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Canoeing with the Cree

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In 1930, two young men bought a canoe and paddled 2,250 miles from Minneapolis to Hudson Bay. This is the tale of their amazing journey, as written by Eric Sevareid and narrated by John Farrell. The CD set retells the story that launched Sevareid's long career as a respected writer and television broadcaster for CBS.

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First published January 1, 1935

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Eric Sevareid

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Displaying 1 - 30 of 217 reviews
Profile Image for Mikey B..
1,124 reviews472 followers
May 21, 2021
This canoe journey by Eric Sevareid (1912 – 1992, famed CBS news journalist) with his friend Walter Page took place in 1930. They were both teenagers at the time. They canoed all the way from their home town of Minneapolis to York Factory on Hudson Bay in Manitoba (my understanding is that York Factory no longer exists now, being abandoned in 1957). It was a trip of some 2,250 miles - mind you they did cheat on Lake Winnipeg when they took a ferry from Berens River to Norway House at the north-end of Lake Winnipeg.

We get lots of their encounters with rapids, portaging, endless bogs where they were almost trapped in an endless maze – and of course mosquitoes and black flies. This is definitely a good adventure yarn.

But there is not much contemplation in this narrative. Don’t look for any revealing passages on the Cree Indians who inhabit this remote area (and most of the time are referred to as savages and half-breeds (Metis)). It also would have been of interest to know more on the perspective of the white folks who had decided on living there for several years – and why they kept staying in this remote isolation of Northern Manitoba.

Page 75 (my book)

The feeling of immensity that overwhelmed me when I first gazed out on Lake Winnipeg, returns to me every time I think of the moment when Walter and I paddled around a bend and for the first time saw a huge body of water we were about to traverse in a frail canoe.
It may as well have been the Atlantic Ocean. My feeling was one of immediate emptiness in my stomach… As far as we could see stretched water and nothing but water – more water than any of us had ever seen at one time before.


This book is the story of these two intrepid teenagers on a massive canoe journey in the Canadian wilderness.
Profile Image for Blueberry.
78 reviews
April 30, 2017
Two teens just graduated from high school get the idea to make a 2250 mi trip from Minnesota to Hudson Bay, never made before by canoe. Hardships such as getting lost, freezing temperatures, treacherous rapids and portages follow. I didn't realize this 1935 memoir was written by the famous newscaster/journalist Eric Severeid about his trip with his best friend.
Profile Image for Marie Carmean.
438 reviews6 followers
October 10, 2016
I cannot say how happy I am that this book found its way back into print! What a fascinating testament to the tenacity of youth. Two young men just out of high school decide that summer in the 1920s to canoe 2,250 miles from Minnesota to Hudson Bay. Almost everyone they meet tells them it can't be done; that they are foolish to go that far. Yet, they are determined to see this through, and see it through they do! They were likely the first men to do so....if there was a trapper in the far reaching past who could not document the journey, perhaps they followed in his paddle strokes. But no one knows. The boys are writing articles for a newspaper all along the way, and are facing dangers most people only have in nightmares, battling time as winter cold approaches. It is written in an easy, almost "letter to home" style, and is such a joy to read. The author is one of the two boys...Eric Sevareid. One can say this adventure and the writing of it, launched his journalism career. Certainly it was a summer that made him a man.
Profile Image for Jrobertus.
1,069 reviews31 followers
November 21, 2007
I burned through this wonderful little book my Mom sent me. It relates the true story of a canoe trip in 1930 from Minneapolis to Hudson's Bay by Eric Sevareid and friend. This is a real epic adventure; it is hard to imagine the courage of these yong men paddling off into the emptiness of northern Manitoba. The narrative was engaging and very humane. You got to know a little about these guys, how they related to the world and to one another. It it just a wonderful, uplifting read.
Profile Image for Kristen Freiburger.
490 reviews13 followers
September 4, 2020
The epic canoe trip in 1930 lasted nearly four months and extended more than 2,250 miles. Did I mention they were 17 and 19?!?! This gem offers a peek behind the curtain during that time in our nations history. Can’t wait to research Eric and Walt and see how they spent their lives.
Profile Image for Kurt.
669 reviews87 followers
December 29, 2009
Always a big fan of true outdoor adventure stories, I was especially intrigued when I heard about this one because the author, who was only 17 at the time, was someone whose name was well-known to me. Eric Sevareid was a long-time reporter and anchorman for one of the national news networks during the 60's and 70's.

Canoeing with the Cree is the story of Sevareid and his friend, Walter Port, both teenagers, who decide to spend the summer of 1930 canoeing all the way from their home in Minneapolis to Hudson Bay over 2000 miles away. It is an incredible story. The trip was no cake walk; in fact, these two teenagers were likely the first people to complete this trip and were also likely the first to ever canoe the last stretch down God's River to Hudson Bay. Many times while reading this book I thought how easily this trip could have turned disastrous. I wondered if I would ever permit my teenage boys to do something as wild and reckless. Of course I wouldn't. But on the other hand, I know these two boys had the adventure of a lifetime and never regretted it for the rest of their lives.

This book made me re-evaluate what life is all about. We need to take chances in life. We need to take advantage of opportunities when they present themselves. Always playing it safe is for sissies who will lie on their deathbeds wondering what they did with their lives.

Anyway, this is a great book. It is very short and easy to read, and every page of it is interesting and delightful.
Profile Image for Spencer.
289 reviews9 followers
October 30, 2017
First published in 1935, just five years after graduating from high school, the story recounts how the just-graduated young Arnold Eric Sevareid and Walter C. Port set out on a 2250 canoe trip from Fort Snelling in Minneapolis to Hudson Bay. They were only 18-year-old novice canoeists, they had only rudimentary maps for the last 500 miles, and they were in a race with a winter that was nipping at their heels as they neared their destination nearly 4 months after their departure. They were constantly battling the elements and terrain the entire length of the trek. And there was no record of anyone ever having done it before. First, because there was no need to. Hudson Bay is a meaningful destination only if approached by sea. And second, by 1930 when young Sevareid and Post made their expedition there was already a railroad that would take you, in comfort, to the bay.

But make it they did, with some inspiration from Rudyard Kipling. It was an exercise in living on minimal standard subsistence food, poor equipment and clothing, and minimal navigational guides. And though they received emotional support from friends and family, experts and those with experience on the route were spar in their encouragement. What I find even more amazing was that the young Sevareid was able to write and publish his book covering this saga while still an undergraduate student at the U of Minnesota.

I was able to detect flashes of brilliance in the writing of this amazing 23-year-old, who would go on to become one of America's great journalists.

Author 3 books11 followers
September 29, 2022
"The north has a spell."

What a fun and inspiring journal-style book this one is, as Eric Sevareid chronicles the ambitious adventure he and his friend undertook back in 1930.

At the tender age of 17 - just having finished high school - Eric joined his buddy, Walter Port, in canoeing all the way from Minneapolis to Lake Winnipeg and on north to Hudson Bay. A most outstanding achievement, particularly seeing as the boys were not experienced rowers.

It's difficult to summarize the difficulty of the boys' task. Here is the best passage I could find, as an attempt: "A hundred times we scraped with sickening sound on the black boulders, a hundred times the canoe shuddered violently as though about to fall in pieces when we rammed into shallow ledges, a hundred times the bobbing prow was submerged and a rush of icy water flooded our outfit."

Canoeing With The Cree is a great recommendation for the outdoorsperson you know. In a time when many people find exercise too taxing - i.e. walking a few blocks instead of driving - this is a story well worth your time.

4.5 stars
Profile Image for Geoff Wyss.
Author 5 books22 followers
June 8, 2010
If I were going to recommend a nature-adventure book for adults, I'd definitely recommend 'Kon-Tiki' over 'Canoeing with the Cree.' The former can get preachy at times, but it's often beautifully written (this one's not), it's coherent(this one isn't), and it's got a sense of historical context (again not true of 'Cree'). But this book is going to be perfect for my English III classes, the quarter on the theme of nature.

'Cree' isn't trying to be a nature book, which is why it's going to work well. It's an account of two high-school boys who decide to paddle up the Minnesota River into Canada and all the way to Hudson Bay, over 2200 miles. The book is essentially worked-up journals, day piled after day, as the boys get farther and farther from people and comfort. Ultimately, the book (unwittingly) sparks a lot of the same questions as Thoreau, the writer who'll be one of the bases of the quarter.
Profile Image for BowbytheBay.
337 reviews
August 20, 2017
Title misleading. It is two white boys canoeing where the Cree live. They hardly ever are actually canoeing with the Cree. However, entertaining, although dated, adventure story. I was reading it aloud to a tween and we talked about some of the inherent racism.
Profile Image for Margaret Jenkins Colangelo.
153 reviews
June 8, 2021
I love a good adventure story, especially set in the wild north woods. This insane venture was completed by two BOYS without the modern tools of goretex, aluminum canoes and paddles, Duluth packs, freeze dried trail meals, and down sleeping bags. Their parents must have had some seriously sleepless nights.

Author Eric Sevareid went on to become a nationally reknown journalist and war correspondent for CBS news.

Keep in mind this was written in 1935 so the racism and white privilege are rampant. We must be honest about our past and current toxic attitudes. Their perspective of the US-Dakota War of 1862 reflects the white lens of racism as well. The indigenous people of the Red River and north to the Hudson Bay had been overtaken by white employees of the Hudson Bay Company and the US or Canadian government by the time of this journey.

An excellent record for history and the unspoiled northwoods.
2 reviews
August 15, 2007
Facing high school graduation, a couple of teens decide to spend their summer on an epic adventure prior to starting college and careers. Their goal: canoe from the Twin Cities to Hudson Bay.

Only 17 years old at the time, Eric Sevareid convinced not only his mother to let him go, but also a local newspaper to fund part of the adventure in return for periodic updates on their progress. Much of the route was uncertain, and they had to rely on the local population to help them find their way.

I'd recommend this book as a high school graduation gift or as an inspirational story for any teen who is struggling with impending adulthood. For adults, it's a nostalgic look at what our experience with the outdoors used to be prior to GPS and cell phones. It's also an introduction to a future newscaster.



Profile Image for Mike Mikulski.
137 reviews1 follower
April 15, 2024
I was helping my dad clean out old books in his basement when I found Canoeing with the Cree. I read this in my youth when we picked up this copy in Nothern Minnesota. The book is an account of a 2000 mile canoe trek from Minneapolis to York Factory at the foot of Hudson Bay told by Eric Sevareid, who I always remembered as a TV journalist on CBS. Sevareid and his companion Walter Both set off in an 18 foot wood and canvas canoe.

The first part of their paddle took them from the Minnesota River in Minneapolis to the headwaters of the Red River of the North. During this stretch they were able to resupply regularly at grocery stores and farms adjacent to the river. The memoir paints a picture of the rural Midwest of the 30's.
From Fargo north they often had to pull their canoe through endless reeds and thick mud, as both the Minnesota and Red Rivers became small creeks draining marshes with almost no flow. EventuallyThe, the Red River took them to Winnepeg where they received guidance from the Winnipeg Canoe Club on what they would experience as they paddled north through the lakes and Wilderness of Canada.

The trip north form Winnipeg is where Sevreid and Port's true wilderness journey begins. They no longer had the luxury of nearby towns to supply from. As they enter Lake Winnepeg which is hundreds of miles long and 70 miles across, they need to learn to canoe with large waves and avoid rocky reefs. When a fall storm blows in, they realize that battling the waves of the lake will be pointless and they put their canoe on a steamer to cross the northern 150 miles of the lake. This is the only leg of the journey they did not padel and transport their own gear. At the northern end of the lake, they came to the Hudson Bay Outpost of Norway House. Here they begin to interact with Hudson Bay traders and Cree Natives on their journey. The rivers north to Hudson Bay require navigating swift rapids. At this point they are racing to avoid the oncoming winter weather in late September.

The experiences Sevareid and Port have with a country still driven by a trade economy between the Cree and Hudson Bay company is a system that had been in place since the 1600's. The two meet up with Hudson Bay Managers who took these jobs after leaving Scotland and England. Unlike the US where the native population was seen as an obstacle to be concurred, 1930's Canada still reflected a co-existence centered on trade. How equitable this trade was is debatable.

Sevareid builds good tension with uncertainty if they will be able to complete their journey. The trip also served as an introduction to Sevareid's career as a journalist as he filed reports on his journey to the Minneapolis Star while his hometown followed along on the journey.

Overall, it is the tale of an incredible journey taken on by two 18-year olds on a 2000 mile adventure in a time and place when communication and outdoor equipment were still very primitive.





Profile Image for Chris Norbury.
Author 4 books84 followers
April 27, 2022
An interesting book especially since I just read Natalie Warren's memoir of her identical trip with Ann Raiho from Mpls. to Hudson Bay some 80 years later. The narratives were similar but distinctively show the personalities of each writer. Sevareid showed his writing chops at an early age as his narrative is more "journalist." (Just the facts). Warren's was more introspective and relationship based. No surprise that both pairs had big fights well past the halfway point in the trip. Sevareid and Port actually came to blows during their trip.

Both groups are to be commended for completing a monumentally difficult challenge. In both cases, I was surprised by the seeming lack of care in packing their gear and keeping it waterproof and secure. The men can be forgiven a little bit because camping/canoeing gear was not sophisticated at all back in 1930, whereas Warren & Raiho had the advantage of waterproof Duluth packs, superior rain gear (Gore-tex), bear barrels, stronger tents, good ropes, better maps, and such. Yet each author mentioned moments where capsizing the canoe would have either sunk most of their gear or had it float away from the canoe and be lost. Any good river runner would make sure the gear would either be secured to the canoe or totally waterproof so it could be recovered whole and dry somewhere downstream.

But an enjoyable read nonetheless of an adventure very few people in history have ever undertaken.
Profile Image for Brett Strickland.
131 reviews1 follower
January 25, 2023
Great adventure story about two boys who graduate high school and canoe over 2,000 miles from Minnesota to Hudson Bay. Love all the camping and wildlife and nature descriptions, and some great insights as well, such as how everyone they meet tries to tell them how dangerous their local section of the river is and they have to start ignoring advice. A snapshot of the world in 1935. Blasted through this one. (Snow day helped.)
Profile Image for Robert Nash.
Author 3 books10 followers
July 14, 2021
This 1935 account of 18 and 19-year-old boys traveling 2500 miles from Minneapolis to Hudson Bay was easy to read, simple, enjoyable, and short. It reminds me of Twain or Ingalls Wilder. I really enjoyed it and gave it to my boys to read.
Profile Image for Suzy.
131 reviews2 followers
June 18, 2024
Reread of this incredible story of two 17 year old boys who make a grueling, never before done journey by canoe from Minneapolis to Hudson Bay. The hardships they overcome and the people they meet along the way, from farmers to backwoods white men to the native Cree, are fascinating. Done in 1930, without the assistance of any modern technology or materials,, it is even more astonishing.

However, it’s only 4 stars for me because the casual racism toward the native people by the author and the other white people they meet along the way, while characteristic of the time it was undertaken, is nonetheless pretty disturbing.
Profile Image for Chloe Bryan.
29 reviews7 followers
February 14, 2024
Classic book that fuels adventure! So many underlines in this book. My paperback copy is well loved and cherished.
Profile Image for Beckett Nelson.
49 reviews
March 17, 2022
Quite an adventure! Hearing how they managed to paddle such an extraordinary route, with both ups and downs is quite amazing…especially when you consider the gear they would’ve used was significantly different from what would be used today. Time to plan a trip?
Profile Image for Cat Pfenning.
28 reviews
May 21, 2022
Picked this one up at the library last month simply because the cover caught my eye. Reading the back cover, I wondered out loud when I returned home with book in hand, "Did two teenagers really canoe to Hudson Bay from Minneapolis?" My husband Sterling asked to see the book, he said yes, he had heard of that story. And he remembered that multiple friends had recommended the book to him.

I decided that I'd read the book out loud to Sterling so that we could both enjoy it, and started during supper that night. What started with me picking up a few non-fiction books to read during my free time, turned into family storytime at the table, for I had barely finished the first page and my 7 and 6 year old wanted to see the map, and know "Did this happen in real life?"

The book is not a very long read, but reading during suppers like this, it took weeks to get through- not nearly as long though as it took for the two teens becoming men to finish their journey, navigating rugged Canadian terrain by canoe.

We found ourselves rooting for them in every twist and turn of the river, and the last couple chapters had me in tears, knowing how far they had come and what it took for them to get there.

It was an enjoyable read to say the least. I felt like we were sitting by fire, hearing the story firsthand from the two travelers.
Profile Image for John Gray.
18 reviews
October 16, 2021
The Young don’t believe in impossible. What a wonderfully written story about an incredible American adventure by 2 young friends.
Profile Image for Roy McKenzie.
40 reviews1 follower
August 5, 2023
“Joe stamped and chanted and made funny passes and drew marks in the snow with full moonlight to coax the spirits near, but the sergeant, who probably is stupid and not in tune with the infinite, sat on a stump and sucked his pipe in silence, and saw no medicine.”
Profile Image for gnarlyhiker.
371 reviews16 followers
April 2, 2021
this was a sad and pathetic read. and in conclusion a pointless adventure. to the extent that sevareid proved all the naysayers wrong by completing this challenging endeavor, but he couldn't disprove the inbred bigotry was/is/were wrong.

recommend Hudson Bay Bound: Two Women, One Dog, Two Thousand Miles To The Arctic just for the drastic change in landscape/geography--80 years of wear, tear, greed and segregation.

good luck
Profile Image for Kevin.
32 reviews
August 2, 2009
Like the hangover cure for 'Deliverance', Sevareid's boyish writing delivers all the goods for adventure-seekers with a good-hearted spirit and optimism that's hard to find nowadays. The book is definately a nostalgia trip; these were times when asking strangers for help in the middle of nowhere was okay, and riding all the way up the country was a plausible possibility. A quick, exciting read.
Profile Image for Desiree.
25 reviews6 followers
January 15, 2013
Great nonfiction read aloud! My children and I really enjoyed it.
44 reviews3 followers
September 3, 2019
If you want a fun and exciting read, you may want to consider this book by Eric Sevareid titled "Canoeing With the Cree." "Getting Our Butts Lost and Being Saved by the Cree" might be a more accurate title. In 1930, immediately following high school graduation, seventeen year old Sevareid and his friend Walter Port, set out from Minneapolis in an eighteen foot canvas canoe, for Hudson's Bay. Across the Mississippi and up the Minnesota River (also known as the St. Pierre or Saint Peter River - once a source of confusion for me) they went, paddling and dragging their canoe through the shallows for 330 miles to the divide between the Mississippi watershed and that of the Arctic Ocean (the other continental divide). Canoeing through the Minnesota countryside was similar to canoe trips I've taken on various Midwestern rivers, although my canoe trips were typically downstream the whole way. The snapping turtles and catfish, the parking under bridges and walking or hitchhiking into little towns to buy groceries, all was familiar. After pushing the boat laboriously through marshes, the boys entered the Red River of the North, crossed the Canadian border and floated on down to the city of Winnipeg and into Lake Winnipeg. After canoeing up the lower lake to the narrows, Eric and Walt realized that seas ran too high on the open lake, and time ran too short, for them to canoe the distance, so they loaded their outfit on a steamer and booked passage to Norway House, at the outlet of the giant lake. 500 miles of trackless wilderness remained between there and Hudson's Bay, and winter was closing in. Here the fun begins.

In precis, the boys get lost, food runs short, the danger of becoming ice bound weighs heavily on their minds, they are constantly wet and cold, portages are hard to find, innumerable sets of rapids compel grueling, time consuming carryovers, tempers flare. The boys blame one another for everything that goes wrong, argue over the route and at one point, they come to blows! Knowing that their lives depend on cooperation, they calm down and manage to resume working together. To the two boys' vast relief they encounter a Cree family - a couple with four children out in the wild hunting moose, fishing and gathering berries for the winter, who share food and show them the way to the native community of Shamattawa, on the God's River, thereby most likely saving the boys' lives. After recuperating for a time, they continue down through rapids and around falls to the Hays and hence arrive at York Factory on Hudson's Bay with winter right on their heels, for a total distance of 2,250 miles.

This book was first published in 1935 when Sevareid was 21 or 22 years old. It is written with such humor, humility, honesty, excitement and appeal that it's easy to see how Sevareid went on to become a famous journalist. When I was growing up he was well known as a TV newsman. This epic canoe voyage was far longer and more difficult than any canoe trip I ever accomplished. (The only time I tried to shoot rapids the way they did, on the Snake, I promptly dumped the canoe and almost lost it.) Yet, what was the trip of a lifetime, filled with adventure, anxiety, hardship and eventual triumph for these two boys, was an every day matter of fact way of life for the Cree. Highly recommended.
Profile Image for Mark Schultz.
230 reviews2 followers
February 26, 2017
Canoeing with the Cree, Eric Sevareid, 1935. Mike McMahon gave this book to his daughter Gwen this Christmas, and read it himself. He thought I’d enjoy it, and lent it to me. I did enjoy it, and want to ask Gwen about it next time I see her. She reads so many book, though! I wonder what she’ll remember.

For my part, I most enjoyed the last chapters, as Sevareid and his canoeing partner, fellow teenager Walt Port, traversed the last 500 miles from Norway House just north of Lake Winnipeg, to the southern shore of Hudson Bay. Reading it, I was struck not only by the ruggedness of the land, but by winter’s looming presence as the boys drove deeper into September as they traveled north. Sevareid doesn’t say this, but they nearly didn’t make it. Gaunt and cold in a nearly unpopulated land, one mishap – even perhaps a broken oar – would spell destruction. But they carried on and prevailed.

The earlier chapters of Canoeing with the Cree are interesting, too. Sevareid and Port canoe through Minnesota and Manitoba in 1930, and the book has some description of the farms, towns, and people they encounter. Overall, the book is marred by the explicit and embedded racism impacting the Ojibwe and Cree people they see. Sevareid in 1930 carried the unrecognized privilege of his race, and a ready prejudice against Native Americans. In his later book of essays, Not So Wild a Dream (1946), he reflected on the 1930 canoe trip in the light of his experiences in other countries, better recognizing the imperialism of the European settlers in North America for what it was.

Sevareid went on to one of the most illustrious careers in American news broadcasting, including reporting on the Blitz in London, and becoming in 1940 the first to report of the fall of Paris. As North Dakota humanities scholar Clay Jenkinson points out, Sevareid’s commentaries following Walter Cronkite’s news-telling on CBS from 1963-1977 were major contributions to millions of Americans’ understanding of those tumultuous times.
27 reviews
September 17, 2020
I grew up with Eric Sevareid's rich voice and descriptive words accompanying all big national events from the 60's into the 70's. I was pleased to learn about his life as a very young man, when he completed the type of adventure he used to describe from the inside of a TV screen.
His friend, Walter Port, and himself decided that after they had just graduated from high school in 1930, they would take a 2250 mile canoe expedition from Minneapolis to the Hudson Bay. They weren't canoeists, or avid outdoorsmen, but they wanted to complete this trip because it had never been done before, and as a way for both of them to celebrate their continuing journey to adulthood. Both of their families thought that this trip was too dangerous, and that they may never see Eric and Walter again. Sevareid received some financial backing from a newspaper that would receive dispatches from him about the progress of their trip. It was his first foray into the world of journalism. The first part of their trip took them from the Red River to Lake Winnipeg, where the conditions and the approach of Fall weather caused them to hitch a ride on a steamer to the Norway House at the opposite end of the lake, where the real drama of their trip would begin.
They would be lost, run out of food, get beat up in the rapids, deal with the onset of wintry weather, physically fight each other, and when they found themselves in their most desperate situations, would always be helped by the assimilated Cree tribe of the great lakes region, with whom they would interact with throughout their expedition.
When I think of Eric Sevareid now, it's not the revered voice on CBS that guided us through the tumultuous days of the 60's and 70's, but the young man who challenged himself to do something that had never been done before, and making sure that we were able to enjoy reading about the journey of the two young friends who were preparing themselves for the lives that awaited them.
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