Winter Camping
New Ipswich Historical Society
Marion Davis Audio-Tape Transcriptions
Sometime before her death in 1986, Marion Davis recorded her memories at the encouragement of her brother, Walter Buck. The recordings were transcribed by a secretary.
The Friends of Wapack have made these available to the Historical Society. Marion was born on February 8, 1894 in Fitchburg, MA.
Hedgehog
There was a woodchopper and his son cutting off timber up on Temple Mountain up above where we had our camp that we used in the summer when we were picking berries. Alice was up at the farm for the Christmas weekend and into January. She had a bad cold but we just had an idea we just wanted to go over to the camp and Frank said, "Alright, I'll take you over". The snow was 3 deep on the level but there was a road up there onto the mountain that these woodsmen kept open to bring the logs down off the hill. So he took us over in the Canada Jumper with bedding, plenty of food and so forth. I had borrowed some traps from Bill Wilder in East Rindge. So we went over and shoveled snow up against the sides of the camp clear up to the windows to bank it up in good shape. We even had to go out into the woods and cut some gray birch so as to have some wood. We had a longish shaped stove in the camp there that you could use to heat water or cook on the top and that would take a good 2½ stick of wood so you didn't have to cut it up too much. We could get pine limbs there pretty handy--had to use snowshoes to do it. You can imagine that. As soon as we got camp fixed up up pretty good we started out to set traps at hedgehog dens. I knew what there was a place where we crossed over a windrow of brush. Alice's snowshoe toe ran in down under some brush and there she went flat on her face right into the snow. I took a picture of her: I made her wait long enough to get a picture of her because I had the camera with me. We didn't have too many traps but the next morning--it was a beautiful day-- we started out snowshoeing and first thing we knew we saw a hedgehog up in a spruce tree. Rather than use a shell on him from the shotgun I took my snowshoes off and climbed up. I had a stick of wood I had picked up: I just hit him on the end of the nose and knocked him out of the tree. I told Alice, "You finish him; don't you let him get away".
Photo Archives
Mountain Peaks
James Roger diary entry - Pullets 31
18th January 1913
Fine, mild springlike day; wind westerly; roads very muddy. Rain began about 4 p.m. The hens out in orchard all day. David and Daniel chopping in pasture and clearing and burning brush in the field round the wall. I went for mail and brought bread and figs; got letters from Alice and postcard from Hamish. I lit the coal stove in Church. Pullets 31.
And anyway one of my daughters as a teen went up into the Whites with a high-school group as a cold weather outing. Upon her return she said, “Mom, you don’t know the meaning of the word ‘cold’ u til you’ve gone winter camping.”
Marion and Alice could have kicked my butt.
So Alice has a terrible cold but goes up the mountain anyway despite that and the deep snow. Goes snowshoeing and does a face plant. Then once that’s documented, she and Marion declare war on hedgehogs. What were hedgehogs doing to motivate all these actions?