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| Once again, we are indebted to Dana Lee, CML for this very fine photo. |
One early spring day back in the 70s there was a single
engine float plane that blew off course on the way from Duluth up to Thunder
Bay. The pilot made an emergency landing
and she and (most of) her plane washed ashore on one of the northernmost Apostle
Islands.
Luckily, the plane’s cargo was stock for a fishing camp and
the pilot was able to retrieve the fishing tackle and booze. The
island had suffered a blow-down some years prior and the dense tangle of logs
and brush along with boughs from the surviving pines provided ample material
for firewood and rough shelter.
The stranded aviatrix passed the summer gathering firewood,
fishing, boozing and failing to construct a raft until mid-October when a fish-smoking
experiment got out of control. She escaped
unharmed, but the conflagration rapidly spread through the dense brush.
Overnight, the fire consumed such a portion of vegetation on
the island that the smoke column was spotted by a barge in the shipping channel
30 miles away. The coastguard was called
and in a matter of hours the lost pilot was rescued and headed back to
civilization to pick up where she’d left off.
Unfortunately, falling out of the sky made the prospect of flying a plane for a living less lustrous; the pilot developed an anxiety disorder which grounded
her charter business. At the time there
was a new paradigm for treating psychological trauma through visual arts: by being able to physically manifest anxiety
through painting, sculpture or fiber arts, the individual could acknowledge the
source and move beyond it.
Dorothea Ruth of the Port of Duluth, for that’s who it was, never
did fly again. But she did go on to have
a successful career in home décor and, ultimately, a popular line of door hardware
which evoked her Northern Island aesthetic: sticks, rocks, and rafts that will
not float.
