John Henry Zwicky

Remembering Jack Zwicky

Oct. 17, 1935–Sept. 9, 2024

Some of Jack’s favorite things…….

Family

Canoeing the Boundary Waters

Fishing

Green Bay Packers

Eight years at Eagle Nest Lodge

Good food.

Our Malamute, Laska

Throwing parties

Going to parties

Yellow legal pads

Our cabin on North Two Lake

Old Love

Jack was an avid student of the Fur Trade. He especially admired the lowly, but all important voyageur, who portaged 90 pound packs of fur and goods and paddled a canoe from dawn to dusk. He admired their strength and stamina, perhaps because he, himself, was a hard worker. He is pictured in his voyageur outfit at a fur trade reenactment.

My Last Campfire 

My last weekend is over 

My last campfire is cold 

But spared, a least, a few portages 

On the trail of growing old 

Sometimes when the canoes are beached 

And shadows walk the lake 

Remember me for the life I lived 

The routes I chose to take

 I was born to run those rivers

That turned towards my dreams 

Too often forcing passage down 

Narrow, log-blocked streams 

In a land where rivers run

Toward the far-off sea 

I found love and shared a passage 

With some who cared for me 

Stir the campfire gently 

Beside the rocky shore 

Remember a man who loved the waters 

A poet who is no more 

Recite, perhaps, a line or two 

Against the falling dark 

Make them a part of the winds of night 

Like each dancing, fading spark 

My maps are packed away now 

The canoes, still and dry 

Oh, keep this world beautiful 

This Voyageur, goodbye