A raft is a raft is a raft -- or is it?

Lumber Raft 1868 -- another painting by Frances Anne Hopkins

A river runs through the farm

Do you ever wonder, sometimes, how people living under primitive conditions are able to accomplish what they accomplish? My painter and your very own Frances Anne Hopkins provided an illustration of ingenuity 19th Century style in her painting, "The Lumber Raft 1868."

This time, I am not certain of the exact location where this event took place, but I would not be afraid to put a few dollars on the table betting that it was on Lake Superior, and probably an enterprise associated with building projects in Fort William and Port Arthur in present day Ontario, Canada.

Look closely at the painting and at the scope of the activities. The raft in the foreground, one of two in the painting, has three large sails and a tent. What appears to be five large barrels or bales are on the deck, probably food supplies. A cooking fire burns. There are approximately 50 men scattered around the raft. No small enterprise, this. No better eye for detail than Frances.

Although mine was not a task comparable to the one captured on canvas by Frances, when I was a boy, about 11, I built a raft by creating a double layer deck from old, dried fence posts. For a few weeks that summer, I was a Minnesota version of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, exploring a river that ran through my grandmother's farm. The raft met an untimely end when it was consumed in a grass fire the next spring. It was timeless and ageless fun while it lasted.

The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks;
The long day wanes; the slow moon climbs; the deep
Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends.
'T is not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down;
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are,--
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

The concluding lines from
"Ulysses"
By Alfred, Lord Tennyson