A Yankee in the Canadian Bush -- Talking Bill into selling Bow Narrows Camp

Del, Don and me, Dan, Baughman

Chapter 4

How in the world did my dad get Bill Stupack to sell him the camp?

I don’t know. Nobody knows. However, there are several factors that must have come into play.

1.  Bill hated the business.

Actually, he was entirely anti-social. His idea of a good tourism year was when nobody showed up. Sounds absurd but it was absolutely true. My dad must have realized that as Bill told his stories.

Bill would relate how guests would leave the cabin a mess, be a bunch of drunks (Bill was a tea-totaller), and then, the final insult, not leave an appropriate amount of money on the table when they departed. Bill didn’t have rates, at least not for a long time. He expected his clients to leave an “appropriate” amount of money on the table of the cabin. Few seemed to have met that high – and ambiguous -- bar.

Bill spent the entire winter alone, at his trapping cabin on Prairie Lake, 20 miles west of the camp in what is now Woodland Caribou Wilderness Park. His only human contact occurred when he snowshoed out to have Christmas with Art Carlson and his family in Red Lake and to sell his furs.

Bill and Art almost became partners in the tourism business. It was good fortune they did not because as the saying goes, “partnerships are sinking ships.” Instead they each built a camp. Art built Viking Island Lodge on Douglas Lake and as a result they remained lifelong friends.

Bill tried to co-ordinate his camp business with his summer prospecting and the two occupations were often at odds.

Incredibly, he did have loyal customers. How they even found out about the place is a mystery but they made friends with Bill and came year after year. One group consisted of three families from Kansas. Another was a machinist from Chicago and his friends. Another was Lawrence Harbach who had a lake named after him. So did his friend, Bud Leone.

2.      2. My dad was also a trapper.

There probably were few people in the United States who knew more about trapping than Milo Donald Baughman.

He started as a teenager in the Great Depression by trapping skunks in his hometown of Painseville, Ohio. In those days everybody, even in towns, raised chickens and gardens in their backyard. These attracted skunks and there was nothing worse than the stench of Pepe Le Pew after an altercation with the dog. Residents were more than willing to get rid of the varmints. The pelts, once fleshed, stretched and dried, brought $1 which was a common daily wage at the time.

Dad was a great reader of outdoor magazines like Fur-Fish-Game and got the trapping bug after reading about the exploits of E.J. Dailey and Elmer Kreps. There were fortunes to be made in catching wild fur. For instance, a single silver fox (a color phase of the red fox), could bring over $1,000 at auction, that is until people like Dailey figured out how to raise them in fur farms.

Skunks weren’t the only critters killing chickens either. Raccoons were just as abundant and raccoon coats were all the rage. Raccoons brought in $3 to $5. Dad started checking his trapline before school, after school and full-time on weekends. In no time, he was making more money than his own father who was a railroad engineer but due to the depressed times, only worked a few days a week.

His best friend, Ervie Kitzel, often joined him in his trapping adventures. But alas, everything wasn’t coming up roses or rather smelling like them. The other kids made fun of Dad because no amount of washing would entirely rid him of the smell of skunk. He was in his final year at Harvey High School when he quit and started trapping full-time.

As soon as possible he bought a Model T and enlarged his trapping range to all of northeastern Ohio as well as Pennsylvania and Michigan. His catch then expanded to red fox, coyote, bobcat, mink, muskrat and weasel.

When it wasn’t trapping season, Dad and Ervie painted houses. It is probably from that they both eventually also became carpenters.

3.     3. Bill’s favourite sport was boxing and Dad had been a long practitioner of the sweet science. He had been a Golden Gloves boxer as a youth and turned professional as a heavyweight when he became an adult.

Dad and Bill could talk for hours about famous boxing matches like Jack Dempsey and Gene Tunney and the Long Count or about Joe Louis and Max Schmeling. Dad personally knew wild-haired Cleveland fight promoter Don King who would go on to promote the then-up-and-comer Cassius Clay (later Muhammad Ali).

Dad had been making quite a name for himself as a boxer in the Cleveland area. He was known as “Red” Baughman for his flaming red hair. Although his family had ignored his entire fighting career, they decided to turn out for his biggest – and final – bout. Dad said his manager told him that his best chance against his highly-ranked opponent was to “get to him” early. The guy would start slow but would get stronger in each passing round. So, Dad practically met the guy in his corner when the bell rang, and the man promptly not only knocked Dad out but also broke off his front teeth with a single punch.

“I was set up,” Dad said later. “My own manager set me up. I should have stayed away from him as long as possible, let him tire out. He had a punch like a mule.”

Dad’s mother and sister were just finding their seats when his mom asked, “Which one is Don?”

“He’s the one being carried out on the stretcher,” said his sister.

Dad regained consciousness in the locker room and that is when he had an epiphany: “There’s got to be a better way to make a living.”

He had gold caps put on his two broken front teeth and turned his concentration to becoming a master carpenter.

…to be continued

Other postings in this series:

Prologue

Rough Draft

Bad Ice

Why Here? 

A Gold Mine