The Women’s Rum River Express Canoe Trip
Mini-School’s first all women’s canoe trip took place May 5-8. We paddled sixty miles on the Rum River from Princeton to St. Francis. Lester and Joanne were the fearless leaders. Student participants were: Nancy Wachs, Kelly Donahue, Mary Nehring, Lori Johnson, Sandy Borth, Cindy Anderson, Sue Vold, Andrea Meckstroth, Wendy Zaun and Sue Quinn.
Tuesday: We packed into Duluth packs with the guys giving us a lot of grief. Skraba laughed at Lester carrying an eighty pound food pack saying, “She looks like she’s going to tip over, she can hardly walk!” So Lester got him back by backing up and letting him help her off with the pack. With a surprised look on his face, he nearly dropped it right there in the pit.
We left school at 8:20 am in Norm and Berg’s vehicles. Toot came along for the ride and gave us a hard time because we left twenty minutes late. Women’s trips are ‘spozed to be perfect, we guessed.
We arrived at Princeton and ate breakfast in a restaurant. We started canoeing at 11:00 am. Sue’s and Mary’s pinwheel on the front of their canoe broke in the first torturous rapid. Everyone already missed their TVs, radios, and curling irons (not really!). We didn’t forget a thing except the river maps, but Les brought hers, so we were saved from being constantly lost.
Wendy, Sandy, and Sue Q. went down a wrong turn and were lost for a long time, but we all got back together for lunch at Farmer Joe’s field. He drove up on his tractor and talked to us. He wanted to make sure we weren’t a bunch of those beatniks (lucky there weren’t any Mini-School guys along). He was 80 years old and had lived in the same house on the river all his life. He still told us the wrong mileage to Highway 47 bridge, though. We spent the afternoon dodging (and hitting and running into and going over) lots of downed trees and branches.
We found a beautiful clear grassy plateau for camp. Nancy was the only one with enough guts–or brains–to sleep with the teachers. Joanne and Lori went fishing. We had a great spaghetti dinner with real beef in it, breadsticks, and heartburn later. This was the night of the incredible arousing wood tick dream by Kelly. We all experienced the dreaded pancake butts, better known as secretary’s ass. We went 14 miles our first day.
Wednesday: We awoke to a chilling frosty 36 degree dawn. We finally got on the water at 8:30, and to our amazement were at the bridge within minutes. We went through miles of treacherous waters, and as a result, Mary, Sue V., and Nancy took a dump right in the river. The swift current carried the canoe into a newly-fallen deadfall. The canoe swamped, the three ladies went into the water, but still saved everything, including Duluth packs, paddles, and their lives. As the other four canoes arrived on the scene, they came to the rescue within seconds. The canoe was completely submerged against the deadfall, but Andrea, Kelly, and Wendy climbed out on the tree and helped Nancy and Joanne haul the sucker to shore, while Lester stood by on the shore, helplessly taking pictures. She said later, “I felt like a real geek.”
We spent a few moments standing on shore, deciding how the remaining four canoes should run the treacherous zone. At this point, Joanne and Lester suggested (rather strongly) that everyone put on their life jackets. No one gave them any flack about THAT. Jo and Les skillfully maneuvered their canoe across and down river as others frightenedly observed their daring moves. After wiping the sweat from their cleavages, they carefully encouraged the students across to safety. The whole ordeal built the group’s confidence and unity. Everybody felt strong and
good about themselves and the trip.
The rest of the day went smoothly and we booked to the brook (Pine Brook) for lunch on a sandy beach, doing 22 miles that day. After a long day, we pulled into a campsite, unloaded the canoes, started putting up tents, and an obese jogger informed us of a wonderful campsite 200 yards downriver with pine trees, sand, grass, and barbeques. After walking around on the uneven ground for about 15 seconds, we decided to go for it, rolled up tents, reloaded the canoes, and pulled out in a miraculous ten minutes. The guy didn’t know what he was talking about, and the campsite was actually one long mile downriver (very long at 7:00 pm). On the way, we thought we found a gold mine of cut firewood in a trailer near the river’s edge. We loaded it in the canoes, only to find out later it was
green and wouldn’t burn worth a darn. It made a good fire ring though, and good seats around the fire, too. We had one of Wendy’s specials for dinner, stew with fresh veggies. Those guys back at school were right when they said we took a lot of weight–why not?, we didn’t have to portage ’til the last day. We had French bread, green peppers, zucchini, stewed tomatoes, kidney beans, big onions, celery, and seasonings. Guys, was it worth it!
We thought the canoe flip was the crisis of the day, but the real one was that we lost two, almost three, trippers that night. Due to illness, homesickness, and being tuckered out, we lost Sue Quinn and Sandy back to civilization. They went home with Sandy’s dad, who very willingly drove to pick them up at midnight. We were pleased that Andrea decided to stay with the group. As Nancy, seasoned tripper, said that night, “On a Mini-School trip, there are the bad times, but also the good times.” Andrea later said, “I guess you have to work through the rough stuff to get to the good times.”
Aside from talking about feelings, we spent a lot of time drying out a wet tent, all of Lori’s wet clothes and sleeping bag–victims of the big dump.
Thursday: We got up late at 7:00 am and were out by 8:00 to canoe seven miles into Cambridge for a morale-boosting breakfast at a restaurant. The morning was very quiet (and some say peaceful) without the humorous chatter of Jo’s lovely voice, due to laryngitis, caused by too much yelling at the kids? A silent leader at last!
After a relatively short stop in Cambridge and an encouraging tantrum by Lester, we were on our merry way, headed toward an afternoon of hard, mellow paddling–some call it stroking–and we made 24 miles in such good time that we ended up 2 and 1/2 miles from our take-out by 4:00. We had a floating lunch, banding our canoes together as one, as we drifted down the river of life.
We pulled into Woodtick Heaven, our last campsite. Evening was spent in light conversation, washing our hair in the spirited water of the Rum, preparing and eating the worst dinner of the trip (which reminded Lester of the old Mini-School stand-by, Portage Porridge). In fact, when Lester found it later in the weeds, she thought someone had puked. We also wrote this group journal around the campfire.
Later that night, Joanne and Lester were awakened by screams in the woods made by some of the students who were frightened by the outrageous outbursts of a rather large barn owl near camp. This sent everyone off to their tents, only to be awakened a bit later on by a raving maniac who came up to the tent Nancy, Sue and Mary were in shouting “I love you, I love you!” He pulled down one of the tent poles and was on his merry way. What an interesting last night in the woods–our only close encounter with the “other kind.”
We slept in until 8:30 Friday morning since we only had several miles left to go to St. Francis. Since Doug and Norm wouldn’t be picking us up til 2:00, we figured we deserved a leisurely morn. Lester flipped some gorgeous pancakes and some feasted on the notorious “goatmeal”. And then, a natural phenomenon occurred which had been lacking throughout our sunny blue-skied trip. A drop of rain fell! And these ladies were prepared for it like on no other Mini-School trip in the past. Within seconds, they were all digging through their packs eagerly grasping for their raingear. Our camp became inhabited by a group of ponchoed, rain coated aliens. Joanne and Lester calmly kept taking pictures and making pancakes. Didn’t these ladies
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