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...
Holy forking shirtballs I OWNED THIS BOOK. #mindblown #floatyhearts #hearteyes
ReplyDeleteI learned the pigpen cipher from this book, and spy jargon like "dead drop".
ReplyDeleteI was all about the Usborne UFOs book. The Hopkinsville Goblins paintings from that one haunted me for years.
ReplyDeleteI remember checking out a set of small books about being a private detective when I first got my library card as a kid. They had these same sorts of illustrations. The part I remember the most was a section on smells, and that counterfeit money ink has a particular smell. I thought for the longest time that the dry cleaner shop near our house was a front for a counterfeiting operation.
ReplyDeleteSteve Sigety then of course there was Encyclopedia Brown! Which is fiction, yes I know...
ReplyDeleteDUUUUUUUDE
ReplyDeleteI got this one from the library too
ReplyDeleteThis one?
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I remember the PI one too.
ReplyDeleteAAAHHH THE MEMORIES. I remember reading the Italian version.
ReplyDeleteThis is what Top Secrets rulebook should’ve been like.
ReplyDeleteSteve Sigety I still have that, a double feature for spycraft and P.I.-work, in German language. I bought it from my pocket money when I was in school.
ReplyDeleteI've still got my battered and failing copy and recently purchased a new copy (and the detective one) for my kids. I nearly wore that book out!
ReplyDeleteHah, I remember that from my childhood too. :-D
ReplyDeleteI loved that book!
ReplyDeleteUsborne books were the best. They totally dominated my childhood.
ReplyDeleteI had that!
ReplyDeleteOh, I had it back when I was a kid and absolutely loved it.
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