Frugal Brugals

A winter hunting trip to the Second College Grant evokes memories of a Pete Blodgett '25 tradition. By Nelson Bryant '46

Smoke was rising from the Pete Blodgett Cabin in the snow-covered, windswept clearing at Hellgate Gorge as we carried our food, clothing and gear across the suspension footbridge that spans the Dead Diamond River.

Peter Huntington '5B and I and my sons, Steve and Jeff, had spent most of the day driving from seacoast Massachusetts to the Colleges Second College Grant in northeastern New Hampshire. The oth- ers, all New Hampshire residents—David Taylor '50 of Littleton, Henry Sanders '51 of Hancock and his brother Richard '59 of Peterborough—had arrived earlier, stoked a fire in the cabins huge cast iron wood stove and gone in quest of deer.

My own quest was a blend of hunting and nostalgia. Although I first visited the Grant, a 42-square-mile wilderness tract, more than 50 years ago, I had never stayed at the cabin. I had, however, enjoyed several deer hunting trips in the area with the late Frederick "Pete" Blodgett '25, for whom the structure is named. Blodgett had first used that cabin in i922.Nesdedon the south side of a large clearing, it is the last surviving building of a logging camp that flourished there in the early 1900s.

It was on the verge of irreparable decay when an anonymous donor offeredin Pete's honor—to pay for moving it about 90 yards to the southeast and fixing it up. A gala dedication, in which I participated, took place in July 2002.

I thought it would be fitting if I hunted out of the cabin the first winter after its dedication, even though one usually sees more deer in the southern half of the Grant, from the Merrill Brook Cabin which Blodgett favored—south to the Gate Camp. From Hellgate to the Gate Camp at the Grants entrance, it is about 12 miles along a twisting logging road that follows the valley of the Dead Diamond.

Merrill Brook is about midway. The several cabins in the Grant are for the use of Dartmouth students, alumni, faculty, staff and members of the Dartmouth Outing Club, all of whom may bring guests.

An enthusiastic and accomplished hunter as well as a warm-hearted host, Blodgett was also charmingly idiosyncratic. He insisted that the stories of the hunt not emerge piecemeal as the various Nimrods came in at the end of the day. If a deer was down and help was needed to drag it out or to ferry it across the Dead Diamond, that was one thing, but the elaborate tales of hunting, of deer tracked and jumped and seen, or simply heard, were not, by Pete's edict, told until supper was done, dishes washed and various libations brought forth.

He had another quirk acquired on a float plane fishing trip in Canada when he and others were grounded for several days by foul weather. Liquid nourishment had dwindled to a meager supply of grapefruit juice when a cache of Brugal rum stashed under a fallen tree by the camp's absent owner was discovered. Pete devised a potion called the Frugal Brugal, a touch of grapefruit juice in a glass of chilled Brugal rum.

Many years ago at the Merrill Brook Cabin on my first hunt with Pete, he offered me a Frugal Brugal two hours before sunrise, and after I reluctantly swallowed it—I was, after all, his guest—he announced that I had become a member of the Frugal Brugal Society. Waiting for my head to clear, I didn't get into the woods until midmorning. The following dawn, I declined the Frugal Brugal gambit and within minutes—after Pete had roused all hands for a vote—was unanimously ejected from the society

On my most recent trip my group had barely settled into the cabin, lighted the gas lights, stowed food in the gas refrigerator and gotten water from the river by lowering a bucket into the current from the suspension bridge, when the first of the trio that had preceded us came down out of the woods. As dusk closed in the others appeared, trudging slowly across the wintry landscape.

They had found a few deer tracks, none particularly fresh.

The next day I poked around to the southwest of camp in the direction of Hellgate Pond and Lamb Valley Pond. It was relatively warm, just below freezing, and I had to move at a snail's pace to avoid working up a sweat. I encountered no fresh deer sign, but persuaded a chickadee to sit on my shoulder for a few seconds during the half-hour I spent watching six pine grosbeaks dawdling atop a tall spruce.

That evening I learned that Henryhunting near the river—had gotten a glimpse of a big buck that slipped away before he could shoot, and that Peter, who had gone to the ridge west of Hellgate Pond, had put up several animals.

One of them offered him a good shot, but it was, unfortunately, a doe. My sons had driven down to the Merrill Brook area, where they found many fresh road-crossing signs but saw no deer.

A gale-force wind came out of the northwest that night, and by dawn it was 6 below zero and snow was falling. That was the day that Peter came across the first bear tracks he had ever seen and also counted more than two dozen sets of deer tracks crossing the logging road in the Merrill Brook area. On that same day, Richard, who was hunting close to the river near Hellgate, looked up to see a splendid buck crossing a clearing in front of him about 50 yards away. Snow and cold and eyeglasses that slipped and fogged up conspired against him, and the one shot fired went under the animal.

That was also the day in which I inadvertently helped to create a dish we now call Spruce Potatoes. Returning to camp early, I went into a cleaning frenzy, which included throwing away 12 or 14 baked potatoes that I thought the previous camp users had left behind. The next day, Steve, who was preparing two shoulder roasts from a deer that he had shot in Maine a few weeks before, asked if I'd seen his potatoes. Retrieved from under a grove of spruces where I had tossed them, they were mixed with grated cheese, stuffed back in their jackets, cooked a bit more and topped with sour cream. They were none the worse for the wear, having frozen solid.

At the end of our four days of hunting, only Richard had fired a shot. Before sunrise on the day of our departure, the door to the bunk room burst open and a familiar voice bellowed out of the darkness, "Nelson, get up! It's Frugal Brugal time!"

It was Put Blodgett '53,Tu'61, of Lyme, Petes nephew and woodsman extraordinaire. With him was Jack Noon '68 of Sutton, another Grant devotee. They had driven up from the Merrill Brook Cabin with the ingredients for Frugal Brugals, and half an hour later we all quaffed one in Pete's memory.

Our last breakfast at Hellgate was unusually animated.

Nelson Bryant began writing the "Wood,Field and Stream" column (now called "Outdoors") for The New York Times in 19 67. Retired for more than a decade, he continues tocontribute to that column on a freelance basis. Copyright (a) 2002 by The New York Times Cos. Reprinted by permission.