Hudson Bay Skipper,Visiting Here, Finds Ann Arbor Weather Too Warm
Hudson Bay Skipper, Visiting Here, Finds Ann Arbor Weather Too Warm
There were snow flurries in the air, the temperature stood in the 20s and almost everyone in Ann Arbor was willing to agree that March had come in like a lion.
But not Capt. J. O. Nielsen, who lives at Clute Post Office, Ont., and operates the motor ketch Fort Churchill, a supply boat for the Hudson Bay Co.
Capt. Nielsen had been suffering from the heat — or at least the warmth — ever since he arrived in Ann Arbor several days ago, and yesterday, as he went through The Ann Arbor News building (it was the first modern newspaper plant he had seen) he mopped his perspiring brow until his handkerchief was wringing wet.
For the Canadian skipper, who lives near Cochran, about 900 miles from here (mostly north) and spends the open months on James and Hudson bays, said yesterday was more like summer than winter.
Visits Prof. Sherzer
Capt. Nielsen is visiting Prof. Allen F. Sherzer of the University engineering faculty, renewing a friendship of the past three summers when Prof. Sherzer has made annual vacation trips into northern Canada.
During each of the summers Prof. Sherzer spent about a month with Capt. Nielsen on the supply boat as the skipper made his calls on the seven remote posts which he serves.
The captain has been engaged in this sort of work for 35 years, ever since his boat was wrecked in James Bay and he had to spend the winter there. Before that he had sailed the seven seas (or at least a good many of them).
From mid-June to mid-October the supply boat makes from 10 to a dozen trips between Moose Factory on the southern shore of James Bay to its several ports of call. The two northernmost posts receive only one boat a year. Supplies are brought to Moosonee, near Moose Factory, by rail.
When the ice closes up the bay. Capt. Nielsen retires to his home at Clute Post Office for the winter. What does he do during those seven months? Well, he devoted a lot of time to keeping up the fires. The low this winter has been 52 below zero, and it was 45 below just before he left to make the present trip.
Hot In July
This part of Canada has great extremes of temperature, and the July sun reflecting on the rocky barrens occasionally sends the temperature above 100. Then the captain dresses like Mahatma Gandi, he says.
August on James Bay is like October or early November in Ann Arbor, Prof. Sherzer commented, and sometimes there are snow flurries just like yesterday.
If the captain had his way, he wouldn't wear any overcoat in Ann Arbor on a day like yesterday, but Prof. Sherzer prevailed upon him to keep it on for appearance sake and to avoid catching cold.
Although Capt. Nielsen has sailed into many ports, this is the first time he has ever been in the United States. It's so much like Canada that he's surprised every time he sees the Stars and Stripes instead of the British flag, he says. He will leave Saturday on his return trip.
Prof. Sherzer plans to take a different Canadian trip next summer, travelling on another supply boat on a more northerly route, but he expects to rejoin Capt. Nielsen for a month or so in 1940.
RECALL PLEASANT EXPERIENCES TOGETHER: Prof. Allen Sherzer of the University engineering faculty (left), and a vacation companion of the past three summers, Capt. J. O. Nielsen, skipper of a Hudson Bay Co. supply boat operating on James and Hudson Bays, were enjoying a mutual joke as they were photographed here. Capt. Nielsen is visiting in Ann Arbor for a week.