Ober's journey - Week 20

Ernest Oberholtzer and Billy Magee are paddling Lake Winnipeg as it nears November. Will the weather hold? Magee seems back into his own somehow, and his winter camping skills show clearly. 

“In the night I thought I heard a drop or two of rain… at 8 a.m., we got up and it had not rained yet. The wind had got more in the west and was very strong… The day was no colder, though all the ducks had been flying south the day before.” Here they were stopped all day by the wind, even though “the air was mild and dry.” That evening, “prepared to start in the night by retiring early. But the wind kept up without change.” 

Partnership and interdependence was obvious in Ober’s notes on Oct. 25: “I still felt unfit for hard paddling and was not altogether sorry that the wind was still blowing… Billy chopped green birch and tamarack trees and kept a good fire going.” 

Oct. 26: “Wind dropped at sunrise after four days and five nights continual blowing. At a quarter past eight we were off… toward noon we were able to use the sail. Saw two more white owls, making five in all.” That night they resumed paddling after dinner and “paddled on in the light of the full moon till ten o’clock.” 

The next day was again too rough, but you must remember they are disecting an enormous body of water. Compare the size of Lake Winnipeg and Lake of the Woods or Rainy Lake on a map sometime. Across such expanse, the wind was a fierce commodity. The following day, now Oct. 28, they were again able to paddle, though “the melted snow around the canoe [under which they were sleeping] had frozen.” Says Ober, “We now had a straight shore with almost no shoals and we made good headway… Found the air very chilly as soon as we stepped ashore.”  

They are making it south. Stop - start. Wind and waves. Using sail or paddle. They meet a French fisherman named Jim Thompson. When becalmed on Oct. 30, “I did very little except take notes and shave. Billy counted Thompson’s white fish on the drying stands—exactly 1020… Billy slept a while in the afternoon and was very glum all day. At dark it was snowing a little again and the wind blowing as hard as ever.” 

What enables muscles to continue a journey such as this except that one cannot wish oneself warm and home? What makes the mind continue a journey such as this when feeling real despair? And when does a man cross the line between benefiting from and “harvesting” the skill and muscle he has built all summer and that moment of complete and utter exhaustion? When is even a big idea too small to carry them forward? 

To follow Ober’s journey, purchase “Bound for the Barrens” available at www.lulu.com.