Day 8 - The Last River Rat

“Hello my fellow travelers in the greater circle of life."

                                                                                                       -Kenny Salwey

We woke with the sun on Tuesday morning because Kenny Salwey, the Last River Rat, planned to take us to his shack on the backwaters of the Mississippi. We needed to get there before the deer flies woke up. Alas, this time of year they’re bad. Deer flies bite, so we had to cover ourselves completely—not fun in 95 degree heat.

Kenny lived in his shack for 28 years as a hunter, fisherman, and trapper. Visiting his river home was a mystic experience, like walking into a story book and getting to hold the items inside of Hagrid’s hutt. But Kenny is not a fairy tale. He lives with nature. He is real, and he makes nature real too. Many of us live lives greatly removed from nature. Roads and hotels and computers separate us from trees and flowers and animals. It’s almost as though nature itself has become a fairy tale--something we only see on TV or read about in books.

Kenny had a lot of lessons to teach us. We kept voicing up our concerns about the swollen Mississippi waters. “Are we going to tip? Are the waters too fast and too strong?” to which Kenny simply replied, “Don’t fear the river. Respect it.”

Kenny firmly believes that if we are disconnected from the Earth, then we are missing something very important. For us, that lesson was a big one. We aren’t fighting the Mississippi. We aren’t using it. We aren’t separate from it. We are flowing with it. We need to respect its strength and allow it to carry us.

Day 5

WHEW! It’s only been a few days, but so much has happened. We had a little change of plans. Turns out the Mississippi River in the Twin Cities area was too high to canoe safely. I have to admit, we were pretty bummed. But ya know what? We decided it would be best to go with the flow.

Instead of starting in St. Paul, we took our canoes to very beginning of the Mississippi River at Lake Itasca. So amazing! The river sure is narrow at the start. It should be called the Mississippi Creek! Here’s a picture of us canoeing into the Mississippi Headwaters.

Tick Attack!

The other day Joe somehow managed to get covered in wood ticks. Apparently it’s one of his many hidden talents. There must have been like 25 of ‘em! We had to get him cleaned off before getting back on the river. Most of them were just on his clothes. None had bitten him, so we were safe there. Gross none-the-less. Hope he doesn’t develop a nervous tick.

Wolves

Bugs weren’t the only thing in northern MN. Late one night we were awoken by packs of wolves howling to one another across the river from our camp. It went on for nearly 20 minutes. We could only assume that they had come out to wish us good luck on our trip. I wonder what wildlife scenes we'll experience when we begin canoeing the southern part of the state.

We are currently on our way to Alma Wisconsin to meet up with Kenny Salwey, the Last River Rat. We’ll update you again soon, so stay tuned!

Day 1

It has begun! We wish we could bring all of you with us as we paddle and camp and sing and generally get into trouble, but we only have enough s’more ingredients for the four us.

I know what you’re thinking. Aren’t the Okee Dokee Brothers just Joe and Justin? That’s very true, but we couldn’t do this trip without our wilderness expert, Brian Sieh. He’s gonna keep us from rubbing poison ivy on ourselves as well as teach us how to keep our canoes upright. We also can’t forget our photographer and videographer, Alex Johnson. Without him, we’d have no evidence that we were actually on the river. For all you know we’re sitting at home in Minneapolis making this whole thing up. Well, we’re not! And Alex is gonna prove it. If you want to learn more about our river team, check out their bios on our website at http://okeedokee.org/mississippi.

So long! We have to get into our canoes now. We’ll update you next time we find an internet tree. Internet grows on trees, right? I guess we’ll have to ask Brian. HEY BRIAN!...

To the Archive!

We love old songs. One of our goals for this next album is to preserve some old public-domain folk songs while giving them a fresh style. At the end of March, we were lucky enough to have the opportunity to visit the Smithsonian Folklife Archive in Washington DC and search out these old traditional river songs.  It was an unforgettable experience.

(Side note) - It just so happens that the archive is located in the same office as Smithsonian Folkways Records.  This is the record label that produces albums and compilations from our favorite artists of all time (Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Ella Jenkins, Elizabeth Mitchell, etc etc… ), so we were pretty much in high heaven!

The archive itself is located in a huge temperature controlled room and it consists of hundreds of thousands of records, tapes, CDs, album notes, studio logs, original cover art, lyric sheets, etc.  By using large index books, we (with the help of Jeff Place, Head Archivist and two-time Grammy winner!) would pull recordings from this collection, listen to them, and find dozens of amazing songs that related to our river adventure theme.  Of course some of what we heard was unusable, but after listening to about 100 songs over 2 days, we found some real gems! Expect to hear some on the album! 

The Last River Rat

In preparation for our trip, we’ve been having some great phone conversations with Kenny Salwey, storyteller, author, hunter, trapper, and self-proclaimed “Last River Rat” who has lived off the Mississippi for his whole life.  Kenny is a fascinating person and we have thoroughly enjoyed listening to his advice, reading his stories, and watching videos about his river philosophy. Here is a link to the BBC film about the Mississippi and the last river rat, Kenny. Check it out:

We will see Kenny present the BBC film and do a book reading in St. Paul in April and we will also meet Kenny on the river as we canoe by his shack near Alma Wisconsin in June.  We can’t wait to spend some time with this guy, sing some songs, and hear some of his stories! 

Welcome!

Welcome to our Mississippi River Adventure Album Blog! Here, you can follow our voyage down the Mississippi and take part in our songs and adventures as we go.  We will be posting updates and reflections, facts we learn about the river, video clips, field recordings, rough drafts of tunes we write, poems, and we will even be asking you for song ideas! Feel free to comment on our blog posts. We’d love for you to be a part of our journey!