Calvin Rutstrum
Encyclopedia
Calvin Rutstrum was an author
who wrote fifteen books, most relating to wilderness
camping experiences and techniques. Most of his books were written at his cabin on Cloud Bay, Ontario. Rutstrum was born in 1895 and died February 5, 1982 in Osceola, Wisconsin
.
on October 26, 1895, a son of Swedish immigrants. Within 3 years they had moved to Chicago
, and then St. Paul, Minnesota. His father died of pneumonia
when he was about three years old. Rutstrum dropped out of school at in the seventh grade at age 13. Soon after that he began his working and adventuring life. Though his mother remarried, the family had little money and Rutstrum worked at a wide range of odd jobs, some of them entrepreneur
ial, at a very young age. At the same young age he also sought to maximize his time exploring and playing in his neighborhood's hardwood
forest.
Rutstrum was also drawn to the Mississippi
. Before the age of 12 he had spent weeks traveling on it with his friends, often riding log booms. As he wrote later, there we was:
At age 16, after acquiring his 30-30 carbine, .22 rifle, fishing tackle, ammunition, tent, bedroll, axe, knife, cook kit, and $25, he spent $24 of that for passage to Montana
when he worked at a ranch
riding fence in the summers and spent winters in an abandoned log cabin
in the mountains. At age 18, Rutstrum began his first long canoe trip, a 100 day trip in the wilderness in northern Minnesota.
as a Navy medical corpsman, and as a criminal bank investigator for 10 years, and as a camp instructor and guide. Later he made money by buying and selling land. In the early 1920s Rutstrum bought, subdivided and sold three 40 acre tracts on the northwest shore of Lake Superior
. This, combined with his limited lifestyle requirements provided a significant large step towards financial independence, where jobs became superfluous
Early in his life he lived in a cabin on the Flute Reed river along Lake Superior's Northwest shore between Grand Marais and Duluth. His next home was a cabin on an island in Sea Gull Lake, near the end of the Gunflint Trail
in Minnesota where he lived for 10 years. Later, as this became too developed for him, he moved to Marchington Lake, about 30 miles east of Sioux Lookout, Ontario. He then built a stone house in Marine-on-St. Croix, Minnesota which became his primary residence, while retaining his Ontario cabin. He also built a home on Cloud Bay, Lake Superior. He intended to be a "simple little house" but zoning regulations forced it to be more substantial. His wife Florence had been visiting Mexico with her aunt every year, and coaxed Cal to head Southwest. Rustrum and his wife Florence bought an adobe house in Pecos River, New Mexico which they remodeled and modernized. They lived there part time for 7 years in the early 1960s. He decided that life there was unpleasant, and sold it back to its original owners.
ists. His next book The New Way of the Wilderness (illustrated by Les Kouba) expertly covered how to equip and dress for winter, canoe camping, and how to eat well while wilderness camping. After that The Wilderness Cabin described how to build log cabins and fireplaces. North American Canoe Country covered wilderness canoe travel, including many specialized topics. Wilderness Route Finder focused on such using traditional methods.
Paradise Below Zero covered long term sub zero (Fahrenheit) wilderness camping and travel. Notably it is both a "how to" book but with much inspirational and philosophical content in line with the title. The era of the book (1968) preceded the prevalence of newer camping products and materials, yet to this day it points out the unsuitability of many current winter camping techniques (even with high tech equipment) when applied to prolonged camping at temperatures below zero Fahrenheit. Paradise Below Zero is considered to be a bible for extended sub-zero camping without the use of modern equipment. He wrote his autobiography Challenge of the Wilderness which was published in 1970. It was reprinted in 1979 as A Wilderness Autobiography.
Back Country was his final book, published in 1981. It was a storytelling book about backcountry characters with whom he had friendships or experiences. In a conversation with Jim Dale Vickery, Rutstrum characterized this book as being about "just the romance of the wilderness".
, John Muir
, Aldo Leopold
, Robert Service
, Bob Marshall
, Olaus Johan Murie and Sigurd Olson. As with most of the others, his writing skills and published works contributed to his prominence. These combined with his expertise in wilderness living and travel, including in harsh conditions as well as his wilderness philosophies and experiences.
As recreational use of wilderness areas began to rapidly grow, Rutstrum's writings were in the middle of it. The book Wilderness Visionaries said "In a sense, he became a high priest of an emerging camping cult." His books captured both the "how to" and the pleasure of longer term wilderness travel and camping. Rutstrum and Bradford Angier
were the two most prominent writers with this combination at the time.
His actual life followed the philosophy espoused in his writings...prioritizing one's life for time in the wilderness, and the benefits of such.
Rutstrum died on February 5, 1982 in Osceola, Wisconsin, survived by his wife Florence. Four years before, in Chips from a Wilderness log Rutstrum wrote: "If you want to do something for me after I'm gone, live so as to not defile the precious earth".
Author
An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...
who wrote fifteen books, most relating to wilderness
Wilderness
Wilderness or wildland is a natural environment on Earth that has not been significantly modified by human activity. It may also be defined as: "The most intact, undisturbed wild natural areas left on our planet—those last truly wild places that humans do not control and have not developed with...
camping experiences and techniques. Most of his books were written at his cabin on Cloud Bay, Ontario. Rutstrum was born in 1895 and died February 5, 1982 in Osceola, Wisconsin
Osceola, Wisconsin
Osceola is a village in Polk County, Wisconsin, United States. The population was 2,421 at the 2000 census. The village is located mostly within the Town of Osceola.The downtown features Cascade Falls, a waterfall with a crest, located on Osceola Creek....
.
"His wilderness experiences begin just before WWI and span the modern era including the environmental movement of the late 1960s and 1970s. He published his books starting in 1946 and continued to publish right up to near his death in 1982. ...Throughout his life he lived many experiences and held several jobs.....his writing skills were primarily self-taught from reading....Many of these jobs he held just long enough to set himself up for some time in the wilderness. Many of his wilderness years were spent wandering the Canadian ShieldCanadian ShieldThe Canadian Shield, also called the Laurentian Plateau, or Bouclier Canadien , is a vast geological shield covered by a thin layer of soil that forms the nucleus of the North American or Laurentia craton. It is an area mostly composed of igneous rock which relates to its long volcanic history...
or the Boundary WatersBoundary WatersThe Boundary Waters — also called the Quetico-Superior country — is a region of wilderness straddling the Canada–United States border between Ontario and Minnesota, in the region just west of Lake Superior. This region is part of the Superior National Forest in northeastern Minnesota, and in Canada...
area of MinnesotaMinnesotaMinnesota is a U.S. state located in the Midwestern United States. The twelfth largest state of the U.S., it is the twenty-first most populous, with 5.3 million residents. Minnesota was carved out of the eastern half of the Minnesota Territory and admitted to the Union as the thirty-second state...
on long canoe, walking, or sledding trips. Over the course of his life he also maintained or built several residences-Canadian and Minnesota cabins, a Marine-on-St. Croix home and a New MexicoNew MexicoNew Mexico is a state located in the southwest and western regions of the United States. New Mexico is also usually considered one of the Mountain States. With a population density of 16 per square mile, New Mexico is the sixth-most sparsely inhabited U.S...
ranch home."
Youth
Rutstrum was born in Hobart, IndianaHobart, Indiana
Hobart is home to many thriving businesses in its downtown shopping district, including the historic Art Theatre.Hobart is also home to the Westfield Southlake Shopping Mall and many surrounding retailers and restaurants, although most businesses are required to list their addresses as Merrillville...
on October 26, 1895, a son of Swedish immigrants. Within 3 years they had moved to Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
, and then St. Paul, Minnesota. His father died of pneumonia
Pneumonia
Pneumonia is an inflammatory condition of the lung—especially affecting the microscopic air sacs —associated with fever, chest symptoms, and a lack of air space on a chest X-ray. Pneumonia is typically caused by an infection but there are a number of other causes...
when he was about three years old. Rutstrum dropped out of school at in the seventh grade at age 13. Soon after that he began his working and adventuring life. Though his mother remarried, the family had little money and Rutstrum worked at a wide range of odd jobs, some of them entrepreneur
Entrepreneur
An entrepreneur is an owner or manager of a business enterprise who makes money through risk and initiative.The term was originally a loanword from French and was first defined by the Irish-French economist Richard Cantillon. Entrepreneur in English is a term applied to a person who is willing to...
ial, at a very young age. At the same young age he also sought to maximize his time exploring and playing in his neighborhood's hardwood
Hardwood
Hardwood is wood from angiosperm trees . It may also be used for those trees themselves: these are usually broad-leaved; in temperate and boreal latitudes they are mostly deciduous, but in tropics and subtropics mostly evergreen.Hardwood contrasts with softwood...
forest.
Rutstrum was also drawn to the Mississippi
Mississippi
Mississippi is a U.S. state located in the Southern United States. Jackson is the state capital and largest city. The name of the state derives from the Mississippi River, which flows along its western boundary, whose name comes from the Ojibwe word misi-ziibi...
. Before the age of 12 he had spent weeks traveling on it with his friends, often riding log booms. As he wrote later, there we was:
"a healthy young animal with less than a dozen years from birth, alive in the early summer sunshine, barefooted, youthfully entranced, eager as spring for life, as intrinsically a part of the river. I believed, as the waterthrush that foraged at the mouth of Minnehaha Creek, where the rippling current joined the mighty Mississippi...To be free as a wild creature, not having to shoulder human cares, able to climb, run, jump. swim, lie on an embankment in the sunshine—these gave a release to the young spirit that may be perhaps described as primitive, but nevertheless exquisite in the most elemental sense.
At age 16, after acquiring his 30-30 carbine, .22 rifle, fishing tackle, ammunition, tent, bedroll, axe, knife, cook kit, and $25, he spent $24 of that for passage to Montana
Montana
Montana is a state in the Western United States. The western third of Montana contains numerous mountain ranges. Smaller, "island ranges" are found in the central third of the state, for a total of 77 named ranges of the Rocky Mountains. This geographical fact is reflected in the state's name,...
when he worked at a ranch
Ranch
A ranch is an area of landscape, including various structures, given primarily to the practice of ranching, the practice of raising grazing livestock such as cattle or sheep for meat or wool. The word most often applies to livestock-raising operations in the western United States and Canada, though...
riding fence in the summers and spent winters in an abandoned log cabin
Log cabin
A log cabin is a house built from logs. It is a fairly simple type of log house. A distinction should be drawn between the traditional meanings of "log cabin" and "log house." Historically most "Log cabins" were a simple one- or 1½-story structures, somewhat impermanent, and less finished or less...
in the mountains. At age 18, Rutstrum began his first long canoe trip, a 100 day trip in the wilderness in northern Minnesota.
Adult life
He served in WWIWorld War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
as a Navy medical corpsman, and as a criminal bank investigator for 10 years, and as a camp instructor and guide. Later he made money by buying and selling land. In the early 1920s Rutstrum bought, subdivided and sold three 40 acre tracts on the northwest shore of Lake Superior
Lake Superior
Lake Superior is the largest of the five traditionally-demarcated Great Lakes of North America. It is bounded to the north by the Canadian province of Ontario and the U.S. state of Minnesota, and to the south by the U.S. states of Wisconsin and Michigan. It is the largest freshwater lake in the...
. This, combined with his limited lifestyle requirements provided a significant large step towards financial independence, where jobs became superfluous
Early in his life he lived in a cabin on the Flute Reed river along Lake Superior's Northwest shore between Grand Marais and Duluth. His next home was a cabin on an island in Sea Gull Lake, near the end of the Gunflint Trail
Gunflint Trail
Cook County Road 12, also known as the Gunflint Trail, is a paved roadway that begins in Grand Marais, Minnesota and ends at Saganaga Lake in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness , near the US border with Ontario, Canada.-Route description:...
in Minnesota where he lived for 10 years. Later, as this became too developed for him, he moved to Marchington Lake, about 30 miles east of Sioux Lookout, Ontario. He then built a stone house in Marine-on-St. Croix, Minnesota which became his primary residence, while retaining his Ontario cabin. He also built a home on Cloud Bay, Lake Superior. He intended to be a "simple little house" but zoning regulations forced it to be more substantial. His wife Florence had been visiting Mexico with her aunt every year, and coaxed Cal to head Southwest. Rustrum and his wife Florence bought an adobe house in Pecos River, New Mexico which they remodeled and modernized. They lived there part time for 7 years in the early 1960s. He decided that life there was unpleasant, and sold it back to its original owners.
Emergence as an author
His first book was New Way of the Wilderness illustrated by Les Kouba. It taught readers how to live well in the wilderness, including in cold weather, and traveling by canoe. This book started as a wilderness manual written for Camp Lincoln, where he worked for 10 years. He then rewrote it for Macmillan publishing company who published it in 1946 as a hardcover because they suspected it would be successful. The Outdoor Book Club immediately ordered 52,000 copies. As he later recalled, he then said "this beats working". It is still considered a bible for serious canoeCanoe
A canoe or Canadian canoe is a small narrow boat, typically human-powered, though it may also be powered by sails or small electric or gas motors. Canoes are usually pointed at both bow and stern and are normally open on top, but can be decked over A canoe (North American English) or Canadian...
ists. His next book The New Way of the Wilderness (illustrated by Les Kouba) expertly covered how to equip and dress for winter, canoe camping, and how to eat well while wilderness camping. After that The Wilderness Cabin described how to build log cabins and fireplaces. North American Canoe Country covered wilderness canoe travel, including many specialized topics. Wilderness Route Finder focused on such using traditional methods.
Paradise Below Zero covered long term sub zero (Fahrenheit) wilderness camping and travel. Notably it is both a "how to" book but with much inspirational and philosophical content in line with the title. The era of the book (1968) preceded the prevalence of newer camping products and materials, yet to this day it points out the unsuitability of many current winter camping techniques (even with high tech equipment) when applied to prolonged camping at temperatures below zero Fahrenheit. Paradise Below Zero is considered to be a bible for extended sub-zero camping without the use of modern equipment. He wrote his autobiography Challenge of the Wilderness which was published in 1970. It was reprinted in 1979 as A Wilderness Autobiography.
Back Country was his final book, published in 1981. It was a storytelling book about backcountry characters with whom he had friendships or experiences. In a conversation with Jim Dale Vickery, Rutstrum characterized this book as being about "just the romance of the wilderness".
Prominence
The book "Wilderness Visionaries" included Rutstrum on a list of eight (North American) wilderness visionaries along with Henry David ThoreauHenry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau was an American author, poet, philosopher, abolitionist, naturalist, tax resister, development critic, surveyor, historian, and leading transcendentalist...
, John Muir
John Muir
John Muir was a Scottish-born American naturalist, author, and early advocate of preservation of wilderness in the United States. His letters, essays, and books telling of his adventures in nature, especially in the Sierra Nevada mountains of California, have been read by millions...
, Aldo Leopold
Aldo Leopold
Aldo Leopold was an American author, scientist, ecologist, forester, and environmentalist. He was a professor at the University of Wisconsin and is best known for his book A Sand County Almanac , which has sold over two million copies...
, Robert Service
Robert W. Service
Robert William Service was a poet and writer who has often been called "the Bard of the Yukon".Service is best known for his poems "The Shooting of Dan McGrew" and "The Cremation of Sam McGee", from his first book, Songs of a Sourdough...
, Bob Marshall
Bob Marshall (wilderness activist)
Robert "Bob" Marshall was an American forester, writer and wilderness activist. The son of wealthy constitutional lawyer and conservationist Louis Marshall, Bob Marshall developed a love for the outdoors as a young child...
, Olaus Johan Murie and Sigurd Olson. As with most of the others, his writing skills and published works contributed to his prominence. These combined with his expertise in wilderness living and travel, including in harsh conditions as well as his wilderness philosophies and experiences.
As recreational use of wilderness areas began to rapidly grow, Rutstrum's writings were in the middle of it. The book Wilderness Visionaries said "In a sense, he became a high priest of an emerging camping cult." His books captured both the "how to" and the pleasure of longer term wilderness travel and camping. Rutstrum and Bradford Angier
Bradford Angier
Bradford Angier was a wilderness survivalist and proponent of back to earth living. He authored more than 35 books on how to survive in the wild and how to live minimalisticly off the land....
were the two most prominent writers with this combination at the time.
His actual life followed the philosophy espoused in his writings...prioritizing one's life for time in the wilderness, and the benefits of such.
Books authored by Rustrum
Rutstrum's 15 books described his enchantment of the wilderness and instructed readers on preparing for and conducting canoe trips into remote areas. Rutstrum's published works include:- Way of the Wilderness (1946), (1952) (substantially revised)
- Memoranda for Canoe Country (1953)
- The New Way of the Wilderness (1958)
- The Wilderness Cabin (1961)
- North American Canoe Country (1964)
- Wilderness Route Finder (1967)
- Paradise Below Zero (1968)
- Challenge of the Wilderness (1970)
- Once Upon a Wilderness (1973)
- The Wilderness Life (1975)
- Chips from a Wilderness Log (1978)
- A Wilderness Autobiography (1979)
- Hiking Back to Health (1980)
- A Columnist Looks at Life, Here's Cal Rutstrum (1981)
- Backcountry (1981)
Final Years
Rutstrum died on February 5, 1982 in Osceola, Wisconsin, survived by his wife Florence. Four years before, in Chips from a Wilderness log Rutstrum wrote: "If you want to do something for me after I'm gone, live so as to not defile the precious earth".
Further reading
- Wilderness Medicine, by William Forgey 1979 (introduction by Calvin Rutstrum)