Ober's journey, week 10

Oberholtzer Foundation

Week No. 10

Aug. 17-23, 1912

Ernest Oberholtzer and Billy Magee are winding their way through an unmapped Nueltin Lake, now in the land of the wolves. “I heard a snarling over in the bay, and, when I looked, I saw a large white wolf and several darker objects moving round among the many trees over in the muskeg. While Billy was getting breakfast, four wolves, one white, one gray, two black, came out into plain sight.” 

This week of paddling is anything but “fun” for the explorers. Somehow Oberholtzer leaves much of the true frustration out of his journal notes, but there are hints at it, and the sheer details of day after day after day tell readers that this was hard going. Question? How to find the Thlewiaza. 

August 20: “…while we sat around the fire waiting for the rain, we both came to the conclusion that perhaps we were going back down the lake where we had come from by a different route; we thought we had better go back first and search the north shore.” 

Urgency also begins to show in the patterns of their days. Typically, Ober would be up before 5 a.m. Typically, they would drink some tea and paddle before landing somewhere and building another fire for breakfast. Tthe importance of fire in these weeks is impressive. As the season is turning, and both men seem to be experts at building a fire with limited, wet, or distinctly different materials every time. 

Again, Oberholtzer is the master of understatement as he speaks of the (baking powder) can that he leaves (with a note) on the summit he has named “Hawkes Summit.” They had just climbed a hill estimated to be about 500 feet high. “At sunset on a rock at the very top I left a can, in which was a page out of my Welkome Meter book. It gave the date and condition of our supplies and said that we had named the hill…” 

Of equal importance to Ober’s quieted worries in his journal entries are his encounters with wildlife. “One buck trotted reservedly like a sprinter warming up, and then, when he got the scent, off he went with a snort and a hop, skip, and jump.” Ober notes the animals like a biologist or poet. He also almost always notes the presence or absence of good fuel for his and Billy’s cooking and life-saving fires.

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