Clare Jencks (hoisting a canoe) and Ann Raiho loaded down with front packs and back packs (and her gift from an Inuit village, her dog, Myhan) recently completed a 212-mile paddle/portage from Crane Lake to Grand Portage in 100 hours. The two adventurers believe they set a record for the route, and challenge others to break it.
Ann Raiho and Clare Jencks spent four days canoeing in 90 degree heat, travelling from Crane Lake near Voyageur National Park to Lake Superior in 100 hours, crossing more than 40 portages while covering a distance of 212 miles.
Along the way they met the “Quetico man” on Crooked Lake. He is a vagabond who travels the area on foot. “He was just out there walking around the woods. He came right up to our camp and asked if we had any food to spare and we fed him,” Raiho said.
As they traveled the two women slept four hours each night. Along the way they encountered a moose that was swimming across the Pigeon River near dusk. “We also saw lots of beavers on Pigeon River and a bear on the Granite River. One night we paddled underneath the Northern Lights.”
There was also an unexpected waterfall. “I hadn’t canoed on the Little Pigeon River in a long time. I forgot about Partridge Falls. Once we were there I was amazed at how big it is.”
The two well-educated adventures met in Colorado through mutual ultimate Frisbee friends and found they had much in common.
Jencks, who grew up in the Pacific Northwest, is a software engineer living in Chicago. Well, she was living in Chicago. “She worked for Capital One for a year and saved her money. She moves around a lot,” Raiho said.
Jencks’s background includes sailing, kayaking and she is into extreme sports. She has led outdoor trips in the Colorado Rockies, Maine, the San Juan Islands and everywhere in between. Raiho said Jencks just tried out to see if she would qualify to train for the Olympic bobsled team. “She hasn’t heard yet whether she made it or not.”
Ann Raiho is familiar to many readers of the Cook County News- Herald. In 2011, Raiho and her friend Natalie Warren became the first two women to paddle 1,700 miles from Minneapolis to Hudson Bay. Raiho is currently seeking a PhD in ecology from Notre Dame. Although she is from Inver Grove Heights, her parents have long owned a cabin on the Gunflint Trail, and Raiho spent years working as a camp counselor at YMCA Camp Menogyn on West Bearskin Lake.
The purpose of this current adventure, said Raiho, “was to paddle a classic wilderness passage unsupported and as fast as possible to claim the first well documented canoeing speed record for the route and to challenge other canoeists to attempt to the do the same.”
The two outdoorswomen traveled the same route that has been used for thousands of years by Ojibwe and Cree, and was a favorite of the French-Canadian voyageur fur traders in the17th and 18th centuries. They ended their record-setting trip in Grand Portage after hiking the 8.5-mile voyageur trail to Lake Superior.
“We were really tired. It was hot. We portaged our 17-foot Langford canoe the whole way. It weighs 45 pounds. We were glad when we reached Grand Portage.”
The canoe was a gift from Jack Stone of Stone Harbor Wilderness Supply.
While the two are claiming a record, Verlen Kruger was said to have canoed from Lake Superior to International Falls in 80 hours and 20 minutes sometime in the 1980s, but Raiho and Jencks’ record was documented with a SPOT device.
How long their record will last is anybody’s guess, but already Rob Warner of Outward Bound in Ely is planning on leading a competing expedition this September.
“Rob is going to canoe with a team from International Falls to Grand Portage. We’ll see how he does,” said Raiho.
As for Raiho and Jencks, they are setting their sights on entering the Yukon 1000, a 1,000-mile canoe race held in July 2016 on the Yukon River in Alaska. It takes anywhere from 7 to 12 days of 18 hours solid paddling to finish the race that starts from Whitehorse and ends at the Dalton Highway. Race promoters promise, “Everything gets wet: your clothes, your tent, your sleeping bag. The race is not always fun. If you are mentally and physically fit then you can do this race and the sense of achievement makes it all worthwhile.”
When asked if they would race or just enter and try to finish, Raiho said, “Knowing Clare, we will race the whole way. She’s awfully competitive.”
When asked if she is still in touch with Natalie Warren, Raiho answered “She’s right here in the car with me. I’m moving to Boston for a semester to work on my PhD and she’s traveling with me. We are working on a book about our trip to Hudson Bay. Well, Natalie has been working on it more than I have. We have decided we will finish it next year, so we will get it done.”
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