Miasmatic Review

Floating the Amaqounsippi

No Beer review tonight. This weekend I’m taking Ktreva on a canoe trip, the exploration of the Amaquonsippi. It’s a period correct trip (with the exception of the canoes, life jackets, water jugs and toilet paper in a plastic bag). We are doing the last leg of the trip this year. I did the second leg last year, Ktreva didn’t go. Since we are getting ready for that, I just don’t have the time to do a proper beer review. I’ll try to put up an extra one next week to make up for it.

I’m pretty damn excited about this trip. It looks like the river is going to cooperate, so we won’t have to drag our canoes down the river. I get to spend the weekend with my wife and friends doing what we love, what more could I ask? I’ve gone over our gear a couple of times now to make sure that we have no non-period, or non-period looking materials. Where this trip isn’t juried, I’m still trying to take the high road and make sure my stuff is right or as close as I can get with what limited resources are available to me with the time constraints.

I’m sure some of my friends will give me some grief over some of preparations. I keep a journal of the re-enactments that I do in a period looking book. For my own reference I made a slightly detailed hand drawn map inside the book… that I based on the USGS topographic survey. Yes, you can scream loser at me now, but if I had the patience I’d be a cartographer! This is an exploration and I like to document things. This brought me some hazing last year when I was using my portable GPS to document wear we were stopping, camping, etc. I just wanted to document the trip.

Now I know some people could care less about this type of stuff, but some of these are the same individuals that thrive on reading other peoples journals and seeing their maps. One of the highly debated topics amongst archeologists and historians is exactly where certain camps were specifically located, hence why they have spent years trying to find the Lewis and Clark sites. We love getting information from the journals, it’s a primary source. Yet I try to document something and I get the “We’re on the river, that’s where we are” statement. Its okay, to each their own and if they don’t like it, then I don’t have to share it with them! (Also they didn’t want to see the modern GPS, but we’ll just glaze over that fact).

This year I’m trying something different. I’m using some knowledge that I obtained since last years trip. I won’t be as accurate as a GPS, but I’m sure I can get the general area. Of course the worst heathens on this trip (which are some of my closest and dearest friends) will still give me grief over it. Just like they’ll get over the fact that I give them grief that this trip is more akin to a drunken float down a river than it is to a canoe trip! (very little paddling) hehe

I’ll let you all know how it went when we get back.