By Kyrmyzy Turebayeva
For more than six decades, Minnesota high school biology teacher Bob O’Hara climbed into a canoe every summer and paddled north.
His journeys eventually stretched from the Boundary Waters, a protected region straddling the border of Minnesota and Ontario, to the remote rivers of the Canadian Far North.
What began as a love of wilderness travel became a lifelong pursuit that made him a quiet legend among serious canoeists.
His story is the subject of Ryan Rodgers’ new book, “Where the Green Light Shines: A Fifty-Year Odyssey from the Boundary Waters to the Far North” (University of Minnesota Press, $29.95).
Rodgers, a journalist and author, says O’Hara appears to be an ordinary person at first glance. Behind that quiet exterior, however, is a life almost entirely shaped by wilderness canoeing.
“I first came across Bob a few years ago while I was working on a completely different topic. Someone told me I had to talk to him because he knew everything there was to know about that subject,” he said.
“Later, during our email correspondence, Bob attached a list of his Far North canoe trips. When I opened the document, I saw dozens of expeditions spanning more than 50 years. I had never even heard of most of those places,” said Rodgers.
Rodgers first wrote a magazine article about O’Hara’s career as a wilderness canoeist and later published a longer feature on his many expeditions.
Eventually, however, it became clear that O’Hara’s story was far too large for a magazine article.
“When I visited Bob at his home, we talked for several hours, and I was blown away by the depth, scope and variety of the trips he had taken throughout his lifetime. Even an article of eight or nine thousand words only scratched the surface. That’s when I realized this story could only be told in book-length form,” Rodgers said.
Writing the book took nearly three years. He organized it primarily in chronological order, selecting several of O’Hara’s most significant expeditions to tell the story of a life devoted to wilderness canoeing.
O’Hara’s canoeing journey began in the 1950s when he was a Boy Scout.
Over time, what began as a childhood passion became the defining pursuit of his life.
According to Rodgers, O’Hara has returned to the Boundary Waters every summer since 1959, exploring not only the lakes and rivers of northern Minnesota but also increasingly remote wilderness across the Canadian Far North.
For more than six decades, O’Hara completed expeditions through remote northern Canadian river systems, following routes rarely traveled by recreational paddlers.
According to Rodgers, one of O’Hara’s last major Far North expeditions took place in Alaska in 2017.
“I divide Bob’s canoeing career into three phases. The first consists of his formative trips, when he was learning the ropes. The second includes his most ambitious expeditions, culminating in his attempt to canoe part of the Northwest Passage in the late 1970s.”
“The third phase covers his later trips, when he continued traveling across northern Canada but no longer attempted routes as ambitious or demanding as those he undertook when he was younger,” Rodgers said.
One of O’Hara’s most difficult and ambitious expeditions was his 1976 attempt to paddle part of the Northwest Passage.
Rodgers says that journey best captures O’Hara’s character, his willingness to choose the hardest routes and venture into places about which little was known.
The expedition began in a remote settlement in northern Canada, where an Inuit friend O’Hara had met on an earlier trip transported the team by motorboat.
From there, they planned to follow an unnamed stream to its source, cross the divide on foot and continue down another river to the Arctic Ocean.
Almost from the beginning, the expedition faced one obstacle after another. A pilots’ strike delayed the team before they even reached the region.
Once in the tundra, they encountered heavy ice conditions, carried their canoes and gear across snow-covered terrain and eventually had to navigate around icebergs.
Rodgers devoted an entire chapter to the expedition because, in his view, it best illustrates both the scale and difficulty of O’Hara’s wilderness journeys.
Over the years, O’Hara traveled with more than 100 people.
Some joined him for only one trip, while others returned to paddle with him again and again.
O’Hara, now 85, has not yet given up canoeing – he continues planning summer canoe and camping trips in the Boundary Waters, Rodgers said.
For Rodgers, O’Hara’s story is about more than one remarkable canoeist.
It is also a reminder of the connection between people and the natural world.
He believes that connection has become increasingly important as wild landscapes face growing pressures.
“We’re kind of at the dawn of a new era of environmental destruction. It’s more important than ever to remind people of the value of wild places and that we depend on a healthy, functioning environment,” Rodgers said.