Journal Staff Report
Bob Hilke, a friend of adventurer and conservationist Ernest Oberholtzer, will speak about “Ober’s” 1912 epic canoe journey Thursday at the Fort Frances Museum.
In 1912, Oberholtzer and his good friend, Billy Magee, an Ojibwe elder from the Seine River area, did what no one has done before or since — traveled by canoe from The Pas, Manitoba, up to Hudson Bay, across to Churchill and York Factory, and down the full length of Lake Winnipeg to arrive in Gimli on Nov. 5, marking a 2,400 mile journey.
The evening’s event will run from 7-9 p.m. Nancy Jones, a local educator and Billy Magee’s grand-daughter, plans to be on hand to help with questions. For more information, call Sherry George at 274-7891. Refreshments will be served.
International Falls resident Hilke has spent much of his life on Rainy Lake.
“This is a great story of an almost impossible feat — two people traveling so far in what most of us would see as inhospitable terrain and climate,” said Hilke of the journey. “A great story that is largely unknown here.”
Hilke will speak from the perspective of a good friend who shared much with Oberholtzer, including a trip back to Nueltin Lake in 1963 when Oberholtzer was in his 80th year.
As part of the Fort Frances Museum’s Celebrating Anniversaries exhibit, photographs taken to record the epic trip are on display, courtesy of the Oberholtzer Foundation and the Koochiching County Historical Museum.
