Sean and Colton made it to Hudson Bay!

First, unrelated to post title, an update: The kayaks arrived on Friday. Had a great tour of the factory thanks to the wonderful folks at Current Designs and Wenonah Canoe. Jenni and I hit the water for the first time Friday evening. Our Storm GTs are fantastic. I started to wonder if I'd died and woken up in paddling heaven.

More on that soon. First, since the blog was created to jaw about canoe tripping, I want to call deserved attention to two young men whose recent paddling accomplishment far out-paces our little September pleasure cruise.

Some background on this: Minnesota is associated with three epic paddling trips.

(1) Down the Mississippi from Lake Itasca to New Orleans.
(2) Circumnavigation of Lake Superior.
(3) From wherever Up North - a.k.a. Minnesota - to Hudson Bay.

We'd nominate our cross-BWCA paddle to the list at No. 4, but let's be frank: Adventure it may be, our trip is small potatoes compared to these titans. The first two receive lots of press, mainly because they're attempted often. Several books have been written about them. You’ll find books about No. 3, too, notably "Distant Fires" by the late Scott Anderson and, more famously, "Canoeing with the Cree" by Eric Sevareid (who, it should be noted, is also "the late"). But the great 2,200-mile voyage north to Hudson Bay - the domain of large white bears, don't forget - doesn't pop up in the news often. Especially not these days.

Until now.

Colton Witte and Sean Bloomfield are living an adventure of which us cubicle slaves can only dream. They cut short their senior year of high school - don't worry, they still graduated - to set off on a canoe trip of their own. In late April, they launched right from their hometown of Chaska and began canoeing up the Minnesota River...upstream, against strong spring currents. Following Sevareid's route, Colton and Sean paddled up the Minnesota, down the Red River of the North, and across Lake Winnipeg, which I can only imagine must have seemed like the sea. From there, it was north-by-northeast through the lakes and river systems of remote northern Manitoba.

Yesterday, they arrived at York Factory, Manitoba, an outpost at the mouth of the Hayes River. Hudson Bay. They did it in just 49 days. Sevareid and his friend Walter Port took nearly four months.

There are no permanent residents at York Factory, just some Parks Canada employees during the summer months to watch over the grounds and the weathered 177-year-old former Hudson’s Bay Company headquarters building. Darkness falls for just six hours each night this time of year, but permafrost never leaves the ground. And somewhere not far away, out of sight of the eye but not the imagination, polar bears roam.

From the Twin Cities to Hudson Bay. By canoe. In less than two months.

Remarkable.

Awesome, in fact. And not just for distance Sean and Colton covered. I love that these guys decided to attempt (and complete!) the journey, doing it now instead of thinking back later and wishing they’d gone. Perhaps I sound a bit too wistful. I do hope that Gunflint to Ely Canoe will be just the first of many great adventures for Jenni and me. But oh, to have those post-high-school pre-responsibility summers back...how I'd plan them differently now. Maybe that's part of growing up and navigating the quarter-life crisis; you figure stuff out that you'd wish you'd known, and you try to remember for later it so you can pass it on to your kids. Maybe I'll pass along a copy of Canoeing with the Cree, too.

Cheers, Sean and Colton!

You can read all about the their adventure, and how they made it home from Hudson Bay - sounds like a chartered seaplane was waiting Sunday for weather to clear to pick them up - here.

Tuesday update: Nick Coleman's latest column in the Star Tribune offers a taste of what the duo experienced during the final leg of their trip through the Manitoba wilderness. Rapids, waterfalls, exploding bear spray, and ice at Hudson Bay. Read it here.