disregarding appeals to help set up the tent or assist in preparing the meal. I was increasingly frustrated. When it came to expeditions, I knew only one way to behave, and it was based on an unwritten code I had learned from the trip leaders who first took me into the wilderness:
• Don’t dive into a river without first checking for submerged objects.
• Don’t let canoes touch anything but air and water, lest they tear and make it impossible to paddle home.
• Don’t reach into the communal trail mix bag with your hand, lest you spread intestinal disease to the rest of the group.
• Don’t run in camp or on trails, lest you twist an ankle and burden the group with your evacuation.
• Always strap Duluth packs to thwarts to prevent them from sinking in the event of capsizing in deep water.
• Never wash dishes in a lake or stream; soap and food waste are environmentally invasive.
• Make sure camp is set and all chores complete before engaging in nonessential activities.
As a novice I had rebelled against these strictures, which seemed to take all the fun out of canoe trips. But over the years I had come to understand their utility.
The following morning, José stashed the fishing pole a minute before the sheriff arrived in camp on a black S-10. A middle-aged white man in Wranglers and a cowboy hat, he initially didn’t identify himself, choosing instead to poke around our campsite, his six-year-old son in tow, asking about our intentions.
This would be the first of several encounters we had with law enforcement. Whether it was the fact that we were an unusual pair of travelers heading toward an international border in an age of terrorism hysteria or simply the kind of harassment people of color endure every day in America, our trip seemed to be viewed by government officials as a criminal act. In fact, we would be interrogated by officials from five different agencies by the time we crossed into Canada.
While their approaches varied, they all asked the same questions. How do you two know each other? Where are you going? How long do you expect the trip to take? How did you get time off for such a long trip? How will you know where you’re going? What are you going to eat? Why are you doing this?
After seeing José lose his cool at the sight of these authority figures the first couple times we encountered them, each jittery utterance sketchier than the last, I invariably took the lead in handling the exhanges. My responses were cautious and truthful. I was José’s mentor. We had met five years earlier at New Voices, a Minneapolis-based journalism program for Native American youth. We expected our trip on the Red, Nelson, Echimamish and Hayes Rivers to take roughly two months. José’s employer had granted him a leave of absence for the summer. I was a teacher, so I had summers off. We were navigating with topographical maps, compasses, and a GPS receiver. For sustenance we had freeze-dried camping food.
Invariably, the officer would nod suspiciously in response, then run our names for warrants. But the trickiest part of these interrogations was inventing answers in response to that last question: Why are you doing this? The question always seemed to imply that no sane person would undertake such a journey without sinister motives. Here too, though, I went with a clipped version of the truth: the trip was about physical and spiritual renewal.
This last point almost always signaled closure to these absurd exchanges, greeted as it was by looks of utter astonishment. For as anyone who is even vaguely familiar with the Red River knows, it is one of the most unforgiving waterways in America. And yet, the torture entailed by canoeing 10 or 12 hours each day to cover 30 or 40 miles, eating and sleeping on riverbanks that were essentially mud pits, baking under the withering sun, and freezing through frequent cloudbursts was, for us both, a welcome respite from the heartache and stress that had come to dominate our lives in Saint Paul. Particularly in this first stage of the journey, our days on the river entailed a strong element of self-mutilation. The physical pain and demands of the travel relieved our suffering hearts.
Because there was no freshwater available at the city park and the river was too brown with sediment for our filtration equipment, we decided to walk into town to fill our jugs before shoving off. We climbed up the riverbank and found a narrow trail that led up a leafy incline. In the deep shade of the willows the air turned uncomfortably chilly. José and Kocher, walking before me, stopped simultaneously.
“Do you smell that?” Kocher asked.
José sniffed. “It smells like old blood.”
Kocher agreed. “It’s creepy in here.”
I wasn’t sure what I smelled—rusty iron, perhaps—but I felt claustrophobic and pushed forward to take the lead. We emerged shortly thereafter on a sunny prairie, in the middle of which stood an old Army post consisting of a few hastily constructed cabins. This was Fort Abercrombie, founded in 1857 to protect the valley’s early white settlers.
During the US-Dakota War of 1862, Dakota warriors repeatedly attacked the fort, sneaking up from their canoes on trails like the one we had just walked. Few Indians were able to penetrate the withering hail of gunfire, and according to historians, dozens had been killed in the effort to make their way through the dense willows between the river and the garrison. When I shared this with Kocher and José, we all agreed that this was hallowed ground.
We filled our jugs at the local pub, which appeared to be the only active establishment in town. It was a couple hours past sunrise, but already the stools were humming with what must have been a good portion of Abercrombie’s population. The townies were welcoming, and the bartender topped us off with a genuine smile.
José remained in the doorway while Kocher and I went inside. I noticed him scanning the all-white locals with a worried expression. I thought his fear unwarranted in this case, but after the haunting walk from the river, he was in no mood to test their tolerance. When we came out a few minutes later, José was gone, making his way back to the river.
We traveled the 77 river miles between Abercrombie and Fargo over two punishing days. A northerly headwind eliminated any advantage provided by the current, and we struggled to make headway. With temperatures hovering in the mid-forties and a near-constant downpour, my bared arms turned to frigid slabs. Kocher settled into the sloshing puddle at the center of the canoe, sacrificing his body to the chills that inevitably resulted from inactivity. In the bow, José cowered beneath a rain hood, muttering obscenities and dipping his paddle weakly.
After what felt like dozens of hours of relentless pummeling, we began scouting the grey riverbanks for a campsite. We were just 30 miles north of Abercrombie, and it was challenging to identify a spot that would support a tent on the swampy banks looming up steeply from the water.
Several miles beyond the point where our search for a campsite began, Kocher spotted a farm field atop a 30-foot precipice. “My ass cannot get any soggier,” he explained, having soaked in the mire for at least 10 hours. “We’re stopping here.”
We struggled up the slippery pitch, hauling only the tent, sleeping bags, a water jug, and trail mix. We left the rest of the gear behind in the canoe, which was tied off for the night on a logjam.
We pitched our tent on a truck-wide swath of uncultivated soil, between a meadow planted with soybeans and the edge of the soggy promontory. We spread our sleeping bags, crawled inside the tent, and ate a quick dinner of trail mix and water. By sunset we were asleep, our muddy bodies filling
