[Minnesota]. [Canada]. [Travel Narrative]

Diary of Harold R. Greenlee Covering Canoe Trip Into the Wilds of Northern Minnesota and Canada [typed title]

[Various locations in Minnesota and Canada]: 1927. [1],72,[1]pp. of mimeographed text, illustrated with thirty-six original silver gelatin photographs mounted within the text. Original dark green cloth binder, text bound with two brass brads. Abrasions and heavy rubbing to covers, cloth fraying along spine. Minor toning and occasional thumb-soiling to text. Numerous ink corrections to text. Good. Item #5282

A wonderful handmade detailed travel narrative documenting a two-week canoe excursion into the wilds of northern Minnesota and Canada in 1927. The author, Harold R. Greenlee, headed out from Winton, Minnesota with his friend Donald MacNaught on June 5 and returned to the same location on June 23. In the meantime, Greenlee and MacNaught traveled via canoe through "practically virgin wilderness without roads, railroads, or communication of any kind." Specifically, they began their canoe trip up Fall Lake, Basswood Lake, and Prairie Portage, then into Quetico Provincial Park in Ontario, Canada. They then journeyed through Birch Lake, Carp Lake, Knife Lake, and other locations along the U.S.-Canada border, eventually reaching Saganaga Lake before they turned for home again. They were back in Minnesota by June 16 and spent the remainder of their trip at Red Rock Lake, Ogishkemuncie Lake, and various parts of the state on the way home. Greenlee's narrative records details on their fishing adventures (catching mostly Great Northern Pike, but also pickerel and trout), locals and others encountered along the way, the natural landscape and various natural features (especially with regard to their rowing efforts), the details in making camp, and so forth. Greenlee's narrative is unusually detailed compared to similar fishing excursion memoirs of this type, often comprised of a few or more pages per day.

The photographs picture both Harold and Donald in their boat, posed with fish, carrying their canoe across the portages, resting in camp, cooking lunch on the river bank, and more, as well as scenes of the rapids at Prairie Portage, an expanse of Knife Lake, three different views of Silver Falls at Saganaga Lake, a Native American grave on an island in Cache Bay on Lake Saganaga, Jasper Falls, a scene in Eddy Lake, and "A full blooded Indian and canoe he built, Saganaga Lake," among others. Harold and Donald spent part of their journey traveling with a party of engineers and a Native American canoeman, and some of the photographs capture the other travelers.

A representative entry reads, as follows: "Just above the rapids and in Cypress Lake there is a sort of bowl shaped pool, in which we saw Bass, Wall-eyed pike, Pickerel, and Great Northern Pike. We decided to cast there a awhile and caught several Great Northern Pike and Pickerel. I hooked one Bass but he succeeded in throwing the hook out of his mouth. I was not sorry of this for the Bass season is not open. After fishing for a while we started up the Lake. We had to go through some narrows which looked more like a river than a lake and this lasted for some few hundred yards. We then had to make an abrupt right hand turn and headed northeast to Cypress Lake."

We were unable to locate any other copies of this likely unique personal canoe trip narrative in OCLC or elsewhere.

Price: $950.00