“He was rather portly and always in jovial humor. He never tired of painting vivid word pictures for me of his beloved Canada, more particularly the vast panorama of unexplored wilderness toward the north and west. His mind was filled with information concerning that magnificent expanse of territory and he never lost an opportunity to introduce me to important Canadians who came to his office. I met many Dominion immigration officials, members of Parliament, Hudson Bay Company officials, officers of the Grand Trunk and Canadian Pacific, members of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police, and scores of others whose interests were in the vast areas of the Canadian Northland.”
J.C. WEBER
It was MacInness of the Canadian Government who now handed Jim Curwood the necessary papers for the trip into the northern wilds and at the same time wished him all the luck in the world. “Dear old Mac” passed away a short time after Jim returned from his trip. Jim always liked to speak of M. V. MacInness after his passing in a heart-felt, reverent voice.
“There has been an empty place in my heart since he died, and whenever I go up into that great Northland I know Mac’s spirit is there, for it was God’s Country to him just as surely as it always will be to me.”
At last, after all preparations had been made, Jim started out on the first of the many exploration trips which he was to make into the wilds of the Canadian Northwest in years to come. He went first to the vast, beautiful wilderness of the Peace River Country, over to the sweeping, towering mountains to the westward, then to the great reaches and solitary plains of the Arctic to the Athabaska and the Mackenzie. From there he traveled down to the uninhabited forests and timberlands about the mighty Hudson’s Bay. These forests later became a ruling passion and a dominant force in Jim’s life. He wanted “the uneducated people of civilization” to love them just as he loved them. Upon his return he pleaded with the populace to conserve and protect the virgin forests and all the wild life that inhabited them.
“It is my ambition to take my readers with me into the heart of nature,” Jim Curwood once said and there is little doubt but that he did. Indeed, Jim took more than seven million of his readers into the heart of that nature and wilderness. This same devout love he held for the “great outdoors” later led Jim to start the great conservation movement in the State of Michigan. He led the onslaught against the “game hogs” unmercifully, broadening his crusade throughout the country.
It was during these trips into the wilds of Canada that he decided to make his home in Owosso. So in the little town in central Michigan where he had been born and raised Jim finally settled down. His father had quit the cobbling shop and Jim supported him, as he had faithfully promised.
Within three weeks after his return to Owosso, Lou Allison invited Jim Curwood to a chicken-pie supper which was to be held at the Congregational Church. Here he met a very charming and beautiful young lady named Ethel Greenwood. Jim did not recognize her at first, but at a later date remembered her as being in school at the same time he was, two or three grades below him. He especially remembered her sparkling eyes, and he found that they had not changed with the passing of years. Jim always liked to think of her as the little schoolgirl of several years back. Those sparkling eyes made a great impression upon him at once. Later on during the church supper Jim and Miss Greenwood found themselves alone.