It’s the journey, not the destination
Bauer paddles down the Minnesota River in solitudeBy KURT NESBITT Journal Staff Writer
Article Photos
NEW ULM - Jonathan Bauer paddled on the Minnesota River a few times before his last trip.
He had never canoed the entire river from start to finish until earlier this summer, when he made the journey over the course of about two weeks.
Along the way, towns that were previously taken for granted became new and the crutches of everyday life were removed as Bauer returned to nature.
Bauer, who will be a senior at Martin Luther College this fall, paddled a 75-pound aluminum canoe for a total of 333 miles, from Big Stone Lake at the western edge of this state to Shakopee, a suburb just south of Minneapolis. Between those two locations, he took a break for a family trip.
The trip began as an idea for Bauer last summer. Growing up in New Ulm, he was no stranger to the sight of the Minnesota River. Bauer had previously canoed parts of the waterway.
"You see the river every day, the water flowing by, but you wonder 'Where does the water go?' 'Where does the water come from?'" he said.
So, on June 2, Bauer's parents drove him to Big Stone Lake, where he began the first - and longest - leg of his journey.
Big Stone Lake is the headwaters of the Minnesota River.
Bauer decided to take a trip by canoe because he wanted an economical adventure. He had already taken a costly bike trip through the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, where he was born and lived until he moved to New Ulm at age six.
He devoted almost no thought to the preparation for his river trip because he'd done enough canoeing so that he already knew what to bring.
Experience also helped him plan when to get in the water and when to get out of it. He found the easiest time to canoe is early in the morning when the sun rises and mist is on the water because the river is still, which makes paddling easier. Currents picked up in the afternoon, when Bauer would usually stop, find a place to camp on the river bank and go into the nearest town to look around.
Bauer made the trip in his grandparents' 1967 Aluminacraft canoe. At 75 pounds, it was quite the opposite of today's lightweight canoes, Bauer said.
Wind fatigue and the pressures of being alone, became an exercise in trust because he left lots of his things behind when he went ashore.
The trip, of course, also taught him to appreciate the things people take for granted, like air conditioning, bathrooms and showers.
Bauer said he enjoyed visiting the places he stopped at during his journey, even though they're places he's visited many times before using others forms of transportation.
"The magical thing is that it adds a whole new dimension," he said.
Bauer realized something that he thinks lots of people overlook -adventure often lies in your back yard.
"It's not about the destination, it's about the journey you take to get there," he said.
Bauer said a person spends more time in prayer during a solo trip because control over an everyday environment is forfeited and the traveler is at the mercy of the weather.
Bauer was alone for the entire time he was on the river.
The solitude posed physical and mental challenges.
The physical challenges created mental challenges, he said. Canoeing such a long distance made for some long days, where he would look on a map and see where he was going to go that day and groan. He wrote in his journal - a green spiral notebook that is now well-worn - about what happened each day he was on the river. To keep himself motivated, he would set goals for himself and would snack on a gummy worm or a piece of a Pop Tart after passing one mile, repeating the practice until he reached his goal.
During the trip, Bauer ate PastaRoni or mashed potatoes for his meals and snack foods like trail mix or beef sticks. He ate Pop Tarts for breakfast. He said foregoing meals was actually easy because he was so busy canoeing. The combination of physical exercise and lean meals allowed Bauer to lose weight fast on the trip. At the end of the journey, he was physically tired.
The first leg of the trip started on June 2. He began at Big Stone Lake and got lost in the marshes of the Big Stone National Wildlife Refuge. He found the culvert that would take him into the Minnesota River at the west end of Marsh Lake, which flows through Lac Qui Parle State Park and then crossed the Lac Qui Parle River, which is halved by a blue truss bridge that is visible for miles. He camped that evening in the state park.
Bauer hit the Minnesota River's current the next day near Montevideo. Then a storm came.
He met his parents in Granite Falls, which, Bauer said is "amazing" and a "sweet town", before getting back in his canoe and paddling down to the area near the gneiss outcroppings. He took his first shower of the trip at the Upper Sioux Agency and met a group of about 50 high school students, who were also paddling on the river.
After spending the night in a Renville County park, Bauer paddled down to Franklin, where he camped with two teenagers from St. Peter, who were also making a similar journey in the opposite direction.
The last day of the first leg was "crazy," Bauer said, because the current helped him travel 43 miles to New Ulm.
The second part of the trip began on July 8. Working his way up the river towards the Twin Cities, Bauer could hear the noise made by the traffic of Interstate 169. After stopping in St. Peter and Henderson, Bauer stayed in the East Minnesota River Game Refuge near Henderson.
He was north of Henderson when the temperature dropped and the sky got dark. Winds climbed up to 30 miles per hour by the time he went back to shore near Belle Plaine.
The next day, he passed Chaska and camped near the Bloomington Ferry Unit near Rice Lake. Once he got past Savage, the landscape changed drastically because the Minnesota met the Mississippi.
Where the Minnesota River was quiet, the Mississippi was busy with barges and tugboats. Up to that point, Bauer saw only five other boats during his entire trip.
The trek ended at the Lillydale boat launch on Saturday, July 12.
Bauer said people he tells about the trip seem to think the idea is cool, although they admittedly would never do such a thing themselves. Bauer said the experience was liberating because the trip allowed him to cast off everyday things and go back to nature, which also included nettles, gnats and mud.
"The harder an experience is, the more you feel you've accomplished at the end," Bauer said. "If it had been smooth sailing, it would've been boring."
