, bacon fat or lard will do a good job.
My aunt cooks her cakes on a wonderful oval soapstone griddle which just covers two holes of the old wood stove. It is bound around the edge with an iron strap and has a bail for lifting it. To be sure it takes a while to heat through an inch of soapstone, but once it is hot it makes the best cakes you ever tasted. A soapstone griddle needs no grease whatever and the batter never sticks, so you get the full flavor of the buckwheat.
Cache Lake Country Page 22
