This is like deja vu all over again.
--Yogi Berra
 It took us three summers to completely travel the length of the Mississippi. At the end of the summer 2003 we returned home without the pontoon boat. The following year we devoted our energies to acquiring another boat and I had to spend the summer of 2004 working to pay the bill. We now travel the river in a jon boat.
With the new boat paid for, I was again able to look forward to a summer off in 2005. The question then, since we'd finished the whole river already, was what to do with two months of vacation. We considered a couple options but the answer was obvious; start back at the top. Isaac was always irritated by the fact that in 2001 I had decided to skip the first twenty odd miles of the river. His obsessive-compulsive nature nagged at him -- we hadn't really traveled the "whole" river. There was also my decision to have the canoe carried around Lake Winne as the MNDNR recommended. Isaac wanted to go back and clean up these two "errors" that I had made four years ago. Isaac is now seventeen and no longer a boy. I wanted to do this for him and I was also hoping the time canoeing would help me get in better shape and lose some weight.
So the plan at first was to take the canoe back to Itasca and head back down the river, this time from the start. At lake Winnie we would wait as needed for good weather and paddle around the shoreline. How far would we go? We were never adequately clear about that. At first Isaac said he'd like to paddle at least to Grand Rapids. Later we started talking about paddling as far as Iowa. As the time for the trip drew near I joked about paddling all the way back to St. Louis.
In the weeks just before we left Isaac and I would talk tensely about where we would start. I agreed to start at the top as long as the conditions were favorable. What constituted "favorable" was the problem. The river between Itasca and Bemidji, the very beginning, presents a number of problems. The MNDNR checks and posts river levels for this section of the river. On their maps they list sections of the river here as impassable in low water. There simply isn't enough water at times to float a canoe. High water presents other problems with rapids and sweepers (fallen trees over the river). To complicate the matter the river level there is volatile -- it can change rapidly with the amount of local rainfall. We've read books and accounts by others who have traveled this section of the river and their stories are as variable as the water level. Some have managed it with ease while others were forced to give up.
There are three basic sections to the river here. First the river flows fast through the forest. There are sections of mild rapids and the possibility of sweepers from the previous winter. Then the river meanders through a swampy lowland. Here, if the water is low, you can get stuck in the mucky swamp. Finally as it approaches Bemidji the river again flows through a forest where the threat of sweepers returns. In low water the sweepers are annoying but not threatening. In higher faster water the sweepers along with the river current will turn a canoe over. In 2001 we had high water in this section of the river and almost ended our trip when we were dumped by a sweeper. I was only willing to begin this second trip at the start of the river if the water level was normal -- not too low or too high. Isaac understood that if the water was too low we would have no choice, but he wasn't interested in listening to my apprehensions about high water.
We put the canoe in the water on Friday June 3rd. Clare again came along and dropped us off. The river level was high and getting higher, but we started at the top. I knew Isaac really wanted to do this. I was fearful, remembering our experience of four years ago, but the start of the river was easy. We started late in the afternoon and so traveled only a few miles to the first MNDNR campsite at Wanagan Landing. The following morning we entered the forest and as the day progressed the river became increasingly difficult. Below the dam portage the river is marked on the MNDNR map as containing "shallow sandbars." That may be the case with normal water levels, but in the high water that we had there were no sandbars or shallows. There were rapids, rocks and sweepers.
The bottom line here is that I really had no business attempting this in my physical condition. In my middle fifties I had become grossly overweight and out of shape. Beginning this trip on the first day with the physically most difficult section of the river was stupid. For the first time in my life I completely lost confidence in my physical ability and I panicked. In Isaac's eyes my behavior must have been hard to understand. I was unreasonably fearful of turning the canoe over in the rapids and sweepers. I imagined the river nearer Bemidji where the water was deeper and the river faster still. We made our way slowly from one obstacle to the next until we came upon the fallen tree you see pictured here. It looks so small in the photo and not very threatening. I feel embarrassed now just looking at it, but I swear you could hear the water roaring over that log from 60 yards up river. The answer was to portage around it. The river banks were steep and overgrown. The portage was, for me, gruesome and the final straw. My strength was tapped. I had gouged my leg on something and was bleeding. I climbed out of the river valley into a farm field. A few young men on ATVs came by and told me we were just a few hundred yards from the highway bridge. I let Isaac continue on with the canoe and I walked out to meet him at the bridge. There I called Clare who had not yet left for home. I gave her directions and she came to pick us up. Isaac took the canoe down to the bridge where highway 40 crosses the river and we pulled the canoe out of the river.
That evening in the motel was very difficult for me. I had failed my son and it was my fault. This was a new experience for me. I felt horrible, but I knew I shouldn't try to continue. Isaac was disapointed with me, but I think he also understood that I shouldn't try and continue. I'm surprised he didn't just choose to call it quits right there and go home -- I couldn't have blamed him. I offerred to try and continue from there in Bemidji. Isaac agreed and the next morning we went on putting the canoe in the river behind the power dam south of town.
|
