Old Man River Project
We arrived at the Beaver Island Trail boat launch, just off St. Cloud State campus, Sunday morning for a long anticipated canoe float down the Mississippi River to Clearwater. That is when we crashed the camp of a group of young adventures that are part of the Old Man River Project.
The Old Man River Project is an expedition to rediscover the Mississippi River, as well as promote preservation of the river basin and serve as a call to environmental activists. The team, made up of 7 individuals (6 Canadians and 1 Australian) built a 32 foot wooden York boat named Annie, with a big goal: travel the length of the Mississippi River (over 2,000 miles) from Bemidji to the Gulf of Mexico and deliver the vessel in support of the Lower Mississippi Riverkeeper, an environmental organization based in Baton Rouge, LA.
The group has been planning this trip for over 3 years, but with anything there are always surprises and challenges along the way.
You can watch the epic adventure through videos and blogs posted on their website at: www.oldmanriverproject.org or get out on the Mississippi River and support them as they go through your community. They just passed through Monticello and aniticipate being in the Minneapolis area by the end of September.
The photo is courtesy of the Old Man River Project.