Historic Waterways—Six Hundred Miles of Canoeing Down the Rock, Fox, and Wisconsin Rivers

Provided, reader, you have a goodly store of patience, stout muscles, a practiced fondness for the oars, a keen love of the picturesque and curious in nature, a capacity for remaining good-humored under the most adverse circumstances, together with a quiet love for that sort of gypsy life which we call "roughing it," canoeing may be safely recommended to you as one of the most delightful and healthful of outdoor recreations, as well as one of the cheapest.

The canoe need not be of birch-bark or canvas, or of the Rob Roy or Racine pattern. A plain, substantial, light, open clinker-build was what we used,—thirteen feet in extreme length, with three-and-a-half feet beam. It was easily portaged, held two persons comfortably with seventy-five pounds of baggage, and drew but five inches,—just enough to let us over the average shallows without bumping. It was serviceable, and stood the rough carries and innumerable bangs from sunken rocks and snags along its voyage of six hundred miles, without injury. It could carry a large sprit-sail, and, with an attachable keel, run close to the wind; while an awning, decided luxury on hot days, was readily hoisted on a pair of hoops attached to the gunwale on either side. But perhaps, where there are no portages necessary, an ordinary flat-bottomed river punt, built of three boards, would be as productive of good results, except as to speed,—and what matters speed upon such a tour of observation?

It is not necessary to go to the Maine lakes for canoeing purposes; or to skirt the gloomy wastes of Labrador, or descend the angry current of a mountain stream. Here, in the Mississippi basin, practically boundless opportunities present themselves, at our very doors, to glide through the heart of a fertile and picturesque land, to commune with Nature, to drink in her beauties, to view men and communities from a novel standpoint, to catch pictures of life and manners that will always live in one's memory. The traveler by rail has brief and imperfect glimpses of the landscape. The canoeist, from his lowly seat near the surface of the flood, sees the country practically as it was in pioneer days, in a state of unalloyed beauty. Each bend in the stream brings into view a new vista, and thus the bewitching scene changes as in a kaleidoscope. The people one meets, the variety of landscape one encounters, the simple adventures of the day, the sensation of being an explorer, the fresh air and simple diet, combined with that spirit of calm contentedness which overcomes the happy voyager who casts loose from care, are the never-failing attractions of such a trip.