The Tent Dwellers
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The Tent Dwellers is a book by Albert Bigelow Paine, chronicling his travels through inland Nova Scotia on a trout fishing trip with Dr. Edward "Eddie" Breck, and with guides Charles "the Strong" and Del "the Stout", one June in the early 1900s. Originally published in 1908, the book takes place in what is now Kejimkujik National Park (or "Kedgeemakoogee", as Paine spelled it) and the adjacent Tobeatic Game Reserve.
Paine was well known in American literary circles at the time, cheifly as the biographer of Mark Twain. Breck held a Ph.D., spoke five languages, and was listed in Who's Who in America.
The book is an excellent account of the unspoiled Nova Scotia wilderness that existed at the time, which has been sadly diminished since. The group encounters moose (which Eddie tries to capture and bring back alive), beaver, and swarms of trout, all of which are now scarce in the region, and legions of mosquitos, moose flies, black flies, noseeums, and midges, all of which are sadly abundant to this day.
Many of the areas described in the book, then virtually unexplored and uncharted, are now well known to back-country campers in the Kejimkujik/Tobeatic parks. The descriptions of the central Nova Scotia woods contained in the book are beautifully written and uncannily accurate, such as:
"...the shores are green; the river or brook is clear and cold - and tarry black in the deep places; the water leaps and dashes in whirlpools and torrents, and the lakes are fairy lakes, full of green islands - mere ledges, many of them, with two or three sentinel pines - and everywhere the same clear, black water, and always the trout, the wonderful, wild, abounding Nova Scotia trout."
Sadly, the trout which brought Paine and Breck to Nova Scotia are now largely absent, due in part to acid rain and poaching. [link] [link]
Paine, a wealthy New England socialite, initially had some difficulties with the lack of modern ameneties in camp life, but soon came to love the rugged beauty and solitude of the woods. As advice to other potential campers, he has this to offer:
"...if you are willing to get wet and stay wet - to get cold and stay cold - to be bruised, and scuffed, and bitten - to be hungry and thirsty, and to have your muscles strained and sore from unusual taxation: if you will welcome all these things, not once, but many times, for the sake of moments of pure triumph and that larger luxury which comes with the comfort of the camp and the conquest of the wilderness, then go!
The wilderness will welcome you, and teach you, and take you to its heart. And you will find your own soul there; and the discovery will be worth while!"
Ecology in The Tent Dwellers
In many places The Tent Dwellers draws attention to man's ecological impact on the forest, visible even then. He derisively describes the 'fish hog' as one who catches and kills more fish than he has use for. He writes about the marks left on the land by logging, and about the necessity of always leaving part of the land wild and uninhabited. On the beaver, which was then being trapped nearly to extinction, he wrote:"Long ago he taught men how to build their houses and dams, and to save up food and water for a dry time. Even if we no longer need him, he deserves our protection and our tender regard."
In advocating sustainable and responsible use of forest lands, Paine was surely decades ahead of his time. It is fitting that the regions through which Paine and Breck made their journey are now encompassed by Kejimkujik National Park and the Tobeatic Game Reserve.
References
External links
- [Official Parks Canada site for Kejimkujik National Park]
- [the Tobeatic Wilderness Committee homepage]
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