© Jon Lurie, 2017
All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical articles or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher: Milkweed Editions, 1011 Washington Avenue South, Suite 300, Minneapolis, Minnesota 55415.
(800) 520-6455
Published 2017 by Milkweed Editions
Cover and text design by Adam B. Bohannon
Cover photo by Jon Lurie
Author photo by Aoife Roberts
Frontispiece map by Nate Christopherson and Karl Engebretson
17 18 19 20 21 5 4 3 2 1
First Edition
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Lurie, Jon, 1967- author.
Title: Canoeing with José / Jon Lurie.
Description: Minneapolis, Minnesota: Milkweed Editions, 2017.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017000234
Subjects: LCSH: Lurie, Jon, 1967---Travel--Red River of the North. | Canoes and canoeing--Red River of the North. | Red River of the North--Description and travel. | BISAC: BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Personal Memoirs. | SPORTS & RECREATION / Canoeing. | BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Native Americans. | SPORTS & RECREATION / Camping.
Classification: LCC GV782.42.L87 A3 2017 | DDC 797.12209784/1--dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017000234
Milkweed Editions is committed to ecological stewardship. We strive to align our book production practices with this principle, and to reduce the impact of our operations in the environment. We are a member of the Green Press Initiative, a nonprofit coalition of publishers, manufacturers, and authors working to protect the world’s endangered forests and conserve natural resources. Canoeing with José was printed on acid-free 100% postconsumer-waste paper by Edwards Brothers Malloy.
For Allison, Chaske, Edmond, Gemma, José, Lillieannah,
Malcolm, Mariah, and Martha
CONTENTS
Prologue
The Sevareid Library
José
Fort Snelling Specters
Old Hal and Hawk’s Canoe
We’re Off!
Brokeback Baptism
Paradise Lost
Red River Mud
The Eagle Speaks
Grand Forks
La Migra
Crossing the Border
Oh, Canada
Métis Dreams
The Tijuana Yacht Club
On to Nitaskinan
The Harbormaster
Lost and Found
Hell’s Gate
The Little Prince
Oxford Lake
The Ned Flanders Rebellion
The Suicide Route
Men of the North
Twilight of the Gods
The Cheat Codes for Life
From Knee Lake to Whitemud Falls
New Horizons
Acknowledgments
A NOTE ON THE USE OF LAKOTA, DAKOTA, AND SIOUX
José has both Lakota and Dakota ancestry on his mother’s side. The Lakota and Dakota are divisions of the Oceti Sakowin Oyate (Seven Fires Nation), or Sioux, the name given them by early French traders. The Dakota and Lakota people speak different dialects of the same language and share many cultural and spiritual traditions. Today the Dakota people’s homelands are located primarily in Minnesota and the eastern Dakotas, while the Lakota are settled primarily in western South Dakota. José uses Lakota, Dakota, and Sioux to describe his ethnicity, but does not use them interchangeably. He asserts one or the other branch of his Native heritage depending upon the topic and to whom he is speaking.
As a child I spent hours alone, roaming the woods near my home on the western edge of Minneapolis. I often dug my hands into the dank soil, praying to find an arrowhead, a piece of pottery, a handwritten note—some kind of clue that would help me understand who I was, where I was.
I had always been intrigued by the waterways around me, and by their names. But because my family was not of Minnesota, was not Dakota, no one ever told me that mni means “water.” Mni is embedded in the names of many places in Minnesota (Land of Smoky Waters): Minneapolis (City of Water), small towns like Minnewasta (Beautiful Waters) and Minneota (Abundant Waters), and giant lakes like Minnetonka (Great Waters). From the Minnesota River in the south to Big Stone Lake in the west, and from the Rainy River in the north to the St. Croix River in the east, water pulses through the arteries of the region I grew up in.
I remember one summer morning as an early crystallization of my lifelong love of the waterways of Minnesota. I was eight years old, just a few weeks from entering third grade. While playing at a park called Twin Lakes, I noticed a stand of golden cattails along the edge of a baseball diamond, waving at me like old friends across the manicured outfield. I wandered away from the teenager whom my mother had often charged with my care that summer. As I reached for a velveteen bloom atop a cattail’s spindly stock, I slipped into the marsh. Black mud and swamp water crept up to my knees, and then, clawing against slick banks, I quickly slid neck-deep into the muskeg. I turned toward the narrow band of open water that snaked through the cattails and swam, struggling through the rushes. Before long the sky opened and I emerged into a pond. I recognized it as the same pond where my little brother and I shoveled snow and played hockey in the winter. And with this recognition came a realization: Twin Lakes Park, which had always seemed so far away, was connected by water to this known place.
I blazed a trail through the pond’s copious green algae, swam around a buoy, and pulled myself up onto the grassy shore. After catching my breath, I wanted to know where the water flowed next. I noticed in one boggy corner a culvert, which ran beneath Cedarwood Road. I had seen