Joe & Isaac's Adventure: Episode 1 - Chapter 6

St. Cloud is a mid-sized city, but the river in and out of St. Cloud is still predominately undeveloped. We were still on a wild river in between the dams and towns. That was about to end. We were approaching Anoka, which is a northern suburb of Minneapolis. The population of the Minneapolis/St. Paul metro area is nearly three million. How ironic that as we traveled through the wilderness of the Mississippi's headwaters we received help and support from the folks we met and now as we approached the largest concentration of people in the state, people became the greatest threat to our safety.

We tried to be very careful, but we did have one unfortunate encounter. The MDNR map indicates that there is a campsite in Anoka right at the confluence of the Mississippi and Rum rivers. This is the last campsite marked on the map until the river is well beyond the St. Paul metro area. We arrived in Anoka in the late afternoon to find that the map was wrong. Instead we found ourselves in a city park with no provision for camping. We were stuck. It was too late to proceed, the Coon Rapids dam portage was just ahead and there were no campsites marked anywhere nearby. The map suggested that we could at best make do by camping on an island in the river. I didn't feel comfortable leaving the canoe unattended over night in the Anoka city park -- so the motel option was out. We decided to walk into town and see if we could find a store where we could purchase a padlock and chain. We walked for miles but eventually found a K-mart that had what we needed. Back in the park we locked the canoe to the dock. I still didn't want to leave it, so I decided to call the local police and talk with them about the possibility of our camping in the park. Unfortunately there was no one there for me to talk with, I was handed off from one officer to another who finally sent me to a dead end voicemail box. The park was nice and clean and well cared for and so I decided to stay with the canoe.

The sign out front said the park closed at 11:00 p.m. and there was a big gate. I hoped they would close the gate at night. Just before 11:00 the last park visitors left and we figured we would be OK. We pitched the tent in the grass near the river and went to bed. They did not close the gate however and around midnight we were visited by a group of teenagers who came to the park to drink. I didn't know what to do except to stay in the tent and listen. I heard them at the dock examining our canoe. Every so often they would approach the tent laughing and whispering. They had a flashlight that they would occasionally shine on the tent. Isaac fortunately slept soundly. This continued until 4:00 am when they decided to start paying our tent more attention. They got bolder with their flashlight and started shining it directly into the tent. When one of them pissed on the tent I decided to go ahead and call the police. They heard me make the call -- I knew they would and I was greatly relieved when they decided to run. The police were very quick however and made it to the park gate before they got out. That night I slept for only three hours.

The next day was one of the most difficult of the entire trip. We portaged the Coon Rapids dam -- fortunately not a bad portage. It was miserably hot and muggy and I was not in the best of moods after the previous night. After we had moved our gear around and were heading back for the canoe, we ran into three teenage boys on their way down to the river to fish. I stopped them and asked them if they wanted to make a fast twenty bucks. Two of them took my offer and finished the job for us. They were polite young gentlemen and redeemed their kind in my estimation considering my last encounter. I paid them gladly and we were off. We had made it! Technically we could now paddle our canoe straight to the Gulf of Mexico! Before us now lay downtown Minneapolis. It was threatening rain and nagging away at me was the problem of where we would spend the night. I had no idea.

At the head of navigation the Mississippi changes character. It is now a river of industry. Huge iron barges line the shore and giant industrial complexes rise from the banks. The change was abrupt and frightening. As we canoed past barges tied to looming iron and concrete dolphins I asked Isaac what the hell we thought we were doing. He could only offer the explanation that we must be crazy. Paddling the canoe was at times difficult as the waves left by the barges where plenty big. The rain held off and we made it into downtown Minneapolis. My uneasiness about where we would spend the night was heightened as we passed one group after another of drug addicts along the riverbank. Sometimes there was only one but more often they were in groups of two and three. They looked both miserable and dangerous and as we passed I would move the canoe farther out into the river.

St. Paul was founded in the 1830s at a site along the Mississippi just below the Falls. Cities almost always have a geographical reason for their location. In the case of The Twin Cities, The Falls of St. Anthony is that reason. The Falls are located right in downtown Minneapolis. To travel past them in a boat you must pass through two locks maintained by the US Army Corp of Engineers. The photo at left is the view from my backseat as the downriver gates on the upper lock started to open. The lift on the lock at the upper falls is fifty feet! We were fortunate and managed to get through both locks with little delay. We had already paddled eighteen miles including one portage and two locks. Eight more miles down the river was Fort Snelling State Park at the confluence of the Mississippi and Minnesota rivers. There was no camping there but I hoped we could leave the canoe. We were exhausted. As we paddled on I noticed on the map just above lock and dam no. 1 the location of the Minneapolis Rowing Club. They had a dock on the river and as we passed by we could see some people there. We pulled up to their dock and asked the young men there if we could please leave our canoe overnight. They said sure and pointed out a spot in the grass out of the way. We chained the canoe to a tree, covered it with our tarp and hiked up the hill.

Our trial for the day wasn't over yet. We found ourselves standing on a street corner in south Minneapolis near the River View Apartments. I called information for the number of a taxi service, but when I called the taxi company, they refused to pick us up. It was their policy I learned not to respond to cell-phone calls after 5:00 p.m. I called another cab company that told me the same thing and said they would only come if I supplied an address. I blurted out the name of the River View Apartments but the dispatcher said that wasn't good enough, I needed a street address. I could see no address on the building but fortunately I could make out the address on the gas station across the street. Our cab arrived within ten minutes and took us to a cluster of motels on the University of Minnesota campus. I breathed a sigh of relief as we checked in.

Our canoe was unmolested when we returned and we set off for St. Paul hoping to get beyond the metro area by the end of the day. As we paddled into downtown St. Paul I noticed some activity in the park along the riverbank. I asked Isaac if he wanted to stop. At first he said no, but when I told him I thought I saw an ice cream truck he changed his mind. When we tied up at the park there was a crowd of people. Some folks asked us about our trip. When I asked if there was a water fountain nearby they told us Target (the discount store is headquartered in Minneapolis) was giving away bottled water. We went looking and sure enough I spied a Target truck parked along the road. We went over and asked if they were giving away water and when they found out what we were doing they gave us two cases of ice water. We were so hot and that water was so good! We packed it in the canoe and tried to insulate it as best we could. It stayed cold on into the evening. It was wonderful. We did also get some ice cream and a couple of hotdogs at the park. It was a good rest stop.

We paddled fifteen miles and were in south St. Paul when we came to one of the islands the MDNR had marked as suitable for camping. I was nervous about camping at all along the river anywhere near the Twin Cities, but an island made some sense. I decided we would camp then on this island. The map indicated that there was a boat landing just half a mile ahead at the bridge and that helped -- I felt better knowing there was a quick way off the river nearby. Apart from a mild chemical smell from the industry on the bank this island was actually a very nice campsite. I soon relaxed and we slept well. The next day we could make it to Prescott, Wisconsin if we worked hard. Isaac and I were familiar with the town of Prescott and we felt comfortable and safe there. The photo above is the view looking down river from our island campsite.

Prescott is situated at the confluence of the Mississippi and St. Croix rivers just down river from lock and dam no. 2. Before we could reach Prescott we would have to cross Spring Lake, a very large and long dam pool. As we entered the largest section of the lake, about three miles from the lock, Isaac looked behind us and saw a full-length tow heading our way. It was the Neal N. Diehl owned by Ingram Barge Co. We knew that if the tow beat us to the lock we would have to wait as much as an hour. On the upper river full tows are five barges long (by three wide) -- too long to fit into the 600 foot locks. To lock through the tow first pushes its barges into the lock and then disengages from the first nine barges and backs out. Those nine barges are locked through and then winched up along the lock wall clear of the gates. The lock is re-filled and the tow with the remaining six barges locks through. The tow crew then have to re-connect the barges before the tow can clear the lock area. This can take an hour, so the race was on! We had the advantage of a direct route to the lock. The Neal N. Diehl had to stay in the channel which twisted through the lake like a giant S curve. This meant the tow had to make at least two major turns (tows go very slowly in turns). We paddled furiously keeping an eye on the tow's progress. As we figured, the turns in the channel gave us the advantage and we beat the Neal N. Diehl to the lock. Although I suspect no one on the tow even knew we were there, we still felt pretty good trouncing a thirty thousand ton tow in a race. Later on at the dock in Prescott we whooped as the Neal N. Diehl finally came puffing along.