Mississippi Canoe Trip
The Coopers make it down the ole Big Muddy.
July/August 1970
By CINDY COOPER
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I'm a big Mark Twain fan and I think Huck Finn was a good guy but - when my husband, Steve, suggested that we canoe from upstate Ohio to New Orleans - I thought he was making some kind of outlandish joke. It took some time for me to stop laughing and really consider the idea: A canoe trip down the Mohican, Muskingum, Ohio and Mississippi Rivers all the way to ole New Orleans. Nineteen hundred miles.
I soon quit chuckling altogether and adopted the idea as my own. There was one still - funny part, however: Neither of us had ever canoed before.
As with most projects, the hardest part of this one was in the "getting going". Equipment and money were not easy but, with two months earnings and a little savings, we were ready to shove off. The biggest single item - a $250, 17 foot Grumman canoe - was a gift.
If you'd like to duplicate our oddessy and money is a large problem, there are some workable solutions. For one thing, if you don't mind exposing yourself to "advance" publicity, people will donate all sorts of equipment. It also would be fairly easy on a journey like this to get odd jobs, especially at the numerous yacht clubs, harbors and homes on the Ohio River. If time and momentum are of no concern, you can work on farms or in towns along the way. I even read a dusty old book about a guy who built a houseboat and took a similar journey in a couple years' time - growing his own food on the way!
Another method of obtaining funds - more likely after the trip is completed - is by writing stories for magazines and journals. National Geographic, True, sporting publications, wildlife and conservation magazines and newspaper Sunday supplements are excellent targets, especially if you manage to get some good photographs.
We took no cash with us. We did have $350 in traveller's checks and we spent only about $200 of that. Total expenses for both of us were under $3 a day-cheap living by any standards. Yet, even a large part of that money was unnecessarily expended, especially on the earlier parts of the trip when we were less disciplined to the ways of the wild.
After searching out every possible Army-Navy store bargain and squeezing through some homestead hassles, we finally plunked our canoe into the Mohican River at Loudenville, Ohio. A lot of rented canoes float down the Mohican River and the people in them with whom we communicated couldn't believe we were undertaking such a long journey - especially when they saw how we canoed! But, believe me, we learned the practicalities of river navigation quickly.
There are two main premises that one should accept before attempting a trip such as ours. One is: Do not plan. Plans mess up everything. Too many beautiful trips have been ruined by planning when, where and what. Let things happen as they may and leave the planning to Greyhound.
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