Lögberg-Heimskringla - 01.08.2010, Page 18

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18 • Lögberg-Heimskringla • 1 August 2010
Guest editor’s note: In this
episode the Christmas season
approaches and the boys get
homesick.
December 2nd, we both left a little before day-light as we both had a
long day ahead of us. I was go-
ing to Four Lakes south of the
camp and hoped to get some-
thing.
I got a mink at Beaver
House Lake and a timber wolf
on Wolverine Lake that wasn’t
frozen at all, so I could skin him
there. I also got two mink. I was
on my way back after crossing
Beaver Lake, (we named it, as
we did all the little lakes so we
would know the locality of our
traps on our trap map), and as I
entered the portage to the next
little lake it was already sunset.
I still had about three miles to
go to our cabin when I heard
so distinctly, “Why don’t you
run?” I stopped flabbergasted
and looked around.
There was no one any place
in sight.
Well, I immediately took
off my snowshoes, (we always
had them along if we made
new roads), and set my pack-
sack and snowshoes up against
a tree and started trotting with
just my rifle. I trotted steadily
until I came to the little lake the
cabin was on. I walked a few
steps and then started to run a
bit faster, as I remembered a
similar warning I got in France
two years before. (Guest Edi-
tor’s note: Here Gisli is refer-
ring to his war experiences on
the front line in France as a
soldier in the 27th Battalion,
6th Brigade, 2 Division, Ca-
nadian Expeditionary Force.
There, in 1918, he had a strong
premonition that a dead buddy
was ordering him to dive into a
machine gun pit. He did so and
at that moment an incoming
enemy shell exploded about
three feet from where he had
been standing. This paranor-
mal claim is made on page 29
of another booklet Gisli wrote,
entitled “True Experiences in
World War I”.)
There was a short point
with lots of trees between my-
self and the cabin so I could not
see the cabin until I came past
this point. The cabin was only
a few yards away. When I came
to our waterhole, I stopped and
laid the rifle down. I was going
to get a drink before I climbed
up to the cabin and that’s when
I saw a light in our window and
thought, “Good, the boys (Leo
and Oskar) have come for a
visit.” Turning to the waterhole
I saw a skift of snow on it. (It
had snowed about a quarter of
an inch early in the afternoon.)
At once it struck me, “This
can’t be the boys, they’d have
opened the hole to get water.”
I looked up again and
an icy shiver went down my
back. The left side of the win-
dow, where we had our candle
nailed to the window casing
on a timber, was all on fire! I
realized in the same instant
why I had been told to run.
There were eighteen steps cut
into the side of the hill to the
cabin as the hill was too steep
to get up any other way. I went
up those steps three at a time
and I didn’t open the door. We
had a hasp on the inside and
knowing it would break, I just
led with my shoulder taking a
deep breath and went through
the door.
I grabbed my bedroll off the
bunk and began beating out the
flames which were just starting
to catch in the roof. I had to
go to the door three times for
a gulp of air before I could get
the fire out. One more minute
or so and I couldn’t have done a
thing but watch the fire burn all
our extra stuff. All we’d have
had left was whatever each of
us had had on his back at the
time. Now what warned me?
And why? I’ll always believe
it was from the other side. Per-
haps at that instant, my mind
was tuned to the right pitch.
Who knows?
That night it turned colder
and the wind turned into the
northwest. The thermom-
eter dropped to thirty below
by morning. The next day I
moved some of the things we
would need later into a shed
we had a few yards back of the
cabin. This sure made the two
of us very careful for a while.
But it soon slipped away to the
back of our minds until Leo
and Oskar came for a visit and
wanted to know how we got
the fire out when it had already
started burning in the roof. My
quilt had a few holes burnt in
it, a mute reminder of a close
call that would have spelled di-
saster for all four of us. We all
believed Someone was help-
ing us, knowing that we sure
needed help.
At the time of the fire I sat
for quite a while on my bunk
watching the roof as there
were still quite a few glow-
ing coals in the roof. I made
a quick trip outside to get a
washbasin of snow and used a
towel full of snow to kill the
last few embers. With the door
wide open the smoke cleared
a bit, although some was still
coming from the ceiling.
We had lit a new candle
when we were finishing our
breakfast. Somehow, as the
candle burnt to the end, the
wick had fallen over on the
side of the tin and smoldered
until the wood at the side of
the window caught, then fire
spread up to the roof. I could
see the end of the wick laying
over the edge of the tin.
When I was sure there
were no more glowing em-
bers in the roof and no more
smoke anywhere, I fixed the
door and lit another candle
and got the fire going in the
stove. But sleep didn’t come
easy that night. The next two
nights were quiet. On the third
day Leo and Oskar came from
their camp, as trapping there
was getting poor. They also
needed more flour. Siggi also
came home that evening, a day
ahead of schedule, so we had
a long and serious talk about
ourselves.
Siggi said he never saw a
sign of caribou that trip and
only got one mink and a white
timber wolf, a real big one.
That was by far the largest wolf
we got. With trapping getting
poorer, we decided to leave
for home as soon as we could.
None of us liked the idea of
living on almost straight meat
and fish diet, and our flour
would all be used up by mid
January. Also the spring hunt
was mostly rats and we had al-
ready cleaned them out pretty
well. It seemed foolish to sit
waiting until late June to go
out on the water and not much
in sight we could do in all that
time. We saw very few tracks
anyplace of any furbearers ex-
cept the odd wolf track, and
we had used up all our Strych-
nine. So Leo and Oskar left to
pull up their traps and I went
to pick up mine. Siggi was go-
ing to pull up the traps on the
lakes around the camp. When
I came back from pulling up
my traps, he would go and pull
his up, then we’d go north to
Leo and Oskar’s “Freezer” and
help them move to our camp.
The sooner we could get start-
ed for home, which was many
a footstep away, the better.
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A Serial in Four Episodes
From a booklet by Gisli P. Norman
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