The trail of the swinging lanterns

Marketing the jubilant flag pole and Christmas tree is a comparatively unhackneyed commercial twist not overdone and if discontented dwellers in old Ontario, seigneurial Quebec or the world at large, like that prospect or court a change from brick and asphalt to the silent places, opportunity beckons to them from amidst the serried ranks of raw material swarming over the hilly, rock-ribbed areas of Temagami, the dales of Temiskaming and Porcupine’s budding principality of golden promise.

As the newcomer’s eyes view the sea of tapering masts—shorn of drapery in winter—and the springtimes’ green undergrowth crowning summits and slopes, which in that corner of the Canadian hinterland undoubtedly conceal unconjectured lodes of mineral wealth, his brain tabulates new and fascinating impressions respecting this vast heritage and pregnant land of the future.

With the theodolite adjusted for action beside the site of a gateway to the proposed Georgian Bay Ship Canal, and shaping a course North-starward from historic environs once traversed by intrepid Frenchmen, the Ontario Government’s Railway Commission began in 1902 the construction of a colonization line from the City of North Bay, (lying 226 miles above Toronto), to the region known as the “Clay Belt” of Northern Ontario. With the discovery of silver on the “LaRose” property in 1903, the output of which during the subsequent thirteen years amounted to $135,809,222 in silver value from the camp, together with $4,000,000 from arsenic, cobalt and nickel, the building of the Temiskaming & Northern Ontario Railway was promptly extended until it reached 253 miles into the interior, making easily accessible a restful, inspiring panorama of diversified lake and landscape. Here it is that Uncle Sam’s sweltering Southerners and their Northern cousins migrate with the birds in ever increasing numbers to fish the virgin streams, to sense exhaling aromatic fragrance and be soothed by the solitude and majesty of the wilderness which appeals more and more to each contemplative one who would elude the madding crowd as he jogs adown the irregular pathway of life.

If the waters of silent Lake Nipissing could speak as they flow along, what whisperings from wigwam, of tribal feuds and exploring missionary priests would they not bequeath to posterity. But now, into this region of log cabin, birch bark and bittern those great civilizers, the twin ribbons of steel, have intruded; sleeping cars mosaic tiled and ornate, traveling via the Grand Trunk Railway from Toronto, Canadian Pacific Railway from Montreal and “U.S.A.” at Buffalo, are delivered daily to the Temiskaming & Northern Ontario Railway and circumventing space, lay bare to their prying, adventurous occupants, many of the secrets of nature in the north.

As you bowl along past thicket, lake and narrow ledge to the regular accompaniment of that peculiar circus wagon “cluck, cluck”, emitted in winter by the twelve wheelers, you unconsciously wonder if it were mink, otter, lynx or fox whose softly falling pads made the trail which bisects the otherwise unruffled white mantle covering the frozen surface yonder. Meanwhile, the telltale tracks of the early morning prowlers vanish abruptly where the waters frozen boundary gives way to battalions of balsam, spruce and jack pine silently guarding the ascent to rising ground. The view begets reflection: when casually discussing the autumn hunt with a deer slayer who annually roams that region, nimrod complacently informed me that he had left the train at mileage “22” from North Bay, and before the locomotive whistled on a nearby hill his first buck was bagged. At this juncture an Indian guide from out the forest setting surrounding Lady Evelyn Lake came aboard at Temagami’s commodious, artistically conceived depot of split hardheads, and grinning broadly, substantiated the boaster’s declaration with such terseness and force that a group of globe trotting mine prospectors and sportsmen grew interested. Rifles, fish, fur and game laws started every mother’s son of them talking, and the jolly wiseacres continued their conversazione crossing Net Lake, past Rib Lake and its woodie approaches, and on to where Jack Frost had transferred Bay Lake, Wind Lake, Moose Lake and Red Pine Lakes, into cubes of crystal transparence. They did not desist until permitted a glimpse through car window of the Montreal River’s splashing, rapids tossed waters at Latchford and the developing timber possibilities at this ford, which are often duplicated along the 360 miles of this stream’s course.

These gentlemen were a cosmopolitan assemblage recruited from several and diverse regions, but all were heading towards Lake Temagami, Cobalt, Lorrain and Porcupine City’s newer, veiled enticements. Gnarled and seasoned, a veteran campaigner on “many a foreign strand” sat silently observant beside a sturdy novice, self-possessed and hopeful, encased in flannel shirt, regulation shooting boots laced high and a cow boy hat, who had yet to know hunger and the thrill of a “strike”. That composite character from the cities, merchant-miner-speculator evolved from the silver excitement, was there with his pigeon blood cravat pin and nonchalant demeanor, exchanging deductions with a facing stranger. Some one drew cork and with a mild libation all round the smoker, tongue cords loosed and a Kentuckian garbed in Mackinaw cloth knee breeches, heavy black stockings and Jaeger cap, narrated pleasantly tales of the diggings in Australia, California, Cripple Creek. A man who had been in Johannesburg talked knowingly of John Hays Hammond and the conductor tarried a moment on his rounds. Now and then, from out the babel you pieced together, “It sold this morning for—”, “Commercial arsenic”, “Rock drills”, “For stealing whiskey I smashed him on the—”, “Three and one half a share, five dollars par”, and much more in the vernacular. They were encumbered with the latest, likewise the most ancient caper in portmanteaux: they carried fire arms, hatchets, and snow shoes, coats of fewer colors than Joseph’s, but of patterns innumerable, and pack sacks stuffed like the bundles Tony shoulders when hurrying to the base of grim Vesuvius. Withal, they were a merry and optimistic company off to re-discover Champlain’s own territory, to learn that cobalt is a pinkish chemical by-product found beside silver, that single carload shipments of silver concentrates mined here have netted $142,231.00, that the camp’s dividends from silver and gold for 14 years realized $81,320,625, that rolling stock of railways all over America help to brighten “T. & N.O.” rails, that the town of Cobalt is outlandishly picturesque and unique with cartwheel, Bostonlike thoroughfares where Madame promenades in the velvet so recently au fait on Pall Mall and Broadway, while an Indian girl in moccasins stares across the divide through the window of the Golden Moon in the hope of discerning her lethargic beau. Vein sampling engineers, grubstakers, rock-worms, mine captains, prospectors and agents in coats of “astrachan goose”, fur lined or skin covered shooting jackets and everything else but tarpaulins, strut about and add to their kit, each man jack of them probably thinking he has “a nose for ore” and inside information. The oriental ear pendant also abounds, gracing the lobes of sundry vivacious French lassies at the cinematograph: dog trains await, Jacques the habitant, in capot, sash and pipe in mouth “Bon jeurs” along the even tenor of his way, while Poles, Finns and Cockney ’arry do not deliberately jostle you off the lumpy little board walk to the nearby excavation. Stalwart, brass buttoned Ontario and Dominion police are everywhere. Cobalt’s roots spread far below the surface. Underground detonations indicate that compressed air drills day and night slowly blast a mammoth sewerway for this hustling town. Not every one knows that beneath the “T. & N.O.R.” highway and handsome modern station building the Right of Way Mining Company tunnels for ore. A few hundred yards beyond and under the bottom of frozen Cobalt Lake, over which the dutiful citizen crosses on Sabbath and holyday to Father Forget’s cleanly, white painted church, the Cobalt Lake Mining Company is extending drives, crosscuts and leads seeking material that produces mineral which pleases magnates and sets the stock market operators by the ears. $1,085,000 was paid to the Government for this right. Thus does the south lag behind the north.

From Lorrain’s remote locality comes to Cobalt mines the compressed air and electric current generated with unique machinery from the waters impetuousity at Ragged Chutes on the Montreal River, at Hound Chute also, and at the Matabitchouan River, and not afar off the cottage in which it is said Doctor Drummond’s sympathetic spirit forsook its mortal tabernacle, keeps solitary vigil on a slope overlooking Kerr Lake. His inimitable habitant patois verse survives however, and is kept green in memory when interpreted by the nimble tongues of M. Giles or an Olive Pouze. Occasionally grazing the brink of a declivity when touring the camp, one meets wheeling or gliding past on sled behind good horses, miner’s wife from Montana or a courier in shoe packs and cold weather rig astride a sturdy, sure-footed pony. Jogging along after him the next is a native on a mustang. Similarly mounted a rangy, vigorous individual clad in seamy corduroys, jacket, ear flaps and the inevitable “larrigans” lopes by. This personage proves to be unintentionally traveling incog, as he is a big mine manager, an English expert doting on tetrahedrite crystals, heading to town for a constitutional and the morning mail.

As recently as midnight of August 19th, 1912, an undignified and profane pilgrimage to the shrine of the goddess of fortune occurred in Temiskaming. At the stroke of twelve a ziz-zagging procession of flickering lights born by all manner of men, stretching from Cobalt three miles to the famous, now naked Gillies Timber Limit, broke into motion at the double quick. Ahead of them were twelve square miles—4,000 acres—or twenty acres of undiagnosed area of rock each for the lucky two hundred eager, excited prospectors and adventurers who might stake, find ore and register for $10 at Haileybury first, and thus perchance, stumble on a king’s ransom. Ordinarily, the journey on steam coach costs Ten Cents. This night one bold spirit chartered a special train for $50.00 hoping to outstrip the throng afoot and horseback, in autos and on bicycles, armed as they were with a Five Dollar mining license and panting for place. For an hour or two the nervous strain was intense and the schemes and ruses resorted to for advantage were numerous and crafty. Sweating relay horses clattered at top speed all night between the new diggings and the district seat, positions held in person or proxy in the line-up waiting for dawn reminded one of the nocturnal vigil and struggle for tickets to behold the late Sir Henry Irving, while rumor and conjecture were rife. One energetic but luckless individual, with boundary stakes in earth, had them uprooted and tossed aside by a speculator’s hireling the moment he headed to the registry office; another collapsed from exhaustion and laid prone in the bush as the strong trod over his body and aspirations and still a third poor devil lost a pronounced advantage by falling, horse and rider, into a quagmire at the roadside, and all because there lies side by side beneath the earth’s surface silver sidewalks and blighted hopes.

Do not conclude that the term “rough diamonds” would fitly describe the mining body of to-day nor opine that they always talk gold at $20 the ounce, assay furnaces, vanners and recording tachometers. Their personnel includes a mighty spry collection of thoroughbreds of advanced education from everywhere. They are men fond of horse-flesh and saddle; men who aim straight at billiard ball or bob cat and a percentage can coax sweet strains from piano or at odd moments resort to the not violent and refining pleasure of gardening. I have seldom seen a gaudier conglomeration of old-fashioned bloom than the flowers before the bungalow of the Temiskaming Mine. In their offices and apartments several enjoy club comforts and trophies and articles of virtu adorn the walls of highly polished logs. They can “diagnose the field” for a close corporation and by theory and experience prophecy what may be found under the crust away east to Des Joachins (des swish aw) Falls, Lake St. John and Chibougamou. The gentleman who cheerfully volunteered, flashlight in hand, to pilot the writer to where drillers pierced rock at mine bottom, wore riding breeches, jacket and English spring leggings of the most approved design and a stunning waistcoat encircled his athletic proportions. He proved to be a raconteur with reminisences of “Ole Lunnon” and the Riviera, but swore fealty to Ireland’s joyous effervescence.

The legacy of this untrodden expanse is unlimited productiveness of soil, waterways and forest. The solitary explorer with pack horse and canoe spyed out a winding trail which the railways’ impedimenta of progress has speedily straightened and made easy for the quasi pioneer. The rolling ground and gentle slopes in the vicinity of Haileybury are pleasant to see. Here the clay belt and husbandman replaces rock and miner and the view from this town and farmer’s mecca—which boasts the unique feature of a floating market place—out and over Lake Temiskaming and across to where the mists conceal a quaint French settlement, Villa Marie, is indeed charming. On learning that the mission bells pealed and a convent dwelt within the borders of Quebec just over that moonlit expanse of inland sea, I confess my conception of interprovincial geography seemed out of alignment. Englehart, a divisional point, bears the name of the Railway Commission’s astute, public spirited Chairman, Jacob L. Englehart, formerly of Cleveland, Ohio, who made his Canadian debut in the Petrolia oil belt, and some forty years ago supported Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt when he was married in the Tecumseh Hotel, London, Canada, to the beautiful Mrs. Crawford of Baton Rouge, La. Jacob Englehart inaugurated the system of greenhouses which flourish in those leagues of loam and clay but the plants which predominate in that “neck of the woods”, however, are those that grow into thousands of cords of coveted pulpwood, cut in certain districts by private owners and on reserves with Government sanction. As this commodity underlies in a vital way the immense paper and publishing interests of America and Europe the supply, method of treatment, market and duty tax has become a burning topic in factory and forum both sides of the international boundary.

Those wind tossed forest monarchs and old pines on the hill tops that once beheld naught save the Redskin stalking an hundred animate creatures of the wild, will if spared, witness a mighty trek northward. The caravan of the white man of every clime and craft shall push past haunts of black bear, moose and trapper, portaging enroute near Cochrane beside Frederick House River. At this spot an incident at Barbers Bay in the semi-savage days of the old trading posts of the north country, has become a fearsome tradition among the indians of the Abitibi. Many years ago when the Hudson Bay Company were extending trading posts southward from Moose Factory, Frederick Barber with Indians and voyageurs established a store beside a bay perpetuating his name, at Frederick House Lake. One Christmas eve Macdougall, a halfbreed, and two companions reached the post to trade their autumn catch. Together with gifts Barber unfortunately dispensed rum. When refused more liquor the trappers murdered all hands and seized the fort. Fearing discovery and punishment of their crime, the drunken half-breeds killed every Indian who came to the post with furs. Growing anxious, several squaws who had not accompanied their braves on the midwinter journey, snow-shoed to Barbers Bay and were imprisoned by Macdougall. One woman escaped and organized an avenging party which did not arrive in time to prevent the massacre of the remaining squaws nor the flight of the halfbreed scoundrels. Then began a long chase down the Black and Abitibi Rivers. Macdougall who was tobagganing loot from the fort, was nearly overtaken in camp. He saw the trackers coming and started across Lake Abitibi, disappearing during a brief snow storm and was never seen after. The Indians gave evil spirits the credit when he vanished and they suppose the half-breed’s ghost still lingers over the lakes. It is across these trackless fastnesses, under whispering Northern Lights, that the newest national highway, the National Trans-continental & Grand Trunk Pacific Systems, dreamt of by the patriot the Right Honorable Sir Wilfrid Laurier, gradually assumed reality and now hasten communication westward with tidings from the east.

Yea, the crusade will not cease until little old Ontario is linked with the Aurora Borealis and the venturesome commoner at Frisco, New Orleans and Toronto may side step the soaring bovine market, and after an all-rail journey, harpoon his own walrus meat in James and Hudson’s Bays.

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