Hello, friends. This past week I went on a 44-mile canoe trip on the St. Croix River with my 7-year-old daughter Selina and my stepson Joey. We began our journey at Osceola and ended it at Prescott, which is where the St Croix empties into the Mississippi River.

Thursday, July 31

High 85, Low 62

We launched our canoe at William O’Brien State Park, which is just south of Osceola, and within seconds everything was well in our lives. Once the planning, packing and travel are over with, the fun begins.

An added ingredient in this trip’s menu was that we brought Selina’s 8-week-old kitten Tiger along. Tiger came into our lives a couple of weeks ago and turned out to be a lot of fun in the canoe and at camp.

Today, we were blessed with a light tailwind and put 10 miles behind us after getting a late start and ending our day at a designated campsite near Marine on St Croix.

As soon as we got out of the canoe, we saw a pair of twin fawns that really were not very scared of us.

We built camp, Joey cooked supper over the campfire, we swam and then had marshmallows roasted over the campfire.

Selina and I hit the sleeping bags shortly after dark and Joey stayed up for a couple of hours and caught several fish including a 4- and an 8-pound catfish.

Friday, Aug. 1

High 83, Low 55

I kind of forgot to bring a fillet knife along and all we had was a very dull “Leathermen” so we decided to trail our catfish behind the canoe all day long.

Looking at the map I realized our gang was going to have to average 17 miles per day if we were going to arrive in Prescott the following evening.

At the start of the day we were very lazy and just drifted with the current, but about 3 in the afternoon I started to do the math and realized we had to put to put another 12 miles behind us to hit our 17-mile average.

Neither Joey nor Selina was too ambitious, so I started bulldogging with my handmade kayak paddle that I made back in 1986 for my big trip canoeing a thousand miles of the Mississippi River.

Just north of Stillwater we started passing literally hundreds of campers who were making their homes for the weekend on islands and by 4:30 there was not a spot left to pitch a tent. From what I could see, everyone was out to have fun.

Not a whole lot of people canoe south of Stillwater because the river becomes a lake for about 15 miles, there can be some pretty big wave action and luxury liners are everywhere. What I mean by luxury liners is boats valued from $5,000 to $5 million.

The kids and the cat had quite the eyeful with the big rigs and some of the huge waves they created. We had some close calls but they were taught to pay attention and not to panic years ago, and all was well in our lives.

We ended our day camped at the railroad bridge at Hudson and once again Joey put a hurting on the local fish population, with his big kahuna for the trip being a 15-pound channel cat, which he released.

The railroad bridge has a sharp curve just before it and that is where our camp was. When the approaching trains would hit their brakes it definitely had a way of waking us up.

We paddled amongst literally hundreds of boats, probably thousands today, and lived to tell about it.

At one point on this trip I believe we were only about 20 miles away from Minneapolis and let me tell you there are plenty of people in the area that like to play on the water. Over the course of the last 30 miles we did not see another canoe, but I actually enjoyed seeing two parts of the river. The first being quiet and pristine and the last section being like an interstate of humans out to have fun on the water.

Back in 1995, I hiked the entire St Croix from Solon Springs to Prescott on the ice with my golden retrievers, Star and her daughter Pearl, both pulling sleds next to mine.

This adventure bought back constant memories of that winter hike and, once again, I was impressed with the mighty St. Croix.

Do the world a favor and spend time with a kid. Sunset.