The Last River Rat: Kenny Salwey's Life in the Wild
256
The Last River Rat: Kenny Salwey's Life in the Wild
256eBook
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Overview
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781938486913 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Fulcrum Publishing |
| Publication date: | 10/16/2017 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 256 |
| File size: | 4 MB |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
April River Rat Almanac
April is a soft and gentle time. The wild, untamable winds of March have been exiled to the far north. In their place have come the mild, warm breezes of April, the month of promise. It feels good to sit on a driftwood log and enjoy the sunshine caressing your face.
The last vestiges of winter disappear from the river a little each day. You can smell the mud as it comes alive again, smacking of skunk cabbages and marsh marigolds, redwings and killdeer, bullheads and turtles. The river is alive, vibrant, and pulsing.
The river is spring housecleaning now. It flows high and muddy, waters filling every lowland nook and cranny. Logs, barrels, and other flotsam drift in steady currents. Bluffs watch this parade pass on its way to the sea.
Riverfolk keep watchful eyes on levees and dikes as the river creeps a little higher each day. April showers come and go, giving the river new life. If the showers don't become deluges, our thoughts turn to fishing, gardening, and birding; otherwise thoughts of sandbags, dikes, and sump pumps come to mind. Patience and perseverance are necessary survival skills for riverfolk and wild things alike.
CHAPTER 2
The New Year Begins in the Three Camps
Any one need only look at two obvious shortcomings: leap years (if the system is so great, why the constant corrections?) and Mondays (even the name sounds depressing). But the real kicker — the proof the emperor wears no clothes — is January. Why anyone would think to start a year in such a cold, foreboding season is proof positive there's more madness than method in this date-recording plan. Delivering Baby New Year on January 1 is like marketing a new luxury car in the height of a depression — you might have a great concept, but people just aren't in the mood.
If you're serious about starting things off right, lead off with April. That's when Kenny recognizes that the new year has begun: when the greening hills and awakening swamp tell him that growth and change are imminent. Lilac trees show the faintest hint of their colorful buds. Oak leaves are mouse-ear size and a pearlescent green they'll exhibit at no other time of year. Mallards and wood ducks add vibrant splashes of color to the marsh, which was a sea of grays and browns only days before. Muskrat and beaver, which have been traveling beneath the ice all winter, seem to take a sudden delight in cutting a V-wake across open water. Whitetail does appear awkward, their necks and hips thin and scraggly from a long winter, their bellies round with the fawns they're growing. And the most important harbinger of all, the sun rises early, stays late, and shines with a power it hasn't exhibited in months. New life, or at least omens of it, are everywhere.
While the long, warming days are welcome relief for the swamp animals that have survived a long winter, a careful observer will notice very little lazing about. April finds nearly every creature either courting, breeding, nesting, or preparing to deliver offspring. When summer arrives, when trees and grasses are their most lush and verdant, then animals can take a slight break in their frenetic activity to frolic. But April, for all its beauty, is a time to get down to business. There are mates to woo, homes to find, food to gather.
River rats follow the same rhythms as the animals of the swamp, and April is a busy time for them as well. While outdoor activities never cease no matter what the season, biting cold, deep snow, and fleeting light do reduce their intensity. When the new year arrives it's time to get out and explore the nooks and crannies of the world that went unvisited during the winter months. And, as I would discover, there is work to do as well.
"You interested in helping with some spring cleaning tomorrow?" Kenny asks me over the phone one evening. When I accept, his reply is one I'd come to know well in the year ahead. "Meet me at Big Lake Shack about nine o'clock."
The twisting two-track that leads to Big Lake Shack is an inviting entrance to the Whitman Swamp. There are other access points, of course: From the main channel of the river all one has to do is cross over the dike just upstream from Lock and Dam 5 northeast of Winona, Minnesota. Downstream there's a public landing where folk launch boats loaded with fishing tackle or hunting gear. But Kenny's drive is one of the best routes to reach the Whitman, traversing a low, scenic hardwood ridge that serves as a gradual transition from the bluffs, valleys, and farmland into the isolation that only a big backwater swamp can provide. In all but the worst flood years, you can drive the first three-quarters of a mile to Big Lake Shack, a small, dark hut that sits on the shores of Big Lake.
The first time I saw Big Lake Shack it struck me as somehow familiar, although I'd never seen it before. The shack is small, fourteen foot square at the most, with dark-stained, rough-sawn boards for siding. Small windows are cut in three sides, more to let in light than to capture any views. A small sign reading "Le Maison de Salwey" hangs by the sturdy door, the antlers of a whitetail buck nailed above. Other decorations adorn the shack's exterior: snapping turtle shells; driftwood; a massive, coiled rope from a river barge; more deer racks. Glancing at the memorabilia, I wonder what special events they commemorate.
It hit me then: The shack is like the clubhouses and forts I built as a kid. I relished such retreats, as much for their impermanence as the shelter they provided. They were simple but serviceable, decorated with totems and symbols, and hosted some of my most memorable boyhood hours. If weather or an enemy laid them low, I was out nothing except the time spent rebuilding them. While infinitely more sturdy than anything I'd constructed in my youth, Big Lake Shack has the same feel — an exciting, cozy base camp for adventure.
Kenny pokes his head out the door as I ease the truck to a stop in front of the shack. April is only a few days old, and already Kenny's face, neck, and arms are a steer-hide brown — his French-Canadian lineage and years of outdoor living combine to make his skin bronze as soon as the sun hits it.
"Good morning, Scott."
His black Lab, Spider, echoes Kenny's greeting by thumping her tail against the cabin wall.
"Morning. Some kind of weather we're having, hey?"
"The rich men ain't the ones working today, that's for sure." We both laugh, thinking of images of poor souls chained to their desks on a day when even kids know they should be playing hooky.
The morning sun coats the shack with an auburn glow, but stepping inside is like entering a cave. The interior walls of Big Lake Shack are as dark as its siding, and it takes several seconds for my eyes to adjust to the dim surroundings. After they do, I scan the interior of the cozy shack. The wall immediately left of the heavy door is lined from floor to ceiling with four, sturdy bunks made of rough-sawn lumber. Old quilts, heavy blankets, and the occasional pillow are piled on the bunks. Spider, after nosing my palm in greeting, hops on her favorite bunk and curls into a corner.
On the west wall, sitting between and beneath two windows, is a rugged table and two benches. Small tins of condiments clutter one end of the table, as does a note scrawled by a visiting friend on a pad of paper; otherwise the table is clear and relatively clean. A cast-iron stove stands just in from the north wall, its sheet-metal stovepipe rising to the roofline. Skillets, pots, and cooking utensils hang from nails driven into the wall, within easy reach of the camp cook.
If the exterior of Big Lake Shack is adorned with totems, then the interior is a veritable museum. Dried herbs and flowers, photos of friends and loved ones, old tools, turkey feathers, Indian dream catchers, newspaper clippings, more turtle shells, another deer rack — items hang from each wall and the ceiling, too. In fact, there are so many that it's difficult to concentrate on just one and attempt a guess at its origin and significance. When I drop my gaze, Kenny is looking at me and smiling. "Lot of memories hung in here," he says wistfully.
"I'd like to hear them sometime."
"You will. Have some of your own in here before long, I'd bet."
I let my concentration drift back to the wall behind the table, where I scan a yellowed newspaper clipping summarizing citations issued by local law enforcement officers. The third line reads, "Ken Salwey, Buffalo City, $25, leaving waterfowl decoys overnight." I point to the story and turn to Kenny. "You were famous."
"Ha!" he snorts. "Or infamous, depending on who you ask. When they wrote that, you didn't ask Jim Everson."
"That the warden who wrote that ticket?"
"Yup. Last of the great old-time river guys. He nailed me a few times like that in the old days. But mostly he missed me. That was a long time ago."
It's tough for me to visualize the Kenny I know in one of the epic struggles I relished reading about in my youth: the battle of wits between a grizzled woodsman who makes his own game laws and the straight-arrow warden intent on enforcing a stricter version. Of course, the man who struggled with Everson wasn't the Kenny that stands before me today — that was a different man, the one before the epiphany.
"We should get to work." Kenny's voice snaps me out of my reverie, and when I look toward the door, he's pulled a rug from the floor and is shaking it outside. I hop to and grab another, a woven rag throw with sand and mud grubbed into its colorful fibers. Stepping outside, I snap it several times in the fresh air, the dirt swirling about my head and shoulders. I'm looking for a place to hang the rug when Kenny clears his throat behind me. When I turn, he stands in the doorway, leaning on an ash walking stick.
"Cut you a walking stick the other day," he says, looking more at the stick than me. "I always use one, hiking this swamp and these hills. Surprising how handy they are. My dad always said to watch a guy carrying a walking stick — he's usually a good woodsman."
I thank him for the staff, then run my hands down its smooth, hard surface. Peeled ash, Kenny explains, is perfect walking-stick material: Strong as iron, it weathers slowly, yet still takes the luster of the user's hand as he or she grips and leans on the staff. "And it's nothing special, you know. Leave it somewhere and what have you lost? Not some fancy store-bought thing with carvings and inlays. Come on, let's go try it out."
"But I thought we were spring cleaning today."
"We're done!" Kenny announces. "I wanted to get those rugs shaken out and we did. You think I'm staying inside and washing windows on a day like this? Besides, we got two other shacks to visit."
As we pull on hip boots, Kenny explains that he'd like to show me his two other outcamps: the Tent Camp and the Marsh Shack, which both lie deeper in the swamp. Each camp provides convenient lodging as Kenny hunts, fishes, and traps in different areas of the Whitman.
Kenny tosses a burlap shoulder bag filled with water, apples, and sandwiches over his head, and Spider morphs from a bunk-lounger to a whirling dervish, eager to lead whatever journey we're embarking on. Kenny leads me down the quiet path as it winds north past the cabin, then ends abruptly near a narrow slough. Several canoes are tied at a rickety dock jutting into the water, but Kenny ignores them and we cross the head of the slough, our boots slipping through the still, cool water and into the muck beneath it. "Going to write a song about this black, boot-sucking mud someday," Kenny insists, probing the slop ahead of him with his walking stick. "Ain't going to be Top Forty, but folks that've been down here'll appreciate it."
Once we ford the slough, the walking becomes easy as we follow a long, dry ridge angling to the west. Silver maple, swamp white oak, and river birch bristle along the ridge, their crowns budding waxy green. Along the bank, cattails and bulrushes sprout and emerging beds of wild rice poke from the water's surface. We note deer tracks, the lumpy scat of raccoon, a scattering of owl pellets beneath a large maple. On virtually every bend we round we flush ducks, dozens and dozens of them: mallards, widgeon, teal, wood ducks, a pair of Canada geese — a cornucopia for waterfowl watchers.
And on the far shore of the slough, high in the branches of a cottonwood tree, is an eagle's nest. "Occupied for the last three summers," Kenny explains, pointing to the monstrous bundle of limbs and twigs resting in a sturdy crotch several dozen feet from the ground. "Wonder if they'll fledge a chick this year." As if on cue, a mature eagle wings over the water, rests briefly on a branch, then launches again and glides to the aerie, its huge head appearing as a white speck poking up from the center of the nest.
Two hundred yards past the eagle's nest we reach an old beaver dam that crosses the slough. The ends of the dam are clearly visible as they meet the wooded shore; mud and grass have grown over the jumble of sticks, making each end of the dam a part of the ridge. But the center of the dam has dissolved into the slough over the years, the water reclaiming its course. Nothing, Kenny points out, is ever permanent in nature.
On a small, oak-covered knoll shortly after the dam crossing we come to Tent Camp, Kenny's second-most-remote outpost. It is also the least permanent. While Kenny built Tent Camp on "the highest point in the swamp," he assumed correctly — this site in the Whitman is mere feet higher than the surrounding, flood-susceptible terrain. Consequently, Tent Camp can float: Its foundation is a quartet of fifty-five-gallon steel drums that now rest on the forest duff, but have bobbed on Mississippi backwash through several spring floods.
Atop the barrels a simple plywood decking serves as the floor, and log walls rest on the decking on three sides. One slender, sturdy oak log serves as a ridgepole that runs from back to front; over this Kenny has thrown a single sheet of military-spec tent canvas to serve as the roof. Another piece of canvas serves as the front wall. While Tent Camp is solid and sturdily built, I sense that the simple shelter is little more than an industrial-grade tepee in the midst of the swamp.
Despite its simple nature, Tent Camp has served Kenny well. A handy place to store supplies and equipment, the camp is also a welcome spot to rest after a long day of hunting or trapping the swamp. "Spent many an evening watching a fire here," Kenny says as we nose around the camp. "And laid up on a few hot summer days, waiting for the sun to cool off before heading back home."
It's then I remember that Kenny's conversion from reclusive loner — inspired by the simple request of the local warden — happened on a sweltering afternoon as he rested in camp.
"This where Everson visited you that day he wanted you to do the nature talk to those teachers?" I ask.
Kenny nods, grinning at the memory.
"How in the world did he ever know you had this spot back here?" Surrounded by a dizzying maze of sloughs, ridges, and marsh, Tent Camp would be hard to find even after someone had led you there.
"Remember what I said about those old wardens? Jim knew what was going on. Had an airboat that could go anywhere, and he used it. ... Knew this swamp as well as I do."
I try to picture Kenny lounging around Tent Camp that day, hearing the approach of the whining airboat, knowing it had to be the warden, and wondering what trouble he'd face when Everson got there. They say you're least prepared for the things that change your life the most — a homily that surely proved itself true that hot summer day.
We spend a few minutes checking that Kenny's supplies and gear are intact, as well as mouse- and waterproof, then Kenny grabs his stick again and points it southwest. "We better go, if I'm going to show you the Marsh Shack."
We follow another twisted slough as it winds through the swamp, its banks lined with button brush, a woody shrub that bears dozens of round, seed-filled pods on its limbs. The bush grows in the water, and when the buttons fall they become instant duck food. Kenny recalls flushing dozens of mallards and wood ducks out of small sloughs choked with this unique plant. As we approach the end of the slough, Spider's tail begins wagging furiously and a trio of woodies launch themselves out of the water, their wings whapping button brush as they climb.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "The Last River Rat"
by .
Copyright © 2015 J. Scott Bestul.
Excerpted by permission of Fulcrum Publishing.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Introduction: Of River Rats and the Big River 7
April: River Rat Almanac 21
The New Year Begins in the Three Camps 22
Rat Tale: Big Boy and Beauty 35
May: River Rat Almanac 41
Trout Fishing and Morel Picking 42
Rat Tale: That Black, Boot-Sucking, Mississippi Mud 55
June: River Rat Almanac 63
The Snake Hunters 64
Rat Tale: Frog Tears and Rabbit Coffee 76
July: River Rat Almanac 85
To Catch a Cat 86
Rat Tale: Passing the Flame: The Marsh Shack 98
August: River Rat Almanac 105
Walking Sticks and Woodslore 106
Rat Tale: Tent Camp and the Bad Bees 117
September: River Rat Almanac 125
Ginseng Digging 126
Rat Tale: Where Am I? 138
October: River Rat Almanac 145
Duck Hunting and Duck-Hunting Dogs 146
Rat Tale: Old Spook and the Last Duck Hunt 157
November: River Rat Almanac 165
Hunting the "Wet-Tail" Deer 166
Rat Tale: Monarch of the Swamp 179
December: River Rat Almanac 187
Making Meat 188
Rat Tale: Making Wood 199
January: River Rat Almanac 209
Winter Trapping 210
Rat Tale: The Grandmother Tree 219
February: River Rat Almanac 225
Fur Processing 226
Rat Tale: Beaver Lodge Fracas 238
March: River Rat Almanac 243
An Affinity for Turtles 244
Rat Tale: Life Along the Big River 258
About the Authors 261