(ch. 4)Again: Thanks Tom & Little Falls

In Brainerd, on the north side of town there's a paper mill dam that must be portaged. It's a short easy portage but it foreshadows what will come soon -- portage hell. The river was high from all the rain; in fact it was at or just above flood stage. A flooded river is a fast river. After leaving Brainerd we arrived at Crow Wing State Park in record time. We did so well in fact that we began to entertain the idea of making Little Falls by evening. As we moved on by Fort Ripley the river would if anything speed up even more. It was forty miles and even at the rate we were moving, it would still mean at least eight hours in the canoe but, we decided to try it.

We arrived in Little Falls about eight in the evening. We were exhausted. We pulled the canoe out at the public boat ramp and prepared to head into town. A young woman there, Diane with her son Chris, took an interest in us and we explained what we were doing. She graciously offerred to give us a ride to the nearest motel and we accepted. At the counter of the Super 8 motel I asked the gentleman behind the desk, Tom Schumacher, for a room. He told me they had no rooms. He went on to tell me that there were no rooms anywhere in Little Falls. Some event in town had every room booked. We just stood there for a minute stunned. It was miles back to the canoe and soon it would be dark. We were faced with continuing on to Lindberg State Park, which required a big portage and a few more miles of river, or sleeping back at the public boat ramp which I'm sure would have displeased the town's law enforcement officers. Mr. Schumacher inquired as to our circumstances and after we explained we had just arrived in town by canoe, he suggested that he did have a dirty room. It was a room that someone had just left and it hadn't been cleaned yet. I quickly blurted out that we could clean, and our benefactor then got us some fresh linen. Very relieved I asked if he could give us the phone number for the local sheriff -- I was in the habit of always calling the local police to let them know where we had left the canoe if it was in a public park. In response Tom said to me, "you can't leave your canoe at the boat ramp." Puzzled, I replied, "we don't have a lot of choice, it'll be ok, it's tarpped over and folks up here don't steal canoes." Again Tom said we could not leave the canoe at the boat ramp. Primed to play along now I said, "ok, where are we going to leave it." "You're going to leave it in my backyard," he said. "How are we going to get it there," I asked. "You can drive can't you," he asked. I said yes and he then told me to repeat after him: "The Boeing 707 was the 1st commercial jet airliner to fly . . . ." I don't remember the end of that sentence but this was starting to be fun. I did as he instructed and then he told me his home was at 707 1st street. His backyard was on the river and about 200 yards from the boat ramp. His car was parked just outside the door and the keys were in the car. So I drove Isaac back to the boat ramp. We launched the canoe and Isaac paddled up stream while I drove to 707 1st street. I met Isaac in Tom's backyard where we secured the canoe. It seems our benefactor was an extraordinary man. We cleaned up the motel room and got a good night's sleep. This was the fourth time Isaac and I had set off on an adventure down the Mississippi. Every time we were pulled out of one jam after another by people like Tom Schumacher. What a day!

We stayed over in Little Falls to shop for supplies and that evening we went to dinner with Tom and his brother. It seems that Tom has had a long standing penchant for helping canoeists who would show up in Little Falls. Many before us had stayed the night in his backyard. As we shared stories about the river we told Tom about some of the characters we had met on the river. When we mentioned Alex from Belarus who had rowed down the river in a raft he had built from plastic soda bottles and chicken wire, Tom told us that Alex had stayed a few days with him. His raft needed repairs and Tom had helped him get the parts he needed. What a delight that we had found Tom Schumacher.

It was time to move on and we were at the front door of portage hell. The portages above Little Falls are generally easy and spread out so that you get a couple days between them. Now they were going to come at us one or two a day -- bigger longer and potentially very dangerous. With the river nearly at flood stage the outflow from the dams was raging. Putting the canoe back in the water behind the dams and then paddling through the turbulent currents was tricky and dangerous. At Little Falls we decided to let Isaac take the unloaded canoe by himself down to Lindberg park where I would meet him and load our gear. Again thanks to Tom who loaded our gear in his car and drove me down to the park. This gave Isaac a canoe that sat higher in the water and in the event that he did get swamped our gear would be safe. By that afternoon we arrived at the Blanchard dam portage which is the worst of them all. The trail around the dam is gruesomely difficult and dangerous. The river behind the dam was a torrent and turbulent enough that we couldn't launch the canoe. We were forced to walk the canoe in waist deep water down the shore picking our way through thick willow shrubs.

The next day we arrived at the Sartel dam just north of St. Cloud. The outflow from the dam was again a ragging torrent and there was a mean cross current in our path. I decided that this one was too dangerous. Isaac of course wanted to try it -- reckless youth. I called the police dispatcher and asked if they could recommend a tow service to pick us up. The young woman I spoke with was very kind and about fifteen minutes later Ralph showed up with his truck. In a ten mile stretch of river at St. Cloud, there are three portages beginning with the Sartel dam. You do them all in one day (unless you shoot the Sauk Rapids in which case there are two portages). With the canoe loaded in Ralph's truck we decided to just head for the south end of town and get past this most intense section of portage hell. One more dam to go at Coon Rapids, it was a few days away and we'd be ready to take on the Twin Cities.