Canoeing with the Cree
Selected Book Details
- Paperback
- Edition: Revised
- Author: ERIC SEVAREID
- Publisher: Borealis Books
- Release Date: April 2005
- ISBN-10: 0873515331
- ISBN-13: 9780873515337
- List Price: $14.95
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Summaries and Customer Reviews provided by Amazon
SummaryIn 1930 two novice paddlers--Eric Sevareid and Walter C. Port--launched a secondhand 18-foot canvas canoe into the Minnesota River at Fort Snelling for an ambitious summer-long journey from Minneapolis to Hudson Bay. Without benefit of radio, motor, or good maps, the teenagers made their way over 2,250 miles of rivers, lakes, and difficult portages. Nearly four months later, after shooting hundreds of sets of rapids and surviving exceedingly bad conditions and even worse advice, the ragged, hungry adventurers arrived in York Factory on Hudson Bay--with winter freeze-up on their heels. First published in 1935, Canoeing with the Cree is Sevareid's classic account of this youthful odyssey. The newspaper stories that Sevareid wrote on this trip launched his distinguished journalism career, which included more than a decade as a television correspondent and commentator on the CBS Evening News. Now with a new foreword by Arctic explorer, Ann Bancroft. |
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Buy this book!
Rating:
Anyone who enjoys adventure fiction will love this true-life adventure story. Eric Sevareid and Walter Port decided that they'd spend the summer after high school graduation canoeing up the Red River from central Minnesota all the way to Hudson Bay with nothing but an 18-foot canoe, a few bad maps, a few dollars, and their own smarts. On their way they experience everything from remote First Nations communities to utterly desolate wilderness to a formal dinner at the posh Winnipeg Canoe Club. They risk their lives again and again, shooting rapids and (in one case) almost dying when they take the wrong advice and end up trapped in a brackish lake in bad weather. But in every instance Sevareid's writing makes their travels come alive.
I loved this book, and I highly recommend it.
Incidentally, I found this book at the St. Vital library in Winnipeg, which was built on the grounds of the old Canoe Club clubhouse. I found that utterly cool. Less cool was the fact that the book hadn't been taken out in fourteen years!
The adventures of youth...
Rating:
... that inspire those of even a mature age.
Eric Sevareid was one of the preeminent TV newscasters, and this is the story of how he started. He was 17 years old, just graduated from high school, and with his friend, Walter C. Port, 19, set off on a 2,250 mile trip (almost the width of the United States) from Minneapolis to York Factory, on Hudson Bay. It was a race with the weather, and the on-coming winter, one they almost lost. The year was 1930, long before GPS, aerial rescue, or even good maps. In the later portion of the journey, down the aptly named "God's River," there was a point of no return, and you either made it, or didn't. Fortunately Sevareid did, filing stories with the Minneapolis paper, thereby funding his trip for a mere $100, and commencing his journalistic career. He wrote of his trip in book format in 1935.
There are some other excellent reviews of the book, describing their adventures and hardships, noting that they were less than "politically correct," by today's standards, or even the latter wise standards of Sevareid of CBS News, in describing the Indians along the way. Indeed, as one reviewer indicated, the title itself is inappropriate, since they neither canoed with them, nor emulated their style. The book is written in the straightforward adventure style of a 17 year old, with only a minimum of introspection.
To the other reviews I'd like to add a comment on the divergence in the men's lives thereafter. Sevareid went on to the pinnacles of acclaim in the world of journalism. Port decided his one great adventure in life was sufficient, and went back to Bemidji, Minnesota where he ran a drug store for the rest of his life, and where I was able to buy this book.
The dream of long-distance canoeing was dangled, and I was unable to grab "the brass ring." I contented myself on a long journey in the Quattico, and hopefully in the near future, a gentler one in the Yukon. As one reviewer said, this is an inspiring book for Nintendo-bound kids, and I would add that if adults reduced the clutter in their lives, they too might be able to fulfill the dream of two Minnesota youths.
Highly recommended to read, and to do, while the time is available.
A simple, inspiring adventure
Rating:
My, how the world changes in 80 years! This is not a book with the profundity that Sevareid was later noted for. It is a straight off account of two boys setting out on an adventure more dangerous than they realized which could easily have cost them their lives. Fool-hardy, yes. But, how remarkable that they succeeded.
The book gives insight to how primitive Northern Canada and the world was almost within my own lifetime. Places like Norway House and York Factory still exist, but are now virtually abandoned. At the time of the story they were major outposts of civilization in what was then a primeval land. Sevareid's and Post's joy at encountering a Cree family in a canoe and learning that they were within a few hours of a Cree village where there was safety and succor almost brought me to tears.
This is a book that more people should read. Now, not many people even know who Arnold Eric Sevareid was, even less, Walter Post. But, this book launched Sevareid's career as a reporter and writer. Later books, "Not So Wild a Dream" especially, reveal much more about his inner thoughts and empathy for humanity, but there are hints of this in "Canoeing with the Cree".
It is especially remarkable, almost incredible, that he and Post did this great adventure for $100! I have one nagging question: what has become of the original 9 dispatches that he sent to the Minneapolis Star. My internet search has, so far, only turned up one of them. I'm sure the book is better written; after all it is five years after the events. But, I would love to read the original dispatches upon which it is based.
Bottom line: it's an inexpensive book and quick read about a simply amazing quest by one of the 20th Century's greatest journalists.
A seminal journey
Rating:
"Canoeing with the Cree" is a classic travel-adventure story written by Eric Sevareid when he was fresh out of high school in 1930. The book recounts the 2,250-mile journey that the author and a companion undertook, traveling by canoe from Minneapolis to Hudson Bay. Like a lot of good travel books, this one reads like a diary, with each chapter sharing an adventure, a brush with disaster, an encounter with the locals, or some other vignette from their three-month paddle through the north.
Sevareid doesn't sugar-coat his stories. As anyone who has packed off on an extended hiking, biking, canoeing or other self-powered trip knows, the days can be hard, and there's little romance in the long hours under the sun and rain. The author writes extensively of their hardships, of the cold weather, wind, mosquitoes and the emotional drain of traveling under difficult conditions. But there's little doubt that the trip was a seminal experience for Sevareid, and that it had a very positive and lasting influence on him. These kinds of travel adventures naturally make for good books, at least to me. And they're even better when written by someone with the natural talent of Eric Sevareid.
Great book!
Rating:
One of the best books I have ever read. Well worth it, not overally detailed yet the reader understands clearly what these two boys were up against. Highly recommend
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