Lucky cat

An Outdoorsman’s Journal

As most of you are aware I am taking a month off from my travels as I go through the process of taking care of everything required due to my beautiful girlfriend Michelle Chiaro’s unexpected death. This week’s column is about one day in my 1987 attempt to paddle up the entire Mississippi River. Thank you to all of you for your patience!

June 9, 1987 Day 15 River miles 159-196

This is a story of a canoe trip I took on the Mississippi River in 1987. I started in Baton Rouge, La., canoed 230 miles to the Gulf of Mexico and then turned around and headed north, canoeing against the current with Lake Ithasca in north central Minnesota being my goal. I am able to write this story because of the daily journal I kept.

Life has become very interesting. The river has risen 4 feet in the last two days. It makes for a lot of current and a lot of danger. The only way you can canoe against the current is to stay very close to the shoreline. This part of the river has a very steep bank on a very large percentage of the river. What I mean by this is the bank very often goes straight up for 10 to 30 feet.

My kitten Blaster chose today to be a real pain in the butt. I had a cover made for my canoe. At night, Blaster would play on top of it while I paddled along. Tonight, the current was very powerful. Blaster had been playing on the top for a few minutes. What she would do was chase bugs.

My canoe was a solo (one man), so I would sit in the middle. I was talking to a man who was fishing from the shoreline. I would just hold myself in one spot by lightly paddling forward. I had been talking to him for a few minutes when I noticed Blaster was gone. I looked over the side of the canoe and there was Blaster being taken away by the current. I scooped her up and that was that. Now, this is not something I have told a lot of people, but Blaster and I had a way of communicating that worked really well. I would meow to her, and she would meow right back and come to me right away.

Blaster was playing on the back of the canoe chasing bugs that came out every night. Sometimes she would jump 6 feet to get on some of those bugs. They were huge –– 3 to 4 inches long. When she ate them they would really crunch. Seems like she liked bugs a lot more than dry cat food.

I was canoeing along in what was one of the most dangerous stretches of river I have ever paddled. There were deadfalls laying everywhere, their roots still holding most of them to shore. The ones that drifted free were not much trouble in the daylight, but canoeing after dark, they cause a lot of trouble. I was paddling along; it was pitch dark and I was in trouble. There was a lot of current and I couldn’t go more than 50 yards without paddling around a deadfall.

My kitten Blaster was all white. All of a sudden, for some reason, I thought I had better look behind me. I did and I saw a very nasty sight. Thirty yards behind me, and disappearing fast, was Blaster. I guess she took too big of a jump after that last bug. All I could see was her head. I thought it was risky to try to get her.

The trouble with deadfalls and a lot of current is if you get caught on one, the first thing that happens is your canoe gets pushed under the deadfall. Then you become separated from your canoe. While underwater your lungs fill up with water, you get hung up on a branch underwater and you die.

I had this thought on my mind as I watched Blaster disappear. I did something that about broke my heart. I gave her a “meow” and she “meowed” back and started trying to swim towards me. It was hopeless. There was too much current. In current like this you can’t just turn around.

I started paddling backwards, getting closer and closer to Blaster. The problem was, we were both getting closer and closer to a deadfall. I started meowing and she kept on meowing back. We were both going to die or we were both going to live. Well, the Big Guy in the Big Sky was watching over us that night. Just before we ran into that deadfall, I scooped her up and got out of Dodge. Blaster was as limp as a rag, but I think I became her hero.

I paddled on. I made my 37 miles. No one died. This ended up being my biggest upriver mileage day.

That night I had real bad pains in my arms, shoulders, wrists and elbows. The 426 miles I had paddled were taking their toll! I will say this, my self-confidence was at an all-time high. And as I think about it, Blaster never chased bugs on the top of my canoe again.

Have a nice week, Mark