A True Story
“Car’s packed! Let’s roll” hollered Danny.
He is bear of a man. Only 6 feet tall, but shoulders.
are 4’ wide and a chest that takes up all the space in between.
Three big guys jumped into a Honda CRV and Craig’s wife drove off.
“You know where the put-in is, right?” Craig asked Danny.
” Yup, just before the bridge at Independence,” Danny replied. “I’ll give your wife directions so she won’t get lost, don’t worry so much.”
A little later and Becky pulled into the parking lot between the two lanes of traffic. The three guys got out and peeled the canoes off the car-top racks.
Soon, the food pack and the personal gear packs came out of the backend of the Honda. Of course, they couldn’t forget the red Coleman cooler filled with ice-cold beer!
As soon as the car was empty, Becky drove off, in a hurry to get away from the 3 guys that needed a weekend to blow off steam.
“Let’s go take a look at the river,” said Steve as he popped open an ice-cold Miller Hi-Life.
“Boy, that tastes great!” ventured Craig.
“What!” hollered Danny. “Where’s the water?”
What would normally be raging rapids was not much more than a trickle. The Cloquet River starts in Northeastern MN, joins the St. Louis River, and empties into Lake Superior. The Ojibwe name means “Rapid River”. Minnesota Power uses the dam at Island Lake to generate electricity. MP also has generating stations on the other rivers in Northeastern Minnesota.
Steve hollered back, “Minnesota Power must have shut down the dam!”
Danny got on his phone and called Minnesota Power.
“We can’t even carry the canoes in this little water,” said Steve. “I’m going to grab another beer and find some shade to sit in,” said Craig.
Danny returned and proclaimed, “cellphones have some value I guess.” “The guy in water management said they were going to open the dam at 6.”
“Well, that’s only three more beers,” said Craig. “Let’s go drown some worms while we wait.”
The men grabbed their fishing gear and some beer and headed to the bridge a short distance away.
They crashed down the rocky embankment and spread out in the shade under the bridge deck.
Each grabbed their rod, hung a worm on the hook, and found a good-sized rock to sit on.
Plunk, plunk, plunk. The three nightcrawlers were doing their dance to attract some walleyes.
“Not very deep,” said Steve. “But the water is running a little faster here.” Steve gave a good, strong yank on his pole. And another hard yank. The thing attached to his hook flew out of the water like it was shot out of a cannon.
Steve scrambled over the rocks on the hill under the bridge to see what he had caught.
A northern? A walleye? Too big for a sunfish or a bass. What?
Steve came back carrying his prize catch.
Danny burst out laughing. You didn’t want to be in the big guy’s way when he was flailing around like that.
He laughed so hard he fell into the river. Now it was a good thing it wasn’t deep or he would have drowned.
Craig finally caught sight of Steve’s catch. He laughed so hard he dropped his beer.
“What a mess!” Broken glass all over the rocks.
Steve has a high-pitched laugh, a cackle almost. His face was turning blue as the laughs won out over his breathing.
All three were locked in the throes of laughing fits.
Steve caught a soaking wet leather boot! (True story!)
Craig hollered at Danny, “we’ve got to get you to the canoes so you can change into dry clothes.” “It’s after 5 and we have to get paddling down-river so we can find a place to camp.”
Minnesota Power operates hydroelectric dams on the rivers of Northeastern Minnesota, including the Cloquet at Island Lake and the St. Louis at Thomson MN. The St. Louis River is the only river in Minnesota classified as a whitewater river. The Ojibway called it the “Rapid River”.
Thanks for stopping
Craig