The Timber Wolf at Home

The Timber Wolf at Home

The War between Ranger and Canis Lupus Over the Deer of Algonquin Park

By W. Lacey Amy

Illustrated with Photographs by the Author

From Outing Magazine, 1913, Volume 62

The timber wolf has no squatters’ rights. Untold generations of him have roamed Algonquin Park, in Northern Ontario, without hindrance or con­test of his claims, but for fifteen years the forces of the law have been turned to his dispossession. Through the rigors of that Northern winter a score of de­termined men have only to keep warm and wield the hand of Cain against the wolves that find a tidbit in every thicket of the Park, And wolf-hunting in Al­gonquin Park, less than two hundred miles north of Toronto, is too kingly a sport to justify its reservation for the ranger.

The pleasure of wolf-hunting to the ranger is not in the excitement of the chase, but in the stiffened gray body that lies at his feet. Even the fifteen dollars bounty does not change the wolf from enemy to game. I have seen more joy in the face of a ranger at the sight of a bare shank of poisoned venison that would kill a dozen wolves than when he is rolling up the wolf skin to present for his fifteen dollars. The man who lives where the deer look mildly at him over a nearby shrub is apt to think more of his wards than of the Government check.

In the late fall, before the ice is formed, the rangers make their rounds by canoe, fastening their strychnine-filled venison by nails to the fallen timber on the islands. Later they come periodically in pairs across the ice to ex­amine the bait, traveling their ten to twenty-five miles a day on snowshoes and always watching keenly for the snow-covered mound that means a dead enemy. But in these days the “tricks” of commerce have interfered so much with the potency of the white powder that missing bait without the bodies of the diners rouses the suspicions of the rangers.

One old fellow looked in disgust on his fifth bait cleaned to the bone with­out a dead wolf in sight. Seizing the colored bottle, he emptied into his hand enough of the powder to wipe out the wolf species, dipped his tongue into it, and grunted angrily. “Just as I thought,” he growled. “Alum!” As we were twelve miles from the nearest antidote I gave thanks.

There is need for war on the wolves of Algonquin Park. Around parts of three of its sides extend wild lands where they roam unmolested, and the game protection of that two thousand square miles brings them down in packs that grow little smaller as the years pass. When the shooting season opens around the Park the deer turns at the crack of a rifle or the bay of a hound and makes straight for the haven he has learned to trust. Deer will light their way toward the Park in the face of hunters and dogs with a determination and daring that speaks well for law enforcement there. And once inside the Park a revolver would bring them down in scores.

After the deer comes the timber wolf. During the early part of last winter a ranger, in his trail down the west side of the Park, counted the tracks of fifty-two timber wolves going in and but two leaving. The wolf lives on the deer. One ranger alone found last winter the carcasses of thirty-one deer that had been pulled down. Some of these had been partly eaten, but others had not even been bled. A string of dead deer will mark the track of a pack of wolves that have been killing for the lust of blood. And the pursuit of those that escape seriously interferes with the fecundity of the does.

The danger to man of the timber wolf of the Park is not yet decided. Within reservation years no man has been at­tacked, but that is probably because other food is so plentiful and easy to capture. Even the rangers are learning to respect where they hate. The vis­itor to the lone winter-resort hotel shud­ders at the mention of the wolf and hugs the grate or the bedclothes when the dismal howl comes through the darkness. But until last winter the rangers vied with each other in expressions of con­tempt—even while it was noticeable that not one of them would linger afield when the sun was sinking and the ring­ing yelp came over the neighboring hill. One of the oldest rangers admitted to me that he has never got over the shudder that goes down his back when he hears a wolf, and he has poisoned and shot more wolves than any other ranger in the Park.

Early last winter one of the most scornful of the rangers was induced to alter his opinion. Crossing Lost Dog Lake one late afternoon, he saw three wolves coming rapidly toward him across the ice. Being unarmed, but thinking to give them a scare, he dodged behind some brush on a small island he was passing and awaited their approach. His part of the program went off splen­didly. Just as the wolves were alongside he rushed toward them with a ter­rible yell. But the wolves failed to catch the cue. Instead of running wild­ly away, they stood still and waited.

The ranger’s rush slowed down no­ticeably, and one of the wolves, a huge fellow with a limp ear, sat down with ennui. The rush not only slowed down but swerved aside and made for the nearest shore. And the wolves rose and followed. Every now and then the leader seemed to make up his mind to end the thing right away, but his rush toward the ranger was fortunately al­ways stayed by a variety of shrieks and gesticulations that kept the ingenuity of the ranger hard at work until the shore was reached.

By that time the man had worked up such a respect for the timber wolf that he was undecided whether to climb a tree or risk a dash under the darkening branches for the next lake where his shelter-house was. The wolves were evidently as much afraid of him among the trees as he was of them, and after a long, challenging howl, loped off north­wards.

At any rate, the wolf has proved his delight in frightening man. An em­ployee of the hotel, while fishing through the ice of Cranberry Lake, was witness to the pulling down of a deer by a pack of wolves. Filled with the expressed contempt of the rangers, he succeeded in driving the animals from their prey. But when he set off for the hotel the wolves kept at his heels, and through that mile of bush they were never more than twenty yards away, retreating be­fore him, stopping when he stood still, and rushing on as he dashed away. And it was not the length of the walk that soaked his shirt long before he reached the hotel.

On one of our longer trips, during the time I spent with the rangers in the chase of the wolves, we had taken with us the superintendent’s team of Great Danes. As we lay in the shelter-house one night, the howls of the wolves all around us made sleep impossible, and as we hitched up in the early morning light they were so close that the dogs could scarcely be controlled. When we started the wolves collected just over a ridge and kept pace with us through the trees within two hundred yards. After traveling some time in this way, there came an unaccountable silence, and a few min­utes later the howls broke loose a half mile distant. Again for a moment there was only the sound of the harness bells and the scrunch of the snowshoes.

Of a sudden the howls came again with renewed vigor, and this time they were making straight for us at full speed. In a few seconds they were just over the ridge again and still coming fu­riously on. The dogs were tugging madly to be free, for they have learned to hate the wolf as fiercely as the ranger. Obviously it was wise to be prepared. Three of us stood with rifles ready, while the driver of the dogs loosed them from the traces and held them in hand. Thus we faced the oncoming animals. At that moment there was no contempt in our feelings. I think I felt even more than respect.

The hideous howling came through the trees, on and on, climbed the ridge at undiminished speed—and, just as we were sighting for a shot, suddenly ceased. For three uncomfortable minutes there was dead silence, save for the controlled whining of the straining dogs. Then the clamor broke loose again—but at our backs. The wolves had come almost within sight in front and had then passed silently around us to give another scare from behind. Three times that morning they repeated the performance, until we could read in their howls derisive laughter.

At one place we crossed their trail, and to me there was but the one wolf mark. But the rangers read more and by following a few yards we saw it divide into eight or ten. The pack had stepped so accurately in the tracks of the leader that the novice would see but one wolf.

Frequently in our hunts we came across this method of travel. Sometimes the sin­gle trail would break into a half dozen or more without apparent rea­son, and a few yards later merge again into the one. Once we followed for two miles across a lake a track that deceived even the rangers. Only where the pack had started to enter the bush did we dis­cover that four wolves had been travel­ing as one. The largest of the pack had come last and had covered with his huge paw the little unevennesses of the others.

Sometimes the fright instilled into newcomers threatens serious results. Two lumbermen one evening, dropped from the train that passes through a corner of the Park and made through the bush to a lumber camp. The train crew had saturated them with wolf yarns until they were prepared for the worst. When darkness fell and the wolves began to howl they made a rec­ord up the nearest tree and sat for a long time waiting to be surrounded. Forced down by the bitter cold, they ran a hun­dred yards and hit the branches once more. Still there were no glistening eyes from the dark­ness, and at last they became so chilled that a chance seemed worth taking. Drop­ping to the snow, they gath­ered enough birch bark and dry boughs to make a circle of fire in which to stand until daylight. The next morning the first wolf track they crossed was more than half a mile away. A wolf howl is always very close to the ten­derfoot.

One night, as we lay in a shelter-house near the rail­way, the howling of the wolves far up the track was suddenly interrupted by a blood-curdling shriek from the other direction. For five minutes, during which we wondered what new animal had come to visit us, the howls and shrieks kept up an animated dialogue. Recog­nizing at last something hu­man in the sound, we dressed and made toward it, Down the track we found a man huddled against an old shed that did duty in summer as a station, and when we called to him his shrieks only redoubled. He had dropped from the bumpers of a freight train at the ap­proach of a brakeman, and the wolf howls had driven him almost insane with fear.

What reason, other than to frighten, induces them to gather around the shelter-houses where the rangers lie, I can­not determine. On a dark night we were awakened by a single bark as if from someone’s pet dog that had got lonesome. But an instant later came a terrible howl at the very door, and a chorus joined in all around the shack. Three or four had selected a big rock that stood right beside the window, evi­dently with the intention of giving us the full benefit of the music. Without striking a light one of the rangers seized his rifle and stood by while I noiselessly opened the door. On the instant the noise ceased with a sudden “yelp.” only to resume as soon as the cold forced me to close the door again. Twice we tried, but it was no use.

Then the howling started across the stream in an old lumber yard, and, thinking to creep close enough to shoot, we skirted some thin ice and entered the piles of old lumber and slabs. All around us the wolves howled and barked, but in the darkness we could see nothing. For a moment the sky grew brighter, and the ranger’s rifle spoke im­mediately. With the crack every howl ceased, and, the light fading, we re­turned to the shelter-house whence the chorus had drawn us.

The next morning we followed the wolf tracks to the ice. There they had spread out in fear of the thin ice, each one of thirteen making his own track. All around the deserted shanty of a summer camper they had wandered, some of them even jumping to the roof, but not one had entered the open door. In the lumber yard we found our wolf—a bit of rotten slab leaning in the snow. But the huge leaps of the fleeing wolves showed how badly we had frightened them.

In Algonquin Park the cunning of the wolf develops. As soon as he leaves the wilds of Quebec his education begins. There is reason to believe that only the newcomers take the bait. A pack of eight were tracked across the Ottawa River into the Park. They had care­fully skirted a small settlement in their way, but a few miles farther on the pur­suing rangers came upon the entire eight piled dead around a place where bait had been. Not one had gone a dozen yards after eating.

On the other hand, the Park wolf treats the bait and traps with every in­dignity. At one place, evidently a fa­vorite visiting place of wolves, a new ranger set a trap in the snow, carefully prepared with all the precautions of mushed venison and burnt paper. Three days later he found the trap still un­sprung, but around it and right on top the wolves had befouled the spot in a most insulting manner. The trap had taken the place of the rock for the moment.

Frequently we were afforded proofs of their contempt. Sometimes in their travels they would sheer to one side around a bait, not even stopping to look at it, and often they used it as the center for their gambols.

The new wolf will not cross the railway track. I have followed the trails of packs that have stopped at the steel, run alongside for a mile or two to find an opening, and then turned back to the north. But the oldtimer is not above using the beaten snow between the rails for his path.

In spite of the numbers of wolves within the Park they are not often seen. So acute of sight, hearing, and smell are they that it is only when breaking out on a lake that one is apt to catch more than a glimpse of them. The crunch of the snowshoe carries so far in the dead silence of that region that man has little chance. During my trip I saw no more than half a dozen, and all but two were gone as soon as seen.

I fired at one from eleven hundred yards, but only the snow and the ani­mal’s gait were disturbed. Another I saw one morning from the shelter-house, leisurely trotting across the lake, like a good-natured collie. That it deceived me has become one of the local jokes. The ranger I was with jerked his rifle from the wall and fired through the doorway, and the wolf, three hundred yards away, leaped into the air and then began to throw himself around in the snow. Another bullet straightened his course for a neighboring island, where we found him dead with his head resting against a tree.

But while the wolf is seldom seen, he misses nothing. Frequently we would backtrail and find that a pack had been following us within a few yards. Once, after discovering this, we made a circle, and round and round that circle we fol­lowed each other. Finally the wolves leaped into the circle, and although we went around two or three times more we could not see that they had left it. Probably they were watching us from inside in wonder.

After we had returned to the shelter-house one day for the noon meal we started out again within an hour. Just behind a rock within a few yards of the house we saw the marks of several wolves that had followed us and then spent some time gamboling almost with­in touch. Another time, at the begin­ning of a long trail northward to Island Lake, we came upon the trail of a big pack just beyond Joe Lake, tracks “steaming fresh,” as one of the rangers put it. Presently the tracks came to a mysterious end, but we picked them up over a log to one side where every wolf had leaped sideways without previously shifting his feet. Not having time to follow, we passed on.

The next day we returned over the same trail, to find that the pack had fallen in behind immediately after we had passed, had followed us to the place where we had lunched, had waited there while we ate, and then had dropped in behind again when we resumed our way. Where they had leaped the log they had retired only to the top of a rise close by and had stood to watch us over the top of a log. Then they had come straight down and followed our trail.

The old story of the hard lot of the wounded member of a pack is not borne out in Algonquin Park. On the contrary, we had a most striking demonstration of un­selfishness and affection be­tween the members of a pack.

We had made a long round over thin ice to examine some distant baits, and one of the rangers had remained behind at Linda’s Lake shelter-house to dry his clothes after an un­rehearsed dip. When we re­turned at dusk the shelter-house was empty, and, our mate failing to return within a few minutes, we started out along his trail. Before we had gone far we heard his call, and later, in the candle­light of the shelter-house, he told us a story that has made the wolf less repulsive to me.

While he was in the midst of his lunch, sitting where he could see over the lake, a big buck and two does dashed from the woods about nine hundred yards along the shore. A minute later a pack of eleven wolves came slowly along their trail, their noses to the ground and their tails wagging playfully as if en­gaged in a pleasant game. Be­fore the ranger could get his rifle three others broke cover a hundred yards nearer.

At the first shot one big fellow halted suddenly and then commenced to run in a crazy circle. His two mates had leaped into the air and disappeared into the bush, while the first eleven started madly across the lake. Sud­denly the wounded wolf raised his nose and uttered a peculiar, ringing yelp. Im­mediately the whole pack turned and galloped fearless­ly back. The ranger emptied his magazine at them with­out effect—he admits he had buck fever—and the pack did not hesitate until it had sur­rounded its wounded brother. Then, in a compact body, the latter in the center, they trot­ted across the lake.

Thinking the wounded wolf would not last long and that the tracks would be easy to fol­low, the ranger finished his lunch be­fore starting in pursuit. He came upon their tracks into the bush on the far shore, after skirting the treacher­ous ice, and all afternoon, mile after mile, he followed the eccentric curves and circles, evidently the course of the one the pack was protecting. Here and there the snow was trodden as if the wolves had closed up on their injured mate to direct him into a straighter course. As the afternoon went on he knew he was getting closer, although he could hear no sound; at times the wolves had leaped away as if in fear, but had always returned to urge their mate to harder efforts.

Across Owl and Raven lakes the trail led, and then darkness was too close to risk further pursuit. An hour’s steady tramp by compass toward the shelter-house covered the distance that had taken four hours along the winding trail of the blood marks.

Of the strength of the wolf we had a striking example one day after we had followed the trail of dead deer left by a bloodthirsty pack. The largest of the wolves had broken away into the woods, and on its trail we started. While one of the rangers followed the big marks up over the hill two of us proceeded along a ravine toward a nearby lake in the hope that the pack had come around to it. As we went along a sudden scurry ahead directed our eyes to where a deer’s head was slowly sinking to the snow.

When we reached it life was extinct. At the same instant the ranger above us shouted that the wolf had “jumped” a deer there not one hundred and fifty yards away. The latter had been lying down, and when startled by the wolf had at first tried to escape in high leaps, the wolf rapidly overhauling it in long, low bounds. Later the deer had let it­self out. But it was too late. We could read in the snow where the wolf had caught up, had run alongside a couple of leaps, and had then closed in. A splash of blood showed where the deer had been hamstrung at the first gash as clean as a knife. Another bound or two to the side, and then the wolf was on the deer’s back.

In that next bite the backbone of the deer had been broken, the terrible teeth of the wolf sinking so deep that the flesh could be lifted from the kidneys. The throat of the helpless deer had then been attacked, but at that instant we had in­terfered.

With a score of determined, expe­rienced men seeking its destruction there would seem to be little chance for the timber wolf in Algonquin Park. But so cunning does he become, and so simple is escape in that land of wooded hill and hollow, that the warfare is having but slow effect. And however many fall, there are more in the wilds of the North to take their places. For miles their howls carry through the clear silence of that northland; and yet, in their cun­ning, they have pulled down deer within three hundred yards of a hotelful of guests without being heard.

Some day the wolf will be extermi­nated within the Park, but it will never be by the war within its borders. Only thick settlement all around—thick enough to cut off the manless territory to the north across the Ottawa River—will insure protection for the deer that swarm the Government reserve in thou­sands. In the meantime the wolves gambol amidst a never-ending feast, matching their wits against the rangers, the victims of a guerilla warfare, not of sport.

Treating That Chilly Feeling

Treating That Chilly Feeling

From Outdoor World & Recreation, Vol. I. January, 1914 No. 1 (New Series)

While the plumber, at a dollar an hour, is poking around the sink looking for the frost in the water pipes, and the wind from the bay is hunting out the spot where there isn't any, it is a seductive advertisement which pictures a girl in a peek-a-boo waist picking oranges

By W. Lacey Amy

Photo by R. R. Sallows.

  

Florida and California have fulfilled for many years the ideals of the average conception of winter comfort. It is natural one should flee from cold to escape its terrors—so natural that, like other great reforms or discoveries, the years have been slow to bring the ripeness of experience.

But a new idea is springing up—or rather an old idea is being ap­plied to a new subject. It is the boy who dabbles in the water’s edge who feels its chill; plunging in, “the water’s fine.” Similarly it is the half-winter of the middle north—of the “temperate” zone—the damp winds, the fluctuating temperature, the uncertainty of clothing, that makes us shiver. We think only of the high extreme of temperature as the relief from the winter discomforts of the Northern States. We are just beginning to discover the possibilities of the other ex­treme, the continual zero. Modern therapeutics is popularizing the cold air cure for ills that have been accustomed to yield with re­luctance; and is spreading the fact that dry, steady winter is not only curative but pleasant.

Europe has passed America in this appreciation of frigidity, steady and clear. The Swiss winter resort is as well-known as the healing water of Carlsbad. Switzerland, during the winter months, requires no other advertisement throughout Europe than its moun­tain sledding, its skiing, its skating. Where the pleasures of sport have gained such publicity the matter of health is subsidiary, al­though, in truth, an unappreciated essential part of that pleasure. In America we had known of the winter attractions of the moun­tainous European country many years before we realized that at home we have most of the elements of the sport, all the require­ments for rosy cheeks, and but a small part of the expense in the enjoyment. The place, and not the idea, has held sway too long.

Northern Michigan, and Minnesota, and Wisconsin are able to supply the new winter resort for a few weeks at a time; then a thaw revives all the terrors of winter. Only Northern Canada can hope to give a fair test to the advantages and attractions of unfailing snow and ice for shivering man. But unfortunately Canada, with its small number of leisurely rich, has been content to accept the popular idea of the warm winter resort. Only three years ago did it begin to realize its possibilities as a substitute for the doctor or southern trip; but one experiment was sufficient to convince, and the secret could not be kept. At least one hotel has succeeded in proving to many a chilly man that thirty below is a more efficient remedy than eighty in the shade.

North of Toronto, two hundred miles above Lake Ontario, there is a tract of bush and lake that is not unknown to the summer tourist. Its two thousand square miles have been thoughtfully set aside by the Ontario Government as its own peculiar care. Algonquin Park has its hundreds of admirers for the warm months, the greater num­ber of them from the United States. As a summer resting-place, amid pine-saturated breezes, hill-bounded horizon, watery stretches that joy the fisherman, and canoe courses that fill with wonder and delight, it has supplied the perfect necessary for many a wearied business man. A dozen of its rocky, tree-covered islands cuddle the houses of New York and Pittsburgh and Boston, believers in the open air of the wilds for summer happiness. Its two million acres, its twelve hundred lakes and rivers, are planned on the maps and photographs of many a cosy library of American city homes. But the pictures are of waving trees and rippling waters and fish-laden pleasure-seekers. Soon there will be added another set of pictures—snow-bent evergreens, whitened lakes, twisting snowshoe trails, and the bright-eyed admirers of nature under her purest mantle. In that altitude of two thousand feet above New York sea winds, the man of the Northern States is going to find his shudder­ing winter tears change to glow­ing winter ecstacy, as some of his friends have experienced already.

He is destined to realize with pangs of regret that winter comes only once a year and lasts but three months. He will learn that ozone at twenty and thirty below is a new-found exhilaration, a heaven-sent remedy for most of the worst ills, a bracer that will fill the northward trains that now run empty to gather the next load for the South. Algonquin Park in the winter is a disease in itself, a homeopathic inoculation that will reach its greatest benefit to man­kind in the epidemic form. It be­comes a habit. One does not learn to love it after determined efforts, like olives and tomatoes; it is a case of love at first sight. No per­son has even been there once when the blackness of the evergreens beneath the snow mantle is a tracery of nature's most artistic efforts, when the tingle of the frost sends the thinnest blood in bounds to the finger-tips, when the crunch of the snowshoe is the password of the sport that is more exhilarating than automobiling ever was, is pretty sure to return at his first opportunity. And Algonquin Park is merely the pioneer of the new idea—one of a hundred coming Canadian Meccas for the wind-pierced mortal looking for relief.

To the man who has never pulled the thongs over his toes except along the drifted fences of the suburbs, snowshoeing in Algonquin Park is another sport. There you go somewhere; you see some­thing; you saturate yourself with life and vim and laughter and praise of the Maker of such things. In the morning crispness you step from the door of the hotel and read with surprise the ther­mometer's report. With a wool cap pulled over the ears, a pair of wool mitts on the hands, a couple of sweaters and a coat, three pairs of stockings and a comfortable pair of mocassins on the feet, you are ready for three hours or more of exertion than would bring fatigue in one whole week of city life. A careful breath or two until the lungs become accustomed to the dry, almost choking frostiness of the air, and then a steady tramp, tramp through new realms of glori­fied nature, island-dotted lake or evergreen bush where naught but you and the tracks of the wild life mark the surface of the smooth snow. It is on these bush trails that the greater treasures of the northern tracts reveal themselves.

There is nothing in this world of ours to rival the evergreen woods under snow that rests and grows under the added flakes of many storms without a breeze to dislodge them. Where the lumber­man has been before the Government prohibited him, the stumps protrude from the white, black and staring, crowned with a high hat of softest, lightest snow. A fallen sapling has become a giant tree with its added covering; its tiny branches look large enough to bear. The smallest slant to a standing tree masks its high side in the prevailing white, and a roughness in the bark that is almost im­perceptible offers sufficient foundation for a six-inch mass of snow. Everything is exaggerated to its grandest aspect, and the imper­fections are softened to the general effect.

Through this the snowshoe trail winds in the unexplainable fash­ion of paths, turning out for imaginary obstructions, and dropping into unnecessary hollows. A huge log bars the way, but the broken trail shows that underneath the snow is but a small tree-trunk that can be leaped. A really large log intercepts, and the expert steps exactly on the top and jumps wide enough to clear with the heels of his snowshoes. If he is learning he probably takes no chances but sits on the log and cumbersomely throws his feet over. On a new trail everyone takes his share of the breaking, for the loose, soft snow of the northland lets the snowshoe sink a foot or more when unbroken. But when you come second in the line you carefully step in the tracks of the leader leaving someone else to break down the intervening snow. The “crunch” of the snowshoe is the most ab­sorbing sound in all that land. A shout a hundred yards away is unheard in the swing of the tramp, although there is no more startling stillness than that of the northern woods, except at unex­plainable times when the small birds fill the air with their twit­terings.

Within the Park the animal life is protected. Not a firearm is al­lowed with a barrel longer than four inches, except to the rang­ers. Deer in uncountable num­bers wander across the frozen lakes and through the woods, care free and conscious of their protection. Their only enemy is the wolf, against which the rang­ers wage a continual warfare. Last year these marauders were fewer than ever on account of the killing of many females the previous winter. To the first of February only twenty-four had been trapped or shot by the many rangers who live in cabins throughout the Park. Foxes, fishers, ermine abound. Beaver dams are sometimes so serious a nuisance that their builders have to be shot to clear the land. Partridge flutter all around, betraying their presence by the showers of snow from the branches they touch. Blue jays chatter, sparrows twitter, squirrels scold, and the whisky jack hurls out his rasping note.

But again there may be that utter silence which is unendurable. In the quiet of the north there is no use waiting for a break. When that silence comes everything in life is waiting with you. Until the nerves can bear it no longer one can stand and stand, and then he must break the quiet by the sound of his own snowshoes. All around may be the tracings of innumerable small animals—the mouse, the squirrel, the partridge—or the larger tracks of the deer and the fox and fisher, but with all their freshness and the knowledge that within the sound of your voice there are undoubtedly hundreds of animals, not a twig will crack, not a tree rustle, not a bird will twitter, until sometime later when you are not thinking of it you discover the woods are alive with sound of small birds.

It is at night the lake trails call to the snowshoer. The thermome­ter is dropping, dropping; a coolness is all that tells of the direction from which the wind would blow if it came; and the cold moon is brighter than you ever saw it before. Along the side of an island you pass through the shadows of the evergreens, so black that they seem holes in the surrounding whiteness and glitter. The line stops and listens, but always is that absolute silence that comes sometimes in the daytime. A moment of this and the sound of the tramp is a welcome relief. If one is lucky he may hear far off in the northern hills the short howl of a lonesome wolf. But the wolf in Algonquin Park bears no terrors for man; deer are too plentiful and too easy to bring down to make man a temptation.

In all directions the trails lead off from the hotel across the lake or through the woods, always tending towards one of the many lakes within easy walking distance—Cranberry, White, Grant, Head, Polly, etc.—varying in length from three to ten miles and affording an unending variety of scenery and snowshoeing difficulties; and when one’s sense of direction is acclimatized, so to speak, the charms of new trails assert themselves. In addition there is a to­boggan slide that provides the women with screams and the men with muscular exercise. Immediately in front of the hotel the sur­face of the lake is kept cleared for skating, and the uncertainties of hard weather are unknown. But the snowshoe crowds out most of the other sports, except at the odd intervals.

Although there was last winter but the one hotel that catered to the new idea, the manner in which the public demonstrated its ap­proval will open up a score more within a very few years. Indeed, a few Canadians have taken to camping in the woods, independent of hotels. And the zero life under canvas is not the unpleasant ex­perience it might appear to the uninitiated. One inestimable advan­tage that such a life, either under canvas or shingles, will possess, is the solution it offers of the food question. A bone to gnaw and a cup of coffee in Algonquin Park, when the straight lines of frost-mist hang still along the tree tops, will be described as a veritable carousal by the man who has the new idea.

Cache Lake, on which the only formal apostle of the new treat­ment is located, is also the home of the superintendent of the Park. A big, burly Scotchman, he is conclusive proof of the efficacy of the zero cure for all ills. All the year round the many rangers under him report from their cabins through the wilderness of woods and lakes. From these points they fight fires, wolves, careless campers, and unlicensed fishermen. Every winter in February the superin­tendent harnesses his two big Danes to a wide-runnered sleigh for his long round of visits over the hundreds of miles between cabin and cabin. He does not bother to watch the mercury sinking out of sight; nor do storms mean more than a temporary inconvenience. A ranger’s cabin may be more comfortable than a sleeping bag, but the appeal is weak. Robust health—the health of the north woods—is the best fortification against anything the temperature can threaten. And watching him start on his long trip the winter re­sorter feels an envy that would have made him shudderingly pull up the bed clothes a week ago.

That is the most pungent feeling which comes to the experimenter in the new idea—the disappearance of his dread of cold. It is an ancient remark of the adventurers in the North and in the Far West that the cold is “too dry to feel;” but it is so true of the man in his sweater and cap and mocassins that his greatest surprise from the first day is the position of the mercury. It is the only hardening process that does not entail discomfort during the early days of treatment. The thermometer cannot go so low that a few minutes on the snow-shoes does not uncover the ears and make mitts a burden.