Thorp Public Library to host Author’s Book Presentation

The Thorp Courier (Thorp, WI)
May 5, 2010
Transcribed by Dolores Mohr Kenyon

On Wednesday, May 12, the Thorp Public library will host a special presentation by Dennis Weidemann, the author of This Water Goes North at 6:30 p.m.  Weidemann will give a free slideshow presentation and talk about this non-fiction book about his expedition up to the Hudson Bay.  Copies of his book will be available for purchase at the library as well.
 
During a lazy day of fishing, a father asked his young son a seemingly harmless question, “Do you know where this water goes?”  Several years later, the boy, his brother, and two friends set off on a 1,400 mile journey to find out.
 
That childhood fishing trip planted an idea that eventually led four Iowa farm lads on a two-and-a-half month canoeing voyage from Minnesota to fabled Hudson Bay.  Three decades later, their inspiring adventure has been captured in This Water Goes North, a book by expedition member Dennis Weidemann.
 
The travelers met while working at a pizza parlor, during Weidemann’s sophomore year at college.
 
“I remember the day Hank first told us his plan,” says Dennis.  “Everybody thought he was nuts.”
 
Growing up in rural Iowa, none of the bunch had wilderness experience.  Moreover, they only possessed the barest of gear.  One canoe, a battered old Browning purchased at a garage sale, still carried faint red, white, and blue images from a bi-centennial parade.  On the bottom was a name – “Lucky.”  And it was.
 
Just three days into the trip, the explorers had their first brush with near disaster, when two of the young men capsized and found themselves pinned under a fallen tree in fast water. There were still treacherous rapids and hundreds of miles of unpopulated wilderness to come, but close calls would be just a part of a rich adventure filled with tales of bootleggers, friendship, a polar bear, and humorous escapades with local characters.
 
For the first three weeks, the foursome snaked down the Otter Tail River and Red River to Canada, camping at farms along the way.  Leaving civilization behind, they battled Lake Winnipeg, a frigid 300-mile beast with a bad temper.  Following old fur trading routes, they passed through another 400 miles of untamed back-country to the remote York Factory outpost on Hudson Bay.
 
Why did they go?  Thirty years later the somewhat older explorers respond as they did in 1979, citing a song by Pablo Cruise.  “The time has come to cast away and sail into the sun. We wanna’ be worlds away.”
 
“The spirit of adventure is universal,” says Weidemann, who hopes that the book will help others appreciate the value of an adventure of youth.  “Everyone dreams of going somewhere, but often life gets in the way.  I hope that for at least a moment, This Water Goes North will take readers to wherever they wanted to go.  Maybe one day, they too will be worlds away.”