Editor’s note: Every Saturday through October, The Journal will feature columns on the journey of Ernest Oberholtzer written by Beth Waterhouse, executive director of the Oberholtzer Foundation. The columns commemorate the centennial of Oberholtzer’s epic canoe trip with Ojibwa companion Billy Magee. In 1912, Oberholtzer, known as “Ober,” and Magee traveled by rail from Ranier to Winnipeg, then on to La Pas.
Week No.11
Aug. 24-30, 1912
Ernest Oberholtzer’s journey is now coming from the third of six journals filled by the explorer and carried back from the 1912 canoe journey. Ober and Billy Magee have not yet quit circling in the maze of Nueltin Lake, and are still hoping for the Thlewiaza.
“I had a comfortable night on a moss bed,” writes Oberholtzer on August 24. Readers my realize it is like reading a novel, and Oberholtzer gives readers some relief, every now and then, from the pounding of the canoe or the fears and frustrations of two aching men traveling alone without much of a map and in a receding summer. The relief may be as simple as a good meal or a good night’s sleep.
Ober and Magee are observing a lot of caribou in this week’s paddle along “broad gently sloping meadows.” One day this week they counted 28 in 15 minutes. The overriding question, however, is — where is the river?
“We paddled north toward what seemed the only possible opening and I could feel Billy’s paddle drag when it turned out to be only a small bay. From there we had to go almost straight west, which was discouraging, but suddenly after several miles… the lake turned north-east again.”
Then, on Aug. 28, the men spotted a seal. “I had hard work to persuade Billy not to shoot him. Luckily one shot missed… Somehow we had the feeling that we were near the river… all the land to the east seemed lower.”
What was that like, to be given a little hope after the many wrong turns and empty bays of Nueltin? Anyone who has been even slightly lost on Rainy Lake for a few stormy hours will understand some of their emotion and fatigue.
And it was near the outlet of the Thlewiaza that the two men had what Ober termed, “our first real mishap” in a rapids. “Then I saw the bag of pots and plates ready to ride away. I thought of our food without pans and once more I jumped in just in time to save the cooking utensils.” At final count, not their cooking utensils nor his camera and notebooks, nor their lives were lost, but “one spoon and the rifle were missing.”
These are some very hard paddles, day after day, and all readers can wonder is how in heaven’s name is Ober recording this, in pencil, and in such amazing detail?
To follow Ober’s journey, purchase “Bound for the Barrens” available at www.lulu.com.
