Vilas County news. [volume] (Eagle River, Vilas County, Wis.) 1896-1927, 1921-04-06

early, travelling something ter
rible-every step we made we sank
nearly three feet in the snow.
Froze a little that night and we
made the south east corner of
Plum lake after a hard tussle
next day. Here we abandoned our
canoe, put it away carefully in the
woods. Ii froze very little that
night. Next morning we started
very early in a south easterly di-
rection so as to intersect a lake
we knew 10 be somewhere in that
direction. II was a cloudy day
and as we had broken our compass
some months before, there was
some guess work about it.
Hungry. tired out and almost
"all in, we found our lake at last,
landed at the north side of it at
point now occupied by George
Vandervort. We at once gave this
lake the name of Lost Lake, y
which il has been known by ever
since. Qt certainly was lost to us
for many hoursO
Here we camped for the night,
expecting and hoping it would
freeze a little so that we could
continue our journey. In place
of freezing, however. it thawed all
night so that we made no attempt
to travel. Noticing a good many
maple trees in the immediate
vicinity of our camp, we made
some birch bark troughs, tapped
about 20 trees and made some
maple syrup. In the evening after
boiling down, we had about one
pint of syrup. which tasted aw-
fully good. ] got two partridges
and one rabbit that day, so we
considered ourselves in clover.
We had a good meal that evening,
leaving a very little for breakfast,
but we did not care much about
that because we had three or -four
pipes full of tobacco left, which
helped some, and knew that, bar
ring accidents, we could reach the
Indian camp located at a place
now generally known as the
Croker district and which, in 9
direct line, was only about ter
miles from US, some time within
the next forty-eight hours.
Leaving camp the next morning
we started east, our objective
point being Boot lake. about si'
miles distant, which we made thai
day. We carried our snow-shoe'
with US. The snow in the mean
time was fast disappearing. W.
arrived near Boot lake about foul
o'clock =. NJ, at a point about lOC
rods south of the outlet. W.
made n raft of cedar logs to eros!
the stream and while crossing it
the writer shot a pickerel, about {
two pound one, which we cleaned
boiled and ate within the hour
We concluded that if we camped
we could spear some fish by torch
light. so we hustled. getting birch
bark for torches. hung our spear
which we always carried with US
and used our snow-shoe strings to
strengthen our raft. As soon as
il got dark enough we started vi
stream but did not get fish, the
water being so black and muddy
that our torch light was not OF
much use. We tied up our raft
and camped for the night. The
only provisions we had left were a
little tea and salt and two large
beaver tails.
Next morning we cooked and
ate the beaver tails, made a pretty
good breakfast, and started for
the Indians sugar bush, near what
Is now known as the Croker dis
trict. We arrived there about
noon. We were well received by
the Indians who at once presented
US with some maple sugar, which
we were glad 10 receive.
The Indians were trapping IN
the Wisconsin river and the
sauaws made the sugar. That
afternoon the Indians returned
bearing with them a lot of musk.
rat. These we're skinned, and
some of the rats boiled. My part
ner and / ate three boiled muskrai