River People

(Written Sept. 5 while out of cell range)

I am learning much from locals and the truth to the J. Fogherty line, "People on the river are happy to give." You know the one, "If you have no money, you don't have to worry." And then, "Rolling, rolling, rolling on the river."

Campsites and towns being scarce up here, we literally just pull up to peoples' docks and ask either to lunch w/them or camp on their lawn a night or stow our canoes safely w/them if there is a motel & shopping nearby. It's great. Forced outa my shell, mostly by a quite gregarious and unabashed Frank. It was Eric, however, who spotted Pinky Jetland and his wife Virginia eating dinner in their riverside house.

Eric Hofmann of Villa Park, Illinois came up alongside us on the river back a few days ago on his solo journey south to a town called Savannah, llinois. Pinky proves more than hospitable, hosting our canoes and driving us the short distance into town. We overnight and relish our first shower and real bed in roughly a week at the Forest Lake Motel. Later, Eric and I close the Forest Lake Tavern across the street. (More on Eric and Pinky and my first interview with reporter Marie of the local paper and the whole of our Grand Rapids, MN experience later.)

Out of town and downriver an hour and now it's Bluegrass on Grand Rapid's KAXE public radio, a band called Crooked Still. Beneath blue skies the smell of sunblock is in the air, the water aquarium clear. The sand beneath appears like some underwater Sahara, dunes seen in miniature as though from the window of a high flying jet plane. Forested banks have taken over where yesterday and days before there were only native rice paddies, endless and dispiriting.

The constancy of herons taking flight as we round every meander has become a regular treat. Now and again we are graced with the close flyovers of bald eagles. Frank says of the forest and wildlife, "Now this is what I expected."

Frank is teaching me all about the weather. He points up at scattered white puffball clouds overhead and on the sky horizon. "Cumulus Hummulis," he says, and I imagine he's joking. But he isn't. They are fair weather clouds and provide welcome patches of shade. Of the word cumulus he says,"It's a great scrabble word."

We consider the river's history, of how many have rowed this river before us. Yet so few per year do the whole thing as is our goal. Collecting dreams is a positive and heartwarming experience. I am very sore though and just hope my shoulder muscles heal and grow strong rather than tear anymore, as it thus far feels they are doing.

It's later, 6 pm and the water is black glass. The river snaps a series of perfect Polaroids, paints realist portraits of all shoreline life and a whole new parallel world arises from the dark evening surface of the northern Minnesota "Minnie Miss." We pass beneath power lines buzzing loud. Lost in thought and this thumb typing, I am transported right back to Appalachia. Must have walked beneath a 1000 of them there.

Frank notes that it has become difficult to judge the shoreline, so like a mirage is the blending of the real and the reflected.

Eric is terrified of bears. It is an irrational fear around these parts where adult bears are still hunted and thus associate man with guns. Orphaned cubs no doubt grow into adults with a bone deep fear of our species. But phobias are like that. Scorpions where I'm from are tiny, and though their venom is potent, it's not enough to do much more than make a healthy adult like me sick for a day. Yet having never been stung by one, I fear them. But Eric is huge. He's going this river solo, his every paddle stroke damn near reverses the river's natural direction of flow. He'd give a bear a run for its money.

So one night before meeting up with us he's alone and anxious when he hears a scratching at his tent. He swats at it, frightened. After a minute of frightened silence, he hears his pots and pans being banged around. Now he's freaking out. He pulls out his bear mace and is fumbling with it in the dark when the creature returns and scratches at his tent again. Terrified, Eric reaches for his tent fly prepared to zip it open and let the "bear" have it when he accidentally fires off the bear spray inside his closed tent. Ouch.

The next morning he studys the tracks in the earth around his camp. Appropriate to his folly, they belong to a skunk. - RSM
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