Some time after the divorce had been granted, Jim remarked:
“As we grow older we all learn that it is better to let the dead past bury its dead in peace.”
After the acceptance and publication of his first two book-length novels by the Bobbs-Merrill Company Jim began the long drive for publicity that is so vitally important to an author. Realizing that in order to become famous he must get his name before the reading public, Jim induced more than one newspaper to print his success story. Perhaps the best one was that which appeared in the Detroit News-Tribune. Even the Argus, back in Owosso, gave him a great write-up, and Jim Curwood at last knew that he was really on his way to a colorful and glorious career.
Slowly but surely the little city of Owosso began to claim James Oliver Curwood as its own native son. In fact, the writer’s name was upon every tongue. Even those who at one time had felt that they were much too good to speak to Jim Curwood, now regarded him as a close friend. Even those who had never seen him boasted of having grown up together. Such talk as this was going on in and around Owosso and in other parts of the state. All were eager to make claim upon one whom they had once shunned and laughed at.
At long last Jim decided that he wanted and needed a vacation very badly, so he wired his brother Ed, down in Ohio, to come up and join him for a trip into the wilds.
Jim lost no time in getting ready, and soon the two brothers started on their long trek into the wilds of northern Canada. Traveling aboard the Grand Trunk railways, they received free transportation because Jim was well known by officials and was well liked.
The trip was to be a long one. They were headed for the Athabaska Landing territory and possibly farther up to the edge of the Great Slave country that abounds with all sorts of North American wildlife, which for the most part, roam about at will.
Jim and Ed took to canoes many times, thoroughly enjoying their fight in the roaring rapids of the swift, turbulent northern streams.
On their walks in the forests Jim stopped many times to listen to the sounds of wildlife all about them. High above in the towering pine trees came the ever welcomed songs of the birds. Over on a ridge could be heard the calls of foxes. Somewhere in the heart of the forests came the sounds of mink, the hoot of owls, and the roar of the grizzly bear.