What it’s like to...

Canoe the Mississippi from source to sea

Erik Elsea
Rotary Club of Cape Coral, Florida

When I was nine years old, my father and I were camping near Fort de Chartres in southern Illinois. We hiked a little ways and there at our feet was the Mississippi River rushing by. I said, “Wow, wouldn’t it be cool to canoe the entire Mississippi one day?” And my dad, instead of saying that was a crazy idea, said, “It’s possible. You could do it.” Ever since, it had been a dream of mine to canoe the Mississippi from source to sea. 

On 7 July 2018, about seven weeks after my 40th birthday — and days after I’d completed my term as our Rotary club’s president — I began fulfilling my dream. I was at Lake Itasca, Minnesota, the source of the Mississippi, paddling a red 17-foot Prospector, a canoe made by Nova Craft that’s coated in this material called TuffStuff. There are pretty decent rapids coming out of Lake Itasca, and most people portage around them. I thought: They say this canoe is made out of tough stuff. Let’s find out.

I started paddling, got up a good head of steam, and hit the rapids. I started bouncing off the rocks — boom! boom! boom! — and got to thinking that maybe this was not the best of ideas. But I came out fine on the other side.

My image of the river had always been of the way it is near St. Louis where I grew up: the massive, mighty Mississippi. The northern part of the river is nothing like that. It was so narrow the first day that wetlands touched both sides of my canoe at the same time. It was beautiful, scenic, and very pristine.

One reason I made the trip was to make money for and raise awareness of ShelterBox, Rotary’s partner in disaster relief. I’m an ambassador for ShelterBox, and so is Holly Anderson, a member of the Rotary Club of Fargo Moorhead PM in North Dakota. Holly was my crew chief, and she was absolutely amazing. I could do the paddling — all 2,350 miles — but Holly did all the logistics, helped secure sponsors, and set up speaking engagements about ShelterBox at Rotary clubs and other places.

My average day would begin before sunrise. I’d heat up some water, make some instant coffee, and eat breakfast. Then I’d break down camp, load up the canoe, and be on the river shortly after sunrise. I’d canoe until pretty close to sundown, when I’d set up camp and make dinner. I had a Vango tent, the same kind they use in ShelterBox but on a smaller scale. I had put up so many of those tents in demonstrations as a ShelterBox ambassador. It was a lot of fun to use one out in the wild.

Generally I got pretty lucky with the weather. But one day I tried to outrun a storm, and suddenly it was right on top of me. I raced to the riverbank, dragged the canoe up on the beach, turned it over, and climbed under. The lightning and the thunder were cracking right over my head. When you’re by yourself, it’s amazing how much you talk to God — whatever your conception of God is. “All right, God,” I’d say, “get me through this.”

Every night for entertainment, I’d read Mark Twain’s Life on the Mississippi. Here was Twain discussing these river towns in the 1800s, and I was getting to see those same towns and cities in 2018. I reached Hannibal, Missouri — Mark Twain’s hometown — at the exact halfway point of my 90-day trip. That was a big milestone!

A few days later, I arrived in St. Louis. After visiting with my family, I set off from the Gateway Arch. That was my wildest day on the river. The port of St. Louis is a dangerous, dangerous place. The traffic on the river was insane. There were northbound barges and southbound barges, tugboats and cruise ships. There were so many waves and wakes, I was holding on for dear life.

On 4 October, I arrived in Port Eads, Louisiana, about 100 miles downstream from New Orleans. From there it’s about 2 miles to the Gulf of Mexico. The next day I was up super early. It was a gorgeous morning, and I wanted to meet the Gulf as the sun was rising over it. The Plaquemines Port Authority sent a rescue boat to tail me, and when I hit the Gulf, there were water cannons firing and lights flashing and sirens blaring. The next night there was a big party at the House of Blues in New Orleans. Holly was there, and lots of Rotarians and people from ShelterBox.

People ask me if I’d canoe the Mississippi again. No! I’ve done it once; why would I do it again? Now I want to canoe the Amazon or the Nile or the Yukon. That’s my dream now.

As told to Geoffrey Johnson

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• Illustration by Sébastien Thibault

• This story originally appeared in the January 2020 issue of The Rotarian magazine.