Noel Robinson called himself a vagabond, which was not strictly accurate because he did live part time in his own home — an off-the-grid shack in the woods fashioned from an old meat cooler. He divided the rest between a similarly rustic shack his father built in Itasca County, temporary lodging and long bike and canoe trips.
Robinson was an activist, beekeeper and much-admired tenor who taught voice lessons at the University of Minnesota. He wrote long letters and never emailed. Friends and family described him as charismatic and cheerful.
"He didn't have any yearning for the creature comforts and trappings of modern society," said nephew Brady Robinson of Boulder, Colo. He said his uncle demonstrated "that you could have an unconventional life and find happiness in simpler things."
Robinson died Aug. 14 while on a four-day bike ride with friends. After a night of conversation, he crawled into his tent "and went to sleep for the last time," friends said. He was 85.
"He always said he wanted to die reaching for that last blueberry in the bush — poof, gone! — and that's pretty much how he died," said Ted Schreffler of Eveleth, Minn., his close friend for 40 years.
Robinson grew up in Rush City, Minn. Jim Robinson, his younger brother, said the two of them liked to camp, bike, canoe and cross-country ski on "old-fashioned wood skis with a pine tar base," often staying in their father's shack.
"It had no running water, no electricity — it was very, very 1946," Jim Robinson said. "We loved it."
With a choir director's encouragement, Noel Robinson studied voice at the U, eventually earning a master's degree. He taught there and at St. Catherine University, sang with the Minnesota Opera for a couple of years and was a cantor for a local synagogue.
