In
the woods, when a thing is to be done, do not consider how you have
done it, or how you have seen it done, or how you think it ought to be
done, but how it _can_ be accomplished. Absolute fluidity of
expedient, perfect adaptability, is worth a dozen volumes of
theoretical knowledge. "If you can't talk," goes the Western
expression, "raise a yell; if you can't yell, make signs; if you can't
make signs, wave a bush."
And do not be too ready to take advice as to what you can or cannot
accomplish, even from the woods people. Of course the woods Indians or
the _voyageurs_ know all about canoes, and you would do well to
listen to them. But the mere fact that your interlocutor lives in the
forest, while you normally inhabit the towns, does not necessarily give
him authority. A community used to horses looks with horror on the
instability of all water craft less solid than canal boats. Canoemen
stand in awe of the bronco. The fishermen of the Georgian Bay,
accustomed to venture out with their open sailboats in weather that
forces the big lake schooners to shelter, know absolutely nothing about
canoes. Dick and I made an eight-mile run from the Fox island to
Killarney in a trifling sea, to be cheered during our stay at the
latter place by doleful predictions of an early drowning. And this from
a seafaring community. It knew all about boats; it knew nothing about
canoes; and yet the unthinking might have been influenced by the advice
of these men simply because they had been brought up on the water.
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