The Young Man & The Canal
The Waterway Adventure Of Ernest Hemingway
Hello, everyone, and welcome to another edition of Canal Stories, a series brought to you by the Canal Corridor Association to celebrate the 175th anniversary of the Illinois & Michigan Canal and the communities that were shaped by its legacy. Throughout its life, the I&M Canal had a habit of meeting renowned historical figures before they had found their claim to fame, from a well-spoken congressman who would become president, to a rough-and-tumble mule tender who would become a Wild West legend. In 1917, true to this tradition, the canal was introduced to a young man who would grow to be one of the most celebrated American authors of all time. Today, we’re riding along with a young Ernest Hemingway and his childhood friend as they journey from Oak Park to Starved Rock. Brought to us by Arnie Bandstra, this story was written by Chet Wold, and was originally published in the September-October 2022 issue of the Illinois Heritage magazine.
In November of 1960, nearing the end of his life, Ernest Hemingway was admitted to the Mayo Clinic, in Rochester, Minnesota. It was kept from the press for six weeks, until the news finally broke, and the world learned that Hemingway, the most famous American writer of his generation, was being treated at the clinic for hypertension.
A radio broadcast of the story caught the attention of Oak Park native Ray Ohlsen, who had been friends with Hemingway in high school, and on January 11th, Ohlsen sent a get-well card to his old classmate.
Ohlsen received a letter in return, dated January 15th. “It was worth going to Rochester to hear from you, kid,” Hemingway began. “Will be out of here soon. Let me know how you are and any news of the old gang when you get time.” At the bottom of the letter, he made sure to include something that his classmate would remember, a memory that surely made both of them smile: “Remember that trip we made in the canoe down past Starved Rock. Best always, Ernie.”
The canal trip down past Starved Rock took place in April of 1917, at the start of their spring break, when Hemingway and Ohlsen were both seniors in high school. They lived in the village of Oak Park when it was still “an island on the Illinois prairie,” protected, as it were, from the industry and urbanization of nearby Chicago.
They had grown up at the turn of the 20th century, when national heroes like Theodore Roosevelt argued that Americans should strive for great things, that their first consideration should not be for a life of ease "but for a life of the strenuous endeavor." Physical exercise and sports programs were being introduced into public schools, and were becoming widely popular across the country.
At Oak Park High School, Hemingway played varsity football, was on the swimming team, and was the manager of the track team. Ohlsen, for his part, was on the soccer team, being elected captain his senior year.
They both loved the outdoors. Hemingway had spent every summer of his boyhood in the woodlands of upper Michigan. At Oak Park, they freely traversed the open North Prairie, and explored the Des Plaines River that ran a mile and a half west of the Hemingway home. It was from here, on the North Avenue Bridge, that their expedition began.
The trip would take them five days to complete. The Des Plaines River, its source being in Wisconsin, flows south-southwest until it merges with the Kankakee River near Channahon, forming the Illinois River. Along this route, the Illinois and Michigan Canal begins to run parallel with the Des Plaines River, and from these waterways, Hemingway and Ohlsen traveled.
Over fifty years later, in an interview recorded by his grandson, Ohlsen would recall details of the trip he made with Hemingway:
''During our senior year in April, we took a trip down the Des Plaines River and the Illinois River to Starved Rock. We borrowed the canoe from a friend of Ernie's and promised him that it would come back in A-1 condition. The very first thing that happened was that we went through rapids, and we were really expecting the bottom of the boat to get cut off. Then later, we got in the river and there were big rocks. We had to get out and tow it in ice water. Finally, we carried it over to the old Illinois and Michigan Canal, and went down there, carrying it around each of the different locks that they have.”
Just before reaching the I&M Canal, they stopped at the village of Lyons. A photograph taken of Hemingway shows him standing on the riverwalk near Barrypoint Bridge, holding onto a paddle—lest someone take off with their canoe—and wearing several layers that were open just enough to show off the Oak Park varsity sweater he was wearing beneath. Behind Hemingway is Hofmann Tower, an eight-story structure built in 1908 by a local brewer, to attract tourists to the area. At the time of its construction, it was the tallest structure in Illinois west of Chicago. It was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1978, and still stands today.
Of far greater historical significance, however, is the section of land here that separates the Des Plaines and Chicago Rivers. Known as the Chicago Portage, this low swamp had served as a vital travel link between the Great Lakes Waterway and the Mississippi River Valley to Native Americans for thousands of years. Its importance was realized by French explorers Louis Jolliet and Father Jacques Marquette in 1673 when they were guided through the portage by a group of Native Americans they had traveled up-river with. Jolliet was quick to envision a canal to link the Des Plaines River with the south branch of the Chicago River. Over a century and a half later, Jolliet's vision became a reality when the Illinois and Michigan Canal was built. From Lyons, Hemingway and Ohlsen covered the forty miles southwest towards Joliet and Channahon where they would enter the Illinois River.
At points along the trip, they were met by another friend named 'Toy" Ullman, who camped with Ohlsen and Hemingway alongside the river. Ohlsen remembered one of the nights when it rained and the three of them, crowded together under a small pup tent, became miserably soaked when the rainwater rushed in. When the rain stopped, they built a fire to dry off their clothes.
They glided into Will County towards the outskirts of Joliet, where they passed within five hundred feet of the limestone walls of Old Joliet Prison. On Wednesday of that week, the very day Hemingway and Ohlsen passed by, four convicts attempted a sensational escape. It's possible that the boys later saw the front-page story of the Free Trader once they reached Ottawa: “CONVICTS SEIZE WARDEN’S AUTO AND FLEE; RE-CAPTURED: Joliet, IL. April 4th – Four convicts who made a spectacular dash for liberty from the Joliet penitentiary this afternoon in Warden Zimmer's car, were recaptured after less than an hour of freedom. Frank McCloskey, murderer, John Leski, burglar, and John Lane and Ross Clausen, robbers, overcame the trusties in charge of the warden's car, drove headlong through a group of 700 fellow convicts returning from the quarries, and sped down the roadway. A posse pursued them for six miles until they ran into a ditch and surrendered."
Also making front page headlines that week was the entry of the United States into World War I. At eight o'clock on Monday evening, President Woodrow Wilson went to Capitol Hill to urge both houses of Congress to declare war on Germany. The continued sinking of U.S. vessels by German U-boats had forced a sudden shift in public opinion. The country had, up until then, been solidly behind Wilson's ''America First' non-intervention policy.
Along their route, Hemingway and Ohlsen saw American flags and banners showing patriotic support for the war. President Wilson had urged all Americans to "Fly your flag.'' A reporter's account from Seneca noted that “practically every business house and many of the homes are decorated with the stars and stripes.”
In rural areas across Illinois, however, there was still strong support for the country to stay out of the war. Ohlsen, when he was interviewed by his grandson, told the story of how they came across a billboard near Channahon that read: '"America First, then Channahon." To poke fun at the townspeople who would see it the next morning, Hemingway bought a piece of chalk from a store in town and added to the sign to make it read: “America First, then Channahon, and then God Almighty.''
At Ottawa, they made good on their promise to return the canoe to Oak Park in A-1 condition, dropping it off at the train depot to have it sent back home. Entering Ottawa on the canal, they would have simply carried the canoe two blocks north on Columbus Street to the train depot. According to plan, the last part of the trip was the ten-mile hike west to Starved Rock.
By 1917, Starved Rock had been a state park for just six years. The extensive work of the Civilian Conservation Corps to make the park more accessible wouldn't begin until the 1930s. For Hemingway and Ohlsen, simply getting to the top of the rock was not an easy task. Ohlsen records that they climbed the face of the rock to reach the summit: "It looks very steep, but it wasn't nearly as bad as it looked. We had to grasp roots to pull ourselves up. When I got about halfway, I decided to go back until I looked down on the river right underneath me and I kept going. Well, we got to the top and crawled over, and some Boy Scouts had been camping and they saw us coming. They ran in all directions, and we never did see them after that.''
They had traveled nearly ninety miles in four days, and at the top of Starved Rock, they took time to rest and marvel at the panorama before them. They camped there that night, and in the morning, they hiked back to Ottawa and took the train home to Oak Park.
The following year saw the eighteen year-old Hemingway on the front lines in Italy, driving an ambulance for the American Red Cross. An exploding mortar shell sidelined him for the duration of the war, yet his recovery set into motion a series of experiences that he would later draw on to write the novels that made him famous.
Hemingway lived an extraordinary life, yet it ended in tragedy. The news reports of him being treated for hypertension at Rochester were actually cover stories for the electric shock treatments he was given for depression. He ended his own life six months later.
Ray Ohlsen, on the other hand, lived out an ordinary midwestern life, most notable, perhaps, for the award-winning rose bushes that he learned to grow in his later years, and the sixteen grandchildren that he left behind. His name, however, will be forever linked to that of his famous Oak Park classmate, and that canoe trip down to Starved Rock.
That concludes today’s Canal Story. Thank you so much for joining us as we continue our journey through the history of the Illinois & Michigan Canal. If you’ve enjoyed this episode, pass it along to your family and friends, be sure to leave us a like or drop us a comment, and we’ll see you again very soon.