”Tales From The Underbrush” documents, with occasional hyperbole, the experiences of the artist over a lifetime of interaction with what used to be called nature, now reinvented as the environment for reasons apparently best known by just about everyone in the world excepting the artist-writer. These wilderness interactions have come mainly while working as a geologist, briefly as a forester, but sometimes as just a guy whose principal happiness in life has been derived from being outdoors. Not that life in the wilderness, be it at work or at play has been without pain, discomfort, deprivation and even danger. Fortunately, the passage of time more often then not artfully blots out or at least dims the recollections that wound, substituting instead a recall that if perhaps not substantiating the aging athlete’s jest of “the older I get, the better I was”, at least allows tales to unfold that warm the memory and give substance to the life that experienced them.
The artist proposes to post monthly herein a chapter from his book “Tales From The Underbrush” in the hope that his adventures may be shared and enjoyed by those who might stumble onto this blog. This month’s entry continues the tale.
PAEAN TO A PRINCE – Part 1
“The greatest strength is gentleness.”
(unknown)
He was a darkly handsome devil, his long straight nose rising to a high, aristocratic brow that anchored a wide, strong face. His amber and green-flecked eyes bespoke of curiosity and intelligence, and a firm if thin-lipped mouth foreshadowed the resolute character that defined him. Of quiet nature and rarely heard, his impressive size spoke of a strength and confidence unsullied by the arrogance and aggressiveness that small stature often breeds. He had nothing to prove and he knew it. He was the sort of male that made women swoon and other men helpless to emulate. If it wasn’t for the fur, the big feet, the occasional slobbering and the fact that there were, sadly, no women within a hundred miles of him, that might indeed have been proven true. As it was, he had to settle for me and I grew to love him like none before and probably none after.
It was the early in the 1960’s and I was still working summers in the bush to finance, if not necessarily further my university education as a budding geologist and hopefully become a useful future addition to the workforce and the human race in general. I was once again a member of a geological mapping party employed by the then Quebec Department of Mines. I had earlier graduated to the status of Senior Geologist in unexpectedly rapid fashion (a future chapter, “The Reality of Theory” will cover this development) and it was for this position that I had been retained that particular summer. Unlike my earlier, naïve and foolish ambitions to be assigned to a field party in the remotest regions of Canada under the pathetically misplaced and romantic fantasy that I would be one with the great explorers of early Canadian history, I was this summer relatively overjoyed that our party was to map an area that could initially at least be accessed by truck. The region to be mapped was located north of the town of La Tuque, Quebec and had been partially logged in earlier years, which explained the road access to portions of the area. That I had similarly misplaced visions of leisurely traverses over logged tracts of open ground that precluded the normal tough bush slogging encountered in remote areas, only reflected the steep learning curve that I was still riding.
Much of the remote bush country of northern Canada occurs on what is known as the Precambrian Shield. This is a geological term for a geographic area, sometimes known as a province, which is defined by a particular and common geological history. In this case, the rocks of the Precambrian Shield are the oldest in the world, and are measured in billions of years of age. Many of the low, rolling mountain ranges of the Shield were once as high as the present mighty Himalayas. Now however, much of the Canadian Shield is characterized by little elevation, extensive tracts of low, boggy terrain, and a myriad of lakes. There are more lakes in Canada than the rest of the world combined, and by far the vast majority of these reside in the Precambrian Shield. Below the imaginary line north of which is the treeless barren land of the Canadian north lies the forested region of the Shield. The mostly gnarled and sappy spruce trees are generally of poor character in reflection of the glacial, relatively nutrient-poor soil that blankets most of the Shield. Nonetheless, many of these trees can be harvested for pulp if not for lumber. It was into one of these clear-cut areas comprising part of our mapping region that we now headed to set up camp.
Depending on the nature of the Shield terrain, a day’s mapping traverse can vary widely in the area it might cover and the length of the traverse itself. On average, a day’s slogging through typical Shield forest might cover ten to twelve miles, remembering this was not just a pleasure hike but that studying and mapping the rocks encountered along the way was the object of the exercise. Occasionally, on rare occasions, a glacial esker might be encountered along the way and that was more or less along the traverse line. An esker is a sinuous, narrow ridge of sand or gravel deposited by a stream that once wound its way through or under a glacier. Standing above the surrounding terrain, the esker forms well drained ground that allows the growth of thinly spaced jack pine trees with little or no surrounding underbrush. As such, for the person maintaining the traverse line, usually a junior geologist, it was paradise, like walking through a park, and while limited in extent, nonetheless provided a brief respite from the tangled and rocky underbrush that was generally underfoot for most of the traverse length. Such eskers, facilitating progress as they did, accelerated the pace of the traverse and under ideal conditions might double the length of ground that could be covered in a single day.
Then there was the other extreme, that of conducting traverses through terrain that has been logged. Faced with the dense after-debris or “slash” from the trimming of felled trees, fallen trees not harvested, and the incessant, thick growth of bramble bushes that follows logging, all of which rise to waist height or higher and masking the under footing and hiding sudden depressions in the ground, progress through such bush is reduced to a virtual and exhausting crawl, a wrestling match with an entrenched opponent aided by criminal legions of flies. It is the difference between travel on a super highway and rush hour in Vancouver. Under these circumstances, a traverse was lucky to cover three or four miles in a twelve hour day and only half that length was not unusual.
But the principal setting of this tale was not to be in the bush but rather in the camp from which our mapping operations were to be based. As luck would have it our seven man party was able to commandeer an abandoned logging camp as a base of operations over a major part of the area we were to map that summer. Unlike some long abandoned versions, this particular camp was still in fairly good shape, the log structures properly upright and intact with the roofs in good shape. For me, this was unheard of luxury; an actual building to return to each night, my sleeping bag on a bunk bed and with shelves on which to place my belongings! Furthermore the cook had a proper facility with which to prepare our meals, including a still operational cast iron stove to replace the infamous Franklin stove that was normally the instrument used to cook food (see ”The Franklin Execution”). Not only was there a kitchen but also a separate dining area. An enclosed outhouse rounded out the facilities, all of which could be deemed as being of four star quality compared with that which normally comprised a bush camp. Although fly camps to cover more remote areas would be required as the summer progressed, for the moment the logging camp was a paradise that served to at least partially offset the misery of traversing through logged forest. As the saying goes, for every yin there is a yan.
It was not long after we had settled into our logging camp quarters that I met my Prince. Unlike the arrival of most royalty, his was not accompanied by any fanfare. Rather, he sidled into camp one day like some itinerant traveler looking for trouble. At least he looked like he was looking for trouble. Although nothing could hide his stature nor the massive, regal head that topped it, he did look a little scruffy, like he had had a hard but successful night in the den. Caked with dirt and hair matted in tight knots, he paused to survey the camp and the lone guy standing outside at the time. For what seemed like minutes we examined each other from afar before he finally advanced toward me, tail down and unmoving but with no overt hostility. In a sign of friendship I proffered him the back of my hand, slowly rotating it for his olfactory inspection. Apparently satisfied, he sank to a seated position and allowed my hands to roam over his head, my fingers caressing the deep cavities behind his ears, where most dogs love to be loved. In spite of his disreputable appearance, he looked even more regal in a seated position, his massive head, wide straight nose and deep jaw proclaiming a proud, if unknown pedigree.
Prince quite simply became the eighth member of our mapping party for as long as we remained in the logging camp, which turned out to be the rest of the summer. Sorties to the far reaches of our mapping area were carried out using temporary fly camps as a base, but the logging camp remained the principal base of operation for the duration of the project. It is with some frustration but with the acknowledgement of what age and the passage of time does to the memory, that I cannot remember how he came to be known as Prince. Part of me seems to remember one of the party’s bush men referred to him as Prince and recounted how the dog originally came from a nearby aboriginal settlement where he had been mistreated and from where he subsequently had left. Another part of me remembers that his name was given to him by me. Certainly, while Prince belonged to no one and everyone in camp, in perhaps a show of “finders-keepers", and by an apparent mutual if unstated agreement between him and me, he became slightly more mine than was his relationship with my colleagues. Certainly it was me who gave him a thorough, sudsy bath, rinsing out the dirt, combing through the matted clumps of hair, removing the burrs, inspecting his pads for thorns, and drying him off before he was tempted to roll around in the dirt again, either just for the hell of it or to combat our common enemy the black fly, or perhaps just to state his independence from my ministrations.
After being made presentable came the time for dialogue and full inspection. The degree that Prince had undergone any training was completely unknown but he seemed to respond, more or less, to basic commands in French, an unsurprising fact considering we were in the heart of French Canada. What was obvious was the fact that if not full blooded, then a major portion of Prince’s pedigree was that of a Newfoundland dog. His weight was well over one hundred pounds and would not have surprised me if it approached one hundred fifty. Black and with paws the size of small skillets, their paddling skills to be subsequently demonstrated, he proved to be the gentle giant that so characterizes the Newfoundland dog. One of the bush men who claimed to know him stated that Prince also had wolf blood in him. Whether this was factual or apocryphal was never proven, but certain traits in Prince’s behaviour led me to suspect that there might be some truth to the conjecture.
Then one day he disappeared.
TO BE CONTINUED
Copyright © 2010 Ian de W. Semple
