If you would like to order a copy of Canoeing with the Cree Please click below.

The Bois De Sioux where it starts, right below the White Rock Dam
[Click Image to Enlarge]


Moo!
[Click Image to Enlarge]


(deer noise)
[Click Image to Enlarge]


Honk!
[Click Image to Enlarge]


Whinny!
[Click Image to Enlarge]


The Bois De Sioux in it's drainage ditch form
[Click Image to Enlarge]


The Bois De Sioux in it's natural form
[Click Image to Enlarge]


and the channel is...where?
[Click Image to Enlarge]


welcome to N.D.!
[Click Image to Enlarge]


Deer in the drink
[Click Image to Enlarge]

Water, water everywhere (Entry by Scott)
(Jun 11th, 2005) Please note: right before this journal entry we put another one up with a bunch of pictures, so if you want to see those click on ‘Journals’ on the left and follow the link.

Yesterday was a great paddle—33 miles; the length of the Bois De Sioux River. A whole river in one day! Pretty cool. We left White Rock Dam in the Bois De Drainage Ditch that was filled to the britches but was standing quite still. The sides of the river were built up to keep the form of the ditch intact even at high water, but periodic breaks in it allowed water to flow in from the farm fields on both sides. These breaks were like windows into South Dakota on our left (then half-way through the day North Dakota) and Minnesota on our right.
The wildlife started acting goofy right away. As often happens, we came upon a Ma and Pa Goose with Goslings. Pa always flies ahead and makes a lot of noise, while Ma stays with the kids and sticks her head in the water. Apparently since she can’t see us, we can’t see her and we are supposed to go chase Dad. Eventually Ma dives under and so do the little ones. So that was all normal but then we came upon a duck family. Ma and Pa both ditched the kids immediately. They swam up in front of our canoe and made a commotion. Then they’d swim some more and make another commotion. Repeat for ½ an hour. By this time we must have been 2 miles from their kids—so silly. We probably could have chased them all the way to Canada, but eventually we pulled over and they finally headed back.
Next up were two deer who were bounding along the hill on the Minnesota side. We thought they were goofy until we realized that they had to stay next to the river; on the other side of the hill the fields were all flooded. But a little later a deer jumped into the channel a ways ahead of us and swam across it—so cool!
Soon we saw water stretched for quite a ways on both sides of the river; in places it looked like we were back in Mud Lake. The Bois De Drainage Ditch had become de Bois de Lake. The channel started getting curvy and the banks became more natural looking. In places we couldn’t see the bank and we could have paddled for a mile out into a farmer’s field. Sometimes we could only tell where the channel was by following the tree tops (OK so those trees were pretty short, but still it was cool). We passed Fairmont, ND and stopped for lunch at a bridge. We sat in the shoulder and felt the cool rush of sand blow on us every time a semi passed. Still no current, but a few miles up the Rabbit River came in from the Minnesota side and suddently we were rocketing north!
At one point, with trees down on both sides we had but a 5 foot slot to shoot through. At another point we came up to a bridge and couldn’t fit underneath it. Kyle Houle and John Langenwalter, two Wahpeton high school boys who were traveling in a truck going out fishing stopped and asked if we were the guys paddling to the Bay and if they could help. We said sure, and sure enough John helped provide weight in the bow to allow us to slip under the bridge.
On and on we raced, pulling into Wahpeton/Breckenridge at about 7:00pm. We decided after five days of paddling it was time for a break, and so that’s what we did today. Todd’s parents came today as well to bring us our Red River food drop. Thanks Joyce and Prentiss!
When we got to town here there was another bridge we couldn’t fit under. Here at Breckenridge (MN) and Wahpeton (ND) the Ottertail comes in from Minnesota (it starts up at Many Point Lake, the lake that is surrounded mostly by Many Point Scout Camp, where we’ve worked for a long time…and also what’s neat about that is it’s not far from Itasca State Park where the Mississippi starts…) Yes so where was I…the Ottertail comes in from the East/Minnesota and the Bois De Sioux comes from the south and forms the Red River of the North. Well, usually that’s what happens but the Bois De Sioux is so full that the Ottertail is flowing backwards right here right now. We are going to have an expedition conference here in a bit to decide whether the Red is safe to paddle on tomorrow or whether we need to wait for the river to drop a bit…it is techinically in flood stage right now..
Continuing on Todd’s list of what is in his pack, I am going to share some info about our canoe and all of it’s accessories.
We have an 18 foot Wenonah Champlain canoe—made in Minnesota. It’s made out of Kevlar and weighs just 45 pounds. Kevlar is a lightweight, super strong fabric developed by DuPont; it is also used in bullet proof vests, for example. The Champlain is designed to be very stable and handle big loads and big people. It doesn’t flip over easily (though we have managed to do it twice . We have been very pleased with it as it is fast, light and easy to handle. Even fully loaded it has plenty of freeboard (the distance between the gunwales and the water, the gunwales being the top rim of the boat). It is also pretty good at maneuvering. All in all we can’t think of a better boat for our trip.
In each end of the canoe we drilled two holes—right through the flotation chamber. OK so we never would have had enough guts to do this in a million years without the help of Dan Cooke of Cooke Custom Sewing in Lino Lakes, MN. These holes were lined with PVC pipe and epoxied in. We then attached 50 foot lines to each one. These lines coil up and strap in to our spray skirt, which we never take off our canoe. The lines are for lining down a rapid. You line a rapid when you decide it’s too dangerous to run. Lining is hard though, as Cliff Jacobsen says(I’m paraphrasing), ‘to line well you need to run along the shoreline rocks at the same speed as the current without tripping, all the while watching not your feet, but your canoe and your line’. We have used them to pull our canoe up a rapid on the Minnesota (this is called tracking), but they have been absolutely invaluable for tons of other reasons; we used them to pull the canoe through a logjam, we use them everyday many times to tie off the canoe and we use them at night to secure our canoe to trees so it doesn’t blow away.
The spray skirt has also been invaluable. It is three pieces of cloth which snap onto the top of our canoe. It is the ‘Bob O’Hara’ design made by Cooke Custom Sewing. Dan Cooke actually put all the snaps on for us too, though apprarently it’s not too hard to do yourself. The spray skirt has kept our canoe dry through all the rain we’ve gone through, and it’s held all our gear in both times we tipped the canoe. We’ve even cinched up our cockpit fabric around us to help keep warm and dry on a few days. The cockpit fabric is constructed with a quick release mechanism, so even if we tip with it on we can easily get free. The spray skirt has also shed the water the few times that waves have come over our gunwales and we expect it will do that again more often on the big waves of Lake Winnipeg and in the rapids that follow.
The middle part of the spray skirt has a slit down it. The fabric on one side can be pulled over the other side and over all our gear and then cinched tight. The gear, because it’s over the gunwales, causes the fabric to tent and therefore shed water. Underneath the straps we also secure our three extra paddles. We carry two straight shaft Expedition Plus models at 54 inches each and one at 56 inches and two bent shaft Cruiser Plus models at 50 inches. All the paddles are made of wood and are from Bending Branches of Osceola, WI. We actually got to tour their factory and see how much pride they take in making these strong yet lightweight and beautiful paddles. We have used all five paddles already on our trip numerous times. The bent shaft paddles are the most efficient for straight ahead paddling so the bow person usually uses one of those. The stern paddler has usually used a straight shaft because they are easier to steer with, especially when bucking the current going upstream. The 56” one is nice when we really want to be able to crank a corner. Having 5 paddles also gives us some insurance should we lose or break one. All the paddles have reinforced fiberglass tips, and the Expedition Plus models are reinforced all the way around the blade and part way up the shaft—great for times when you have to pry off a rock or the bottom or the shore. The guys at Bending Branches said someone chopped through 3 inches of ice with one!
Finally we put two solar panels from Iowa Thin Film on top of the spray skirt and paddles whenever we need to re-charge some of electronics. All of the electronics are kept in a modified waterproof Pelican case beneath the skirt. The solar panels clip into a cord which clips into a cord we have epoxied half in and half out of our tech box. This allows us, on sunny days, to re-charge things. The solar panels are waterproof and durable and have been working and holding up really well.
The Red River awaits…good night!

Here is an article (with a cool picture) that appeared in the Willmar based newspaper the ‘West Central Tribune’ and then also ran in the ‘Fargo Forum’:
http://www.in-forum.com/articles/index.cfm?id=94115§ion=Outdoors

Here is a link to an article in the Granite Falls Advocate Tribune:
http://www.granitefallsnews.com/articles/2005/06/03/news/news03.txt

We believe the Granite Falls newspaper also put the story on the Associated Press wire, where it was picked up as a story on WCCO’s website and the Star Tribune’s website.

Here is the link to Utah Outdoors website, the radio show that we call into every Saturday morning using our satellite phone provided by Skycall Communications:
http://www.utahoutdoors.com/