Donation Recognition and T-shirt Sales

Photo by Shane Kitzman

We'd like to thank all of the people who have donated! Below is a list of donors. Become a Polar Bear, Woodland Caribou, Pelican, Pine Martin Donor today! We've raised around $2000 so far. We need $1800 for the plane ride from York Factory to Gillam, $300 for the train from Gillam to Winnipeg, $200 for spray skirt creation and $200 for food drops, shotgun permit and unforeseen problems.

Polar Bear Donors $1000 - $501

Woodland Caribou Donors $500 - $101

Margaret Summerside

Rachel Schmidt of Ceiba Adventures
The Warren Family

Pelican Donors $100 - $51

Amy Apperson

Anne Bellows

George Logan

Kim Ode

Rachel Hedlund

Sue and Jack Thera

The Emmons Family

Pine Marten Donors $50-$1

Andrea Henkel
Anne Bellows

Anne Hedlund

Bill Brumfield

Bruce Chisholm

Dianna Cheney-Peters

Greg Kneser

Jill Dietz

Karen Cullen

Kelly Gryting

Lena Gardner

Meghan Cosgrove

Michael Holm

Richard LaFleur

Stuart Nelson

We'd like to give special thanks to our parents and their emotional and monetary support to Hudson Bay Bound. We will devote a separate blog post to them soon!

T-Shirts! Hooray. We are ordering t-shirts from Rocky Top Printing in Northfield. They will be light blue with our logo in dark blue. We are asking a standard t-shirt price of 10$ (+ 1.50$ shipping and handling) per shirt. Send us an email with a shipping address and size if you would like a shirt. We can accept payment in person or via check through the mail. Our address is below. Paypal has started to take fees from each donation of around 3%, so it would be helpful if we could receive payments via check or cash. However, if you want to use Paypal that is fine as long as you know you are also paying Paypal.

Hudson Bay Bound

1500 St. Olaf Ave

Northfield, MN

55057

I (Natalie) saw a great documentary about Aldo Leopold yesterday for class. It inspired me to bring some of his works along for the big expedition. If you have any trail-book suggestions let us know!

Thanks for all of your support! Have a great Easter Break.

Natalann

45 Days Until Departure on June 2nd

Hey everyone!

We had to miss the Midwest Mountaineering Expo this weekend because we just got back from a great weekend of ultimate frisbee in Iowa. The weather was against us on Saturday (Our frist time playing ultimate in snow!) but we still made 4th out of 11 teams. We'll hear later this week if we received a bid to DIII Nationals in Buffalo, NY.

We have been portaging the canoe down to the Cannon river and paddling upstream to get a good sense of what we are up against. It is slow going, but very doable! Huzzah! Last week we were on the front page of the Northfield Newspaper, with a beautiful picture by Shane Kitzman of us canoeing down the river. We were also in the Cook County Newspaper, Canoe&Kayak, Women Outdoors Magazine, the Vision, Paddling Life, and Canoe Roots.

We have been getting emails from different people from along our route. Some newspapers would like to meet up with us when we paddle through certain towns and some really generous people have offered meals and even a place to stay. We can't wait to meet them!

Ann just finished This Water Goes North by Dennis Weidemann and has been telling me about their adventure on the Red River, Lake Winnipeg and the Hayes River. They met tons of people and learned a lot about themselves, their route, and backcountry travel. We are coming into this trip with a little more experience and technical gear, but we hope to have similar experiences with the people we meet along the way! Here's  a quote from the book that we both really relate to: "Not everyone understood, but embedded in our simple explanation was the soul of every great quest. Climb a mountain only because it is, and all you have done is climb a mountain. An admirable task that may be, but we wanted to climb the mountain to see what it looked like from up there, to eat shakpa with the Sherpas. That is where the full wealth of adventure awaits, and we sought its treasure" pg. 21

We are continuing plans for our big send-off party on May 30th with live music and a pig roast. If you don't have Memorial Day plans already, you are invited to come celebrate with us!

We hope your spring is beginning well!
Ann and Natalie

Frequently Asked Questions

Seriously sporting our brand new Kokatat PFDs!

Hello! 

We had a pretty tame weekend. On Friday night, we met with Scott Miller who paddled the Canoeing with the Cree route in 2005 to talk about maps and take notes about specific logistics. Then yesterday we worked on making our spray skirt with the help of Wendy Galbraith! There will be more on that process in the coming weeks.

We've been getting a lot of similar questions lately, so we thought we'd write a blog entry that answers a few of them.

Why is it important for us to be the first women to paddle from Minneapolis to Hudson Bay?

            It’s easy to believe that men and women are equals in the United States because of regulations like the nineteenth amendment and Title IX. Women have been legally integrated into society; however, women are still fighting to be paid equally and to escape historic social pressures. It’s important to remember that a gender gap does exist and that we have a duty to humanity to continue to work at decreasing this gap.

            Canoeing with the Cree was written in 1930 by Eric Sevareid who became an influential journalist that has inspired countless citizens to challenge and explore our world. His route from Minneapolis to Hudson Bay has been repeated and repeated again by men because it is an amazing coming of age journey. Being the first women to paddle a historic route, we hope to show that wilderness expeditions are accessible to anyone. 

We were shocked that two women had not replicated this trip. Women have climbed every mountain and crossed every ocean. Women should paddle every river too! By replicating a historically male dominated adventure, we will increase gender equality. Our hope is that women will be able to see equality and claim it with strengthened conviction after the completion of this trip.

How are we training for the trip?

Natalie in the stern!

Natalie and I are both very active with ultimate practice and climbing at the rock wall on campus, but we've also added a weight lifting regimen to our workouts for our upper body and core. 

We have been practicing paddling upstream on the Cannon River. We protage our new Langford canoe about a half mile to downtown Northfield and paddle upstream toward Dundas. We've been working on efficient positioning in the river and forward/backward ferrying. 

How long do you think it will take?

We are starting on June 2nd and expecting to be done before September 10th. Following is our trip itinerary:

6/2 - 6/28 upstream on the Minnesota River

6/29 - 7/4 Break for Natalie's sister's wedding!

7/5 - 7/27 the Red River of the North

7/28 - 8/11 Lake Winnipeg

8/12 - 9/10 Hayes River

*Layover days are also built into the schedule. For example, we are giving ourselves an extra eight days on the Hayes just in case we are wind bound on Lake Winnipeg.

Will you be blogging while you are on trail?

No. But, we will update the blog whenever we stop in a town where internet is readily available which will probably happen often. We will be calling into WTIP a few times as well.

What is your trip budget like?

1800$ for the plane from York Factory to Gillam

300$ for the train from Gillam to Winnipeg

200$ for the homemade spray skirt

Are you bringing all your food or getting food drops?

We are getting three food drops: Breckenridge, MN, Winnipeg and Norway House.

We hope this answers some of your questions! If you have any more, please feel free to send us an email at hudsonbaybound.com.

Also, check out our latest article in the Cook County Paper.

We are off to paddle upstream on the Cannon today with Shane from the Northfield Newspaper. It's gonna be great!

Enjoy the day,
Natalie and Ann

 

Two Tickets to the Gun Show

On Saturday morning, we walked over to the North Folk House to talk with Lonnie Dupre about protection against polar bears. He suggested that we bring a shotgun and flares and advised us about proper camp set up. 

Next, after a filling breakfast at the South of the Boarder Restaurant, we stopped by Stone Harbor to pick up our 17' 4" Langford Prospector!!! We're looking for name suggestions. We will be using this canoe for our entire journey.

There we also met with Brian Larson from the Cook County News herald. We had a great conversation and found out that Brian helped build the Menogyn Boathouse in 1983! Look for an article about HBB very soon.

We came home to meet with Ann's neighbor, Bob Hurst, to talk about shotguns. Bob is letting us use one of his shotguns for the trip! He showed us the gun and we practiced taking it apart and loading it. We'll be going to the shooting range with Bob soon.

Ann and I had our interview on WTIP's The Roadhouse radio show with Bob and Buck. It was awesome! It will hopefully be archived on their website soon, so check it out!

We had lots of time to discuss little things we want to do on trail during our trip to and from Grand Marais. We are planning silly things like trail holidays and serious things like prayers. We wrote a morning prayer that reflects the goals and purpose of our journey. We think that reciting it everyday before we leave camp will help us maintain peace of mind.

I checked out some Cree mythology and Cree poetry books from the St.Olaf library last week. We want to learn as much as possible about the history of the land and its people before we leave!

Also, how do you all feel about a PARTY?! We feel great about it. After graduation Ann and I will host a graduation/send off party for all of our friends, family, supporters, and sponsors to get together and celebrate! We'll keep you posted.

Time to head back to campus after a long weekend of exciting travels. We hit the river tomorrow to practice paddling upstream!

Peace,
Natalie and Ann

Interview with WTIP and article on Paddlinglife.net

What a great media outreach day!

We just had our second vocal appearance on WTIP with Bob and Buck on The Roadhouse. Check it out soon at http://www.wtip.org/drupal/node/31. We answered a lot of questions about on trail specifics and preparation.

If you have any questions or would like to contribute check out our website or email us (hudsonbaybound@gmail.com)!

We also had an article published about us on paddlinglife.net! Check it out here: http://paddlinglife.net/article.php?id=681

Tonight (April 1st) Stream WTIP at 5:00

Hello!

We're heading to Grand Marais within the hour to be guests on The Roadhouse and pick up our canoe from Stone Harbor. Tune in tonight around 5:20 for our interview with Bob and Buck!