Bob Wagg

This photo was taken a few years before Bob's death

Bob Wagg and his wife Gerri

Way, way before the movie was made.

The Movie/The Book

The previous posts are still images from the award-winning documentary movie,
DEAD RIVER ROUGH CUT.
The movie is available from: http://oldfilm.org/. The book is available from:
http://breadhunter.com
A significant sequence from the movie and book was not included in these posts. The sequence documents the slaughter of a pig, and it's not a pretty site. Future posts may include the sequence.

There He Goes

Boy that is some good. Oh, there he goes. Walt

Living Alone

It’s not good for a man to live alone. You don’t notice it, and it grows so slowly on you. The longer you live alone the worse you get. You know I more or less pity an old bachelor that lived through life, never had a chick or child. When they get old, nobody cares whether they live or die. It’s kind of pathetic and it’s a sad story. Walt

No Fancy Casket

I don’t want no fancy casket when I die, cheapest one they got. That’s good enough. If fact if they just rolled you up in a piece of burlap you’d be just as well off. It don’t make no difference. You’re just gonna rot and that’s gonna be the end of it. Christ, they put you in a cement vault and you can’t replenish the ground that way. You stay in that vault and you ain’t done anybody any good. Bob

Great Mastermind

Great mastermind that created the universe. This old universe goes around, around and around. Year after year. Everything is fixed in its orbit. There’s no beginning and no end. You can’t conceive it, but our puny little brains can’t conceive much anyway. It’s uncanny when a man gets thinking of such things as that. That is one thing a man has no control over. Life, here today and gone tomorrow. I might drop dead before I get to the road, nobody knows. Walt

The Plan Of Nature

There is nothing wasted in the plan of nature. You take the forest here. These big trees grow up and fall down and die and make food for smaller trees. It’s a struggle for survival. The big trees crowd out the smaller trees. The strong survive and the weak die. That’s the plan of nature.
Now man has upset the balance where we keep the weak alive, the weak reproduce which give weaker species, and I think that’s one of our problems. If a man copied off the animals he would learn things. The only thing that will save the country is to get back to nature, and that’s all that can save the people. Walt

Geese

Well, they give you a wild feeling. You just want to take right off and fly away with them. If you could fly. Jesus Christ they just make you wilder than a hawk. You forget all about civilization. I always wanted to go up into northern Canada, right where those buggers go. There’s some country up there, somewhere. I know there is. You just let a flock of them fly over and you forget everything you’re doing. You just stand right there. There’s something about a bunch of geese honking. They set your blood all a tingling. Bob

Code Of The Woods

It’s an unwritten law, a code of the woods and there ain’t nothing in black and white about it but never leave a man’s camp unless you leave him enough wood to build a fire and keep him going a little while. You never break into a man’s camp, but if you’re stuck out you will go into it, but you leave it the way it was. You leave a note telling why you was in there. You know to keep from freezing to death or something like that. You never steal from a man in the woods and if you find a man in trouble you help him out and get him going the best you can. If he stuck a hundred dollar bill in your face, you’d never take it. Bob

Bob Feeds A Gorby

You want something. You come down and get it out of the can. No more of your farting around here. Chirp chirp, come on little piss pot. I know you’re hungry because you’re squawking away about it. I ain’t gonna bite ya. Bob

Beaver Castors

That right there is what they make their perfume out of. Them are beaver castors. That’s what they use to make this perfume for these women. Probably most of them if they knew where it come from probably wouldn’t even wear the perfume which might be a good thing. These ladies primp themselves all up and get themselves smelling like anything but a woman. And they pay good money to do it. I’m surprised they don’t shave it off their goddamn pussy. Well I’ve fucked women when the sweat was running right off them, Jesus Christ, the old bellies were a slopping and that’s when it’s good and everything is right. Well, what the hell, that’s the way it’s supposed to be. If she needs to take a bath, she can take a bath right here in the brook. She don’t need all these smelling salts they put in the water and all that happy horse shit. You know, that don’t make a woman. In fact it ruins one. Bob

Women

Oh hell, if I could find a woman to come in here, as long as I had enough goddamn grub, I’d never go out. A man couldn’t ask for anything more. Christ he’d have the world right by the ass. But you take these women plaster the goddamn perfume and deodorant to ‘em and shit they don’t even smell like women. Christ, years ago they never shaved the hair off under their arms, and stuff today, they shave it off, scared to death, Jesus Christ, a bubble of sweat come on ‘em, they wipe it off and spray some shit it. Bob

Skinning Beaver

That’s where the work comes in. All that work catching ‘em and then you gotta skin ‘em. Walt

Sexual Intercourse Amoung Beavers

There’s one thing about these beaver, I don’t think anybody knows how they fuck. I always figured the female laid on her back same as human beings and the male beaver got right on to her. That’s debatable. Some think they do it the other way. The way they’re built I can’t see how. They have to get that big flat tail out of the way somewhere. I would think they done it in their houses. This business in the water I don’t think it would be half as good as it would be in a house in a nice dry bed. Bob

On Killing Beaver

Oh the poor animals, it ain’t good to kill ‘em, but they’ve got to be kept thinned down. Definitely as a man gets older he doesn’t enjoy killing because he knows his days are running out and he’s not going to live very long. I don’t think anybody actually enjoys killing. Walt

Using Fire

Walt recycles his snowmobile fire by shoveling it into his cabin stove. Why waste a perfectly good fire?

Fiery Snowmobile

The favorite section of the movie, Dead River Rough Cut is when Walt warms his behind by setting his snowmobile on fire.

Sam McGee

Walt knew several poems by heart, but his favorite was The Cremation Of Sam McGee.
After a couple of cocktails, Walt would begin his recitation to the amazement of his listeners.

Sam McGee

There are strange things done in the midnight sun By the men who moil for gold; The Arctic trails have their secret tales That would make your blood run cold; The Northern Lights have seen queer sights, But the queerest they ever did see was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge I cremated Sam McGee.
Now Sam McGee was from Tennessee, where the cotton blooms and blows. Why he left his home in the South to roam ‘round the Pole, God only knows. He was always cold, but the land of gold seemed to hold him like a spell; Though he’d often say in his homely way that “he’d sooner live in hell.” On a Christmas Day we were mushing our way over the Dawson trail. Talk of your cold! through the parka’s fold it stabbed like a driven nail. If our eyes we’d close, then the lashes froze till sometimes we couldn’t see; It wasn’t much fun, but the only one to whimper was Sam McGee. And that very night, as we lay packed tight in our robes beneath the snow, And the dogs were fed, and the stars o’erhead were dancing heel and toe, He turned to me, and “Cap,” says he, “I’ll cash in this trip, I guess; And if I do, I’m asking that you won’t refuse my last request.” Well, he seemed so low that I couldn’t say no; then he says with a sort of moan: “It’s the cursed cold, and it’s got right hold till I’m chilled clean through to the bone. Yet ‘taint being dead—it’s my awful dread of the icy grave that pains; So I want you to swear that, foul or fair, you’ll cremate my last remains.”
A pal’s last need is a thing to heed, so I swore I would not fail; And we started on at the streak of dawn; but God! he looked ghastly pale. He crouched on the sleigh, and he raved all day of his home in Tennessee; And before nightfall a corpse was all that was left of Sam McGee. There wasn’t a breath in that land of death, and I hurried, horror-driven, With a corpse half hid that I couldn’t get rid, because of a promise given; It was lashed to the sleigh, and it seemed to say: “You may tax your brawn and brains, But you promised true, and it’s up to you to cremate those last remains.” Now a promise made is a debt unpaid, and the trail has its own stern code. In the days to come, though my lips were dumb, in my heart how I cursed that load. In the long, long night, by the lone firelight, while the huskies, round in a ring, Howled out their woes to the homeless snows—O God! how I loathed the thing. And every day that quiet clay seemed to heavy and heavier grow; And on I went, though the dogs were spent and the grub was getting low; The trail was bad, and I felt half mad, but I swore I would not give in; And I’d often sing to the hateful thing, and it hearkened with a grin.
Till I came to the marge of Lake Lebarge, and a derelict there lay; It was jammed in the ice, but I saw in a trice it was called the “Alice May.” And I looked at it, and I thought a bit, and I looked at my frozen chum; Then “Here,” said I, with a sudden cry, “is my cre-ma-tor-eum.”
Some planks I tore from the cabin floor, and I lit the boiler fire; Some coal I found that was lying around, and I heaped the fuel higher; The flames just soared and the furnace roared—such a blaze you seldom see; Then I burrowed a hole in the glowing coal, and I stuffed in Sam McGee. Then I made a hike, for I didn’t like to hear him sizzle so; And the heavens scowled, and the huskies howled, and the wind began to blow. It was icy cold, but the hot sweat rolled down my cheeks, and I don’t know why; And the greasy smoke in an inky cloak went streaking down the sky. I do not know how long in the snow I wrestled with grisly fear; But the stars came out and they danced about ere again I ventured near; I was sick with dread, but I bravely said: “I’ll just take a peep inside. I guess he’s cooked, and it’s time I looked;” . . . then the door I opened wide. And there sat Sam, looking cool and calm, in the heart of the furnace roar; And he wore a smile you could see a mile, and he said: “Please close that door. It’s fine in here, but I greatly fear you’ll let in the cold and storm— Since I left Plumtree, down in Tennessee, it’s the first time I’ve been warm.”
There are strange things done in the midnight sun By the men who moil for gold; The Arctic trails have their secret tales That would make your blood run cold; The Northern Lights have seen queer sights, But the queerest they ever did see Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge I cremated Sam McGee. Walt