Above: The LeSeuer River southeast of Mankato in more recent times.
A Strange Scoutmaster Leads a Strange Troop on a Long Strange Canoe Trip – Upcoming Podcast Episode
We moved to Mankato, a medium-small college town in Southern Minnesota, when I was in the fall of my 5th grade, so I was “the new kid”. Dad had taken the job as pastor of the First Baptist Church. The church sponsored a Scout Troop, so I joined soon enough. I was good friends with 3 scouts already and got another friend to join, so we had a tight little core group. Friend #1’s dad was the retiring Scoutmaster, and I joined about the same time as his replacement, who happened to be the organist at another church a few blocks away. Interestingly, he liked cigars, gin and tonics, and comfort. By whatever yardstick you would choose to compare us to the Scouting “norm”, we were off the hump of the bell curve in either direction. We were a gaggle of misfits, with a misfit leader. Somehow, we stayed out of trouble, and mostly stayed out of danger. But there was one time…
One early spring day, the ex-Master dropped us off about 20 miles upstream from Mankato, which lies where the Blue Earth joins the Minnesota River, flowing southeast from South Dakota. Right there, the Minnesota takes a left turn and flows northeast to the Twin Cities metro, adding to the Mississippi. We were going to start our excursion southeast of town in the LeSeuer River, paddle for a day, join the Blue Earth just south of town, camp one night in the city park, and then continue past Mankato to St. Peter, 12 miles closer to the Twins, and get picked up at the end of the 2nd day. In retrospect, we didn’t do adequate research on hydrologic issues. We started with 3 aluminum canoes and 1 plastic one (or something – important in a moment), 1 dry Scoutmaster (although he liked gin) and 7 dry Scouts, but by mid-afternoon, we had 3 full and 2 plastic half-canoes, with 1 very wet Scoutmaster in the back half, and 1 very wet and terrified (youngest) Scout being fished out of the rushing river into our canoe while the other two canoes chased some floating gear and the front half of the demolished canoe downstream.
Well, our 8 people in 3 canoes reached the Mankato’s Sibley Park, I think our youngun, and the scoutmaster, had had enough and got picked up and went home. But the rest of us camped on a sandbar surrounded by water and made it to the intended pickup point the next day. In pouring rain. But we had fun. I think. Mostly.
Spoiler alert! Now you know the punch line, but HOW did it happen? And how much fun did we have? Trying to get this one done in July ’22.
Our canoe and camping trip ran into stuff like this during the spring snowmelt season. We got lucky – AFTER we weren’t.