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Sentimental Journeys
When 1997's summer heat turned down, as late summer moved toward fall and fresh young brown cattail heads appeared in the swamps,
I made a visit to Red's stomping grounds.
I wanted to see Red's cabin site and retrace parts of the route he had followed during the 1965 sentimental journey to Big Dam below "Cold River Hill.", the site of his old hermit friend's woodland home for 30-odd years. Noah John Rondeau had been living in Smith's converted chicken coop since 1963. "I tried talking Noah into going back with me," Red reminisced wistfully with a warm smile and a twinkle in his eye as he recalled the aged woodsman's retort during one of the many interviews. "Noah told me, 'if I was olny a year younger you'd have to run to catch up with me.' but he declined my offer."
Believing this might be the last trip I would take to Cold River country, I made a list of places to see one more time. I
wanted to look up the mossy mound and remains of an old cast iron box stove lying beside a considerable stone, because that marked the site of Red's cabin.
I also wanted to visit the Devil's Cauldron, Seward Pond, Mammoth's Graveyard, Bellyache Swamp, 15 Frog and Cedar Ponds and the Black Hole. Paintbed Notch and the Snow Roller campsite might be additional desinations. All were places Red had told me about. Above all, I wanted most to know once again the environment that surrounded Red's cabin. I had made several earlier backpacking forays to identify locations for a map I was going to have Sheri Amsel draw, but I never stayed long enough in one particular area to experience the personal closeness that is difficult for me to explain. I suppose a naturalist/writer might liken it to a spiritual feeling—a symbiosis between the environment Richard loved to well and my remembering him.
I hefted my backpack, loaded as lightly as possible to offset the weight of a rubber raft I toted, turned from the trailhead parking lot
and headed toward the site of Red's cabin, miles away.
Eventually it came time to depart from the state trail.
Compass in hand, I headed into the woods in the direction of Cold River and toward the approximate location of a known rock, a huge erratic on which Doc Latimer Jr. And his brother used to perform a jig, just for fun, when they went to Cam Seward. That was their father's fishing and hunting hut, hidden halfway between Big Eddy and High Banks. Noah served as Doctor C.V. Latimer Sr.'s unofficial caretaker from the mid- 1920s until Noah left the woods in 1950. I was pleased to find Laughing Buck Swamp abnormally dry; that made my bushwhack a far sight easier to the river's edge.
Tales
Writers with a bent for painting beautiful pictures with words have described time and time again the gifts of nature that make the Cold
River above Shattuck Clearing such a sight to behold. But I wasn't thinking so much of the river's virtues on this trip. In stead, as I stepped along, my mind was reviving stories of fishing, hunting and
trapping that Red had told me.
I was also thinking about the many miles Red and Noah had shared on the trail I now followed, bearing heavy loads of supplies from Big
Horn camp at Shattuck and from Camp Seward.
A favorite outlook along High Banks was a standard spot to rest their backs, smoke a bowl of tobacco, swap a tale, or just sit, talking in the beauty of the river setting. The characterized particular sports along the route by christening them with names like Holy Lost Marsh, Paper Bag Brook and Liver Rock. The meaning would have remained known only to them had Richard not shared with me his adventures in the woods and the story of his long friendship with Noah John Rondeau.
Noah's route to the outside turned him off the Northville-Placid Trail onto Ward Brook Truck Trail a short distance beyond Mountain
Pond. Not one to extend himself on pointless ventures, he rarely continued east beyond that turn-off.
However, he would make rare "state visits," as he called them, to Red's Duck Hole cabin. Tradition dictated an "open door" policy, meaning the cabin was always unlocked. Anyone who chanced upon it was welcome.
The period following ice-out was frisky season for the hermit; the joy of a new season would set Noah hiking upriver along the old tote
road trail. On those rare drop-ins, he would leave a short note in his flowery hand.
It would begin by addressing his upriver friend as Richard, Red, or in flowing capital letters, the most unlikely handle, "QUACK," because he hailed from Duck Hole. Then would follow a short message, such as "BLOW YOUR HORN. TAP YOUR HAT. The white-whiskered Mayor of Cold River stumbled in today." The note would end with a drawing of a fish and the number of springtime trout Noah had caught, written in code. When Red returned he'd find the epistle propped up against a glass oil lamp that always sat on a red checkered oilcloth in the middle of the table.
When I located the cabin site I pulled out a yellowed, dog-eared photograph I carried with me. A brief notation penned on the back
identified the time: winter, 1937-38. In the 60 years that had transpired since then, much had changed. The plank floor, a table and benches and two bunk beds fashioned from boards torn from the CCC tent
platforms had to be reconstructed in my mind. Parts of the heavy galvanized tank Red converted into a cook stove and portions of the cast iron box stove were still visible.
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