THE MEN
of the
LAST FRONTIER
By
GREY OWL
First published in 1932
This edition published by Read Books Ltd.
Copyright 2019 Read Books Ltd.
This book is copyright and may not be
reproduced or copied in any way without
the express permission of the publisher in writing
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available
from the British Library
Dedicated As A
Tribute To My Aunt
Whom I must thank for such education
that enables me to interpret into words
the spirit of the forest,
beautiful for all its underlying wildness
Illustrations
Grey Owl
Breakfast. A square meal before the day's heavy toil.
When hunters meet. Lighting up and exchanging gossip.
Pretty dry canoeing. Man a "beast of burden."
In the amphitheatre of the dusky hills,where is silence, unbroken and absolute, a hush that has held sway since time began....
And where the figure of a man is dwarfed by the majesty and the immensity of his surroundings.
Dumb cousin to the Beaver, the Porcupine.
Canada Lynx, great grey ghost of the North Land.
Young Elk.These animals have an air of fastidiousness that hascaused them to be considered the aristocrats of the deer tribe.
Deer in velvet.This noble buck could have served as a model for the brush of Landseer.
Noon rest on the trail.
Husky dog team;the sole means of transport in some districts.
The curse of Adam carried out to the letter.
Running Big Pine Rapids.
And as the canoes careen and sidle theyplunge their way to safety out into the pool below with its dark ring of silent trees.
The tiny frail canoe seems scarcelyadequate to withstand the power of the river.
Moose, easily taken at water's edge when there is not enough snow to impede progress, are hardly ever caught by the camera after the freeze-up. A long careful still-hunt preceded the taking of this picture.
Stragglers from the main herd dot the prairie, haunted by the great gaunt spectres of the wild lands, Lobo, the buffalo wolves.
Black bear and cubs. Commonly docile,this old lady would fight to the death for her family.
The "Half-way."Trappers' rendezvous on the outbound trail.
Trappers' winter camp above the Height of Land.
Red Squirrel.Mischievous, curious, irascible, this little creature is the lonely traveller's constant companion.
Their mother lost in a forest fire, these two young Moose came out of the woods to a ranger's cabin.
The beaver arrives at the top of the house, with his load, still erect. He places his armful of mud, packing it into the gap with his hands, and forcing the stick into a crevice by the same means. The tail is never used for this or any other purpose save as a support in walking. This beaver house is 22 ft. long, 18 ft. wide and 8 ft. high. Built by two beavers in less than two months.
Two beavers co-operating on a heavy stick.
Beaver swimming with poplar.
A beaver dam.
"The altar of Mammon."Sweeping onwards at railroad speed, leaving in its wake a writhing skeleton forest.
The destruction of a bush settlement by forest fire visits on the survivors all the hardships, the privations and the terrors of war.
Beaver in canoe.Canoe and camp inspection is includedin the daily routine of this beaver.
Beaver cutting down a tree for dam.They fell with almost scientific accuracy, choosing their tree and gnawing so that it falls where they want it.
Overland travel in summer.Note the packs and dogs and muzzle-loading trade-gun.
Where bald, glistening mountains standguard at the head of some mighty river.
Even to-day encampments such as this add a touch of romantic colour to the Frontier.
A Chief of the Sarcee dressed in all theregalia to which his rank entitles him.
Tales of an Empty Cabin
A Brouchure for
Grey Owl's Tales of an Empty Cabin
1930
Wa-Sha-Quon-Asin -Grey Owl, as he is known in Canada and elsewhere in the world- lives in a log cabin that stands by a peaceful lake one hundred miles from the railway and the nearest settlement of any size. That little log cabin has become famous throughout the world. Many of you read this brouchure will have seen it on the screen. Shaped plainly and simply in the tradition of settlers' cabins since white men left the city to live in the Wilderness, its reflection, you remember, is mirrored all day in the surface of the calm lake. Everywhere, as far as the eye can see, are trees, reaching tall and spare into the sky; the trees of the north, hard-bitten with their age-long fight against a climate where for more than half the year the whole land is locked firmly in the grip of a fierce tempestuous winter.
As you know, if you have seen the films Beaver Lodge, that the cabin is sharred by Grey Owl with two famous characters: Jelly Roll, who is queen of the Beaver People, and Rawhide, her silent, hard-working and devoted consort. There are many other beaver there now, the progeny of these two parents. And there are other animals who share in the life of the place: the bull moose, the younger deer, a whiskey-jack, a muskrat, and others too numerous to mention. Sometimes now in summer visitors come to Beaver Lodge. The journey can be made, when the lakes are open, by a combination of canoe and motor car, with the emphasis mostly on canoe. But for the greater part of the year Grey Owl is there alone with his many furred and feathered friends. The deepest quiet wraps Beaver Lodge, a quiet broken only by the call of animal to animal, the chattering of the beaver, the shrill and happy cries of the other animals who dwell at peace in this new paradise.
Last year Grey Owl went to England, leaving his beaver under Anahareo's care, wrapped in their winter sleep. He went most unwillingly. The cities of the United Kingdom, in their gloomy and wet winter, were no place for a man who has never worn anything except buckskin, and whose refusal to give up wearing his moccasins when he joined the army created the sort of minor crisis that disciplined sergeant-majors produced even in the war. The story of that tour still remains to be written. For his publishers who arranged it, and for the booksellers who shared in making it known, it was a triumphant progress. But Grey Owl returned to his cabin unspoiled by his contact with the outside world, leaving behind him thousands of people who felt better for having made contact with him.
The next book that he was to write, Tales of an Empty Cabin, was one that had been in Grey Owl's mind all through that winter. He did, in fact, write part of it while he was there. When in close contact with the British people who showed such appreciation for him, his mind often travelled back to the quiet cabin beside the lake, and to earlier scenes than that, when he was just a starving Indian devoting himself, unknown to anyone, to a great ideal.
