In memory of Herb Pohl

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[img_inline align=”right” src=”http://padnws01.mcmaster.ca/images/Pohl_Herb.jpg” caption=”Herb Pohl, surrounded by the land he loved to explore. Courtesy of the Hamilton Spectator“]An OPP dive team discovered the body of McMaster alumnus and retiree Herb Pohl yesterday afternoon on the bottom of Michipicoten Bay in Lake Superior. The 76-year-old Burlington adventurer, who was known for his solo adventures in Canada's North and his passion for the land, started his last trip in Pukaskwa National Park on July 11. He planned to work his way down the coast of Lake Superior to the mouth of the Michipicoten River near Wawa and was scheduled to arrive there Monday.

Pohl's overturned kayak and all his gear, including a life-jacket, was found about 4:30 p.m. Monday near the river mouth where the waters are known to sometimes be turbulent. A severe thunderstorm had swept through the area earlier, creating two-metre swells. The OPP and U.S. Coast Guard, accompanied by a Canadian Forces Hercules aircraft, failed to locate Pohl in an overnight search.
Pohl completed a Bachelor of Science at McMaster in 1968 and a Master's in the Faculty of Science in 1975. He retired from McMaster University in June 1994, where he had worked for 25 years as an instructional assistant and supervisor responsible for the operation of student labs.

He also lectured with the Hamilton Association for the Advancement of Literature, Science and Art, often filling lecture halls with crowds eager to hear his talks about the wilderness.
Aurelia Shaw, past president of the association, said Pohl was also a wonderful landscape photographer.

“His photographs and articles have appeared over the years in the Wilderness Canoe Association magazine,” she said. “They describe his intense interest not only in nature, but in Canadian history. He delighted in finding the same spot visited by explorers.”
Pohl, who had a wry sense of humour, was a top draw for the association, the speaker guaranteed to attract a crowd as he talked of his experiences in the wild.

Rob Gillies, a biology technician who worked in the labs here at McMaster alongside Pohl for 21 years, was impressed with his colleague's physical as well as mental prowess. “Herb was like a wise elder or mentor to the rest of us in the undergraduate teaching labs. His intelligence and peculiar sense of humour kept us engaged in his stories of adventures and the history of various places he had traveled,” says Gilles, who went on a canoe trek in Algonquin Park with Pohl in the 70s. “He always had a different way of looking at everything. If you had an opinion you thought you'd completely thought through, he'd challenge you with a different 'take' on it.”

Gillies describes Pohl as “quite the outdoorsman” whose every thought outside of work seemed to be about his next trip or canoeing adventure. “Herb was particularly interested in traveling routes of historical significance, especially in Labrador and Northern Ontario,” Gillies says. “He spent hours pouring over maps in Mac's map library.”

Gillies attributes Pohl's fitness to years of commitment to an active lifestyle – from having been a European handball player on the Austrian National team to working in a mine and as a lumberjack once he moved to Canada. “It was really amazing how Herb's physical ability was so developed. On our canoe trip he outlasted the much younger explorers that attempted to keep up,” says Gillies. “He really enjoyed exploring Canada's woodlands – you could see it in his energy and fascination with it.”

The adventurer, who was born on a farm in Austria, lived in Burlington with his wife, Maura. Their son, Oscar, lives in Vancouver.

Funeral arrangements are not immediately available.