Press Release
The Fort Frances Museum invites you to a screening of “Ober’s Island A Living Legacy” with filmmakers John Ruebartsch and Dena Aronson, on Monday, Sept. 14 at 2 p.m. and 7 p.m.
Considered a wilderness preservationist, explorer, photographer, student of Ojibwe legend and oral tradition and authority on the Minnesota-Ontario boundary lakes region, Ernest Oberholtzer was the original architect of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area.
To this day Oberholtzer’s vision for the preservation of our area lakes lives on.
“Ober’s Island A Living Legacy” examines the life, times, and legacy of conservationist Ernest Oberholtzer from the vantage point of his island home on Rainy Lake. A man of may facets, “Ober” played classical music on the violin, studied landscape architecture at Harvard, and co-founded the Wilderness Society .
“My home all these years has been an acre and a half rocky island in Rainy Lake, half a mile from the Canadian border,” remarked Ober.
From this location Ober traveled through Lac la Croix, Mine Centre, and the Quetico and even undertook an arduous four-month-long canoe trip to Hudson Bay and back with Billy Magee, an Ojibwe friend.
Ober loved people. He created a salon-like atmosphere on Mallard Island, his home for half a century, attracting a constant stream of visitors, including artists, intellectuals, woodsmen, and Ojibwe traveling down-lake in their canoes.
The tradition continues today through the work of the Oberholtzer Foundation and the preservation of Mallard Island on Rainy Lake.
For more information, go to http://www.eober.org/
