Born Naked by Farley Mowat

the seat beside him.
    In 1933 one could not drive east and west across Canada because no road yet spanned the great hump of granite and spruce forests north of Lake Superior. Consequently, we had to cross into Michigan in order to make our way westward. This we did by taking a ferry across the St. Clair River from Sarnia to Port Huron.
    Since Eardlie’s best speed never exceeded twenty-five miles an hour our progress was leisurely. On a good day we might run a hundred and twenty miles. We made fairly good time on pavement but gravel roads, which became the norm the farther west we went, were our bane. Poor Eardlie could not seem to get a good grip on gravel, and slithered and slid about with abandon. Nevertheless he was always game and the log is filled with entries attesting to his fortitude. “This day Eardlie hauled Rolling Home over a steady succession of fairly high hills on the way to Grand Rapids, and did it without even a wheeze or a cough, though he did drink an extra quart of oil.” It is notable that Angus always referred to Eardlie as male, and in terms which more nearly applied to a horse than an automobile. But Rolling Home was female, as a ship must be. It seems not to have occurred to him that the idea of a horse hauling a ship across the continent was somewhat bizarre.
    Many of the people we met along the way certainly thought we were a bit odd; yet, for the most part, they were kindly and well-disposed. On one occasion we parked the Ark in a munici­pal tourist camp but the day was too hot for Helen to do any cooking so we drove to a roadside café for dinner. At a cost of forty cents apiece, we had southern fried chicken with all the trimmings, and apple pie and ice cream. The proprietor was friendly, but too inquisitive for Angus’s taste. He wanted to know where we had come from, where we were going and, in both instances, why.
    â€œI told him,” Angus noted, “that we were sailing a prairie schooner to the west for a cargo of buffalo robes. The fellow looked out the window at Eardlie sitting there with his top down and replied thoughtfully, ‘Sun gets powerful strong in these parts. Lotsa folks been known to git sun stroke!’”
    The route we were following required us to take a ferry across Lake Michigan, but when we arrived at the docks on the eastern side of the lake it was to find that Rolling Home was too high to clear the vessel’s doors. We were told our only hope was to try loading her on a railroad ferry which sailed from Ludington, another port well to the north. It seemed a slim chance but the alternative—to drive all the way south around Lake Michigan through Chicago and its environs (inhabited mainly by Al Capone’s ruffians, so we believed) was not attractive. We headed north.
    The men servicing the huge railroad ferry, Père Marquette, were amused but helpful. “We might put that thing [the Ark] on a flat car and ship ’er over as cargo but then she’d be too high to go through our loading doors. Nope, that won’t do. But we’ve got a train to load aboard and if there’s room behind the caboose we might be able to roll that thing on too.”
    Which is what they did. Ten men manhandled the Ark onto the rails and aboard the ferry where they lashed her tight against the caboose with Eardlie nosing up to her stern. We went on deck but Helen was concerned about our Ark.
    â€œWhatever will the poor thing think? One minute she’s a caravan, then a prairie schooner, and now a freight car. I do hope she doesn’t get confused.”
    The crossing to the Wisconsin side of the lake took six hours and was one long delight. I was especially thrilled when the second engineer took Angus and me below and showed us the engine room. I was barefoot, having lost one shoe the day before, and Angus was in flannels. 8 We were sights to behold when we emerged on deck again but what a spectacle those huge steam engines were,