Mid 1930s, ca

The big question for me as always is what to write. I try and think of medium and it always comes back to the same thing, my interpretation of things as I see them. That should be the answer. I want to write for myself, write easily, write for the pleasure of it and that seems to be the only thing that I want to do. Looking over the old diary today, I find it replete with the old conclusion, "Write or be damned." That has run through for many years and the way I have felt the past few days is sufficient proof of it to make me sure. It will not make much difference if I don't write anything worth while from a financial standpoint. I must write to keep my sanity. Writing is the insulin of a disease of long standing. I must take my regular dose or go under.

I Plant some Spruce Trees

The spruces had grown on that small northern hillside for five years now, had weathered the storms of five winters and were now ready to take. The leaves were all gone and they stood sturdy and green against their background of dead grass. I would take three now as many as I could carry in my pack sack and then three later on. It was going to be fun to dig them out. There is always more fun to digging out one's own trees and carrying them back, than having them come in a box from some nursery. Then they seem one's own as though they belong, not the adopted children of some foreign nursery plot.

I looked them over carefully. They were all there. I hadn't seen them since last spring. They were sturdier than when I had seem them last. The summer and wet fall had been good to them. They would transplant well for they spread their roots only along the surface and beneath was only gravel. I pushed the spade gently under the first and lifted it out soil and all, dropped it carefully in the packsack. Then two more until the pack was full, full enough to carry. As I finished smoothing off the holes I had made, the sky was copper with a November sunset. I went down the trail sprinkled lightly with snow. Here was a portage, but what a strange load I had this time. No supplies, no camping equipment. The portage I travelled was the old Indian trail from White Iron Lake to Shagawa, used in the days before the white men came for carrying between the Kawishowa River route and the Lake Vermillion route. It seemed good to feel the weight on my shoulders to dig my boots into the still unfrozen trail. A packsack full of spruce trees.

Topping the hill, I saw the lights of the house before me. It would soon be supper time......[journal entry ends]