An Outdoorsman’s Journal: Mississippi River canoe trip

Hello friends, This past week I took my 3-year-old golden retriever, Red, on a 35-mile canoe trip from just south of Lynxville, Wis., to Guttenberg, Iowa. It truly was a great experience, but there certainly were some weather-related setbacks.

Friday, Aug. 15 — High 90, low 54 I think I can honestly say that I would rather be in a canoe than a boat and today, when I left the public boat landing with gear for three days of living out of a tent and traveling by canoe, my mood was excellent. It did not take long for some reality to set in when I had only traveled 4 miles, it was late afternoon, and I had to find a place to build camp as it appeared I was going to get hit by storms.

I have been very scheduled the last month or so, and it was much appreciated to sit on shore after my camp was built, enjoy a cold PBR, and watch the river. The entire evening there was almost nonstop thunder, but very little rain. As always, I enjoyed sleeping on the ground. Red was in dog heaven.

Saturday, Aug. 16 — High 91, low 49 Today was literally an all-over-the-map kind of a day. My mind was going from memory lane of this being my 54th year since I started hunting at our annual adventure camping on an island near Lansing, Iowa, to when I was a deck hand at the ripe old age of 18 onboard the Universal Trader. We pushed fuel barges from New Orleans, La., to Louisville, Ky.

When I was 25, I attempted to canoe up the Mississippi River. I made it 980 miles and though it really broke my heart, I had to give up. My wrists and elbows were toast. I was a steel fabricator at that time and could not afford to have permanent injuries. Lucky for me because now, at the young age of 64, I have zero body pain and all joints seem flawless.

On this trip, I noticed lots of things. One was that there were literally thousands of people that were having just about as much fun as they could have. I love to see that. I generally paddled real close to shore to stay out of the boat traffic. In all honesty, I saw next to no trash in the water or on land. Something that made me think was that even though I was covering 35 miles of river, I did not see any other person camping or in a canoe or kayak. I may be wrong, but I think there are fewer people doing the sleep-on-the-ground/tent-type of sports and a pretty good-sized shift to large campers. I put 23 miles behind me today and as soon as I called it quits, I started cooking a fine meal and opened a very warm PBR. I put my tent up but had not put the fly over it, which is what prevents rain from coming into the tent. A storm hit me from behind with a downpour, and much of what was in my tent became wet.

Like last night, the thunder and lightning were nonstop and sounded like a distant war. At about 2 a.m., all“H-E-double toothpicks”broke loose. The rain came down so hard on my worn out tent that my sleeping bag became soaked. The wind was howling like a mad man and then, about 10 feet from my tent, I heard a tree break at the root ball. I hoped it was not falling on me, and it did not. In the morning, I did see that it fell on my canoe, but with no damage.

I paddled to Guttenberg and I have to tell you, I would not mind calling this part of the world home! My day ended with a fine meal and a cold beer at my good friends Gary and Joan Howe’s home that overlooks the river. I was about as grubby as could be, but earned the taint and it washed off as it always does.

I will be back in 40 days to camp by Lansing, shoot ducks, live in my memories, and look forward to the future!

Sunset