Hard Rivers

In Hard Rivers, author Craig P. Howard recounts the harrowing journey of La Salle: Expedition II, a reenactment of the 1681–82 voyage of La Salle from Montreal to the Gulf of Mexico. The crew, made up of sixteen teenage boys and seven adults led by one charismatic teacher, launched their canoes on August 11, 1976, and arrived at the Gulf on April 9, 1977—3,300 miles later. Lake Michigan and Midwest rivers froze solid in the historic cold, forcing the teens to march 500 miles, first from Chicago to St. Joseph, Michigan and then across Indiana and Illinois. Despite temperatures of twenty-seven below and wind chills of seventy-eight below, near fatalities outside Green Bay, and a truck accident near Hebron, Indiana that hospitalized four, they achieved something that had never been done before and will never be done again.