By Charlie Urbia
Leaving School
All the participants (Nick Alatzas, Jamaal Major, Dan Sauer, Collin Davis, Steve Kopischke, Mark Thole, Charlie Urbia, and Titus Woodstrom) were to meet at school at our normal time and be on the road by 7:30 AM. We didn’t get under way until after 8:00 AM due to the tardiness of one of the group members.
The Ride Up and the Rest of the Day
The ride up was an uneventful hour and a half composed of sleeping, Doug and Joe talking and telling stories, and some conversations.
We got to the landing and put the canoes in and by the time Doug said his little spiel and got under way for our three day canoe trip down the Rum River it was about 9:45 A.M. We came over our first obstacle right after we pushed off and that was making it through 100ft. stretch of ice with me and Nick in the lead canoe clearing the way. When we stopped for lunch we took out what we were to eat and it’s not what you would eat on a normal basis but under the circumstances it was really good. We canoed about 15 miles that day just trying to keep up with Doug and by the end of the day we still fell short of our destination.
The First Full Day on the River
We awoke the next morning to Doug yelling at almost everyone to wake up and eat breakfast. Once you got out of your bag you were immediately cold, but hot oatmeal does the trick. Once we got on the river it got a lot warmer out.
About two miles from where we were camping was our first regrouping spot. After about 10 minutes of floating there I noticed a dead animal in the river and oddly it was skinned. We drifted maybe 15 feet from our original spot and we found at least half dozen or so of these animals and after closer examination we came to the conclusion that they were cats. By this time we were all thinking that there were some psychos in Cambridge so we got out of there as fast as we could.
After canoeing for twenty miles you are happy to be on land, get in your tent, and lay down.
The Final Day
About half way through the day the sky began to cloud over and the wind picked up so that made canoeing a little harder than it had been during the morning. When we stopped for lunch it began to sprinkle and continued to do so for the duration of the day. By the time we got to the landing Joe was already there waiting for us to bring us home.
We had a good group, everyone did their fair share of the work that needed to be done. Even though it felt nice to go home I’m sure that most if not all of us would miss being on the river.