Jim Knight Narrator

John Esse Interviewer

September, 22, 1975 Effie, Minnesota

Jim Knight -JK John Esse -JE

JE: Where were you born Jim? Project JK: At Red Lake Falls, Minnesota out on the open prairie, born in the first frame house build in Red Lake Falls. My grandfather laid out that town side of that end, and he hauled that lumber from Crookston to build a frame house, that’s 22 miles from Crookston that’s in May 27, 1893. As far as Effie goes, Effie didn’t exist at that time when I came here. SocietyMy father filed on his homestead in September 1901, and that was in 6125. When he moved in the following June the 6th when the family come in they were 22 different setupsHistory in our string of settlers that day. The promoter of this settlement at that time was the principal of the high school at Red Lake Falls, and he sold those teachers on the idea of coming up into the Bigfork Valley where there were millions upon millions of feet of timber andOral many a thousands of acres of homestead land that could be filed on and marketed through the timber companies when they started buying timber. They weren’t buying from individuals for several years after we got here and this man, the principal of the high school was named F. A. Whiteley,Historical and one of his first jobs was at Hibbing when that was a little village, and that’s where he got the idea of this homesteading up here. He had heard so much of all the open land in the Bigfork Valley. He was a well organized man of course, and the teachers allHistory boarded at one boarding house in that town and he had their homesteads paired off in the way they had lived while they were teaching. He had them located on opposite sides of the lines of their place, twenty feet apart so each one could step over and talks to the other one. He brought them all in there, but they were short termers, they came up in to deal their homesteads by driving down the ice in February and the homesteads all bordered the river so that they could live lawfully. They say they had looked at the land before they filed on it. Then theyForest had to comeMinnesota up within six months of the filing to hold the homestead and likewise before they could prove up as a homestead, they had to prove the last year that they had been living on their six continuous months. The first summer they homesteaded they figured they had enough by that time so they sold all, or relinquished through other parties or changed to a stone and timber filing which meant if you filed on the place and prove up in 90 days by paying $2.25 an acre and there was only one that fulfilled their full homestead, and that was Mrs. Oryn Patrow now, but she was Miss Costello at that time. They all came with us that following June.

There was no rail service in here, Marcell hadn’t built into it yet, but we had to go in where they were hoisting that is up past Little Bowstring Lake and to Smith Lake, that’s where they were

1 hoisting at the time. So we rode on those short four wheeled load trucks that are what they had there. We rode on a little platform around the brake wheels, the whole 22 outfit. And when I think of the risk of that railroad company there, the old M & R took in bringing those people in, kids and all just hanging around that little brake wheel and not one fell off. And the first thing we got to Smith Lake why the cook there that was feeding the hoisting crew he says, “Will you folks like a lunch?” He fed the whole outfit. The whole 22, by gully you know and it was tough, those fellas had boiled ham and all kinds of baked goods and I thought and I thought by gosh if that’s the way lumberjacks live that’s a pretty good way.

Ya, $1.25 an acre for commuting within 14 months, but, if you lived a full five years there was no $1.25 that was the full five years, that’s when you proved up, you didn’t commute. All you had was the proving up costs, and register. Cass Lake was the place to register for this area, and I think it cost up about, well you had to pay your own witness fees, we had two witnesses you know, but they all doubled up on witnesses though so that wasn’t so bad. The total cost at that time I would say was around $50 would cover the expense on the five year proving up. There had to be at least two acres under cultivation too. So that kind of convincedProject it there. When the first of our clan hit this country that was my grandfather in 1854 in that year and he came up the full length of the Mississippi and portaged across to Bowstring Lake from Winnibigosh on the old Portage Trail. He bought a birch bark canoe or traded it for one that is and he went on down the full length of the Bigfork and up the to FortSociety Francis and back across the Voyagers Route, the foot of Lake Superior and then walked back around to what they call Duluth now, they called it the Head of the Lakes then. There Historyhe wintered over, and then he went back down to Michigan and logged again. Then he comes back here in 1905 and we met him at Bigfork and there was no railroad yet then, and we had a birch bark canoe and met him with. He says well it took 51 years before they madeOral Duluth he says, haven’t got anything but birch bark canoe he said.

JE: He was looking for timber already, he wasHistorical seeing what river was most available to a railroad point, but the river flowed the wrong direction, it flowed north.

JK: Ya, it flowed north. TheHistory question that Bob Anderson raised her was what was the purpose of Jim Knight’s grandfather going around the area he did. That was his own lookout; he was a sizeable logger in Michigan down at Pike Lake.

JE: So your grandfather went by or for logging camp concern, he didn’t go for the government? The government didn’t send him? ForestMinnesota JK: No.

JE: Was there a lot of logging going on around here then?

JK: No there wasn’t, The Creighton Lumber Company was the first one’s that we were acquainted with here. They had been in here, they started in 1882, logging up Rice River, they never hauled a stick of timber a loft if they could float it, no matter how small it seemed. They put 3 dams in on the Rice River to walk it down like in locks and at Batso Lake, the outlet of that lake wasn’t over eight feet wide and they had it down there and they washed it down that, flowed

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it. They took that timber and drove it down all the way to the Lake of the Woods, towed it across the sod up that Keewatin.

JE: That was a Canadian firm ha?

B. Anderson: It was a Canadian Lumber Co.

JK: Ya.

And Grand Portage also had their mills down at here they flowed them, a lot of that timber by the time that was floated down from up Rice River and then down the Bigfork down the Ranier towed across the Lake of the Woods, why it was three or four years had elapsed in between the time that was.

JE: Did the Canadians steal any of this timber? Project JK: Well that’s something I couldn’t say but I imagine that they was pretty liberal on the lines you know. There wasn’t anybody pressing them very hard.

JE: When did the logging really begin up here? Society

JK: Well Prairie River Heavy Waters, there was considerableHistory timber logged on this water shed that was hauled across the Head Waters of Prairie River and floated down there and sawed in Minneapolis. That’s this Fine Lillie from the upper Head Waters of Coon Crick, that’s the one that drains at Scenic Park Area you know, Oraland you see the Prairie River had a big dam at the foot of Long Lake out there on the Mississippi Water Shed. I guess I have never been able to think of why they called it Prairie River, because there was hundreds of millions of feet of pine all along the Prairie. Historical

B. Anderson: When was Stitz logging beyond Battle Lake there? History JK: The Stitz camp was built there in 1872, and a little pond, a little lake right there where his house was, his camp was built there in 1872. I was over there looking at that lake with Helmer Aahkus back here 10 years ago, and there was a bunch of muskrat houses in there.

JE: Who was Stitz logging for? What company? ForestMinnesota JK: He logged for two different firms, I know the Rat Portage that is one of those real earlier ones.

JE: That’s a Canadian outfit?

JK: I got that one pretty well written up while I was, while my memory was clear. That’s affected my memory that broken back did. I mean to concentrate, or to even write a letter so that you can read. But Stitz, he was an odd guy all right. I went where he had his fabulous sour dough grave you know, I went and looked that over and then read the inscription that was burned in the

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cedar that was 1911 when I went over there and saw that.

B. Anderson: Tell us about sourdough Joe?

JK: Well he is suppose to have, he come from lower Canada, and he was suppose to have compiled or put up a brand of sourdough pancakes, flapjacks, and it enabled the men to work about, put out about double an ordinary, the fellas that eat that in the morning and not only that they never seem to tire, the men never wanted to come in and they were anxious to go to work to. The only thing you have to do is to do tell them to come and knock off at night and come in and eat something, they wouldn’t do it voluntarily. That kind of drugged them, that sourdough stuff and he was in great demon you know, but he would never sign up, he always had his sourdough job that he carried with him with a starter. But they had to use his concoction that he had, he would sign up and they had to sign an agreement that the minute that he died they would break that jug and bury it with him. So there would be no trace of it left. Well he was there one day he was watching the, looking at his starter up there and everything was ready for the crew to come in and his jug blew up and destroyed the camp. And the only one that survivedProject they sai d was the camp’s head. So that’s the way he departed. When Stitz come to bury him, he looked at that job a long long while and he said “The man’s life is vaulted down to his honesty, and have got to live up to that.” So he broke that jug up and buried that with him in his grave. That was the end of sourdough Joe then. Society

B. Anderson: Who built between Battle and Pickeral?History

JE: That Grand Portage outfit built Chat at Battle Lake. Oral JK: They had that and then sluiced it through. They worked on that, but that was still going when I was a kid. My logging as a river pig started early, I lacked six weeks of being 14 years old when I took five course full time jobs. I workedHistorical with Selenities old fabulous characters you know, so they would take my own and my brother the same way. Take our knowledge of these old timers back over a hundred, well over a hundred years. There were so many of these old time teamsters especially, thatHistory was in their seventies at least. My first drive I had the honor of working with the oldest man on the drive. His name was LaCroix and he was 94 years old and he worked 16 hours a day rain or shine just the same as anybody else, and here I was still 13. I had worked right with him. And that man earned every dollar that they paid them, because he worked on floating timber, and they put the younger squirts on with him, and that man I know he’s towing up on booms on Round Lake, Bowstring Lake. He was the only one that volunteered to go out when thoseForest booms wasMinnesota buckling you know, in the night out on the lake to shove the hump, get the hump down, stop the old tow boat and get the hump out of there.

That fella was 94 years old.

JE: Tell us about logging on Deer Crick on the dams that they built there?

JK: Deer Crick huh. Well they had one they called the farm camp there, that’s the pull ways down. Of course that backed up through the Pickeral Lake and wound up there in Deer Lake and all that water shed that had drained into Deer Lake from the North Bay there. The splash dam

4 was down about a mile from the river and that was built in rock like reserve.

JE: Who built the dams?

JK: The one at the Farm camp was built by Pat Smith of Fort Francis, Ontario. He built that dam there. It’s funny, there’s another fella there, his name was Pat anyway, and that cut that original Kinney Trail from Little Falls across to Bigfork for a short cut. The government paid him $700 for to cut that, naturally he had a lot of spruce swamp because the second growth doesn’t come up. So that was built mostly in a spruce swamp. But he done pretty well at that.

JE: Jim, what is a splash dam?

JK: That’s the one that catches where the sharp break over the falls, and then they run that thru and then was the logs that’s in the close up there. That on the loader dam we used to cut a splash about 3 times a day and take the flowage. Project B. Anderson: Did you have a crew of men there to kind of sluice or push the logs through the dam?

JK: Yup, yup. You had two fellas there to just, and they stayed right Societyat the gate there and run them through. Yup. You take that lower dam that had the flowage up through Busti Lake you know, so they could have that for a spare splash you know.History

JE: What did your father do in this country, homestead logging. Oral JK: Well, homestead logging and he never done any contract logging much of any, which held one guide one year on contract out of Coon Crick, but he mostly homesteaded logging. He had a little bit, I’ve got to admit it but manual labor didn’tHistorical suit him. It never suited him at all. He was a well educated man, and he graduated from school at Michigan and he also had a couple of years of extended training besides that. History JE: Tell about the accident when the man got his leg crushed there at the Farm camp.

JK: He didn’t like to be cold mornings, and the callused hand wasn’t too much of. But we got along good that’s one of the reason was kids, see everything we earned had to go right to home. That year as I started out as a thirteen year old I got paid just the same as the two hundred pounders.Forest Minnesota

JE: I’ll be darned.

JK: But because we was raking railways they would have the two hundred pounder pullers in there and that gave a fellow like me a chance to get around twice as fast as the heavy fellows could on the loose timber. Then the boss himself told me that the second night I was there, he says, “You think you’re going to stay,” his name was John Frazier a gruff jolly fellow you know. One of the over and jumped and smashed his leg. He had splinters stuck up the side of his leg, and they hauled him into camp and they looked at that. They hauled him in what they called the

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lunch wagon, well the sleigh that brought the noon lunch out hot to the fellas. Well that’s a swing dingle.

JE: Swing dingle, there you go.

JK: That’s the same thing, and they put him on that and they had a fella in the camp there that was a kind of a special character you find everywhere, that fellow was an artists in the building of logging sleds right out of the rough, and he could also take care of any man that was sick too. He had the patience and he seemed to enjoy doing that. Ben Rafter his name was, and by golly they went and got Ben Rafter and had him come and look at that leg. Boy he says you know, that’s the worst break I’ve ever seen. He says we’ve got to take it and put him under before I can work on that. Well how in the heck they are going to put him under. Well he said you know; let’s see what that cook has in the line of lemon extract, that’s 60% alcohol. So they went to the cook shack and yes he had that, and one quart bottle of that was getting pretty low, the cook had been sampling that. Somebody held him down while they got the, or poured the stuff, and he said one man isn’t going to be enough, and he said it’s going to take about four Projectmen to hold him while we’re getting him that knockout drops. Well they fought him in the isle and all of the sudden Blackjack started to sing. Well Ben Rafter said we will get at it just as fast as we can. Well he sung a little bit and he passed out. So he went at it and he bandaged it and padded it in and he put haymen saps around the padding on the side to take care of the pain ifSociety it swells you know, take care of the fever if there was swelling. Then they loaded him in the batow and brought him up river here. History

B. Anderson: What did he use for a knife and what for sutures? Oral JK: Well they stopped at our place and they ate dinner on the way up with the batow, and he was all right but he was cussing at the leg, his toes ached, but he had it done and it was a good thing. But he give him some more of this what do youHistorical call a retainer to keep him tamed down. Then they took him on out and caught the Gutten-Liver train and went out and then the Great Northern from there to Grand Rapids and here was Doc Russell. He was the well known doctor at that time, old timer, and he hadHistory a lot of practice on mending broken limbs and everything else on lumber jacks. Golly he looked at that and he unrolled it and he said who dressed this in camp and set it. They told him it was Ben Rafter. He said I thought so. He said I’ve taken quite a little of his stuff, and he said I wish I had him here to help me. He said that the only thing he could do is don’t mess around and leave it exactly as it is, and then keep him from stirring around two or three months and then send him back again he says and then watch him then for a while. Along around JanuaryForest this fellaMinnesota jumped off the tote wagon at camp , god he was limping a little bit, and he went up to the boss there and he says, I’m ready to go to work in the morning. Well the boss said, we got plenty of knock out drops here if you need them. “I want to tell you one thing right here, that there lemon extract spree sure broke me of drinking entirely, if it is the thing to have alcohol, from now on I’m on the wagon, absolutely dry from now on.” And that he did.

JE: I’ll be darned.

JK: He held to it too. He didn’t drink anymore.

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JE: He must have been on a long drunk, to keep him drunk all the way down to Grand Rapids.

JK: He used this what you call waxed end for leather sewing, and that’s the only thing he could get with a soft tip of the edge of the stitches you know, and still have the strength. Wax end that you sew leather with. That’s what he stitched with.

JE: That’s what he tied up the fellow’s leg with. Jim, how big were these logging camps up here, let’s say about oh, 1905, 1910?

JK: Well until the power equipment, they run around one hundred men. I’ve seen them there with one hundred and twenty. And they all eat at the same time.

JE: Is that one bunk house or two bunk houses?

JK: Well they had a special bunk house for the teamsters, they called that the droll house, because those fellas the team was a part of their live. And they had to getProject up, everyone even the camp teamster, they would often go on a long haul, and they had to get up an hour earlier and feed the horses so they wouldn’t disturb all the men they had the droll house. Those fellas seemed to come back year after year you know, those old teamsters and ride the same teams. The horses got so they knew the men and the men knew the horses. Yes sirSociety that was the droll house. Every time they come in the night, time would haul the full thing cutting in one load. That was their beat all the time. History

JE: Over loading the horses. Oral JK: Okay, that’s what they call the droll house then.

JE: Art McCord was one of them, you never gotHistorical much noise out of Art, no.

B. Anderson: Is it true that teamsters usually wore a felt hat? History JK: I never heard one of those four horse teamsters yell at the team.

JE: They never did?

JK: The lead team all he done is twitch the lead line, the depth, and then the lead team would pull off theForest corner to racketMinnesota by themselves and then they would hang and the pole team would get down and wrestle it right out.

JE: Is it true that teamsters usually wore a felt hat even in cold weather?

JK: As a rule they did, ya. Ya, they wore a felt hat with them. Kind of a large stocking like around the ears.

B. Anderson: Kind of a badge of their profession.

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JK: You know Bill Rajala, he wears a hat in the winter.

JE: Did the men holler at their horses, well the teamsters didn’t but did the other men holler at their horses?

JK: No.

JE: No.

JK: No, a good teamster didn’t ever yell. You know I was talking to A. D. Moore at that historical meeting here a week ago and you know Johnny Moore, they never heard him raise his voice, and he had these kicking horses your working them on a scraper, that’s when A. D was a little kid, and the fellas would hold the scraper.

The one horse stepped over the trace and he slapped him and the horse kicked right up past his ears. The one fella said “god horse could kill a man with one wallop.” Project“Well I didn’t think to tell you that he was a kicker, and you’ve got to kind of talk to him and you get along good.” I says, J. D. do you ever hear your father raise his voice at a horse, and he said no, I never heard him holler yet, no even at a kicker. He handled them perfectly without yelling at the horse. Society JE: Where did a lot of the timber jacks come from? History JK: What ones that we run into, they came from out there in New Brunswick. We called them the merry machines from the Merry Machine River where they learned their trade. Oral JE: Well isn’t there a song the Merry Machine River?

B. Anderson: Ya, I think maybe Jimmy wrote Historicala poem about that.

JE: Oh, is that right? History JK: Ya. You better ask him about that. And the last one we got close acquainted with, well of course they got the Frasiers yet, the juniors, they still got that. They say each for an out and about for about.

B. Anderson: There was some man Chat got legal control of the land around the Deer Crick Dams andForest he held up theMinnesota logging companies for some time.

JK: Gat Glazier, ya he was French.

JE: It was Gat Glazier huh?

JK: Ya he had control of them when, old Dave Cameron too was a confidential overseer for Bob Stitz in there. When Dave Cameron said the last time he talked to Bob Stitz was about that dam up there, and these Fraziers that are out there now on the rapids.

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B. Anderson: Do you know Don Frasier John?

JK: It sounds awfully familiar.

JE: He was with F and H leasing business in the Pokegama hotel, he had an office there.

JK: Then the Fraziers they still have that English sound, about, down, out and so on. Yup. And that’s a peculiar thing. When they had that snow festival at the headquarters camp where Tom was in charge of you know, pretty young one over there was where Lindy used to be. Why the fella there, Fraser, well she is teaching school in Bigfork now, why I worked for her great grandfather on the Bigfork River, yup, that was the fella I was telling you about. The fella was growl and grumpy, but he was a square shooter all the way around. I had work- for her great grandfather.

JE: What time did the jacks go out to the timber? Project JK: They got so they were out there by day light.

JE: Oh yes. Society JK: And at noon the boss stood there by the door and held the cook shack door open, while they let them the men go in and get his tobacco at the bunkHistory house beside of it and then go out. He allowed that time, but otherwise the cook house was stored open.

JE: Can you describe for us the various kindsOral of jobs around the logging camp?

JK: Well the bull cook didn’t have anything to do with the cooking. Historical JE: No, he didn’t.

JK: He was the fella thatHistory washed the towels in the washing end of the basin in the bunk house, and he’s the fella that got the wood in, carried the water. But then the barn boss he’s one step up. They cleaned the barns, and he fed the ones that were going out early, he fed them their oats on time. Ya. He was a step up. Old Billy Kennedy that was at the camp there at camp two, they had at Deer Crick, he was 95 and still getting out. He is hunched over like a door, but he was a beast on that road monkey is what he was doing. By golly that was a sacred job, there was no man on the railroadForest that watchedMinnesota his section more closely than Billy Kennedy did.

B. Anderson: What was the swamper?

JK: That’s the fella that cut the limbs and knots of the trails, the skidding trails. He didn’t have to do it in the swamp.

JE: No, no.

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JK: Unless they were working in the swamp.

B. Anderson: How about a road monkey, what was that?

JK: Well, the road monkey was the one that cleaned the, kept the manure clean out of the ruts.

JE: On the ice roads?

JK: Ya. And he hayed hills so this would hold back the load and at the same time would let a fella have enough room to get up the grade on the opposite side. There was quite a science to that.

JE: Yes, right.

JK: Let me tell you, that was sacred ground to old Billy Kennedy. Project JE: Was the Blacksmith an important job in the camp?

JK: Oh yes, that blacksmith, he had to be ready during and even between trips when there was a long haul to set a shoe that got loose, or pulled loose, they would go rightSociety out there. No, hell, his meals were irregular, and at night if he had to set several shoes up or some needed major repairs that he made, he had to be to be out there able to do asHistory well. He got paid fairly high for it. He rated next to the filer and the boss in wages, the blacksmith.

JE: I suppose the cook received quite highOral pay too?

JK: I’ve stuck some wonderful cooks, Harry Green he was a wonderful cook. Cranky men, let me tell you the boss kept his mouth shut aroundHistorical when he was eating in the cook house

JE: Were they high paid? History JK: Well, about $90 a month. One ordinary man was down as low as a dollar a day, swampers, $26 a month. Blacksmith got $90 and the cooks got $90 and the camp boss got $90 too. No talking at the tables.

JE: Nope, no talking, nope. ForestMinnesota JK: The sign hung up right them too. You stop to think of the racket if you got 120 men talking at one time.

JE: In the song distance of here on the ice roads, Jim lived within distance of a famous camp called the Klondike camp.

JK: They use to have oxen there too. Because those Klondike camps you had that long ox stable there, and they had nine foot run between the 18 foot bunks, and they had a rut road instead of a trough road. There was just ice ruts you know and that’s what they had there, because oxen

10 wouldn’t work so well on trough roads.

JE: Did they use two oxen?

JK: Ya, I think most of them were. You take those oxen, the majority weighed over a ton you know, a piece. Jim, what is a trough road?

JE: A trough road is one the water is sprayed the full length of the road, and the rut is cut in the ice and you have sharp shod horses on that. They trot half the time on a trough road.

B. Anderson: How did they cut the rut?

JK: With a rut cutter. Godfrey has got the rut cutter from the Klondike camp, they didn’t take that out. That cut a rut about this wide.

JE: That would be what, close to about a foot wide, rut? Project

JK: Looks like about 15”?

JE: A 15” rut? Society

JK: And that had the slot on the back that turned it likeHistory a pearl you know, away from rut.

JE: Was that a 12” rut Jim or a 15” rut? Width. Oral JK: Oh, I imagine that it would be, I was going to say that it would be that wide, but it naturally lay out a little bit. Historical B. Anderson: It looks like a foot.

JE: Was the rut cutter pulledHistory by horses?

JK: The one on the trough road, that was pulled by, I know after one big storm up here and they had to make ruts, they had 16 horses on.

JE: Ya, the ones I have seen have had an awful lot of horse on. ForestMinnesota JK: And they walk right along.

B. Anderson: They did?

JK: They plowed the snow off and they cut the rut at the same time.

JE: Jim, talking about a rut road and a trough road as the same, it was an ice road with the ruts in.

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B. Anderson: Just a plain ice road as I understand it is what he called a trough road?

JK: Without the ruts?

B. Anderson: Then when they cut the ruts in it, then it became a rut road.

JK: Okay. Most of them were rut roads.

B. Anderson: I think so.

JK: That Klondike camp they took and hauled water out, every beaver pond there was up around in there. See they had a tank hole where they hauled. They sure kept the ruts iced up I’ll tell you.

JE: How did you get the water into those water tanks?

JK: They had a barrel with a swivel hole, that’s a conductor here, the fellaProject that watched the ruts, and when that pulled up there, the barrel would hit the bump pole and the fella would give a little extra tug each time so that it would come back. He watched, you see those were taper plugs through the holes for pouring the water, you can shove up or down with a lever and that gave you how heavy ice you want to pull or if you wanted a little it a little leanerSociety just spin it in. That’s a conductor. History JE: You could hear those sleighs squeaking for a long ways in cold weather I suppose, coming down those rutted roads. Oral JK: Oh ya, 40 below mornings, you could hear those fellas starting way before daylight down the long haul. Now that last year they used that one to the Klondike that hauled eight miles, two round trips, and it was funny the year before theyHistorical hauled a trip and a half. They had a big barn, it’s a landing and a fella put a team in there, they had what they called an eight hour break. They made three trips a day and he hauled more timber than the other fella did in four trips a day. And the horses come out smoothHistory and slick you know in the spring too. That second year they used it six horses dropped dead, a couple up by the camp you know, and back along the road, they pulled until they dropped. And feeding them heavy grain in the field while they were still warm.

JE: That’s no good.

JK: That Forestdidn’t work.Minnesota I seen one of them, beautiful too, they was leading them around in a circle and we was hauling right past their door, and the horse laid down while I was watching him and died there too. Beautiful big sorroway about 18 1900 you know. It broke up the team that did.

JE: Oh ya.

JK: Oh, they used to pour kerosene to on the ruts at night that would stop the thing from sealing too much.

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JE: Otherwise the rutters would freeze up on them.

JK: They had them all, and drove the back end too, see that their loose up.

B. Anderson: Ya. Did you ever do any hunting for camp meat?

JK: No, we didn’t hunt for camp, but we hunted for the stopping place in Bigfork, Nebhews stopping place.

JE: What place was that?

B. Anderson: Tom Nebhew was the first settler that came into this country and he had a place at the junction of the Big- fork and the Rice River.

JK: Oh ya. Project B. Anderson: Now he’s somewhere along about 98. As people came into this area they stopped over there.

JK: About 1905 the camp hunter was accepted as part of the operation,Society and of course a lot of the people around the Rapids they will be familiar with the name the White- one brothers. This Roy Whiteone was a camp hunter at camp 5, and I was overHistory there when they built the camp in the fall 1904. At the camp, I was there and Roy was hunting there and he got 5¢ a pound where the animals fell with the innards taken out of them, and the bull cook was the fella that went out and hauled the meat in. And I counted there at Oralone time in December. You see they knocked off after December when the tallow started shrinking, and I counted over 70 deer hanging in that warehouse, and there was a half a dozen moose hanging up there. Historical JE: Where was that?

JK: Camp 5. History

JE: Oh. They had 120 men there at one time

B. Anderson: Did you ever know Hungry Mike?

JK: I workedForest with him.Minnesota

JE: Is that right?

JK: Ya. And I mostly associated with Murry the Beast, you know, and Charlie Doyle, the fella they claimed that he had no center of gravity.

JE: Who was this Hungry Mike?

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B. Anderson: Was this Hungry Mike as big a eater as the stories say he was?

JK: He was, yup. He lived in Bemidji you know, and he lived just across the street from my uncle, my uncle was staying with the cooks in the mill there, and he said you could tell when Hungry Mike was home because they had a delivery ready waiting at the back door. There was something faulty about his stomach. It was fun to hear him tell about his home life. He said “You know” he talked with this Irish brogue,” Gee what a heavy grand home he said, bristle carpet on the floor knee deep,” he said. There was six Sullivan Brothers and the one Jim Sullivan that run the Sullivan Hotel in Deer River there afterwards, he said ah, there was a man, a full ax handle across the chest he was, but I got the best of him one day. We used to wrestle he said in there, and me mother she never worry a bit, she would just laugh at us, and he said you know, one day I was wrestling with my brother Jim and I got the lower hold he said, then I throwed him right over the grind stone and he hit the upper bunk he said.

B. Anderson: How about this Murray the Beast, how come he got called a name like that? Project JK: They worked right together in the same clap board too, and worked with him up on the lake up here when he was along in his seventies. He started out when he was 16, he left home in Wisconsin, or Michigan, I think it was in Michigan, and his mother told him, she knew he was going to be gone a while, she said, “You be sure to come home and seeSociety me when camp breaks.” “Oh yes,” he was always going to do that, but he always had to take and relax a little bit before he left. He usually wound up where the Marshall had Historytook him out and escorted him out of town. He showed him, there boys over at that there, a fellow by the name of Hungry Mike, his favorite was veal, he ate veal you know. So they ganged up on a bunch in Bemidji there making a bet he couldn’t eat, he says you know you get a vealOral well done, and I could eat the whole thing.

B. Anderson: Was that Hungry Mike? Historical JK: Yes, Hungry Mike. So they were going to beat him, he put his money up though; he said you put your money up and I’ll put my money up he said, $50. So this gang is thinking up, they got took and they didn’t haveHistory no lunch, they made lunch in the afternoon there and got him baited into it. And they had a veal well, cut up and the bones out of it. Well you had better get in shape for the evening Mike, remember you have got a whole veal. Well he said, that’s true enough he said and he went at it and he cleaned up that whole veal with the bones out of it. He said well you know he said, I better hold of before I spoil me appetite, I’ve got a bet on he says to eat a veal tonight, the whole veal. And he sat down and he ate the whole veal. They said we might as wellForest pay himMinnesota now, give him the money, yes but I want that veal he said, I want it well done. They weren’t going to beat him out of that.

B. Anderson: How come this guy was called Murray the Beast?

JK: When he left home in Michigan, he was an awful looker all right, he looked like he came out of cave man in the first place, but he was up here when they had that camp here where Louie Pinnete took the place and he was always taking and shaking his hands at this guy every- time he got a wallop something would hurt him you know, he didn’t get me that time hey. That time he come in and a skid had swung around and batted him in the jaw and broke his jaw and his

14 shoulder and it was twisted way over, and the boss was just going Out there, that was Billy Cliff. Well he says, it looks like the man up there got the best of ya. Well he was going to take him out to the doctor, doctor hell he said, I’m going leave it right here. That’s the way he left it, the shoulder dropped down and his jaw way off to one side. The old man didn’t get the best of him that time.

B. Anderson: Do you know the story of Jack the Horse?

JE: That’s where, who’s on that resort?

JK: Well Jack the Horse he was the one where Jack the Horse Lake is out there. He’s on the Mississippi Waters since he left and went out there, and they claim that one horse dropped dead and he got into the harness and pulled on the other side and pulled the load to the landing. Yup.

JE: What timber companies operated around here? Project JK: Well the first one of course is Bob Stitz, that was in the 70s and that Keewatin Lumber Company they put in over where all this heavy stands of Norway pine, see that’s where they worked up Rice River, that was heavy stands there. There is Kalendary, that’s another one that logged up in here, that was Forte’s outfit, Herdon McVeady. McVeady,Society they are the ones that logged in the Klondike, Herdon McVeady. McVeady, not too long ago they passed away up on Deer Lake this side of Deer River, Herdon McVeady.History They toted from Aitkin during the winter.

JE: That’s a long way to tote. Oral B. Anderson: Wasn’t there Loper and Rummry operate up here?

JK: Yes, Loper and Rummry, yes. They went theHistorical other way too, they had both ways, same as the Merry Machines, they come from New Brunswick and they went up Kettle River and then when they started operating on the Canadian Waters they follow the same bosses there. History JE: About the time you came up here the Nemekin was.

JK: Yup, that’s the same thing, Dump Price was the Superintendent and Archie Shaw was the walking boss there and another walker was Nathaniel Shaw, boy that was a hard boiled walking boss. ForestMinnesota B. Anderson: What company got Busti’s timber?

JK: That’s the old Nemekin, Sevilen Mathew, Mathew, I remember when he was riding around with Dump Price, they come to our place the first year we was putting in timber and he was riding with Dump Price that time and when they got on the Canadian side Dump went over and there was Sevilen Mathews. Tom Shevlen was the original.

B. Anderson: Was that the same Mathews that had that big mill in Fort Francis until recently?

15

JK: He’s still alive, the last I heard.

B. Anderson: Around 100 years old I think?

JK: Art Rajala was talking to him some time ago when he had, he’s from the mill on the north end of Rainy Lake and he was 95 then.

B. Anderson: That’s the same Mathews?

JK: Ya, yup and they had a Mathew day in honor of where he come from originally, he originated in the Hurly, Wisconsin and down in that area there. Yup, then came over here.

JE: Who owned the Gutten-Liver Line?

JK: Oh, he had that Joyce Estates, he owned that. Project

JE: The Joyce Estates that was the old man Joyce and his son? Why was it called the Gutten- Liver line? Society JK: Some lumber jack took it and that you know, M & R and that never got to Minneapolis and Rainy River started in the middle, and it never got to Historythe point either way. They had one branch of that up here they called the Peruna branch, because the camp was using up a couple of cases of Peruna every time a tote team come in there. That’s all that kept them going. Oral B. Anderson: Was there anything at Craig when you come up in this country?

JK: Not right at Craig, no. Company had the campHistorical down just below Little Falls, right there below the falls.

JE: What kind of horsesHistory did they use up here? I suppose those were Percherans?

JK: Well at one time the Superintendent Dump Price of the Nemeken and the Shevlin Mathew outfit, he went down in Iowa and he bought two car loads that time of three and four year old, evidently a Clyd with his bright bead and white stockings and kind of rangy legs and shaggy legs. He would go up to the three and four year olds, oh boy they took a beating those did, man oh man. ForestMinnesota

JE: Where they French Perchins?

JK: No, they were built just like your Clydes, bright bay, white stockings.

B. Anderson: Clydesdales I suppose.

16

JK: Well they didn’t like the Clydesdales because they have the hair there and that kind of stuck around and they like to have a cleaner horse.

At camp three down there on the Spring Crick, Walt Deucheins place Price, that’s the cousin of him; he’s on the peter burro’s trading on the river here. He comes up to the house and he said, “Do you want a horse”, well they, Dump Price had told him that horse could, they never really found the fella was driving them or what happened. He had to put his front foot through lead rig, rigging you know, and they pulled it out of joint in the shoulder and they had to swing, and this Lip Price had come up and he says that horse down there he says, Dump Price said take him up there, maybe they can make use of him, maybe he’ll recover from it, but he never recovered from it but we worked him for six or seven years.

JE: What do you mean by camp 5 or camp 7 or camp 21?

JK: Camp five, we used to call that the Deer Lake Camp, a mile and a half from Deer Lake. That had a good stand of Norway pine. They cut sixteen hundred thousand offProject of it before the camp was on and there is a little pothole besides. Around 2 million feet on a forty.

JE: Two million feet per forty? Society JK: They had one camp over on Shine Lake, that was a headquarters camp and you got lots of pork and lots of venison and moose meat in those earlyHistory camps, because they always had a couple of liters of pigs brought on by the camp watcher for eating the scraps you know. They had pigs around there; they had a bridge across the river and below Busti’s clearing and these acorns through the woods all over that year. And Oralwe went over to Crane Lake that time, and there were pigs eating the acorns all the three or four miles over there. I think there was quite a few settlers there had changed the diet too. Historical JE: The camp up on Deer Crick they called the dead horse camp, how did that get a name like that? History JK: I don’t know, but you got Dead Horse Lake out here back from Suomi, ya, that’s all I know on that.

JE: You know where old man Leslie lived?

JK: Yes. ForestThat lake wasMinnesota Lilie Lake, they called that, and by golly they did have a Dead Horse Lake, that’s where this one guy runs a lunch restaurant kind of thing, you could look through that to Dead Horse Lake. That would be Mrs., she is an organist for the church here, ya, they had a lunch place at that time.

JE: Did you know C. V. Smith?

JK: Ya.

17

JE: He goes back quite a ways.

JK: There was an awful stopping place because that was on the land Prairie Lake road as you come up through into this north country past C. V. Smith the old original.

JE: That was in Balsam there.

JK: It was a three story log house, right upon the hill there.

B. Anderson: With a crick down below.

JK: That burned down in ‘58?

B. Anderson: I would guess something like that.

Mrs. Knight: Oh, more recent of that it seems. Project

JK: I talked to Walter and I thought he said ‘58.

Mrs. Knight: Well maybe it was. Society

B. Anderson: It’s been quite a few years ago now, timeHistory has a way of slipping by.

Mrs. Knight: They came up in about 1905. Oral JE: Who were some of the outstanding characters that you knew, like some of the lumber jacks and maybe give us an account of these people. Historical JK: Well the outstanding characters, you mean? Excuse me a minute while I check that out, I’ve got to get my grinder. Well I’ll start with the tallest one I knew by the name of Rod Stewart. He was 6’ 10” in his stockings,History and he weighed about 250 pounds lean and each one has a peculiar trait you know, and when Rod hit town the first thing he ever done and that was with his paycheck, was to gather up all of the kids he could and take them in and he filled them up with candy and treats. And when he had a line like the Pied Piper about the time he got a couple of blocks you know and when he had that taken care of he done his own celebrating. But it wasn’t too bad because he was an awful decent guy, and he was one of the most even tempered men I have everForest seen of that Minnesotasize. Now that man could take an average man in one hand and hold him right out there, but it took him a long time to get riled up. I saw one pest come in the crew one time, he was a good 200 pound tough, and he kept badgering Rod Stewart, and he wanted to tangle with him and about two days of that it hit bottom with Rod, and he grabbed the man with his left hand and held him right straight out. He said, “You know I could kill you right here with my bare hands, but I won’t do it, but I don’t want you to say one more word to me while were here on this crew.” The fella went over and he asked for his time and left. While, then everything was cheerful and happy in the crew afterwards. He was not only a top notch lumber jack, he was from lower Canada you know, and he said when he got up to about the sixth or seventh grade said he kept hitting the top of the school house door every time he went in or out, so he had to

18 duck so that he wouldn’t hit his head, and then he quit school then. As I say he, and he said then I was six foot ten at that time. He was the happiest man to work with that we ever knew, that’s one of them, not only that, he was an accomplished engineer with their hoisting outfits too, he run that. He died not too many years age, and he lived in his own cabin on the outside of International Falls, and he had that door cut a little extra high. And I imagine his last resting place was a couple of feet extra like. Ya that was Rod Stewart.

The next outstanding man I met was the boss, the first boss that I worked for, that was John Fraser. Most of those fellows were down easterners, we called them Merry Machines you know, they come from Merry Machine River in New Brunswick and they always talked with this broad slang, out and down. The biggest treat they could think of was cod fish.

JE: Cod Fish?

JK: As a diet, dried cod fish. They were all good workers and very saving, they save their money too, this here John Fraser, grumpy and growly as they ever came,Project one of the fairest kindest men I ever knew. That’s the first man I worked for, when I was like six weeks from being fourteen years old. I worked my 16 hours a day rain or shine, seven days a week the same as the rest of them did, and the only order he gave me when I come in, we happened to be working on roll a ways when he caught up with me, he said you put thatSociety peavey down and you don’t touch anything but the pike pole and work on floating timber he said. That is the only order I got. One of the other crew, the second night we wasHistory there, he says you know that kid, I didn’t weigh over 75 or 80 pounds, he gets around on that timber twice as fast as any other of the 200 pounders. The boss said, I have noticed that, he says he can handle that crew alone that you’re putting in there, and save one of those 200Oral pounders for the bull work. And that guy said yes, he could take care of two of those crews, and he said the second day I was taking care of two of the crews, and that’s the one order I got, all the way to Rainy River. And when I quit, my wages were just the same as the 200 pounders. Two dollarsHistorical and seventy five cents a day is all we got for a sixteen hour day, rain or shine. And that’s the second outstanding man. So absolutely fair and square. He asked me, how are you getting along, and I was afraid he was going to send me home, well one thing I want to callHistory your attentio n to while you’re here, when you go down eating off of that table, the cafeteria, you fill your plate and you eat until your filled and have whatever you want. Anytime you’re hungry, if you’re the last one there, you stay there until you’re filled up. You see we started at four in the morning and then had what you called first lunch that was at nine o’clock and you filled up on everything just as you did then. Second lunch was at two o’clock and you filled up again, and the next was supper time. Lunches, everything was lunches, and that’sForest the way theyMinnesota handled the crew there.

Another outstanding man was Arum, he had the distinction of being one of the oldest, and he was 92 years old when he was working there. And he worked his 16 hours a day on floating timber and not only that he picked off a single log, and he kept that pinned to the bank at night and he was used to every roll of it you know, and he earned every cent he got, picking loose timber along down ahead of the jargo crew. That’s the fellas that worked on the rafts. That man would set in the evening there, he would smoke his little stoke pipe and he had a white beard and he had rheumatism and never mentioned rheumatism, and he earned every cent he got.

19

JE: Jim, you got paid more for being a river hog than working in camp?

JK: Well, you mean the camp crew. You see the wages for top man outside of the foreman in the camp, were in the loading crew, top loader. He had to be quick and be able to judge a log coining up there catch it when it was in reach and give it a little twitch and square it around, so it landed square, and he had to have the judgment to build his loads just as square as could be. Well you see he was there $40 or even 45 and four horse skinners were in the $40 - 45 to and from that on down the sawyers got $30 and swampers got $26, that’s a dollar a day. So that is the way that was handled, but the four horse man they were in a select crew. They even had, the four horse man you had a special bunk house for them, that was the growl house, because the same men were about the same age, a lot of them were up in their seventies and they had driven that same team year after year, they come back to the same camp and horses got so they knew the man’s voice and he knew the horses, the man did, he knew exactly what the horse wanted, that worked both ways. I never heard a four horse man that spoke in a loud voice to a horse. They would twitch the lead line just like that and those horses would swing over a littleProject quarter to rack the load, then they would step back then he would speak to his see and the heavy fellas and they all got down and they would lean flat until she got rolling, ya, got moving and that was quite a thing to do. They always had those loads loaded up ahead, so they hooked on to the, and to rack them loose, that was quite a trick. They used to pour kerosene on the ruts atSociety night before and that helped a lot, but the first hundred feet before you got the ruts warm why that was dragging. It was quite a picture to watch. History

JE: What other men do you know? Oral JK: I knew this one road monkey he was 95 and that guy was out long before daylight to get his hills hayed properly, and so that it would slow the load just enough and still have enough and still have enough to help the team carry them upHistorical without much delay. And by gosh no man ever watched his beat closer that he did, no section man on the railroad either. And he would go down there and he was hunched over like a little dwarf. He was 95 but, and his collar would be froze solid to his chin. He was Historya man that believed that alcohol preserved the man, he says it does a man good to go out he said and get loosened up, and he loosened up, and he loosened up.

JE: He loosened up huh?

JK: And that’s an outstanding man like that, and a humble job, the humblest job of all, the road monkey. ForestWell there wasMinnesota a half a dozen of those fellas that quit and come back and stayed here when the machine work was starting, and took a piece of land themselves, but they still went back at whatever it is they were doing. That was their life, ya.

JE: Did they have hospital tickets, and where was the hosp ital located?

JK: Ya, that entitled you to St. Mary’s Hospital in Duluth, I think that’s the one, ya the hospital ticket.

20

JE: What was the cost?

JK: That didn’t cut down on their hospital bill, but it entitled them to get in there when it was necessary.

JE: What was the cost?

JK: Well was another outstanding man when it comes to taking care of the other man in the camp, and that was Ben Rather. Ben Rather had the knack of going around and teaching these fellas that were more or less ailing and getting them back to work on a couple of days when they leave camp. And they had all kinds of patients, and that was all done gratis, and I see now he even mentioned he splintered legs you know and things like that. I see one outstanding leg he repaired, a teamster by the name of Blackjack McDonald they called him, and he was a good teamster alright and he was dragging full length skids out and one of them swung around and jumped over, and he was quick on his feet to, but that day he wasn’t quick enough for that. It took his leg right here and smashed it, and so the splinters were stickingProject out and he caught it between that and the stump you know. They took him on a swing dingle, that’s the lunch wagon that they hauled the boxes out in, that swing dingle that had a swivel pole in it you know, so a fella could turn out of the way in a hurry, and they took Blackjack into camp. This Ben Rather he looked at that and he says, “say, that man will have to be put under withSociety something or other, because I will have to work right on that leg and put it back in shape while it’s new like that. It takes two days at least to get into town where you canHistory get into town before you can work on it, by that time it would be too late.” The only thing he said, there is no liquor in this camp, no whiskey and he said we got in a case last week in know, lemon extract that’s 60% alcohol, we’ll have to use that. We can pour enough of thatOral into him, but he said knowing him as I do it’s going to take at least 4 men to hold him down, husky men, until we can get enough down him. So they went up to the cook shack, and the cook showed where they was at, and several bottles had been used up for the old pastry they had, well I had aHistorical bad cold also, and I had been using that. But he said there is plenty left here yet. So they took enough and they held Blackjack down for a minute and they started pouring this stuff down, “Where the hell did you get that rot gut,” he said, and they told him. He got violentHistory alright when they just started getting it down him, and they poured enough into him so that he finally passed out, started singing a little and then he passed out. So Ben Rather went right after him, and he put every splinter just right, in that leg, and he used this here what you call waxed ends that you use to sew a harness with, because it has a soft cushion outside, and he put hang straps around the leg to allow for the congestion and swelling, he had that all arranged too. Then they loaded Blackjack into the batow and they had to take him a full day up riverForest to get on Minnesotathe tote rig, and this was in the fall you know before the break up when they was putting in skids, and he held in there and they stopped at dinner at our place and he was still pretty woozy and feeling pretty good and they had given him enough to keep him quiet. And he come up and he ate dinner at the house with the rest of them and the leg wasn’t bothering him too bad, he had enough of that lemon stuff still in him. Then they took him on from there and then out to the Gutten-Liver railroad, and then they put him on that and they had no regular schedule on that at that time either. They hauled him to Deer River on that, and from Deer River to Grand Rapids he road in a coach. In Grand Rapids, that’s where Doc Russell was, that fella done most of his doctoring with lumber jacks at that time, and he took and put him under out there and then he looked at that leg and he said, “Who dressed that leg before he got here?” They

21 said Ben Rather, and he said, “Oh, ya, Ben Rather, often times I wish I had him here, I’ve worked on some of his jobs and he is an accomplished man on splintered legs. I can’t do a thing to him, except keep him quiet, and we can do that by the same process that was done before.” So he kept him quiet he said, and he said I can keep him quiet for about two or three months, then he can go back to camp, and if he is careful, he can do some constructive work that will benefit that leg to keep it exercised. Well you see that was part of January when he went back to camp, it was about three months and a half, and he jumped of a tote team there, it was about 40 below and he limped a little and he went up to the boss camp at the office there and he said, “God, I can be back on the job and earn my keep by tomorrow anyway.” And the boss said, we got plenty of your knock out drops here he said, in case it don’t. Say he said, there is another thing I want to tell you, that ration of knock out drops has cured me completely from drinking any kind of alcohol like stimulants he said, and I’ll tell right here and now, that cook don’t need to put in a drop that on my account, and it’s better if he don’t. And the truth was that cured Blackjack of drinking entirely.

JE: Is that right? Project

JK: Yup, never drank another drop at all. He swore off.

JE: When did you father first arrive in this country? Society

JK: Well, it dates back to September 1901 when my dadHistory come up and built our first homesteading house, a 12 by 14. At that time, Busti Town hadn’t been open, but it still had just been surveyed in 1895 and Busti Coggin was our nearest neighbor down the stream, and he was chief of that Nett Lake tribe. We got to knowOral him real good, and he took a personal attention to me as a little kid you know and he gave us the history ever since the time he was born and why they came here. He was born on an English River up in Northern Canada, and what you call the English men at that are when he was, what youHistorical would say, and his every trip. He would stay there and he would give me his Indian lore about the history between, and it would be a three hour lecture practically. But he took a particular liking to me and every word he spoke was in Chippewa too. History

JE: Can you tell us about Busti Coggin’s life?

JK: Well, he was born up there, and I’m not sure he’s what you call a Native American, a United States Citizen, because he never became one, but they didn’t pay much attention anyway on the Indians, atForest the border, Minnesotaand they don’t yet as far as that goes. And he sat there and he ran out of one of these when all wildlife comes in to choose at regular circles, and at that time, even the beaver he said, and the caribou and the moose just disappeared from the area, and they starved out. So they took off down the English River and they hit the Winnipeg River below Lake of the Woods and they turned there and they come back up and into the Lake of the Woods and come on up to the mouth of the Bigfork River. They kept going up and their food kept increasing, the heavy wild rice is what caught their eye. That was beyond the wild rice belt where they were up at the English River.

22

JE: Ya, right.

JK: That’s what they followed, the wild rice they said and down the Winnipeg River and up into Lake of the Woods, and they said it got better, everything as they went up. There were heavy strands of rice, and they followed the Bigfork River up. The further they got up that, they said the better the fur and the wild life too. So they had about everything they wanted to, and they got up to where he hit the lot that they give him afterwards. That’s Busti Town. That was surveyed in 1895 and they told him that conflicts somewhat of that supposedly accurate account of that settling of that Nett Lake and who was chief arid this and that. That I think his heirs and it’s due to those who are studying that over, and he assumed that’s what was to be taken place you see. See he was a chief of the Nett Lake Indian people and he was a head chief. He made regular trips from his log boat over there and he told us they had assigned him back in 1896 when his first. In 95 I mean. And they told him he was the chief of that. And afterwards I know that hung to when they got any trouble; he made regular trips over there every 30 days or 60 days and settled an argument there. They signed that to him, well as far as dates go, that theyProject surveyed at the definite lines. I think they assigned him through all the general watershed of the Bigfork here, because he was regarded very highly way out past west even the Mississippi waters took over, because they called on him out there to settle things and he knew well where on that township after they set that Out. I think it was just the general area of the Bigfork, and he wasSociety a very intelligent guy and every free hours that he spent there at home was because right there, just like a fella taking his lessons, all in Chippewa to, that’s how I got to talkingHistory Chippewa. He refused to talk any English.

JE: Is that right? Oral JK: Knowledge, we had one advantage, my grandfather when went down this around to it and in Montreal he picked up a Chippewa dictionary that had been compiled by a Jesuit priest, it must have took him years and years. Historical

JE: Oh ya, it must have. History JK: And that was printed in 1823, and my granddad got a hold of that, one of those, and I got a copy made of it afterwards, because that paper at that time, you could poke your finger right through it, just like rags. But they had a type a fine type, of course you know the Chinese had type, to form type to print with four thousand years ago, and the Chinese weren’t suppose to know it. ForestMinnesota JE: Ya, that’s right, right.

JK: And that was a fine type too. My granddad come up here to live with us, that’s where he started his first trip down the Bigfork River in 1854, and he got a hold of that dictionary. And old Busti when we got stalled for what he was trying to tell us in Chippewa, he motioned to bring that book out.

JE: Bring that book out huh.

23

JK: He called it the paper where they put our language on, they put our language on paper. So he was smart enough that way I’ll tell you, and we’d say that to him and that was right every time too.

JE: What kind of a man was Busti?

JK: You mean for build, he was about six foot two or three.

JE: Oh.

JK: And his hair was always hung down to his shoulders, of course he was big, an Indian usually won’t go that big, and I would say he stayed as lean as a wolf too; he weighed around 200 I would judge. His squaw was exceptional, you know a squaw takes back seat right behind, they aren’t allowed to talk where the men are, she not only talked but she contradicted him.

JE: Oh, is that right? Project

JK: Women’s lib was there in a hurry, and she would tell a joke, and the joke was on him too. Laugh about it she would and he would look foolish you know, but he never called her none, no. Ninswa was okay, huh? Busti’s mother is buried up here beside of RiceSociety Lake, above Bigfork on the Rice River, and it must have been in the fall, when they had a burial ground up on the southeast side of the lake on the high bank there, and Historythere was graves all the way around the humps and some of them had houses over them and some of them didn’t, and that’s where Ningle, his mother was buried. And they pulled across the lake at night after they had buried her and that must have been October, because Oralhe said the geese were so noisy and we never slept a wink that night. Now it’s peculiar how much lack of respect they have for other people’s burial grounds. All those humps, not a one of them had been disturbed when we come in here at first, because we come down past there when we comeHistorical on our way in. All those humps is what I noticed, I thought somebody had been experimenting for mine you know, a test pit.

JE: Ya, ya. History

JK: And no, I found out when we come to the little houses were that only come from a different branch of the tribe, those little houses, they were graves. And nobody had disturbed a one. That’s been dug right over now, and they didn’t have the decentness to fill the pits either. This fella, his wife teaches school in Bigfork, she has some kind of supervisory job that must be right in their door yardForest up there, becauseMinnesota he built up along that high side of the lake, but I don’t think he would do it. Jack Devrees that’s the man that’s the Superintendent of the hospital now, he’s an absolutely square decent man. But to think of people going, didn’t have the decency. How would they like to have ya come in our grave yard and tear them down and dig up the skeletons?

JE: Ya, no.

JK: Some of those skeleton’s part of them was down there at Big Falls, and a fella has them in his filling station as part of his exhibits. There were two graves at Busti landing, they were about 25 or 30 feet from his wigwam, and from the house that was built for him then there, and they

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must have come from a different branch of the drive. Some of them they bury up in the trees you know, because these two had houses built over them. And they were buried on top of the ground, they wasn’t dug under. In October I couldn’t help but see through the boards after they had fallen in there, and there was an ear ring showed up on this one you know, they were buried on top of the ground, through that black hair that the ear ring showed up, but we left it alone. Then ribs showed there. Pretty soon as everybody was traveling up here there was shin bones and ribs the skull too. You know that’s one thing about their language, why it’s hard to learn. Some of their letters start with tch the variation tchimanan, that’s a canoe, tchimigamic is a grave, there is no…

JE: No it doesn’t, no.

JK: Tch, tch ya. Then a wigiwasi tchimanan, was a birch bark canoe.

JE: Was Busti a wise man?

JK: Yes, he was right there, they called him to all the conferences at WalkerProject to that uprising that time, in ‘98, and he told them right there, he says, “You better just settle peaceably here, you can’t possibly beat them, they got too many guns.” He said, “You better make a settlement with them now instead of trying to drive them out of here, because that would be the end of your Chippewa’s, and the end of your reservations too.” So they got him downSociety there, and that stopped it right there, they had already killed 40 of the Indians of that one of the fellas that come up from Fort Snelling he drove up there, he got two companiesHistory to come up there, he got excited you know when the other fellas rifle went off accidently, and the Indians thought that was war.

JE: They attacked, right, everybody startedOral shooting.

JK: Forty killed there. Historical JE: Ya.

JK: Before they got that Historysettled. But old Busti settled it. Yup, and he saved a lot of lives right there.

JE: What did Busti do for a living?

JK: He lived off the land, and he’s a fella that was way ahead of the others in intelligence and now whenForest he went up Minnesotato see they always had their regular dates to go make maple sugar and gather wild rice. When he went up to Bowstring where the big maples stands were there, the hard maple, and that was a regular gathering ground for Chippewa’s from all the way around. They take two canoes up, no, they take two canoes in the fall, they take those when their up gathering rice, and he always went up himself, and he gathered rice and shocked them in wound a bound the wild rice just when the heads were flowing so that the wind storm or rise of water wouldn’t drown out, they would save a couple of acres that way and they would have it chopped and the heads were all up there where they didn’t get beat out by a storm, so that was enough to last him over the winter you know. And when they left to go down, of course they raised kinds of sugar and all they had why he left the canoe up there, took two canoes up and when they come down in

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the spring they had two canoes to carry his extra stuff you know, for his extra season. And he always kept on ahead, and he was liberal with that, if anybody come along there, why he would give them the best he had, he didn’t hold out on anything.

JE: Did Busti trap?

JK: Yup. That’s what he trapped, the river. Now, like Bergit Anderson wrote The Last Frontier, that’s a very well informed book, she is well misinformed on Indians, she said, the picture of them going in a bitch bark canoe, she said, “they spent most of their spare time just paddling up and down the stream.” I never knew them to paddle a stream if it wasn’t in something within or connected with their work, and their industry, that picture she has is taken above the flowage dam on Deer Crick. And the ice is frozen out and the fringe is on, they are running their muskrat traps, and mink traps, see, they are looking those over, that’s what they are doing there while it is freezing up. And he’s either coming up after the latter part, well in the summer, he would drive moose meat ahead for the weather, just drive up you know, and it was easier to kill then, and he was a good conservationist. Project

JE: Is that right.

JK: He said, “there is absolutely, it is prohibited to take any animal, aSociety moose, a deer that was nursing a young, or to take the young at that age, you had to wait until the horns on Buck was plainly visible and he had a bright red coat before he Historywas fit to eat, ya, that’s true enough, and that’s what he had done.

JE: Were the Chippewa’s industries people?Oral

JK: Yes. Historical JE: They were.

JK: Yes, they lived off theHistory land and the government made them that nice hewed log house with oak, bottom rounds, nicely dumped pail and shake roof you know, and he lived in his birch bark wigwam outside of that, winter and summer. And what puzzled me they were always busy making nets you know, by hand for netting fish in the summer when the fish were running and she was working at bead work you know, to trade in when they get to town. They made me the nicest bead work moccasins you ever saw. ForestMinnesota JE: Is that right?

JK: Ya. And how she could do that in that smoky teepee and she wasn’t wearing any glasses and she only had one eye.

JE: Only one eye?

JK: The left eye was blown out, and there was green powder marks all around, I suppose from old blunder bust, it blew up you know, the back end of it. Yes sir, and how she could do that and

26 get it as even without having a stitch, free hand.

JE: Free Hand?

JK: Ya. She had put designs of flowers on and on the tongue of the moccasin, her name. By golly you know and they could. I have only known to have one son that I met, and it kind of embarrassed me, both in the way he treated his ponies and the correct jammer he spoke,

JE: Oh, oh.

JK: I come down it was about 40 below zero, down river when I was working in the woods, and we worked by golly regardless of the thermometer, and come down and here is this young pretty well dressed Indian, neatly and he had drove his ponies next to the bank and he put hay out for them to eat while he was up to the house, that was about 100 yards up to our house, and I told him in Indian, that it was a cold morning. Yes he said in English, I believe it’s the coldest morning of the winter. A fella feels kind of foolish. Project

JE: He pulled one on you.

JK: Ya, he said, I believe it’s the coldest morning of the winter. Yup.Society But I went up there and I said my feet were cold you know that morning, and here they got that pair of moccasins for me. They brought that up there, nice flowers, they were sewedHistory on reds and what we used to call Indian Blue, that’s their strong colors ya.

JE: Some said that Busti killed his son, becauseOral he couldn’t hunt, is that true?

JK: You mean that he could not hunt? Historical JE: Ya, he killed his, Busti killed his son because he could not hunt?

JK: I heard that he had somebody;History he never mentioned another son or any of them.

JE: So just the one son.

JK: Yes, just the one that one that he brought up there. That fella had been Mission School there at Nett Lake you know, before he was about an 8th grader. ForestMinnesota JE: Chums was a full blooded Chippewa, high school graduate. Do you know any other Indians?

JK: Oh ya, this is their regular canoe route in the summer and they pulled a toboggan route in the winter. One in the winter and one in the summer that was their route. They had one camping spot down here, it’s the end of this ridge down a little, there is a balsam grove over the hill and that’s one thing they had, the fella would, they had teepee poles set up there without the bark on them, and the man that was there last in the winter he always left up where nothing else could get it, maybe a little package of tea, because they are strong on tea, and maybe some wild rice if the

27 fella happened to be hungry, and maybe a piece of dried meat be in there, and he would leave that there in case the other fella had bad luck. On the way up he had a place there he could go in, the poles all ready up and they could put their own bark like they did, paper around it, spiral and there was an ax left there too. In plain sight. Now that is pretty darn thoughtful.

JE: Yes, right. How big was a teepee of an average Indian family?

JK: Twelve feet maybe a big one, but a little one they used when they traveled and camping over night you know, that was about eight feet, but the other one was left up teepee. the tote road was hauling down near the logging, they followed the river, Busti did, and we asked him why he didn’t go that tote road, God he said it’s lot shorter, ya but ya set your teepee up along side of a tote road and every white man comes there and he stops there and when he goes he takes something. He said he would rather travel that extra mileage and came the way they wanted to. They hollered going by those fellas too down there he said, you couldn’t sleep then.

JE: What did the Indian use on their floor to keep warm? Project

JK: Well on their permanent, ya they have balsam balls, ya, and a few blankets you know, they had Hudson Bay blankets always. Society JE: Oh, they did? History JK: There is another thing, when they, Busti and his squaw stay in this overnight, she got up she just put that Hudson Bay blanket around her like a skirt, and she was dressed warm the, regardless of the weather. Oh yes, he used Oralthat there blanket though, let me tell you, that was something.

JE: Whatever happened to Busti’s pot of coins?Historical

JK: He never mentioned to us anything. When he told you how they were right down to earth, he rode up with us one time,History oh they had took their blankets but we took our team and he sold us our fur down there. And the store come into Bigfork at that time, a big department store and they had the big windows in front, and come dinner time he squaw went up and they spread their blankets down on the floor in front of that window and they ate their dinner, right there and the fella that run the store, god he had an audience there, and they was eating and they didn’t like it. But they were well mannered. They come to our place, my mother used to always, she had a colored chinaForest wear thatMinnesota she saved you know, and she put that out when Busti and his squaw ate there. The squaw looked at him and Busti’s eyes snapped, they put that on because he was there, that’s the chief. And she got to him that way alright. And another thing there was three things he teed to, he had the same term for, that’s the mother of the animal dog barks you know, that was the white man first, that was the lords animal, and cold weather and the mosquito’s.

JE: Those three things?

JK: Yup, they say they won’t bother an Indian, by golly, they really bothered him. But my mother took, we used to make cheese cloth canopy used to hang over, the same as we used to

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have down the drive in the winter, over bunks to keep the mosquitos. And my mother, when he come up one day she had a big reinforced cheese cloth canopy for him. Golly the next trip when he come up he had that in front of him, and they padded it, it wasn’t clear white yet, pretty smoky, and he said now I can sleep nights. Gee but he was tickled, by golly he made a friend of her for life.

JE: Oh I bet?

JK: Let me tell you. Yes sir. We always use to give him a little gift, something special, a piece of bacon you know, something they didn’t have or he would give them a package of marmalade, but if it looked like he needed it he would turn his back on you and wouldn’t take it. To proud to take it. Yup, if it looked like he needed it, so we had to be a little touchy about that.

JE: What kinds of things did Busti eat? Was that wild rice and?

JK: Well he’s tickled to death always to get a loaf of bread, my motherProject always sent a loaf of bread with him, golly that tickled him, and when they, and as I say, he would get some marmalade or something of that kind or a piece of bacon, they didn’t say thank you, you know, that isn’t customary, that isn’t usual. You go down to our landing, down step by the landing was some maple sugar or some wild rice, it balanced what they got or a littleSociety bit better than that.

JE: Fantastic. History

JK: Yes sir. Oral JE: What kind of game did the Indians used to play?

JK: They used to play this moccasin game; wellHistorical that’s the same as the white man’s poker.

JE: Oh. History JK: Except the fella that lost, he would get a swat in the rear with a wet moccasin, just as hard as they could handle it. But they played poker for money just the same as any white man, they really got a weakness for that, except old Busti, I never saw him play that though.

JE: I never seen him play the moccasin game either. ForestMinnesota JK: I’ll bet.

JE: Just hospitality, there was never anybody went past there that he didn’t invite them up to eat regardless of what it was, he was welcome to it.

JK: Yup.

JE: Where did you and Mrs. Knight meet each other, and how did you meet?

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JK: Oh you want from, as I said dates back to 1901.

JE: Okay.

JK: When my dad had that 12 by 14 homestead that he filed on, and we come up the next spring, July 6, when we wound in here we got held up in Deer River a little bit. So we says June 6, when we come down the river here to our homestead. That’s when I said when I was telling you about when Smith Lake, they had the railroad into there, and Little Bowstring siding and that’s when the cook for the hoisting crew said, do you folks want a little lunch.

JE: And you ate, ya.

JK: He brought out a whole boiled ham and all kinds of pastry and stuff and such darn good, these great big lumber jack buns you know, about that big, boy and good too, and I though and if this is the way the lumberjacks live, by golly I am going to be a lumber jack. Yes sir, and that’s when, oh those Indians like white man’s grub all right, but they didn’t Projectkill anything that wasted anything.

Mrs. Knight: We celebrated our 60th anniversary the 10th of June. Society JE: She came in to teach school. History JK: Oh, she did.

JE: And I put an end to that. Oral

Mrs. Knight: I came in September and I was engaged in December 27. Historical JK: We were married 6 days after the school closed out of Grand Rapids.

JE: Oh, you were marriedHistory in Grand Rapids?

JK: Yup, yup. Yes we were married by a man named Sutherland.

JE: Southerland.

JK: A Presbyterian,Forest andMinnesota boy he was one of the nicest lecturer I have ever seen, before he took us on the quiet, to the side, and told us about the responsibilities of married life and a family, what he said or talked about was both your spirits of responsibility and your responsibility to the keeping of the family and supporting them, ya. And he made it plain and I guess it stuck alright. 60 years, and I still think it was the best deal I ever made.

Mrs. Knight: I think in September 1914.

JE: September 1914.

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JK: I don’t know where I could have found anybody that would tie up to an uneducated trapper, river pig and anything else like that. And hunter, trapper, and river pig, but she fits the notch perfect. She’s been up tampering with me on the west fork of the Albany River, south of James Bay, Ontario. We slept in our little tent there arid let me tell you she sleeps just as sound there as she does here.

JE: How old were you when you got married?

JK: I was about oh, seven months over 21.

Mrs. Knight: Wasn’t it 22?

JK: She was still 20 when we planned on getting married see; she caught up to me in the last days of December 29. Yup. Up in the Hudson Bay post, in Ontario. Those Chippewa’s talk the same dialect as they do here. Yup. Because we were in the Hudson Bay trading post and I was talking, I was just sounding them out for moose, a good moose hunt, andProject they, one fella he said to the other one in Chippewa, he said, “how about we tell him about that up on Trout River.” “No, no,” he says, “Save that for ourselves.” So they talked that back and forth and then he told me where to go, he give me a fair deal, there were moose part of the war. But then they got done why I spoke to them in Chippewa, I said you talk the same ChippewaSociety as they do at home. And they turned their back on us and left us wouldn’t even talk to us. Lori said to that fella, we listened to every word they said. And we stopped in atHistory another place where they were trading there at this trading post and the thing; they were right in the warm weather there. There was a platform out on the trading post, sunny day, so covered with Indians you could hardly get in. And the girl that was keeping the books, sheOral was well educated evidently, because she would tell the other ones that came, they sign up their obligation there, make their cross behind their name, if they don’t have the money, then when they have the fur they come in and pay off their debts. And she was telling them, now when there is a Historicalnew man, you make your here now and tell me your Indian name, and they did and she would write that down. She was a darn swell looking girl too. History JE: Did you start your family right away?

JK: We were married one year and one month when the first boy came, Jerry Knight that’s the fella that come. All of my kids have got college education, two of them have got doctors degrees, but Jerry is the, had one of the lead roles in forming atomic, the first atomic bomb. He is a close associate Forestof Ed Tellor’s.Minnesota That’s the father of the atomic bomb.

JE: Did he work on the Manhattan project, the development of the?

Mrs. Knight: Well he was on the, oh what is that long piece of going out from New York, that’s where the trouble.

JE: That was the Manhattan Project.

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JK: Ya.

JE: That was the crash program that started in 1941 or somewhere in there.

Mrs. Knight: Well he was taken out of the University, I know there were a lot of the boys were being drafted, our two boys volunteered, they weren’t drafted, but I told Jerry, I was writing to him, I said, I know you will be drafted so you should go and volunteer, but he said no mother, I won’t be drafted. Well I just thought that you aren’t there is no reason why anyone should be better than the other you know, that they should go and take their part. But he wrote back twice, and he said, he wasn’t supposed to say that he was in there.

JE: Right, it was to be a secret.

Mrs. Knight: And you have a man that’s tight, that didn’t tell things, but that summer he came home in August and he said, “I have seen the Mayor’s daughter, and you’re going to hear something before too long, and that’s when they put the bomb on Japan.Project When that happened I’ve never questioned, I knew what he referred to. There is the only thing, so now, and he is still there and he always, he keeps saying now I know it won’t be long before they let me out to pasture. But he is turning graduates, graduate work, people, all of the time, he’s finishing them off and what else he does I don’t ask. It isn’t secretive; the town whenSociety I went up there that time Los Alamos was a secret. History JE: That was all secret, right; you couldn’t get on the base unless you had a special pass.

Mrs. Knight: You had to have be verifiedOral by one of the people that were there, but then afterwards, so now he said it isn’t a secret anymore, but he still doesn’t say it.

JE: Ya. Historical

JK: And then he said, what do they do, they come out in a magazine and they tell the whole works. He gets provoked.History

JE: When they’re making an Atomic Submarine and its all secret and then they put out a toy which is the exact replica of it.

JK: Yes, that provokes him. He was the highest ranking in all angles that they have ever had at Bigfork, andForest the youngestMinnesota in his class, 16 years old when he graduated.

And he come up and he brought him, he was teaching chemistry at the University of Minnesota. They come up and got him and took him to trades. He went from there to Los Alamos in Atomic Energy, the plant, and he is one of the top ranking, and he is eligible for pension at that place but he said he likes it yet.

JE: Oh ya.

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JK: He’s coming here next Saturday.

JE: Oh…

JK: Yup he’s going to be here.

Mrs. Knight: Ya, I think he’ll fly in from Minneapolis.

JK: He works here, all of our kids are dog gone top notch lumberjacks.

JE: Is that right?

JK: He is yet, by golly he knows all the short cuts and cutting timber, and when he gets up here that’s all he does, he starts getting the winters wood already.

JE: I hope he’s not going to land in Bigfork though. Project

JK: No, he’s going to land in Minneapolis; he hoped he could land in Bigfork.

JE: There’s a landing there though. Society

JK: Oh, is there? History

JE: No, not in Bigfork. Oral JK: Ya. He’ll probably take the plane up from Minneapolis to Grand Rapids.

Mrs. Knight: I suppose, my son-in-law here TomHistorical is taking lessons.

JK: And I tell you, we had during the depression we had five kids in University and High School and we never went on oneHistory dollar of any artificial or made work. No WPA for us or any welfare, nothing like that. I’ve hauled gravel on contract for the PA works for shoveling it, but that was on contract on state and county funds. That’s one thing I say we’ve made it on our own resources and that’s about all we had some time, and let me tell you those kids all joined right in.

JE: Oh ya, have to. ForestMinnesota JK: We had just on check book, and they used to put their initials behind each of those kids, on there, sign my name or my wife’s name and put their initials, and I said you fellas watch those stubs, that’s all you gotta watch. I tell you a little hard work don’t hurt a fella, look at this Colonel here.

JE: Ya, right.

JK: He went right out of high school at Bigfork right into the Air Force and he had his credentials for a single seat pilot when he was 19, ya, he still holds the marksmanship for that

33 whole area down when they had this Latigore Island, he had area gunnery, he still holds the highest average.

JE: Is that right?

JK: Ya, and I can see when he shoots here in the, I’ve never known a kid to be that good. The fella that puts in 33 years as a single seat fighter pilot.

JE: Ya, right.

JK: Golly he has had a charm life, I’ll tell you. Yes he has.

Project

Society History

Oral Historical History

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