I’ll remember my first night back in Iowa by the sound of the heavens cracking.
The thunder boomed. Amid this thunder came the day-bright flash of lightning. And amid this lightning came the roar of a train, the same sound people say they hear during a tornado. I took all this in from my tent, on my island just outside the small town of Lansing, listening to the music echoing from town. Listening to the reactions of the group of people in their early 20s who were camped out beyond the trees a hundred yards away. Feeling my heart beat faster as the thunder swallowed up every other sound.
Then came the sound of a whistle, from an actual train along shore. The storm began dying down. The music returned. The islands’ other residents shot off fireworks, as though declaring they did not fear the storm. And shortly thereafter, we were met by one of the worst winds I’ve ever experienced while camping. Wind that caused the tent to collapse over the top of me, held in place only by my spread-eagled posture and my own weight. When it finally ended, the night air was warm once again. Home sweet home.
I woke in the morning and dried everything out before heading into town for a coffee in a historic grain elevator and warehouse. Outside was a bike loaded down with gear from someone clearly on their own journey. I wanted to meet this person.
I got the chance on the back deck when I saw a woman, who I soon knew as Heather, with a bike helmet. She was following along the river from St. Paul to St. Louis, and we instantly began swapping stories from our respective trips.
Heather and I met in the heart of what’s known as the Driftless Region. This area—where southwestern Wisconsin meets Minnesota, Illinois, and Iowa—is so named because there is no sign of glacial impact, or drift, from the last ice age. The area is instead known for its remarkable limestone bluffs as well as its caves, coldwater streams, and other geologic and hydrologic features. It’s referred to as driftless because it doesn’t fit with the surrounding landscape, doesn’t fit with what’s expected.
Perhaps for this reason, the driftless region has a strong culture within it, a place where you might start with your last name when asked so someone would know who you belong to. At the Driftless Center in Lansing, a book compiles the last names of all the commercial fishing families throughout the area. So someone would know where you belong to.
Heather and I would be labeled driftless. We would get questions like, “Why are you doing this?” “What do you do for food?” “For sleep?” “How do you…?” The list would go on and on. The more people around us talked about making money, about building for retirement, about achieving success, the hollower these dreams felt. Like they belonged to someone else.
I’ve often found a type of kinship with other travelers, borne not of shared origin or destination but shared out-of-placeness. Kinship borne of being a long way from home, on purpose. All the more powerful if the form of transportation is slow.
So, I embraced the driftlessness of my days. Paddling to a campground in Lynxville, Wisconsin and staying up late in conversation with recent strangers. Wandering Effigy Mounds National Monument and hearing the way that people lived a half-century ago. Paddling to a flooded beach and beguiled by the sunset. Waking to the rumble of trains. Paddling to the town of Guttenberg and learning of the history of pearl buttons throughout the region. And that conservationists in Northeast Iowa had strongly opposed the damming of the Mississippi River a century before. When they realized the dams were a certainty, they were able to shift their fight into creating a strong fish hatchery which has helped advocate for conservation efforts along the river. Prior to this, they, too, might’ve been called driftless.
I sat and ate ice cream in Guttenberg and waited for my friend, Paul, who I’d crossed Lake Winnie alongside exactly a month before, to arrive. He’d gone ahead of me shortly after that and—after getting off the river for a week in Minneapolis—had now caught up to me in his kayak. It was a thrill to see him again. He reminded me that I’d had ice cream the last night before we parted ways, too. Which is simply an odd coincidence and says nothing about the amount of ice cream that I consume.
Heather’s, Paul’s, and my paths all converged at Sandy Bottoms-Up Campground in Cassville, Wisconsin, and we stayed around a picnic table talking for hours despite being eaten alive by mosquitoes. We were telling our own stories and then spellbound by the many talents of a man who’d been fishing when we arrived. I asked for a little fishing advice and he proceeded to give me a lot—and even some lures, line, and bait. He fished in his downtime between milking cows starting at 5 AM for ten dollars an hour, tiling floors, and getting his own business up and running. He said he typically didn’t bring any food when he camped and would set traps and fish. He showed us a wallet he’d made from leather he’d tanned himself from an animal he’d hunted himself.
Because these collectively didn’t make enough money for him to live on, he was also involved in what many would know as an online multi-level marketing business. It’s a confused society that rewards the resale of synthetic proteins while relegating this man’s endless survival skills to hobbies.
The next day, we all parted ways, heading for Dubuque. The current and tailwind would have Paul and I flying down the river, meaning traveling five to six miles per hour. Heather would be looking for the next bridge to cross, and I mused at this. Canoeing was one of the slowest ways of traveling from place to place. But I could flit back and forth between states and shorelines without ever looking for a human-made structure.
As I left, I thought of a moment paddling into camp with Paul the night before. A woman sweeping off her patio saw us and called out, “Are you heading all the way to New Orleans?” We said yes and she cheered us on.
Paul mused, “How many things can you do where someone can look at you 1,500 miles away from your end destination and know where you’re going?”
I feel a type of kinship with travelers. As our paths cross far from any starting point and far from any ending point. As our paths cross for perhaps but a brief meander. Because, in a glance, we recognize that we share something. That we are not so driftless after all.
This famous long lyric poem definitely comes to mind, Brendan, when I think of you & your inspired journey: The Scholar-Gipsy by Matthew Arnold
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43606/the-scholar-gipsy
What an amazing adventure you're on, Brendan! Beautiful writing, bi really felt like I was there with you, Heather and Paul. 🤗