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Show THE ZEPHYR/FEBRUARY-MARCH 2004 “They must have hated each other." They did have more than one quarrel. One bad one came Oe | SOLITUDE near the end when Billy sulked, refused to speak, refused to paddle. They had it out, paddled on, got home and remained friends. Ober, wanting to get started on his career of wilderness traveller and writer, immediately sent to United Press a proposal to write up the adventure. UP immediately sent a rejection. It is said that Ober tried several times to write a full account of "the Hudson Bay trip,” but never did get it down on paper. Somewhere in his correspondence is a remark that he objected to the necessity to “establish some sort of record or do stunts.” I read this as a definite shying away from the usual masculine bragging about personal "records," and/or dangers and sufferings endured. Good, but I wonder if there was also something else holding him back, the fact that the "Hudson Bay trip" was not his alone; its very heart was the struggle of two men, not one. What right had the white man to portray to other whites the secrets of that? We can speculate further, that if a writer is disgusted by stunts and records it signifies an effort to get at a greater complexity. That means, ultimately, a fair degree of selfexposure. Ober might have balked at that. Later, in the long struggle for the Quetico- Se Ober wrote hundreds of letters, spoke out in endless meetings and hearings, but hardly anything of his found its way onto the pages of books or magazines. Unlike Bob Marshall who wrote fluently about his MARTIN ara adventures REMEMBERING ERNEST OBERHOLITZER I'm happy that long overdue notice is being given to Ernest Oberholtzer who was a principal, and principled, leader in the fight to protect a big chunk of territory on both sides of the Minnesota-Ontario border: the Quetico-Superior wilderness. I'd like to say a few words about his life, maybe for perspective, most certainly to take a break from now. Ober--everybody called him that--was born in 1884 in Davenport, Iowa. After his mother divorced her husband she took her son back to her parents’ grand Davenport mansion where the living was easy; but after the death of her parents, mother and son were financially on their own. Somehow, there was enough money to send him to Harvard where he studied with luminaries such as George Santayana and William James. Then he did a limited-budget biking tour of England with the future poet, Conrad Aiken, a double achievement: getting along with a comrade very different in personality, and enduring long days of physical exertion in spite of a weak heart, a consequence of an earlier bout of rheumatic fever. Later, when that heart laid him low; his doctor offered about a year to live. Ober struck out for the border lakes, partnered with Indians, put in about 3,000 paddling miles in one in Alaska and in defense of wild country, and unlike other wilderness champions such as aristocratic Benton MackKaye, rebel Ed Abbey, god-obsessed John Muir, charismatic David Brower, Ober never did manage to write much about his exploits. He did publish a few things in Youth Companion and one story in Boys Magazine. but editors complained that his style was "constrained" and “artificial.” Such meager publishing successes did not a living make. THINK ABOUT THIS: TWO MEN, ONE A 50 YEAR OLD INDIAN, ONE A 28 YEAR OLD WHITE, FOUR MONTHS IN A CANOE IN BAFFLING TERRAIN, PORTAGING, PADDLING, STUDYING RAPIDS TO DECIDE WHETHER TO PORTAGE OR RUN, ENDURING THE DRAG OF WINDBOUND DAYS. summer. One of his Indian companions, an Ojibwe, was known to English speakers as Billy Magee. That was the beginning. In 1912 Ober sent a message to Billy Magee, telling him that he was planning a canoe The role of wilderness authority and popular writer closed for him, though the “material” journey into the wildest country in all of Canada, that it would be the hardest thing Billy would ever do in all his life and they would be gone along time. Billy replied, as forwarded was there, in great abundance: his long and demanding expeditions by canoe, often with Ojibwe friends, often with his "second-best fiddle" as part of the portage luggage, and by Ober's friend, a trader among the Indians, saying--in the white man's rendition of Billy's “imperfect” English--""Guess ready go end earth." learning the language and trying against heavy odds to collect authentic stories. Once, They paddled from The Pas in Manitoba, veered into Saskatchewan, then north again, if she was telling one of the "old" stories. No, was the reply, she was describing a movie she'd recently seen. Another time he managed, after much struggle with weather and reluctant Indians, to have a very old Ojibwe woman tell one of the ancient stories. The woman made the effort, then Ober discovered that he had forgotten to plug in the recorder. entering the Barren Ground, a white space on the map, a place that hadn't been visited by white people since the travels of Samuel Hearne in the eighteenth century. Ober measured distances and directions by a dollar-and-a-half watch, a compass and estimates of canoe entranced by the vigor and expressiveness of an Ojibwe woman's conversation, he asked speed, making allowance for wind drift and currents, making a map. They were in a country of lakes and wild rivers. They were gone from June 25 to November 5. Sometimes they were lost, sometimes windbound. At one point, in Northwest Territory, He begged the woman for a repeat, but she was too tired, too near death. Ober left a message in a can on a hilltop, more or less saying farewell. After much anguish of uncertainty, they found the river that ran east into Hudson Bay, so far north that they met teller of legends." But he was first and always a canoe man, a paddler of lakes and rivers. an Inuit family that gave unstinting aid. But Winter was moving in fast, they had to paddle hard in October-November weather, down the bleak shores of Hudson Bay to beat the It turned out that Ober's literary talent lay in the telling of things rather than the writing of things. In the border lakes regions he became known as Atisokan, Ojibwe for "legend, I met Ober when he was in his early sixties (he lived to be 92), on The Mallard, a tiny island in Rainy Lake where he had hired a skilled and alcoholic carpenter to build a freeze-up, barely making it. Think about this: two men, one a fifty year old Indian, one a twenty eight year old white, four months in a canoe in baffling terrain, portaging, paddling, studying rapids to decide fascinating set of paths, gardens and dwellings, and where Ober received many visitors. A very friendly man, a truly gifted story teller who not only collected Ojibwe stories, but had a great fund of tales of his own ad . And misadventures too, such as his encounters with outboard motors, typewriters and other contrivances of modern life. Here's one of his whether to portage or run, enduring the drag of windbound stories: days. You're going to say, aera | <BOOKS BY MARTIN MURIE Coming in October: LOSING SOLITUDE: a cONTEMPORARY WESTERN. DEVELOPERS INVADE A COWTOWN. HOMESTEAD PUBLISHING (AVAILABLE ON AMAZON) \ WIND | SWEPT: sirDWATCHERs & A BIKER FROM MONTANA TANGLE WITH CORPORATION EXTREMISTS IN MEDICINE BOW, WYOMING. HOMESTEAD PUB... (AVAILABLE ON AMAZON) BURT'S WAY: ENVIRONMENTALISTS LABELED "TERRORISTS," KEEP A CHUGGIN’ ON THE QUEBEC/NEW YORK BORDER...PACKRAT BOOKS RED TREE MOUSE CHRONICLES: forest ANIMALS ON ASSIGNMENT: WHAT IS THE FUTURE OF THE (ILLUSTRATED) FORESTS? 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