Namekagon River Trip, July 2002 by Andy Stokes
The crew.

Andy, Carl, Scotty, Joe, Mark, Steve, CJ, Dave, Jake and Luke (not pictured.)

Every summer I look forward to a week break from life, a vacation of sorts out of society and onto a river. A vacation where the birds and the sun are your wakeup call. I try to concentrate on the essentials, the good jumping cliffs and what to eat. Each summer has brought a different river with its own personality and unique things to experience. The first trip, four years ago, was a two-week trip down the Chippewa River. The crew consisted of Luke, Dave, Steve and I. The original crew has lasted through the years. We’ve allowed other friends to come aboard as the years have passed. This year was the largest group. It consisted of three canoes and the Campanoe, ten guys altogether.
Throughout the years we’ve had so many crazy experiences on the rivers it’s hard to keep them straight. This year on the Namekagon River, was no exception.

This is right before we had to do the only portage of the trip. With ten guys it was the easiest portage of my life. Five of us picked up the Campanoe and carried it the 50 yards or so to the water below the dam. We didn’t even bother to take the canopy down.

I was able to sneak up to within 15 ft. of this little doe. We were camped across the river and she hung out with us for a couple hours while we made dinner and had target practice with the pellet gun.

This huge 2.5 foot wide snapper was eating the fish guts Dave had thrown in the river. At about 2:00 in the morning, Steve and I saw him swimming near the fish guts, and we were lucky to get this picture. He moved so slowly and prehistoric like, it was really fun to see.
The Namekagon is a wonderful river to canoe. There are plenty of marked, well maintained campsites along the entire river. Many of them are large enough to support 2-3 tents. Of course with a campanoe you don’t even need a site because you can camp anywhere. During our trip the campanoe proved herself time and time again as the ultimate in canoeing. At one point we had to canoe on lake water with no current. We tipped the canopy half way down and sailed across the lake at a quick pace. The guys in the canoes were pissed because they couldn’t keep up with us. We all just laughed and sailed on.