Ernest C. Oberholtzer (1884-1977)

Abstract

... In 1912 Ernest C. Oberholtzer and Titapeshwewitan, an Ontario Ojibwa better known as Billy Magee, made a canoe voyage of some 3200 km, during which they explored Nueltin Lake and the Thlewiaza River, N.W.T. This epic journey, more arduous and commendable than certain of the acclaimed explorations that preceded it, has remained all but unrecorded to the present day. ... On 26 June 1912 Oberholtzer and Magee left The Pas, Manitoba, in an 18-foot Chestnut Guide Special. Their destination was Chesterfield Inlet, by way of the Kazan. Neither man had ever canoed north of Rainy Lake, and from the first Billy was unsettled by the prospect of strange Indians, far stranger Eskimos, and the treeless regions for which they were bound. He was 51 years old. Oberholtzer, 28, stood 5'6 and weighed 135 pounds. A month out from The Pas they reached Lac du Brochet, the remote HBC post and Oblate mission at the northern end of Reindeer Lake. There, as at Cumberland House and Pelican Narrows, they were warned against attempting so audacious a venture, especially since no guides were to be had. Undeterred, and with Tyrrell's map to steer by, they pushed up the Cochrane, then followed the Esker Lakes to Theitaga lake, today known as Kasmere Lake, just south of the 60th parallel. From here Tyrrell had gone northwest, to Kasba Lake and the Kazan. But it was now the 8th of August. Knowing of the hardships and perils Tyrrell and his men had experienced in navigating the coastline of Hudson Bay in open canoes late in the season, and realising that he and Magee could not possibly reach Chesterfield Inlet in time to get out, Oberholtzer chose instead to strike northeast, toward the Chipewyans' mysterious Nu-thel-tin-tu-eh, or Sleeping Island Lake, where he hoped to find the vaguely charted Thlewiaza River and thereby make the Bay soon enough to get out ahead of winter weather. He and Magee now entered completely unknown territory, and Oberholtzer commenced time-and-compass mapping of their route. Following the river known today as the Kasmere, they entered Nueltin on 14 August. No white man had seen this enormous lake since Samuel Hearne crossed it in the winter of 1770-71. ... That Oberholtzer and Magee, complete strangers to the far North, canoed such a distance without mishap, and that the exploratory reaches of their journey were traversed without native guides, attests not only to their skills, fitness, and tenacity, but, above all, to the firmness of their friendship. An unassuming man, Oberholtzer never published a word about his odyssey. ... Ernest Oberholtzer devoted the rest of his life to the cause of conservation, indefatigably leading a decades-long campaign to preserve the Quetico-Superior country as an international wilderness. Concomitantly, he pursued his profound interest in the culture of the Ojibwas. ...