The Ghost of the Canyon

​The Ghost of the Canyon
 
Job Opening:
Wanted: One Hermit
Qualifications:
Tradition dictates a male, preferably middle aged or elderly.
Must prefer the company of animals to that of people.
Salary: None.  Benefits: None.  Retirement: None.
Should be elusive and rarely seen.
Apply in person at the Kings Canyon Hermit Hole
 
The Hermit Hole in Kings Canyon was just a wide spot on the bank of the Kings River in the Sierra National Forest; a place where sometimes, if one were to look closely, you just might catch a glimpse of a frail, hunched figure disappearing into the bushes; a shadow of a man adept at making himself invisible; a ghost who blended with the rocks – the Ghost of the Canyon. But unlike most phantom figures in the dark, this ghost had a name – Clarence Quigley; a lonely man who preferred the company of his animals to that of people; a man with no salary, no benefits, no retirement; the perfect definition of an invisible man.
Clarence Quigley was a hermit, a man born in the closing years of the eighteen hundreds. He didn’t begin life as a solitary man but rather eased into the lifestyle; moving, along with his brother George, from his family’s home in the Sierra Nevada foothills up into the high mountains to live his life away from cities and the crowds of noisy people they harbored. Once in the mountains he found work with the Hume Bennett Lumber Company and made his new home in the area of Hume Lake where he worked as a Flume Snake for twelve years, walking the planks along the wooden flume as it crossed high above the canyons and clearing up clogs in the floating timber with a long stick wherever they occurred. On his day off he excelled in the logging camp sport of flume riding, sitting himself down on the tiny, V-shaped seat and tearing down the flume at speeds of up to fifty miles an hour, raising his hands high in the air as the wind blew through his long hair and he leaned perilously to one side as the flume boat raced around the turns. Then, as the flow of the water slowed through a level spot, he would jump off and walk into the woods to try his hand at some random prospecting.
Soon his search for gold and other precious metals grew to share equal time with his life as a flume snake, and then took over completely. One of his earliest successful mining claims came to be known as the Garnet Dike Mine, located deep in Fox Canyon near the Kings River. Quigley worked it for several years but sold the claim in 1935, losing it before it went into maximum production during World War Two, and losing it also before it grew to produce its maximum profits. But in 1935 Quigley had other issues to deal with and the profits from a tungsten mine fell far from his mind, because in 1935 Clarence Quigley’s wife passed away. Clarence was not quite a hermit yet, and he had chosen to share his life with the woman with whom he had fallen madly and deeply in love. She had accompanied Clarence into the mountains and shared the life of flume riding and prospecting with him. They had spent thirteen very happy years together when she suddenly passed away in 1935. Despondent, he sadly escorted her body back to the family’s home and stayed to see her buried in the Tollhouse cemetery. He said his goodbyes to her, silently promising that he would one day lie by her side; that one day they would be together again. Then, sunk in depression, he went back to his home amongst the mountains of Kings Canyon. But he was broken hearted, and that pain and lonliness moved him a large step closer to becoming a hermit.
With his brother George, Clarence went on to file several more mining claims in the forest which surrounded Kings Canyon. He also tried his hand at hunting and trapping – other mountain professions which might earn him a stake, but professions which would only require infrequent contact with others. He grew fearful that strangers might hear the sounds of his shots and learn where he lived and mined, so he took to hunting by knife and club because of the silence they promised. In his later years he reckoned that he had killed some sixty-five or seventy bears, many of the deaths counted in hand-to-claw fights with the large beasts. Sometimes he used a mining tool, such as a pick; once there was only a hammer at hand; often just a large stick. For several years Clarence and George made a good living from their claims, packing mostly gold nuggets out of the mountains to trade for food and tools. But then in 1942 George died as one of their mines caved in on him, burying him alive beneath a pile of rock and smothering him before Clarence could dig him out. After long days of digging Clarence finally managed to retrieve George’s body and inter him in a more fitting grave. But his last contact with society and civilization had now passed out of his already lonely life, and Clarence took his final quiet step toward becoming a true hermit.
It wasn’t that Clarence didn’t like people – he just didn’t seek them out. When he did accidently meet someone in the mountains he was friendly and affable, but if he saw them coming he was quick to disappear into the brush. This uncanny talent soon earned him the nickname of the Ghost of the Kings, and he became well known for his talents of fading away almost as soon as he was glimpsed. Yet if one was lucky enough to surprise him with a greeting, Clarence would engage in an easy conversation with him until he could comfortably take his leave.
Realizing the inevitability that someone would occasionally stumble onto his cabin or find one of his claims, Clarence took to posting signs to warn them away, and those signs often rambled on long after the warning had been declared. One such sign near his shack stated: “there is nothing in the house of any particular value, and I am writing this for the purpose of saving those who have a desire to pillage the trouble of breaking in.” Another warning sign began: “This sign is not placed here for honest people, but for crooks, meddlers, and pillagers.” It then went on to discuss people who just can’t leave things alone, how he had set traps for bears on the property, and concludes with “my advice is for everyone to stay on the outside for it is much safer than on the inside.”
Clarence held no anger or fear toward outsiders, but with the only two people in his life whom he had loved now gone forever, Clarence just preferred to be alone, and now no longer liked the idea of visitors even when he wasn’t home.
Years passed and Clarence came out of the mountains rarely, perhaps twice a year at the most. He would file proof every year that his claims were being worked in order to keep his title to them – but his fellow mountain men knew very well that Quigley had found many other sources of gold that weren’t filed on official claims. Then he would disappear back into the mountains with a half year supply of food packed on his burros, not to be glimpsed again – if he could help it – until at least another six months had passed. If winter had set in and he needed supplies, but there was no food for his burros to graze on during the trip, then Clarence would hike out alone for twenty miles or so to the nearest neighbor and carry back sixty or seventy pounds of food on his back, if he could barter for it. If winter was heavy and cold and the burros could dig out no traces of grass whatsoever, then he would hike out and pack back in with bales of hay strapped to his back. Clarence’s burros were his friends, and he was loyal to those friends.
An excellent hunter and trapper, Clarence was able to provide most of the food he needed on his own. But, in addition to hay for his burros, Clarence also sought some variety in his diet in addition to the meat he could easily harvest from the forest. So, what does a hermit like to eat? Besides the usual beans, bacon, and flour, Clarence also had a taste for peanut butter and chocolate. He saved the bacon grease from the pan and used it to add flavor to the quail and raccoon which fell to his traps. Raisins and dried milk also went back into the mountains with him, primarily because he’d found they made an excellent addition to his favorite breakfast dish – a large bowl of corn flakes. Two burros could pack in enough of these staples to keep him going for at least six months.
With his contacts to the outside world growing less frequent, Clarence moved farther back into the mountains as the years passed. He still had a shack close to the Garnet Dike Mine but was rarely seen there. Instead he ranged farther into the high country, sometimes to the lesser known claims to which he still held title, but often staying in one of the many randomly hidden shelters he’d constructed out of rock and timber. Other miners in the mountains thought these hideouts might number in the dozens, but no one knew for certain how many there might be as only a few of them had ever been discovered. If Clarence found himself on the trail when darkness fell and none of these shelters were near, then he had no difficulty in easily constructing something to fit his needs for the night. He once described how he did this – he would find two fallen trees near each other, peel long strips of bark off one of the trees and then arrange them in a semicircle around the base of the other tree. He would then light a fire inside this semicircle and the heat would radiate back onto him, keeping him warm while the smoke leaked out through the cracks. Another long strip of bark would serve as a mattress and he would sleep in comfort, waking every few hours to feed the fire. The one blanket he usually carried on his back did little to help keep him warm as it had at least one large hole in it for each of his years alone in the mountains, but it might have been carried more for psychological rather than physical comfort; it was perhaps one of the last links with civilization to which he still clung. Quigley was a man at home in the mountains, more comfortable with trees and animals than with people – as any self-respecting hermit should be.
Clarence Quigley continued to live an increasingly reclusive life as the years went on, eating his corn flakes and chocolate and talking to his burros until he passed on in 1975, eighty three years old. His body was found by a hiker, lying next to the Kings River in the canyon he called home. He had lived a life of contentment, a claim few can make, and ended that life by the river in the mountains he loved. His body was carried out by a burro, and he was buried next to his wife in the Tollhouse cemetery, keeping the promise he had made to her some forty years before. His secrets died with him; the secrets of those hidden sources of gold and the many lean-to shacks which might still hold a sack or two of nuggets or dust.
Now the Ghost in the Canyon is gone forever, and the high country of the Kings River has no hermit walking its hidden trails. So there’s a job opening here; a career opportunity for anyone who thinks he or she might be able to live such a life; to maybe even prefer it. It doesn’t pay much – perhaps just that elusive contentment in a world which offers us so very little of that commodity; a treasure far more scarce than gold.
Job Opening:
Wanted: One Hermit
Qualifications: Male or female; happy with oneself.
Must prefer the company of animals to that of people.
Salary: None.  Benefits: None.  Retirement: None.
Should be elusive and rarely seen.
Apply in person at the Kings Canyon Hermit Hole.
 
The Kings is waiting. Care to submit your application?