By Shane Frederick
Free Press Staff Writer
May 20, 2008 01:18 am
—
Sunday was a nearly perfect day for a paddle.
My friend and I put our canoe in just below the Rapidan Dam and rode the Blue Earth River’s current 12 miles to Sibley Park.
We weren’t alone on the river, as several people enjoyed one of the few nice days we’ve had this spring.
Some anglers fished from the shore near Rapidan Dam Park and further downstream below the Jones Ford Bridge. Others were out in kayaks. A group of young people found a landing on which to stop their boats and build a bonfire.
Despite having the wind in our face most of the trip, it was hard not to enjoy an old-fashioned canoe ride under a robin’s egg-blue sky.
Along the way, I couldn’t help but think of Colton Witte and Sean Bloomfield. They are the teenagers from Chaska who are trying to replicate the trip from the Twin Cities to Hudson Bay that Eric Severeid and Walter Port took in 1930 and that Severeid later chronicled in the book “Canoeing with the Cree.”
When we last saw Witte and Bloomfield, they were struggling to paddle against the current of the Minnesota River. Just five days into their trip, one of them — Witte — already had been sick enough to make a brief stop at the St. Peter Hospital, and the weather conditions were very cold and very wet. Their trip around the bend in the river — from St. Peter to Mankato to New Ulm — took nearly a week.
It wasn’t the best way to begin a 2,250-mile voyage.
“There was some doubt there for a little while,” Colton’s dad, Dan Witte, said Monday afternoon.
Dan said it was Colton’s mom, Kathy, who convinced them to press on, saying, “The sun’s going to shine.”
And it did.
Since then, the trip has become Colton and Sean’s excellent adventure.
According to a Web site updated by Kathy Witte almost every night, the friends have been taken out to dinner by strangers in New Ulm and Fairmount, N.D., and they’ve been given lodging by “friends of friends of friends.” They even were given the keys to the city by the mayor of Redwood Falls.
Last Wednesday, 17 days after shoving off from Chaska, Witte and Bloomfield arrived in the Ortonville area, which meant they had finally finished the Minnesota River and would finally be able to start paddling downstream.
On Saturday, they hit the Red River of the North and, on Sunday, they were already in Fargo, N.D., having paddled 90 miles in a 24-hour span. They’ve even started to work in shifts, going through the night with one snoozing while the other paddles.
They’re expected to be in Grand Forks already today where a care package will be waiting for them, Dan Witte said.
Sounds better than the 2 mph they were traveling as they came through Mankato on May 3 and May 4.
“They lost three days around Mankato, with the weather and sickness,” Dan Witte said. “But they made up for that in one day (on the Red River).”
Shane Frederick is a Free Press staff writer. Call him at 344-6373 or e-mail him at sfrederick@mankatofreepress.com.
Copyright © 1999-2008 cnhi, inc.
Photos
