From Voyageurs National Park on FB:

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 often rejected food and clothing from neighboring folks. Upton advocated an old-English way of conserving body energy by spending winter in bed.

A conundrum, this man who lived year ’round in a hole was endearing and seemed educated. He scavenged scrapped stoves from the logging camps, forged paths and planted pretty gardens around a hovel that housed only a hammock and sparse possessions.

Fearless, Bert Upton had been frozen and thawed more than once before he took his final sleep. Why he came to live this secret life will never be known. For when nature beckoned him to sit that dying day – Catamaran took his mysteries with him. #ThrowbackThursday (Image Description: An aging hermit known as “Catamaran” of Namakan Lake is posed in the thicket wearing a tattered Mackinaw jacket, his cap made from the leg of old underwear, and holding his walking stick and fish catch.)
#itswizardtime
#maybedruidtime