Henry Hudson … has anybody seen Henry? Has anybody seen the Northwest Passage? These two pieces of profane history have gone missing, and anyone who finds them will win a free trip to Disneyland, or at least Knott’s Berry Farm.
Let’s start our search with Henry. Henry was a dreamer, and as Henry’s mother-in-law told her daughter after she married Henry, “Honey, I told you, never marry a dreamer!” Woops…too late.
Henry dreamed of discovering a Northwest Passage to the riches of Asia, a watery highway that could take him and his crew from what we now know as the Hudson River, straight across Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, South Dakota, Wyoming, Idaho and Oregon to the Pacific Ocean. Henry was only off by three thousand miles of dirt and rocks, not to mention getting his boat stuck in the ice of the bay that we call Hudson Bay today.
This English Puritan, with the possible exception of Wrong Way Corrigan, was as far off course as anybody has ever been in topographical history, so we have to feel for Henry. As a boy he never got to join the Boy Scouts, his high school did not have a geography class, and he couldn’t afford college. So Henry was somewhat green around the gills when he signed on to go sailing with the Dutch. But he rose in the ranks until at last he had his own command, and that’s when the trouble started for Henry.
By 1611 Henry thought himself to be a regular Ferdinand Magellan, though a Magellan who could swordfight his way out of trouble if necessary. Nevertheless, he had no idea how cold it could get up there on Hudson Bay, and sure as Carter Has Liver Pills, he got stuck in the ice.
Well, he hauled his ship, the Half Moon, ashore, don’t ask me how, and struck a hasty camp. But his crew soon ran out of smelt and nobody knew where to find more food. So they took to bobbing for apples. And if anybody so much as caught the smallest smelt, well, he would have to do paper-scissors-rock with Henry, and Henry was really good at paper-scissors-rock; he won most every time.
So eventually the crew decided on mutiny. They put Henry in a small open dinghy without any oars, pushed him out to sea, and shouted, “Try the Northwest Passage, Captain … if you can find it!” Then they laughed themselves hoarse.
Well, that was the last anybody ever saw of old Henry, and, unless he floated up on the coast of Florida and discovered the Fountain of Youth, he’s probably dead now. Nevertheless, serious people are still out there looking for the Northwest Passage, even today.
So you might be wondering, is there a moral to this history? Yes, and it comes to us from Henry Hudson’s mother-in-law, who told her daughter, “Honey, never marry a dreamer!”
— Want to hear McAvoy Layne tell it? Go here for an audio version of this column. For more than 35 years, in over 4,000 performances, columnist and Chautauquan McAvoy Layne has been dedicated to preserving the wit and wisdom of “The Wild Humorist of the Pacific Slope,” Mark Twain. As Layne puts it: “It’s like being a Monday through Friday preacher, whose sermon, though not reverently pious, is fervently American.”
