A perfect book club outing ~ September 9, 1998

David Heiller

Our book club read Canoeing with the Cree, by Eric Sevareid, for our September discussion.

But instead of meeting at someone’s house in the evening, like we usually do, we held this book club on the Kettle River.

This is what bookclub usually looked like.
This was at our house.

We canoed from County Road 52 to Rutledge, about an eight mile stretch, on September 6.

There were eight canoes and 18 people. Usu­ally we have about 10 people at book club, but a fun outing on a gorgeous day attracted extra spouses and kids.

Cindy and I canoed the first half with a 16-year-old boy, Matt, in the middle. We hit a lot of shallow spots. The Kettle River is low, because of the dry summer. We had to get out of the ca­noe to pull it over rocks and sand many, many times.

At some places trees lay over the river. Sometimes we were able to float underneath them. One tree was about three feet above the river. Cindy bent low enough to slip under it. But I’m a lot bigger than her, so I climbed out of the canoe and onto the tree trunk while the canoe floated underneath. Then I got back in the canoe.

It wasn’t exactly the kind of challenge that Eric Sevareid and Walter Port faced on their ca­noe trip from Minneapolis to Hudson Bay.

At about the half way point, we stopped on a sandy shore and had a picnic lunch and dis­cussed the book. Everybody brought some food to share. Pat Ring laid a tarp down on the sand. People set out salads and fresh vegetables and fruit, most of it home grown.

Deane and Katherine Hillbrand on the Kettle River

There were breads and meat and cheese and sandwiches. I bet it was the fanciest picnic the Kettle River has ever seen. That’s one thing I like about Book Club. There’s always great food.

The discussion was good too, although it took Pat, who serves as the unofficial moderator, some hollering to bring us all together. The set­ting on the river was just right for the discus­sion, which was what we had in mind in the first place.           

We talked about how lucky Severeid and Port, who were both teenagers, had been on their trip, which started in Minneapolis and ended at Hud­son Bay. So many things could have gone wrong.

But their courage and strength played an equally big part. They tackled a huge wilder­ness, in awful weather, on dangerous rivers.

How many of us standing there would have turned back? Eric Severeid put it well in his author’s note: “Our journey was an example of what very young men can do—once in their lives—but never again!”

It’s important to do something like that when you are young and have the chance several people said. After the discussion, one of the college kids said the discussion made hint a little sad, because he didn’t know if he would be able to ever have an adventure like that.

He already had college loans piling up. He was feeling the pressure of having to get a job right after college. I think he wished he could head out to Hudson Bay instead of Duluth.

That made me think that young people today face more stress than people like Severeid and Port did in 1930.

We packed up the food and headed down the mighty Kettle River. Joel and Daina Rosen pulled their canoe up to ours. Joel wanted to sing songs. That was the perfect ending for the trip. Singing and canoeing go together like a paddle and water, But often I don’t do it. I get self-conscious. Joel doesn’t know what self-conscious is, at least when it comes to singing. His rich baritone voice carried over the river, and it sounded great.

Just like our book club trip down the river.