Often the lost hunter will come to old logging or pulp cuttings and crosses them without realizing that he can follow a tote road out of the woods, or he becomes more confused in trying to solve the maze of skid-roads which cover these choppings. All of such cuttings have a road where the wood was hauled out; or, if the wood was dumped into a stream and driven to market, where supplies were hauled to the camp. The best way to find this road is to circle the chopping until the main road is found. It should be a simple matter to follow this out of the woods. If the road should end at a stream, a man may return to the chopping and look for another road or he can sometimes follow the stream. Most streams that have been used for pulp or log driving have a trail which was used by the men during the drive; and, while this trail may be overgrown, it can quite often be followed.
I knew a man who was lost on a cold and stormy day, and just at nightfall he came to the shore of a pond where there were a few summer cottages. Inside there were stoves with plenty of fuel. There was also bedding and probably food of some sort, yet this man spent a cold and uncomfortable night on the porch of one of these cottages, risking the danger of pneumonia, rather than attempt to enter the camp unlawfully. I would not recommend illegal entry, but few cottage owners would prosecute a man in a case of this sort.
Many guides and trappers have camps in the woods. They are seldom locked and a lost man is welcome to use these if he is fortunate enough to run across one of them. These camps are usually one of the first places to be checked by a search party. If a lost person is fortunate enough to run across one, he should make him- self at home and wait for aid.
When a man is lost, his mind works differently than it does under normal circumstances, and that is why it is so hard for searchers to predict what he will do and it makes the task of finding him all the more difficult. If you should ever become lost, remember this: "stay put" if you are not sufficiently woods-wise to be sure of your directions.
Nature provides a few compasses in the woods, such as moss on the north sides of tree trunks, and larger branches on the south side of the trees. Most of these are subject to error. The most dependable one I know of in the northern part of the country is the markings on exposed ledges made by glacial action during the ice age. These marks all run in the same general direction. The tips of the hemlock trees lean with the prevailing wind and this inclination is not affected by storms from other quarters. In the northeast part of the country these tips point roughly to the east. Mountains will sometimes divert the prevailing wind and thus affect the tops, but if these tips point at right angles to the glacial markings, which run roughly north and south, the lost man can usually depend on the two for his direction. This combination will give him four directions and, although they are not exact by the compass, they are exact enough to help him out of the woods.
If somebody or a hunter get lost in the wood and cannot find the way out, the best way to find this road is to circle the chopping until the main road is found. |
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