There are many books about the BWCA and Quetico, its people, the animals, birds, lakes, rivers, streams, but few capture the true wilderness like retired Canadian conservation officer John Bouchard does in his book Life on the Invisible Line.
Written by retired Ontario deputy conservation officer John Bouchard, Life on the Invisible Line is a great read, especially for people who have spent time on the Gunflint Trail or who have grown up in the county. Its pages are populated by local legends and his stories are filled with beautiful sights and sometimes-sad outcomes given to those who venture into the wilderness ill prepared for what is out there.
Bouchard spent almost 30 years working on the Canadian side of Saganaga Lake, although there were times he would join Cook County game wardens or other law enforcement and cross the border to help solve a case.
For me, his book answered a big question about people I never forgot.
Every summer a family of six would come down the Gunflint Trail to Grand Marais and spend a day in town shopping. They were from Canada, living on the Canadian side of Saganaga and they were so poor it was shocking. The kids, two boys and two girls, were shoeless and dressed in rags. Mom and dad weren’t dressed much better. Although they were poor, they were pleasant and the kids were polite in an energetic way. They came the first couple of summers I worked and nothing seemed to change for them. They were poor in a way I couldn’t imagine.
Then they stopped coming. I always wondered, what happened to them? How did the kids do as they grew up? Did they have a chance to “make it?” To live good, full, productive and happy lives?
John Bouchard answered that question for me.
In these pages we meet Bouchard’s wife, Eveline, an Indonesian hula dancer, and the many characters and friends he made in the wilderness as he patrolled the lakes and area of the Quetico and Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness.
Bouchard writes about Cook County game warden Earl Nelms, Art and Dina Madsen, Dorothy Molter, Tempest and Dick Powell, Mike Deschampe, Cook County Sheriff John Lyght, Cook County game warden Al Hiedibrink, Benny Ambrose and many more.
Bouchard had a special place in his heart for Ambrose. When Benny died he made a headstone out of granite and risked life and limb (with a couple of friends) to put it up at Benny’s place on Otter Track Lake.
Bouchard has a lot of insights and funny tales to tell. Some stories, of course, have tragic outcomes and sad endings. He is at his best when writing about outwitting poachers and fishermen, catching drug users and drug smugglers and coming across people lost or hurt in the wilderness. An artist, his book is filled with his sketches of events and people.
It is a book that is easy to read. Short chapters and lots of snappy dialogue. Published by Trafford Publishing, it can be found locally at the Grand Marais Trading Post.
As for the family I mentioned? Bouchard ran into one of the boys who was grown up and now a long haul trucker. “He laughed about the time when their family moved to Thunder Bay, their dad contracted all of them— his sisters along with brothers—to dig basements using shovels. He seemed proud that his sisters could dig so well. I’ll always admire their humor and grit,” wrote Bouchard.
The kids grew up and prospered, with not one of them having a problem adjusting to life in the city.
Bouchard also might solve a mystery or a long held question for you, too. But you will have to buy his book to find out. Mystery or no mystery, you won’t be sorry you own this tome, and if your kids complain about doing the dishes or cleaning their rooms, sit them down and read them the short chapter titled, Memories of a family living at the Rail Portage, then see what they have to say.
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