In 1930, Eric Sevareid, who would go on to become one of the top CBS radio and television reporters and commentators of the 1940s -1970s, graduated from high school in Minneapolis and, with a pal, set off in a canoe for Hudson Bay. He wrote about this expedition in a book entitled Canoeing With the Cree in 1935, a book still available and one of the classics in canoe wilderness travel. I read this book many years ago and remember it still. Eric Sevareid was paired up with Walter Cronkite for many years, and I remember him well during that period when CBS news was the dominate broadcast voice on television.
This year, two young women who are just now graduating from St. Olaf Collage in Northfield, Minnesota, are setting out on June 2 from Fort Snelling in Minneapolis to recreate the Sevareid journey. Their website at http://hudsonbaybound.com gives details of their plan, and they are documenting the voyage on a blog at http://www.hudsonbaybound.blogspot.com/. I plan to vicariously follow along on this 2,250 mile trip that begins on the Mississippi River, into the Minnesota River, on to Big Stone Lake, down the north flowing Red River of the North, to Lake Winnipeg, into the Hayes River, then to York Factory on Hudson Bay.
Although a few others have recreated this journey over the years, these two young grads hope to become the first women to follow Sevareid’s path. I try to tag along on expeditions like this, much as I do with Roz Savage’s row around the world. Expeditions like this are inspiring to me. I like to follow people who set out on their own path to challenge themselves and nature rather than follow a more traditional route to career, financial entanglements, and conformity. So, I will be checking in regularly to see how their trip is going.
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