Keeper of the Wild, The Life of Ernest Oberholtzer

by Joe Paddock

This bibliography begins with Ernest’s childhood in Davenport, Iowa. He has a heart condition, loves the violin, and was raised by his grandfather, a civic leader, and his mother, who supported him throughout his life. His biographer cites an article by Jim Kimball in the Minneapolis Tribune, “Nature’s Caretakers.”

It has been argued that there are always two factors present in the childhood of significant environmentalists: first, they develop a strong early love bond with nature, and second, an admired adult mediates this relationship and teaches respect for the natural world. For Ober that adult was the gravedigger Burke, an undeducated yet literary man who knew the book of nature and opened it for the boy’s eager eyes.

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Here are notes Ober made for a never written novel of a boy named Willie, based on his relationship with Burke

Willie’s delight in nature, when out with Burke. The feel of the moss, the hollow of the tree, the smooth-worn swimming hole, the swirling water, the gravel banks at the glen.

The Irish superstitions in Burke. His humanity, his kindness. His disregard of money. A kind of wisdom and philosophy all his own. a philosophy of unpossessive worldliness. New values. No ambitions. No egotisms. An amused observer and sympahteic friend was Burke.

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As a young man, Ober discovered the healing power of wilderness living. Expected to die young, he remained vital and active in wilderness journeys until his 80s. In 1909 he began a lifelong exploration of the Quetico Provincial Forest Reserve in Canada and Superior National Forest in the United States using photography, native American guides, canoes, and journaling. He never learned to drive. He became proficient in native languages and eventually used audio recorders to document indigenous stories and ceremonies.

As a video documenter and ethnographic researcher, I was drawn to descriptions in this biography taken from Ober’s journals. This is from a photography project of moose undertaken by canoe with his central indigenous guide Billy Magee.

Correspondence

I remember particularly a yearling bull – a winsome little fellow that held his ground knee-deep in the river after all his companions had walked away in stiff-legged skepticism. We let him feed a while till he seemed perfectly calm. Then, inch by inch, scarcely moving, Billy propelled the canoe forward, while I knelt in the bow, camera in hand. The sun was fiercely hot; there was only a breath of breeze. The little bull several times raised his head to gaze at us wonderingly; and each time Billy stopped paddling. Thus, during the moments when the moose’s head was submerged, we advance till we were only twenty feet away. The bull edged off a foot or so, turned his back, suddenly faced round again, whined ever so slightly like a dog and at last, after a moment’s reflection, dipped his head under water. I was itching to take his picture, but I noticed something remarkable. Instead of immersing his head completely, as is the custom of the moose when feeding, he left half his long ears protuding. He was listening, and I was afraid that if I clicked the shutter, he would scamper away. When he raised his head again, however, I decided to chance it. I clicked. He flinched, moved away a step again and then resumed his feeding. He seemed completely reassured, for I noticed now that the tops of his ears were under water. We were still gliding nearer. I took another picture, a third, one after another. At last, lo and behold, the little fellow got down on his knees on the river bottom, and for a second or so his body was wholly lost to sight. His head came up first, with ears pricked. He shook it and the ears flapped drolly against his cheeks. When he rose, he looked at us inquiringly, almost mischievously, with his languid brown eyes. His shaggy winter coat was still clinging in patches to his hind quarters . . To my great surprise he calmly stepped toward us and sniffed with his long snout; and I could have touched him with the paddle. But Billy, always cautioius and respectful toward the moose, backed the canoe a few strokes. Thus, for fifteen minutes we played with this strange neighbor. . . . In all, I made eighteen exposures, quietly changing th roll of film twice; and it was only at last when I spoke – that wicked human voice! – that the trusting little bull took to the woods.

Young bull in velvet swimming

This is the life Ober was determined to live. Yet he needed to support it somehow.

The need to earn money to support the lifestyle he was imagining preyed on his mind. On March 13, 1913, he answered a letter from a fellow Harvard graduate who had written with enthusiasm about Ober’s adventures: “my life since graduation may sound interesting, but so far there has been no money in it.” The “so far” makes clear that he still hoped his wilderness lifestyle and rapidly expanding knowledge would one day pay off financially. In truth, he would forever make decisions that woud make his life interesting rather han lucrative.

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His life took a unique course. One that I have come to associate with the emerging human.

Ober had been allowed exceptional freedom to work out his youthful enthusiasms. During the time of life when most are taken over by the demands of establishing career and family, the ongoing necessities of childrearing, Ober continued to self-actualize. He had been allowed to be, as Nietzsche described it, a wheel rolling out from its own center. That is, he had been allowed to become more and more fully his authentic self. His secure and protected early childhood in comfortable circumstandes, his adventurous spirit and richly eclectic education, his health problems, his empowering mother, and perhaps even his repressed and subliminated sexuality, all allowed him freedom from the usual developmental limitions. Instead, he deepened and individuated. Though he was never to beome a biological parent, he would become a cultural parent of significance, a great teacher, a mentor to many exceptional young men. In this way, he would pay for the many gifts he had been given.

From the psychological point of view, Oberholtzer had gone thorugh a tremendous developmental effort that seemed to have led nowhere. At the age of forty, he had yet to create a public persona that reflected his many facets. He had no clearly understandable role. Nevertheless, he was admired, and no one could deny his great discipline and capacity for self-denial when expressed through his chosen interests.

Here at the end of the story of Oberholtzer’s youth, a story so absolutely fundamental to the contributions of his middle and later years, it is interesting to note that had he succeeded in establishing his career as a writer or as president of Deer island, Inc. (a business venture), he would not have been free to give his life to the wilderness movement which he was soon to engage. The myriad streams of this life, so many of which seemed to have run dry, had prepared him exquisitely for his soon-to-emerge true calling.

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During his youth, Ober maintained letter correspondence with his family and friends from Davenport, Harvard, and his travels. He shared his experiences and the threats he observed to the vast natural world by industry and commercial development. Eventually, he established a camp at Rainy Lake where his correspondents joined him regularly to emerge in nature and for expeditions by canoe into the surrounding boundary waters.

The book’s second half details the movement to establish the Boundary Waters natural areas on the Canadian and United States sides of the national boundary. It succeeds in preserving and protecting just under 3 million acres. This complex political, cultural, and economic process directed his full attention for decades. Each day was dedicated to written correspondence, building a network of support in the boundary waters areas, regional cities, and Congress. It is a process that fascinates activists. It is a brilliant example of an emergent creative process.