19, 1964 INTERVIEWERS: Lucile M

Acc. #9599 (Feb. 19, 1964) 0 MINNESOTA HISTORICAL SOCIETY ORAL HISTORV INTERVIEW NAME: Ernest C. Oberholtzer DATE: February [18 and] 19, 1964 INTERVIEWERS: Lucile M. Kane, Russell Fridley, Evan Hart Original Reel 6 (cassette tapes 11,12, and 13) Transcript: 77 pages, draft SUBJECTS DISCUSSED: Frederick S. Winston of Minneapolis and Sewell Tyng, and their help in conservation of the Quetico-Superior area wilderness; Ojibwe Indians: Frances Densmore's limited approach to collecting; Naribojou stories, flood stories, and winter lodge stories; Oberholtzer called "Atisokan," i.e. story; the Widewiwin society; personal songs; dream vision sought at puberty; curing; grandparents instructing young with stories; games; the Windigo (cannibal); Mrs. Notawey, Billy Magee's oldest sister, a very good storyteller; Oberholtzer s tape-recording Johnny Whitefish, cousin to Mrs. Notawey, arid the attempt to tape Mrs. Notawey; The naming of Billy Magee, Tay-rah-pah-sway-we-tong, by his mother at his birth. Name means "far-distant -echo"; Billy Magee and trips in 1909 and 1910 through Quetico-Superior Provincial Forest Reserve; Moose; Origin of Superior National Forest, now (1968) Quetico Park: 1909 offer by the publicity agent of the Canadian Northern Railroad to buy Oberholtzer's notes about canoe routes in the Rainy Lake watershed area; Oberholtzer's stay in England during the European trip with Harry French in 1910 (French's name is not mentioned in the recording); Trip to the barrenlands and Hudson Bay in 1912; and exploration of Nueltin Lake and return to the lake many years later. NOTE TO USERS: This transcript incorporates some of Oberholtzer's editorial annotations, transcribed from a second copy of this draft. They were added when they amended or enhanced the initial meaning of a passage. This copy also includes some annotations (mainly corrections to Indian names or concepts) done by an unknown person, probably whoever initially reviewed the transcripts. Acc. #9599 (Feb. 19, 1964) 1 MISS KANE : I have one more thing to say to you. Can you spend the afternoon? Mr. Oberholtzer : Yes. Miss K. : I want Evan Hart to come out. Remember you met him at lunch the other time when you were here? And I would like you two to talk about your Indian research. He is so schooled in that that I felt he could ask you more intelligent questions. Mr. O.: That's all right. He may ask me a lot of questions I can't answer, you see. Miss K. : It doesn't matter. Just explore your feeling about it, your research procedures, and all this. I was very anxious to have him do that, because I felt with his questions... Mr. O .: He's a specialist in that? Miss K. : Yes, he is. Let's go back to Fred now. Was Fred a Minneapolis boy? Was he born here? Mr. O.: Yes, oh yes. It's natural that we should discuss Fred Winston above all today, because of the parting of all of his friends with him yesterday at the funeral, and, of course, because of his very long association with these public movements. And in such a quiet, obscure fashion. He liked to work without recognition, and that same idea was carried out at the funeral yesterday, where there was no suggestion of eulogy. Yesterday the whole emphasis was on the relationship of life and death, and the significance of what life gives us and what we can give back. That was brought out beautifully in this comment by his old friend, Dr. Bragg, formerly the Unitarian Minister here in Minneapolis, who's now in the same capacity in Kansas City, Missouri. When I came into the program of conservation here, I've already told how I'd been invited to come dow n here and talk to a group of young professional men on the subject of this proposal of Mr. Backus about the border lakes, and the threat that that meant to the public interests in the way of recreation and enjoyment of the border region. Mr. Hubachek was the one who had written me the letter and invited Acc. #9599 (Feb. 19, 1964) 2 me to come down, and proposed even that if I came that all my expenses would be oaken care of. I think I said how, at the time, I was doubtful as to the origin of this letter, and some people, up north, advised me that possibly this letter had come directly from our opponents, that it was a technique that sometimes they had of disarranging any kind of organized effort on the other side. And especially a letter coming from a man like Hubachek, a very unusual name. The letter was very well done, indeed, and I read it carefully a number of times before I made up my own mind that it was wise to go ahead and respond in kind. But I found when I came down in response to that invitation that this was a group of ver y fine, public spirited young men -- lawyers, architects, businessmen; and it included men like Jeff Jones of the Minneapolis Journal , and men who were known for their work in conservation with the Izaak Walton League and other organizations. There were representatives of the American Legion, too, who were interested in this same subject. And a very delightful fine group of young people. And among those was one named Fred Winston. I don't think I ever knew any of these men before that time, because I hadn't lived here in Minneapolis. I had been here and had met certain other groups -- very different -- but there wasn't any one of those people whom I'd known before. So I was asked to tell what I knew of the situation there, of the proposals that Mr. Backus had made, and what, if any, efforts we had made to oppose him. Well, I think I told that we had a little organization already up there, largely based on Fort Frances, because Fort Frances was much freer to oppose Mr. Backus' project than International Falls, since at that time Mr. Backus bad very little in the way of industry in the Fort. It was all over in International Falls, and there was a rival company, a big lumber company named Shevlin-Clarke. It was - very well known oiler in the Fort and provided whatever industry they had. The Acc. #9599 (Feb. 19, 1964) 3 two companies weren't friendly, but the idea of swapping these great recreational opportunities on the Canadian side and of raising Rainy Lake after the floods they'd already had and the destruction there had been as a result -- raising it still further, at least another five feet as proposed -- had aroused real opposition on the Canadian side, vocal opposition. So I was invited to come there, and there had been set up a small organization over there of Rainy Lake citizens -- both public officials and private citizens, to study the project and take measures if possible to prevent its completion. And this had all happened before Mr. Hubachek had invited me down. In addition, a lawyer friend of mine (that was Mr. Tyng). Miss K: Sewell Tyng? Mr. O : Yes. He was from New York and was a junior member of one of the largest law firms there -- the law firm of Rathbone, Larkin and Perry. He had offered his assistance to prepare a legal brief so that we would have a better standing when we wrote to the International Joint Commission. Up to that time we hadn't been able to get very much attention when we wrote. We got very little information, the very briefest kind of replies, because apparently it was felt that there wasn't going to be very much to this, except to approve the project, you see. So the first condition that Mr. Tyng had made, in order to prepare this brief, was that we succeed somehow in raising six hundred dollars to buy the transcript of the hearing, this lengthy hearing that had taken two days, you see, and involved testimony of many people, but above all Mr. Backus' testimony. I was to prepare all the physical facts about the country and the places mentioned. Mr. Tyng would do the legal work and would file this brief with the International Joint Commission in the name of his firm. And that had been done. We had succeeded in raising that six hundred dollars. It was my job to raise that six hundred dollars, and I raised that sum among some of our people who already had summer homes and came for their vacations. One hundred dollars came from the Canadian Northern Railway, who Acc. #9599 (Feb. 19, 1964) 4 felt that this would damage their tracks. It was going to cost them a lot of money, and there would be a lot more danger of flood. And so we had good sponsors for the purchase of the transcript and the brief, you see. That had been done before I came down, and that was one of the things I told this unorganized group of men, headed by Mr. Hubachek. Well, among those young men was Mr. Frederick Winston. Fr ederick S. Winston was a man of very high ideals who had given himself already, all of his life, from the time he finished college, to public service. He had performed as legal aid attorney, and very successfully, and in a number of similar capacities, from the time he left college. That alone would he a perfectly wonderful story, and I think I could tell some of the things that happened.

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