Pine knots illuminate the past

Golden flames danced over smoldering pine knots illuminating the quiet Current River as the twenty foot john boat was maneuvered slowly against the pull of the water. Giggers lowered their hats to block the aromatic pine smoke and peer through the reflective layer of river hoping to spy a chance at supper.

Few can still remember scenes from a gig trip like this could've been over 50 years ago, but I now have forever in my memory a living history lesson from a chilly autumn evening.

My husband, Greg, and I had the chance to go fish gigging with Master boat builder and Missouri Department of Conservation (MDC) private land conservationists Don Foerster and Bob Cunningham, Private Land Services Regional Supervisor for the MDC.

The two were part of a group of colleagues and friends who decided to connect to a time before their own on the Current River in Doniphan, Mo. This was an activity that was a common practice among both the early American settlers and Native Americans.

Building an oral history

The experience was particularly special for Foerster. As a child, he loved to listen to his elders as they sat and spun tales of life on the Current River.

"When the topic of how they did certain things like gigging came up, my ears would perk up and I'd ask questions," he said.

In college, Foerster worked summers for the Ozark National Scenic Riverways with master boat maker Bob Shockley.

"Bob and I talked many times about gigging and what tools were used," Foerster said. "He described in detail a fire basket and how it was fastened to a johnboat."

Foerster listened well, and it was a good thing he did.

"There are no blueprints for this type of boat, it's only in the master's mind," he said.

A true boat built Current River style would be adapted to how the board bent rather than to a strict rigid drawing and no two shortleaf pine boards would bend in exactly the same way, Shockley told him.

So Foerster carried on the traditional style of Shockley's 1920's float fishing Current River boat with his own apprentice, Nathan Dazey, as part of the Missouri Folk Arts Council apprenticeship program. It took them four months of weekends to build the Mid Current River styled craft, based on the oral history he remembered from his former teacher.

Foerster said with modern electric tools he can build a johnboat in about four days, but it takes about 10 days to build using 1920 period tools.

Foerster said the idea to do the traditional gigging trip came from a conversation he had with his friend and colleague Ray Joe Hastings. Hastings is an Ozark blacksmith and the author of Bow and River Gigs which explores the various techniques used to gig fish in the clear streams of the Ozarks.

"He and I kept meeting up at local craft festivals," Foerster said. "About two years ago, I told him my grandpa used to talk about gigging with a fire basket and we got to discussing what that was like."

Finally, the two decided to make a go of it, he said.

Hastings and his blacksmith apprentice, Steve Orchard, constructed a traditional steel basket to hold the burning pine knots.

"It all just began as a couple of friends wishing they could gig like their grandfathers did," Foerster said.

Smoldering history of Pine Knots

The historical significance of this gigging trip was a contrast to modern gigging due to the burning of pine knots, a practice almost forgotten. Though pine knots are a natural resource that people still use for a variety of purposes, most giggers today use electric or gas-powered lights for seeing fish in the river, according Cunningham, who said he wouldn't have missed the historical gig experience.

"Reenacting the past can be a wonderful way for people to appreciate their natural resources while linking to their cultural past," Cunningham said.

Shortly after dark, Foerster put his carefully hand-constructed 20-foot johnboat into the Current River. There was no hesitation as the resin filled knots of pine caught a flame.

Decades of pine growth made this evenings fire display possible - a historic journey worth following on its own.

Cunningham said the wood from pine is highly resinous and this is what gives it a turpentine odor. A pine knot is a more hard wood filled with resin and is the joint where the tree's branches attach to the tree.

"We can see these on boards as the darker, round circles of wood," he said.

When a pine tree dies and the softer wood decays, all that is left are the pine knots. Cunningham said the resin prevents the knot from decaying and makes it highly flammable.

"When we talk about pine stumps in relation to fat pine, we're talking about stumps that are over a century old," he said.

A century ago, the big sawmills in the Current River region were engaged in the manufacture of pine lumber cut from old-growth forests. Many of these trees were over 300 and 400 years old and lived since the time Native Americans inhabited the Ozarks.

"There's some convincing evidence that Native Americans burned the forests on a very frequent basis," Cunningham said. Some believe the Native Americans burned off the areas for agriculture purposes, and others believe they used the smoke as a signal for social gatherings, he said. He said each time a fire burns near the base of a pine tree, it produces a wound called a fire scar and a pine tree's natural defense is to flood the wound with resin and hopefully prevent wood decay.

Today, nearly a century after the lumbermen cut trees throughout the Ozarks in the early 1900's, the resin-filled stumps remain. They're highly sought after by local people for kindling, Cunningham said.

Gigging fish by torch-light

Though gigging is a traditional way people in the Ozarks enjoy their natural resources, it's a food gathering technique used in many areas of the world according to Cunningham, who began gigging fish shortly after going to work for the MDC, he said, over 32 years ago. Foerster has gigged fish since he was 10 years old.

Both men agree that the enjoyment of gigging fish is primarily the fellowship with good friends, but that's not all.

"There's no better table fare than eating fresh suckers on the river bank," Cunningham said. "The gigging and the eating go hand-in-hand with the fellowship."

Fifty years ago and before, when burning pine knots illuminated the river for giggers, there were no regulations on fish that could be taken by gig. Now, non-game species are the only fish allowed. Cunningham said Ozark giggers tend to lump suckers into two groups - "yeller" suckers and hog suckers (a.k.a. hog mollies). He said yeller suckers include a wide variety of species with most common being black redhorse, golden redhorse, river redhorse, and white sucker. The hog sucker is actually the Northern hog sucker, he said. Other fish that are occasionally gigged include carp and buffalo.

On this expedition, the giggers found it difficult to see the fish as they looked through the smoke into the clear Ozark river water in search of suckers. Foerster's son, Brian, was the only gigger to pull in a fish on the traditional john boat, though he gigged more from an accompanying modern gig boat.

The striking difference between Foerster's traditional john boat and the two accompanying modern gig boats left the giggers with an appreciation for their ancestors. Conservation agent Jason Langston manned one of the modern gig boats. He pointed out how difficult it must have been for giggers a century ago.

"Many people relied on gigging by the light of those pine knots to feed their family," Langston said, noting it was a lot easier to gig a fish by the shine of his modern light.

"It makes you appreciate our more modern technology," he said.

However, once the modern boats went further down river and the hum of generators disappeared, the giggers on Foerster's john boat connected to the river through the silent darkness of night. Only slightly illuminated silhouettes by the light of a lone torch basket, it was easy to imagine experiences of grandparents and further ancestors.

"This hasn't been done for 50 years and you're likely to never see it again," Cunningham said.

As we sipped hot chocolate in the car after coming in from the chill of the river, modern realities struck me. I wondered how my family would've fared had we lived just a century earlier, but Greg was confident we would've thrived just as our ancestors did. Though we both appreciate the lack of necessity of such an arduous food procuring process, we hope to see the glimmering reflection of the pine knot basket above the clear Current River again someday. At the very least we plan to set aside some weekends to gig.