More Trails, More Tales. Bob Henderson

example of remoteness. “We came, we saw, we sawed.” That’s how veteran canoe guide Phil Cotton describes Wabakimi canoe tripping. Portages aplenty have fallen spruce that make a day’s pre-planned destination dubious at best. Wendy Kipp, Deb Diebel, Margot Peck, and I had experienced one such late afternoon portage and therefore arrived at Best Island on Whitewater Lake too late to visit the much-anticipated Wendell Beckwith cabins. Saddened, we camped nearby, excited for a full day of exploration to follow. The next day, August 16, 2005, we paused to start our tour of the cabins with a reading from a healthy volume of Beckwith literature penned mostly after his death. Surprisingly, we read that Wendell Beckwith had died at this site on August 16, 1980, twenty-five years earlier to the day. This fact added a haunting aura of his presence to our quest — a quest to understand the man in part by the wondrous cabins he has left behind. Here one can really feel the remote peace, but also a remote, radical person.

      A friend, Alice Casselman, who had visited Wendell in the summer and winter several times while working with Outward Bound in the late 1970s, told me there were three central pillars to Wendell’s life at Best Island: environment, science, and humanitarianism. Environment was our main interest.[3]

      Wendell learned over time how to live comfortably alone through the seasons of northwestern Ontario. Two of his cabins, The Workshop (later called Rose’s cabin) and The Snail, are packed with environmentally wise designs to maximize comfort in six months of cold weather. There is a thirty-five-ton parabola-shaped fireplace in The Museum, his first cabin (which didn’t work out as a year-round dwelling despite the fireplace). The Hobbit-like Snail faces south and is built into a sand hill as a semi-subterranean dwelling to maximize the thermal mass of the earth. In The Snail, Wendell figured he used twenty times less wood per day than in his conventionally shaped and sized Museum cabin. The Snail’s ingenious teepee-like central fire had a ceiling opening and an underpad of rock to maintain heat. How Wendell evolved his understanding of living comfortably through the seasons is a detailed study on its own. A 2005 Globe and Mail column called the buildings “one of the country’s most inaccessible architectural treasures.”[4] Ironically for the canoe tripper, the fairy-tale setting, rather than being inaccessible, is in a choice location, easy to plan

      Wendell’s snail cabin built to maximize winter warmth.

      into most Wabakimi canoe routes. I suggest you keep in mind my friend Jon Berger’s sentiments for the environmentally intriguing cabins: “They do not fit the main patterns of the land but have their own intrinsic story and value.” Wendell established his own unique patterns with this landscape, and his story now is part of the place and deserves to stay with us.

      The cabins are still a showcase of Wendell’s environmental design even now after thirty years of minimum care. Though all signs point to the need for regular maintenance to preserve this gem in the bush, little has been done.

      While the hexagonal wooden tile flooring, the wooden crank/pulley drop fridge (into a pit), the remarkable drying racks, and The Snail’s structural shape all speak to legendary architectural abilities, Wendell the scientist is equally compelling. The patented inventor arrived in Canada as an illegal alien, cutting the roadblock lock at a border crossing on the Pigeon River (between Minnesota and Ontario) and leaving his wife and five kids while he pursued pure research in a remote setting. He had a financial backer who wanted a wilderness retreat property that Wendell and the local Slipperjack family would build. Pure research means, in Wendell’s own words, “You start from scratch and live in a primitive way until your mind clears.” You sit with a blank sheet of paper and pencil. Again in Wendell’s words: “Simplicity comes from depth … from deep penetrating views and the simpler you get, the broader your concepts are going to become and that’s what’s necessary in basic research.”

      Wendell Beckwith at Best Island.

       Photo courtesy of Moon Joyce.

      Wendell was interested in many subjects. He was a wizard with trigonometry. His calculations dominate his journals: thousands of pages concerning the importance of the number pi; the alignment of the pyramids, Stonehenge, and Best Island (he once built a cedar log replica of Stonehenge on the lake ice); the measurement of local ice and spring breakup; eclipse studies; and plate tectonics. You might say celestial and global mapping captured his main interests. These interests led to the following theories: the distance around the world is within a quarter of a mile of the square root of pi; the moon was more important than the sun for pyramid builders; northwestern Ontario is a geophysical keystone oddly connected, given calculations of latitude (measured with a slide rule), to Greenwich, Stonehenge, and the pyramids. Finally, pre-1980, he determined a returning ice age would ultimately solve our global population explosion and related issues. All this from a man who was involved in the invention of the ballpoint pen, became the caretaker of a wilderness retreat on Best Island, and left a warm legacy after touching the lives of many canoe trippers with his welcoming presence and curious and compelling buildings. Did I mention that the Dutch doors to The Museum are carved to show specific measures of gravity?

      Wendell Beckwith’s humanitarian side suggests he was far from a hermit. Alice Casselman told me Wendell was part of an elaborate scheme to help the region’s Native peoples financially with an arguably ahead-of-its-time ecotourism project. A canoe trip guided by the Slipperjack family would bring tourists from the rail line to an upscale Whitewater Lake fishing lodge. En route, canoe trippers would stay in pre-established camps progressing from rustic lean-tos to canvas wall tents to cabins and finally to the main lodge. Sadly (and typically), only the upscale Ogoki Lodge was built.

      Alice told me Wendell had shared his humanitarian vision for what to do with Best Island following his death: he wanted to form a northern studies institute. A series of single-dwelling snail structures would be spread over the island for invited individuals to engage in pure research. Once a week, they would get together at The Museum for a major think tank. This plan is in sharp contrast to what others who also claim to have known Wendell believe, which is that Wendell would have wanted the cabins to return to the earth naturally with time. Having read much of the available literature, conducted some interviews with folks who knew Wendell, and pondered the man and the much-revered cabins, I am confident Alice’s knowledge reflects his true wishes. That said, the cabins are returning to the earth slowly. I believe the humanitarian Wendell Beckwith, who called himself a “citizen of the world” when encouraged to seek Canadian citizenship, saw a legacy in continuing to support sustainable initiatives with the local people and furthering the virtues of pure science and environmentally sound living via his northern studies bush institute. What a destination such a research centre would have become for Wabakimi trippers. Certainly all would have been welcome in Wendell’s vision. In the 1970s summer heyday of Wendell’s years at Best Island, up to three hundred visitors per summer were noted. He was a hermit, yes, but not in the summer canoe tripping season. We were excited to read the cabin’s guest book. Not long before us in 2005, members of Wendell’s family, including grandchildren, visited Best Island. One granddaughter, age five, as I remember, commented: “Now I know where I got my brains from.” Long overdue guests, perhaps, but certainly it was a treat to see that a family visit was a part of the overall story.

      Wendell’s vision for Best Island is now important to consider. In the early part of the summer of 2005, Wilderness Connection Outfitting operator Jim Pearson arranged for the Ministry of Natural Resources to cover the roof of The Museum with a large Fabrene plastic tarp. Two separate trees have fallen, destroying sections of the roof. Time to save the buildings is dwindling! Responsibility for the buildings is uncertain. A group was established in the 1980s. Energies were later channelled for a short while through Wilderness Connections operating out of Armstrong in the summer months. Wabakimi Park staff appear uncertain as to which course to take: serious investment towards permanent repairs, modest upkeep, or turning a blind eye, defended by a local view (that appears unsubstantiated) that Wendell would have wanted the cabins to return to the earth. Frankly, I don’t buy it! Perhaps some home refurbishing TV show should be brought into play.

      Seriously, though,