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The Rio Roosevelt is filled with surprises

June 8, 2014 By Dave Freeman

After pulling off the river early to escape the heat of the day, we stopped at an old farmstead. Here we were greeted warmly by its sole inhabitant, Jose, and settled in for the day. When Jose commented that this old farmstead was the only one on this stretch of river, we checked our GPS. Much to our surprise, it confirmed that our latitude matched that of the farmstead where Rondon & Roosevelt had camped 100 years before. We had stumbled upon historic ground!

As we marveled at this discovery, Tonico heightened the intrigue by commenting that he’d noticed an old table tucked in the brush by the riverside with initials carved in it that matched those of Theodore Roosevelt’s son, Kermit, who accompanied him on the 1914 expedition. We raced down to check. Sure enough, “KR” was clearly etched in the tabletop. Adding to the fun was an ancient hand-carved canoe paddle we found partially buried in the riverbank near the table. Left behind by Roosevelt’s team? No, it turns out Tonico scratched the initials in the table as a good-natured prank.

The mysterious paddle and table with KR scratched in by Tonico.

The mysterious paddle and table with KR scratched in by Tonico.

To make up for the day we spent in the forest and to escape the heat we loaded our canoes at 10 pm on Friday night and spent 10 hours floating and paddling 55 km. At dawn we reached the Inferno Rapids and, like Roosevelt, we hired some locals from the remote fishing camp at the base of the rapids to help us around the 3 meter falls and smaller rapids just downstream.20140608150818

We are camped at the base of a beautiful rapids about 3 miles below the Inferno Rapids. We are enjoying our first rest day since we started paddling 10 days ago. Shade trees are sprinkled around the beach, making it a perfect place to rest and recharge.

We have about 100 miles left to go before we reach the mouth of the Rio Roosevelt. Our last major obstacle is a 10-mile stretch of rapids 60 miles downstream. People have been telling us about the large rapids near the end for a long time. Soon we will experience them for ourselves. Roosevelt took 2 days to navigate the rapids. I hope we will be able to navigate them quickly as well. The Roosevelt has become a large and powerful river now. The Inferno Rapids was a real eye-opener. It is hard to comprehend that the water was 20 feet higher two months ago, but the dried aquatic plants on the rocks makes it clear how high the water routinely gets during the rainy season.

Dave stands below Inferno Rapids.

Dave stands below Inferno Rapids.

Filed Under: Rio Roosevelt Centennial Expedition, Uncategorized Tagged With: Inferno Rapids, Kermit Roosevelt, paddle, Theodore Roosevelt

Paddling our first rapids on the Rio Roosevelt

June 4, 2014 By Dave Freeman

Today we paddled around a bend in the Rio Branco and the Rio Roosevelt came into view. Everyone howled with joy. After over a week of stops and starts and even flying over the Rio Roosevelt we were finally descending the river that President Theodore Roosevelt’s party explored 100 years ago. One of our goals is to see how the river has changed over the last 100 years. Is it still the wild and remote place that Roosevelt encountered?

Yesterday we encountered rubber tappers, just as Roosevelt did in 1914. We have encountered a few farms in the region, but large tracks of land remain wild and undeveloped. In fact, we recently learned that anthropologists discovered an uncontacted tribe living near the Rio Branco several months ago. The Brazilian government is setting up a reserve similar to the Cinta Larga reserve so that the uncontacted tribe will remain undisturbed and can continue to live as they have for centuries. Those people were probably living in this region when Roosevelt traveled through.

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Goal Zero solar panels supply all the power we need to charge our electronic devices.

The Rio Roosevelt is a grand river, with rocky islands and numerous rapids. This afternoon we navigated 3 rapids. All of the rapids were small enough that we were able to descend them safely in our canoes and did not have to portage. We are camped at the base of the last rapids. I am listening to the dull rumble of the rapids and watching the sun dip below the horizon as I write this. I can see President Roosevelt sitting in this place writing in his journal.

Filed Under: Rio Roosevelt Centennial Expedition Tagged With: canoe, Goal Zero, rapids, Rio Roosevelt, Theodore Roosevelt

Following in the footsteps of Theodore Roosevelt: Our Bull Moose President, Champion of Wildlands and Wildlife

May 15, 2014 By Dave Freeman

roosevelt_moose

Roosevelt riding a moose. Do you think they used Photoshop?

As I prepare to follow Theodore Roosevelt’s footsteps and paddle strokes down the Rio Roosevelt in a few weeks I am amazed by impact that Roosevelt had as a Champion of Wildlands and Wildlife. Theodore Roosevelt, America’s greatest conservation president, provided federal protection for almost 230 million acres, a land area equivalent to that of all of the eastern states from Maine to Florida. He succeeded in the face of public apathy and strong congressional opposition. With the American land grab in full surge, he knew that if he didn’t protect our nation’s precious wild places, they would be gone forever. His convictions stemmed from a lifetime love affair with the outdoors, natural history & adventure.

Consider these fun facts:

At age 24, when his passion with the Wild West was launched following buffalo hunts in the Dakota Territories, his adventure bug got bumped to a new level. For the next 4 decades, even during his White House years, Roosevelt averaged 30 days per year sleeping out under the stars. He’d slip out of the executive mansion alone to park his bedroll in D.C.’s Rock Creek Park and was known to skinny dip in the Potomac – in the winter!

Born severely asthmatic and with a weak heart, he was advised to remain sedentary or risk a short life. His response, “If I have to live that way, I don’t care how short my life is.” Health issues later left him blind in one eye and deaf in one ear.

How tough was he? In 1912 while he campaigned in Milwaukee a crazed man shot him point blank in the chest. He shouted to the crowd, “It will take more than that to kill a bull moose!” & he finished his hour-long speech before heading to the hospital.

How gentle was he? While hunting in Mississippi, his hosts sought to ensure his success by treeing a small, young bear and summoning him to shoot it. No way, he said, would he engage in such unsporting cruelty. When the story went national, a toy maker asked if he could attach the president’s first name to a stuffed bear he was making. “Sure,” responded Roosevelt, “but I can’t image my name will be of much benefit to the bear business.” (In a similar vein, when a waiter asked how Roosevelt liked the new brand of Maxwell House coffee he was drinking, he said, “Why, that cup was good to the last drop!” Sound familiar?)

Roosevelt was the first president to

  • travel outside the US (to oversee construction of the Panama Canal)
  •  fly (in a Wright brothers’ airplane)
  •  win a Nobel Peace Prize (for ending the Russo-Japanese War)
  • host a black man at a White House dinner and appoint a Jewish cabinet member

Roosevelt was a staunch proponent of

  •  women’s right to vote and women’s right to equal work for equal pay
  •  separation of church & state (he refused to swear on the Bible at his 1901 inauguration and in 1907 he   insisted that the phrase “In God We Trust” be removed from a new gold coin being minted)
The men labored for days dragging the canoes around the rapids and falls along the Rio Roosevelt.

The men labored for days dragging the canoes around the rapids and falls along the Rio Roosevelt.

Tough as he was, the rigors of the 1914 River of Doubt expedition left his health debilitated & shaved years off his life. In 1919 he died in his sleep at age 60. The nation was shocked. “Death had to take him sleeping for if Roosevelt had been taken awake, there would have been a fight,” commented Vice President Thomas Marshall in his condolences to Roosevelt’s family.

At Roosevelt’s request, his funeral was a private family affair with no fanfare and no eulogy. Yet on that day, life in New York City was briefly suspended. Just before 2 p.m. as Roosevelt’s flag-draped coffin was lowered into the ground, the city traction company turned off the power grid for a full minute. Streetcars & subways ground to a halt. Lights dimmed as men & women across the nation’s largest city stood with bowed heads for a moment of reverent silence.

No one else of his generation accomplished so much along so many different lines: 2-term US president, governor of New York, war hero, cattle rancher, deputy sheriff, lawyer, police commissioner, father of 6, historian & biographer, author of 38 books, architect of the “Square Deal,” renowned naturalist & explorer. By his own reckoning, written in a letter a month before he died, “Nobody ever packed more varieties of fun & interest in….60 years!”

Oh, and regarding that photo of Roosevelt riding a moose, did we mention that he invented Photoshop? Actually, during the 1912 presidential campaign with Roosevelt as the founding father of the independent Bull Moose Party, a photo firm associated with the campaign cut & pasted a portrait of him riding a horse onto a swimming moose photo – just for fun.

Then there’s Mt. Rushmore. Here he is in 60-feet of granite next to the father of our country, the author of the Declaration of Independence and Honest Abe. How cool is that?

Paul Schurke

Filed Under: Rio Roosevelt Centennial Expedition Tagged With: Rio Roosevelt, Theodore Roosevelt

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