Background
He was born in Michigan and studied at the University of Michigan (1893-1897), choosing journalism as a career.
He was born in Michigan and studied at the University of Michigan (1893-1897), choosing journalism as a career.
University of Michigan.
They met at the hospital when Hubbard was ill with typhoid fever. He became an assistant editor of Outing magazine and in 1903 led an expedition to canoe the system Naskaupi River–Michikamau Lake in Labrador and George River in Quebec. From the start (departing North West River on July 15), the expedition was beset with mistakes and problems.
Instead of ascending the Naskaupi River, by mistake they followed the shallow Susan Brook.
After hard long portaging and almost reaching Michikamau Lake, with food supplies running out, on September 15 at Windbound lake, they decided to turn back. On October 18, Wallace and Elson went in a search of cached store of flour, leaving Hubbard behind in a tent.
Hubbard died of exhaustion and starvation on either same or next day. Wallace got lost in the snowstorm, while Elson, after a week of bushwhacking, building raft to cross swollen rivers (with no ax), reached the nearest occupied cabin.
A search party found Wallace alive on October 30, 1903.
After Wallace was nursed back to health (he suffered gangrene in his foot), the two men accompanied Hubbard"s body back to New York for burial in May 1904. In 1905, Mina Hubbard, accompanied by George Elson, and Dillon Wallace led two competing expeditions from North West River to the Hudson"s Bay Company post at the mouth of George River. Both were successful.
Their canoe overturned on Beaver River and the plaque was lost.
Wallace then created a memorial using white paint and a brush made from Gilbert"s hair. The inscription reads:
THIS TABLET
MARKS THE SCENE
OF THE TRAGIC DEATH
FROM EXHAUSTION Ontario
OCTOBER 18, 1903
OF
LEONIDAS HUBBARD JR.
INTREPID EXPLORER
AND
PRACTICAL CHRISTIAN
ERECTED BY LOVING FRIENDS
JUNE 1913
JOHN XIV IV: AND WHITHER I GO
YE KNOW, AND THE WAY YE KNOW
Academy of Sciences EXACT REPLICA OF A TABLET LOST Indiana THE BEAVER
RIVER, THIS MARKER REPLACES Academy of Sciences INSCRIPTION
CARVED HERE Indiana 1913 BY DILLON WALLACE, JUDGE
WILLIAM J. MALONE AND GILBERT BLAKE
DEDICATED Indiana 1976 BY DILLON WALLACE III. ASSISTED
BY THE GOVERNMENT OF NEWFOUNDLAND, Indiana COMM-
EMORATION OF THE EXPLORATORY JOURNEY OF LEONIDAS
HUBBARD, DILLON WALLACE AND GEORGE ELSON,
FROM NORTH West RIVER TO WINDBOUND LAKE
The 1903 and 1905 expeditions were the subject of a 2008 Canadian docudrama The Last Explorer, directed by Elson"s great nephew, Cree filmmaker Neil Diamond.