Though the actual dates changed from year to year, the weekend remained the same.
Maybe it was the changing season that caused it. Or, perhaps the fear of a long dark winter fast approaching. The crisp mornings and warm afternoons made hormones surge and excitement rise. Whatever the reason, this yearly meeting was something I dearly looked forward to and it warmed my heart. Anticipation made passion soar!
The curves were delightful, and the undulating softness mesmerized me. The closeness gave me comfort. Familiarity meant continuity, though the graceful aging year after year renewed desire and piqued a need to explore new things. Its completion gave my soul peace and a longing for another year to pass quickly.
Of course I’m talking about my annual trip down the Snake River Trail! For a dozen years starting in the early ‘80’s, I made this hike early in November – always the Saturday before the
opening of deer season. I would rise early, pack a lunch and my single shot 20-gauge and hit the trailhead shortly after dawn. It would be a leisurely walk by myself. While putting on some miles, I headed into this to clear my mind before the hubbub of the coming two weeks of deer camp. Long days tramping through the woods on deer drives, getting hunters into position, keeping company with multiple friends and relatives and hopefully dragging a deer back to camp doesn’t lend itself to a lot of down time. Don’t get me wrong – I loved deer season. It was a favorite highlight of my year. But it certainly wasn’t the one-on-one with the back country that my annual hike afforded. My modus operandi was as follows: I would start a brisk pace from the parking lot, following the old portage into the Snake River. I would continue down an old roadway that gradually became tighter and tighter until the brush closed in from the sides until there was just enough of a path to let me carry on. At 11:00 I would stop and have a sandwich and a cup of coffee, then begin the return to my truck. Back out by about 3:00, I was tired, satisfied and mentally ready to start deer season in the coming days with renewed vigor.
My secondary purpose was to grouse hunt. Though I always considered seeing grouse as a bonus, I don’t remember that I ever completed this trip without my limit of five. Many times, that would be accomplished before I was halfway in and would keep count of the extras I came across – as many as twenty or more. It seemed to be a part of the boreal forest that spruce grouse were abundant.
I wanted to be careful. Though “sprucies” were legal game, I was not fond of their taste so preferred not to shoot them. From a distance and a dark day, a hen spruce grouse resembles a ruffed grouse. Over the years I worked at keeping mistakes to a minimum.
Besides grouse, there was always sign of other critters. Moose tracks and moose “marbles” were in abundance. Wolf scat littered the trail. Over the years I saw pine marten, porcupines, owls, hawks, ducks and geese. Deer used to inhabit this area and rubs on large brush and small trees were abundant along well-trodden trails.
This must have been a major logging road at one time. Some steeper hills had been bulldozed to flatten the roadbed. Mounds of glacial eskers had been robbed of their gravel to level the road surface. Every little creek bore the remnants of culverts, once keeping mudholes at bay, now ripped out and laying alongside the trail. Berms had been pushed up to keep larger traffic from taking advantage of an easy traverse into what is now the BWCA. Oil and grease cans litter the woods not far from where you can still walk. Tires, old cable and equipment parts can still be seen if you look hard enough. There is an open area nearly three quarters of a mile from the trailhead where an old landing and some buildings once stood. Little remains of what was there other than a few huge old logs left behind.
I don’t know when it was used or abandoned. I never reached the end of it. At the top of one hill near my turn-around, I could see that it stretched westward for miles beyond where I stopped.
I’ve talked to many who could give me insight into other old logging areas. I’ve not met anyone with information about this particular road.
I’ve had a few people with me over the years on separate trips.
Ross Petersen and I would carry his Corecraft canoe down the old portage into the Snake River to spend a day on Bald Eagle and Gabbro chasing walleyes.
Larry Simonich came with me and my dog Peppermint part way in grouse hunting one fall. My springer would range out and occasionally flush a grouse into a tree, sit beneath it and bark until I would part the brush to her location and claim my prize.
Larry was dumbfounded that a dog would do that. My son Matti and I hiked in more than two miles one fall – carrying lunch, shotguns and a Duluth pack full of decoys – to a small beaver slough I had seen some mallards in a few days before. I brought my grandson Evan down that trail where he harvested his first grouse not many years ago. I brought another grandson – Eero – to this special place a year ago. We flushed a couple of birds but had no luck in bagging one. Lots of great memories.
I don’t go down that trail much anymore. From the beginning there was little activity along its length. About four years ago I decided to meander part way back and ran into three people on their way back out. They were from Eveleth and we had a cordial conversation before we parted ways. I felt a bit jealous.
I always felt like this was “my” trail and was disappointed that others might be using it.
Last fall I walked back further than I had for many years.
It is fast disappearing. Parts that were once easy to follow now are brush-filled. Old stream crossings are choked with alder and willow to the point of having to fight through. Deadfalls clog much of it – some to the point of having to detour well around into the brush. Soon, it may be impassible. The grouse seem to have disappeared.
Nick Wognum contacted me the other day and we talked about this a bit. His observation: “I immediately thought of old roads I walked 20 years ago that are now gone. Obliterated by a logging operation or developed or grown over and gone. I find myself trying to hunt memories, especially during deer season. I think of an old road or trail and hope to return to that place and time, only to find out both no longer exist. But maybe that’s just part of getting older and missing the good old days….”
I would suspect that there are many of us that feel the same way.
