Natalie Warren, holding the paddle, and Ann Raiho have embarked on a 2,250-mile canoe trip that will take them from Minneapolis to Hudson Bay. If they accomplish this feat, they will become the first women to do so. Both graduated from St. Olaf College this spring and will spend at least 3 months on the rivers and trails as they paddle and portage their way to Hudson Bay.
Due to high water and fast currents, Ann Raiho and Natalie Warren had to delay the start of their Hudson Bay canoe trip by about a week. Raiho (whose parents have a cabin on Saganaga Lake) and Warren hope to become the first two women to make the arduous three-month canoe and portage expedition made famous by Eric Sevareid and Walter Port in 1930.
The young ladies were featured in the Cook County News- Herald one month ago.
On June 2 the river slowed enough so that the two recent St. Olaf graduates could launch their 17-foot Langford canoe from Fort Snelling State Park and began paddling against the current.
Their excursion will take them up the Minnesota River and down the Red River, across the 270 mile expanse of Lake Winnipeg and then on to the notoriously tough Hayes River and all of the daunting white water and rapids that comes with it as they head for the ocean.
If all goes well their 2,250- mile canoe trip will end by (or before) September 10 at York Factory in Hudson Bay.
Raiho and Warren met at Camp Menogyn in 2007. Both participated in many Menogyn canoe trips, with the longest a 50-day paddle that took them just south of the Arctic Circle on the Kazan and Kunwak Inuit Heritage Rivers.
Besides making history, the dynamic duo hope to inspire people of their generation to unplug from all of the electronic gadgetry and find nature; they also hope to raise funds to help campers attend Camp Menogyn.
Several businesses helped Warren and Raiho with supplies, with local stores Stone Harbor donating the Langford canoe and Lake Superior Trading Post donating camping gear.
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