The Last Voyageurs

by Lorraine Boissoneault

  After breakfast the next morning, the men returned to Hebron High School for a crew meeting. There were students around now, giving the men curious looks as they traipsed through the hallway. The crew sealed themselves off in the auditorium for the meeting just as Braun arrived, his arm in a sling. He said he was okay, a little sore and tired from not getting any sleep during his night in a hotel room with the liaison team—it was hard to find a comfortable position when your collarbone was dislocated—but mostly he was just tired of answering questions.

  With everyone assembled, Reid Lewis gave a report on the status of the injured men. Wilson and Marr were both being transferred to hospitals closer to home for ongoing care. They were both sad to be off the expedition for the time it took to heal, but hoped they might recover quickly enough to join back up before the end. Garcia had been taken off the critical list and was with his parents. He, too, would have to be transferred to a hospital in Illinois where his condition would continue to be monitored. Someone suggested creating a writing schedule, so the men could alternate sending letters to the injured crew members while they recovered. It would be a way of keeping them up to date with the expedition, of making them feel as if they were still part of it. The idea was ultimately rejected—it felt too much like forced sentiment. Those who wanted to write would write. Those who chose not to wouldn’t be chastised. For all the relief they felt knowing that everyone would survive, the crew was still mentally recovering, still rebounding from the shock.

  Every one of the injured men and their parents agreed the expedition should go on. No one wanted their injuries to be in vain—they needed the pain and suffering to mean something. It wasn’t enough just to survive and recover; the injuries had to be framed as an obstacle they overcame, not the calamity that brought down the expedition. It was decided. The crew would continue on and leave the recovering men’s positions open. When they could finally put the canoes back on the water it would mean some reshuffling—several boats would be a man short—but they could handle it.

  The next order of business was to decide how to keep going. Everyone agreed that walking on the roads was out of the question.

  “We’re an attraction and a distraction to motorists,” Stillwagon said. “I’m afraid of the 20th century.”

  “I don’t want to end up as a hood ornament on some truck,” Sohn added.

  Reid Lewis and Fialko agreed. They couldn’t take any more risks on the road, even if the route was shorter. The suggestion arose that they be bussed to the Illinois River. Everyone agreed that people would understand. No one would fault them for taking a bus to cover sixty miles after what they’d just been through. They’d already walked more than two hundred miles and paddled more than a thousand. It wasn’t like sixty miles amounted to much in the grand scheme of things.

  “We’ve paid our dues; we’ve had the worst winter on record,” someone said.

  “But it would disturb the continuity of the expedition,” Ken Lewis said. He thought they should keep walking along the river, or get a police escort to follow them on the roads. That way they wouldn’t have to worry about accidents. At the end of the expedition they could say they’d covered the entire route using nothing but manpower. But his idea was shot down as impractical and still potentially dangerous. They’d only get further behind in their schedule, and they’d never finish the expedition in the time they’d allotted for it.

  When the vote was taken, everyone but Ken agreed that they should take a bus to Wilmington, Illinois, and plan on starting anew on the Illinois River. Even Reid agreed. He’d been uncharacteristically quiet at the meeting, perhaps still recovering from the shock of what had happened. Everyone was still feeling dismayed and despondent, but they all also felt a strengthening resolve. The expedition was suddenly deathly serious. The worst that could happen had almost happened. But everyone had survived, and all the injured voyageurs asked was that their teammates push on. Everyone was eager to honor that request.

  Chapter Ten

  PARALLEL VOYAGES

  Mississippi River

  March 1682

  When La Salle and his men finally found open water on the Illinois River, they swapped out their sleds for canoes and paddled on to the Mississippi. The expedition arrived at the Great River at the end of January 1682, but was forced to stop by the massive boulders of ice that came thundering down the Mississippi from the north. The river was choked with broken icebergs and drift ice, making it impenetrable. After waiting for another ten days for the ice to clear, the men finally set off down the serpentine pathway.

  In all his travels, La Salle had become familiar with much of the flora, fauna, and indigenous peoples of North America. He had survived the rapids of the St. Lawrence River, learned native languages, and been the first explorer to ever sail across the Great Lakes. But the Mississippi River was an entirely new ecosystem and had given rise to vastly different cultures than those of the Midwest and Northeast. The tribes along the Mississippi lived in a fertile region with a milder climate, which allowed them to cultivate vast swathes of land and grow beans, squash, and maize. Because they had extra food and places to store it, permanent dwellings were built and societies grew more complex.1 La Salle and his men met and feasted with members of the Acansa tribe, the Tinsa tribe, and the Natchez tribe, all of which lived in large villages with well-constructed lodges. They bartered for items like pearls and slaves, native men and women from other tribes who had been captured during warfare and were used for labor. The indigenous people were more successful in negotiating with other tribes along the river and finding food. La Salle and his men were also treated to ceremonial feasts of maize, beans, meat, and plums. When they reached the Tinsa village they were even given “figures of humans, bison, deer, alligators, and turkeys made from a paste of fruit,”—the native North American equivalent of marzipan candy figures.2

  In addition to the food they were offered in villages, the Frenchmen found a plethora of things to eat along the river. They hunted deer, which appeared in abundance, as well as turkeys, swans, Canada geese, bears, and bison. The canoes paddled past flowering peach, plum, and walnut trees.3 La Salle wrote of one surprisingly tasty dish made from macopins, a root that tasted like onions. “The Indians make a hole in the ground and into it put a layer of stones that are red from the fire, then a layer of leaves, then one of macopins, another of reddened stones, and so on to the top, which they cover with earth and let the roots sweat inside.”4 Even when the men ran out of provisions and were forced to fast, it wasn’t long before they were able to find more food.

  In some ways, the trip down the Mississippi River was proving to be easier than traveling across the Midwest. But there were still plenty of challenges. Despite a strong current, the Mississippi was a winding river. Sometimes after a full day of paddling, the men had made very little actual progress in terms of miles traveled south. The warm climate also meant more mosquitoes. The voyageurs often slept on elevated platforms to keep themselves away from the damp ground and buzzing bloodsuckers.

  The most difficult of the crew’s problems had little to do with the environment, however. First, voyageur Gabriel Barbier sustained a foot injury that would eventually leave him partially crippled. Next, the gunsmith Pierre Prudhomme got lost at the end of February while out on a hunting expedition. For ten days the crew searched for him high and low, fearing him captured or dead. Finally he appeared, floating down the river (in modern-day Tennessee) and barely able to hold onto the log that supported him. He was emaciated and exhausted, but alive. While La Salle’s men had been searching for him, they’d built a small wooden fort for protection. In honor of the gunsmith’s return, La Salle christened it Fort Prudhomme.

  Apart from their short stays with various tribes and the time spent looking for Prudhomme, the men made good time down the Mississippi. At the beginning of April La Salle found brackish water. His search, it seemed, was nearly at an end.

  Elsah, Illinois

  February 7, 1977<
br />
  “There are some parallels between La Salle’s voyage(s) and ours that are interesting. The list can be expanded to include a lot of travel and equipment details.” John Fialko made two columns in his notebook, one labeled “La Salle” and the other “La Salle II.” The lists beneath the two were almost identical.

  Money probs.—relatives Money probs. —crew, friends, etc.

  Relatives on voyage Family involved at a different level—L-team

  Morale—mutiny problem Morale at times low

  La Salle a pusher R.L. (Reid Lewis) a pusher

  La Salle didn’t trust too many people R.L. lets out just what people need to know to do their job

  “I’m noticing some changes in Reid,” Fialko added. “One of his more common statements is ‘the expedition is falling apart.’ I know we’re not as together on some of the things we do. Not like we need to be.”

  After the truck accident, the men had been bussed to the Illinois River to make up for lost time. Since then the expedition had inched its way down the state of Illinois toward the Mississippi River. Despite their earnest commitment to moving forward in spite of the accident, every winter day felt like a grim repeat of the last. It was a struggle to keep moving over snow and ice, always putting one foot in front of the other, always a presentation to be bussed to at the end of the day and a night of restless sleep on the frozen ground to look forward to. Making each day all the more challenging was the threat of dehydration. Carrying water was impossible most days because it froze solid after a few hours. The men had to make do with drinks at lunchtime and ignore their thirst for the rest of the day, which left them irritable and even more exhausted.

  In mid-January someone from the Army Corps of Engineers, a group with whom the men had been corresponding since they announced their plans to travel along the Mississippi River, told the men they’d probably have another six to eight weeks of walking before they could get back on the water. If the frigid temperatures eased up a little, that estimate might get moved back, but as January progressed it only got colder. The northern part of the Mississippi was frozen solid. The crew walked over frozen rivers and windswept lakes, through snowdrifts and backyards to avoid being on the road again. On January 28 around 2:30 in the morning their shelter was blown down by a sixty-mile-per-hour wind. The crew members awoke to a tangled bundle of canvas and sleeping bags. Snowflakes and straw that had been laid on the ground whipped around them in the blizzard as they hurried from their campsite into a nearby school, where they hunkered down for the rest of the night and the following day. With a windchill of minus seventy degrees, there was no way they could safely spend the day walking.

  The effort required to stay warm leeched everyone’s energies and depressed their moods. It had been mentally and emotionally taxing spending all day together when they were traveling across the Canadian-American border in the summertime; now the cold weather had them hemmed in like goats in a too-small pasture. Everyone’s nerves were frayed, and there was no way to get any personal space or time alone. As a last resort, some of the men turned to books and their journals to escape. Kurt Vonnegut’s were popular choices and were passed around the group. Cox had been churning through Joseph Waumbaugh’s cop novels. But the story that really resonated with multiple members of the crew was J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings trilogy. Sam and Frodo’s journey across the wastelands to reach Mordor felt like the crew’s endless march across the ice-covered Heartland. The epic fantasy was filled with all the same elements as their own expedition: unknown dangers, rifts between friends, hunger, cold, discomfort, and an important mission. Although saving Middle Earth from an all-powerful monster was slightly more grandiose than educating Americans about French explorers and the history of North America, that didn’t prevent the books from feeling familiar and encouraging. “It’s a dangerous business going out your door,” Bilbo Baggins told his young cousin, Frodo. That had certainly been proven to be true time and again on this journey.

  The only other escape from the daily grind of walking and being watched was getting sick. This was hardly an enticing option, and it was mostly out of everyone’s control. Unfortunately, it was also unavoidable, since they were demanding much of their bodies and coming in regular contact with hordes of children when they did school visits. Men had to drop out for a few days because of severe colds, flus, and stress injuries to their knees. The sick and injured would get medicine from Stillwagon or visit a doctor, then spend a few days with the ladies of the liaison team, resting in climate-controlled hotel rooms and sleeping more than five or six hours at night. Dropping out for a few days, which had been unthinkable at the start of the expedition when everyone wanted to cross all thirty-three hundred miles with his own body providing the power, had become the acceptable and even the proper thing to do.

  As the men slowly moved into the lower latitudes, another disheartening source of tension arose. They might not have known it from the temperature or the maps they followed, but the men had arrived in the South. On February 5, they crossed into Calhoun County, Illinois, and one of the members of the town welcomed them with the epithet, “Welcome to Hardin, boys, where the sun has never set on a nigger and never will.”

  The ugly sentiment was a reminder of just how dark the reality of 1977 could be. In Boston around the time of the bicentennial celebrations, a black man named Ted Landsmark was going to a City Hall meeting to discuss minority hiring practices when he was attacked by several white men. His assailants used the pole of an American flag to perpetrate the crime. In Chicago and New York, white homeowners bombed or burned the houses of blacks who moved into their neighborhoods.5 When the teenagers of La Salle: Expedition II had graduated high school last summer, they left with memories of proms, football games, and race riots. Bob Kulick had once parked on the wrong side of the Elgin High School parking lot and was forced to dodge stones as he ran into the building. It had been a tense time, but all those issues seemed far behind them while they were paddling through the Great Lakes and tromping over mountains of snow in the Midwest. All the racial prejudices and silent judgments of the North would become more audible and visible in the South. They would soon be entering states where segregation had been the rule, not the exception, and lynchings—violent, traumatic acts of racial terror—had occurred for decades. For the first time there might be a black supervisor of two white cops on Starsky and Hutch, and President Carter might speak out about injustice and human rights violations in Czechoslovakia, Uganda, and the Soviet Union, but that didn’t stop racism from thriving in many communities in the United States. Its roots were buried deep and stretched far across the country.

  To everything else the reenactors had in common with the original expedition could be added this: both groups belonged to tumultuous, rapidly changing worlds. Those living in such eras have a choice—accept the change and let it sweep in a new world, or fight the current. For the voyageurs and their modern counterparts, the only option was to let the physical and metaphorical current carry them forward into an uncharted future, no matter how difficult that experience might be, or how much they themselves might be changed in the process.

  Chester, Illinois

  February 15, 1977

  A procession of men carrying overturned canoes above their heads advanced down a slope that led to the Mississippi River, their colorful hats the only spots of color in the brown and white and gray landscape. Crusts of slushy ice and snow covered the rocky shoreline, making the walk more treacherous. A crisp wind whipped through layers of woolen clothing and covered the open water with small white ruffles of foam. Once the canoes had been gently set down at the river’s edge, each boat’s quartermaster organized the wooden chests and canvas sacks of supplies that had to be loaded in a Tetris-like configuration into the canoes. A tall towboat, painted in alternating stripes of red and white with its name, Dixie Power, in blocky capital letters, towered over the men as they worked.

  Despite the wind and the clouds that muddled the
sky, the crew’s mood was jubilant. Only a few days earlier the Coast Guard had declared the river unsafe for boat travel due to ice and sunken branches clogging it downstream. Now, with temperatures finally starting to rise above freezing, the river was open. The six canoes of La Salle: Expedition II and the flotilla of towboats that acted as the nervous system for all kinds of industry on the river had permission to begin their collective voyage along the Great River.

  A month had passed since the men had last sat in their canoes and attempted to navigate the jagged icebergs that bobbed along the Kankakee River. Two full months had gone by since the crew had consistently been in their boats and armed with their paddles. In that time, they’d covered 527 miles by foot, worked together to overcome a truck accident, and survived one of the coldest winters on record. Finally, finally they were returning to the waterways. Now they could get back to their original goal of traversing the arteries of North America and enthralling audiences with their choreographed landings.