From Voyageurs National Park on FB: Called “Catamaran” by locals, Bert Upton is among the strangest of historical characters on area waters. He lived in a hut built over a dug-out at Squirrel Narrows. Found frozen to death in the 1930s by Kettle Falls pioneer Oliver Knox; Upton was perched lifeless in the snow just a half-mile from his home. Shunning civilization, Upton defined the word hermit. First spotted rowing his crude log raft on Namakan, no one knows how he got there. Upton’s accent implied an English heritage but any personal inquiries brought a stony silence. Some suspected him a man fleeing the law; others saw a bizarre outcast; everyone knew he was peculiar. Just five feet tall and wildly unkempt, Catamaran wore hacked-off pants and walked barefoot with a stick. Winter demanded shoes but no socks, a cast-off Mackinaw, and a trailing cap made from the leg of old underwear. He was oddly religious, and suspicious of being poisoned. Surviving on snared rabbits and fish, he ofte...
I loved this picture so much when I found it, that I made War Herons a thing that the legit nobility ride in my goofball swamp setting.
ReplyDeleteNice! "But the strength of the Hatzegopteryx neck [beastie on the right] seems high even accounting for its likely skull size, and we postulate that additional loads - big prey items, violent uses of the head and beak during foraging - may have contributed to its boosted structural properties."
ReplyDeleteThis creature needs stats ...