Author Frank Bures on canoeing, forgotten races and a brush with death on the Mississippi

The Mississippi River has long inspired storytellers, and Minnesota writer Frank Bures is the latest to draw from its currents.

His new book, “Pushing the River,” blends personal narrative with forgotten history, spotlighting the mid-century Paul Bunyan Canoe Derby and the often-overlooked role of Ojibwe paddlers in shaping Minnesota’s canoeing legacy.

This conversation has been edited for length and clarity. 

Can you tell me a little bit about the book?

It’s a collection of stories that I’ve done that are first person, that I’ve done about other people and also some historical research that I did into the Paul Bunyan canoe Derby — which was a race in the 1940s and 50s that was part of the Aquatennial celebration, and that had a big impact on Minnesota as far as canoeing culture goes.

Tell me a little bit more about the Paul Bunyan Derby

The Paul Bunyan canoe Derby was a 450-mile race that started in Bemidji on the shore of Lake Bemidji, and came down in stages. The paddlers would stay overnight in the towns along the way.

Anywhere from eight to 10 days, depending on the year, they would race each day, stop, and then start again the next morning, until they got to Minneapolis.

And when they arrived in Minneapolis, it would kick off the Aquatennial. They would do a sprint on the Mississippi from University Flats to the Franklin Bridge, and there would be up to 100,000 people out watching.

This kind of sounds like a grueling, brutal trek

I had heard about the Paul Bunyan Canoe Derby, and everybody kind of knew about it, but nobody had any details, and I couldn’t find anything written about it.

I had written a lot of canoeing stories, and I thought it would be fun to put those together in a collection that people could take on a trip or have at their cabin or something. But I felt like it was missing some kind of historical piece, and so I wanted to write about canoeing culture, or how canoeing became such a big deal in Minnesota.

And I was poking around for stories about that. And then I heard through Bob O’Hara — he’s kind of a legendary expedition canoer — that Emily Broderson, who’s in head of the Minnesota Canoe Association, had interviewed a guy who had raced in the Paul Bunyan Derby.

He is still alive and still remembers everything, and so I contacted Emily, and she sent me to Bill Smith, who raced in the 1947 race and the 1949 race. I talked to Bill, and he had some great stories that nobody had ever known or been reported or anything about these two Ojibwe guys who he befriended and who kind of took him under their wing. And he bought their canoe and they gave him a paddle in one of the derbies when his broke. 

He had so many good details about Jesse Tibbetts, who was also an Ojibwe guy, who raced in, I think, three of the derbies and then became kind of the mentor. It was supposed to be just a story, but the more I got into it, the more it just was fun to uncover this history that, you know, nobody knew about and or had been completely forgotten.

I talked to, I think, three surviving racers who were all in their 90s — but a lot of the stuff just came from the newspaper reporting on the races. 

One thing that stood out to me was how the book highlights and honors Native American traditions of canoe building and racing

I found in the research that in the canoe Derby and the races that preceded the canoe Derby a lot of the racers were from the Ojibwe community up around Leech Lake. And they all built their own canoes — and had been building their own canoes for 3000 years. So it was this kind of unbroken line of knowledge.

One of the stories in the second half of the book that sticks out is ‘Dead Cold.’ It’s your recounting of your near-death experience on the Mississippi

I had bought a solo canoe from an outfitter up north and drove back. And I was just so excited to get out on the water and use it, and so it was late March, and it had been a warmish spring already. So I wasn’t really in the winter mindset, and I didn’t really actually register cold as like a danger.

I’m not even now sure what happened, but at some point, the canoe just started to tip.

The water was 42 degrees, and so it was really cold, and I got about halfway to shore, and I just started to lose power. I started to not be able to keep my head up above. ”It was just like a kind of realization that I was like, ‘“Oh, OK, I guess I’m not gonna make it to shore.”

Literally, just when I thought that, I saw this red canoe coming downstream, and these two guys in it. And it was Hunter Smoak and Jake Abrahams, and they were just out randomly on a Sunday morning at seven o’clock paddling on the river, and just happened to be right there.

I still can’t wrap my head around how all that came together. I mean, I was just so, so lucky. You know, I know not everybody gets that lucky.

Do you have any other stories in the book that stick out? 

I mean, a lot of them are more light-hearted than that, much more like: We took a family trip down the Mississippi from Minneapolis to Winona.

And it was, like, a five-day trip with our kind-of-young kids, and it was really an amazing trip. And then camping on islands, and we all still just remember that trip so well, and that turned out to be a really fun story.

Who do you see this book as being for?

I think it’s for anybody who loves canoeing and wants to either get out on the water, or is stuck at home and dreaming about getting out and having an adventure. Or wants to know more about kind of the history of canoeing in Minnesota, and canoe building and canoe racing, and how we kind of got to where we are today.

I just wanted this to be a book of fun stories that people could either take along on an adventure or have at their cabin, so they can get out on the water — when they can’t get out on the water.

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