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 saw this as a kid in the parking lot of the Oakland Mall in Troy, Michigan.
ReplyDeleteWas there a charge to see it? Two bits a gander?
ReplyDeleteI remember being a Bigfoot-loving kid and thinking the whole "Minnesota Iceman = Vietnamese Neanderthal" thing was total bullshit even back then.
ReplyDeleteCasey G. yes, it was a sweet grift. I don't know what you had to pay because my dad paid it. But you definitely had to pay, then a line sort of shuffled through a tent where you looked down at the frozen slab.
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