Children’s classic sparks hope for Red River adventure
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Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 10/05/2021 (1228 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
Decades ago, when Jason Molinski first read the 1941 children’s book Paddle-to-the-Sea — in which a First Nations boy sets a small carved canoe free in Lake Nipigon and the story follows its encounters — the imagery never really left him.
Molinski, now 68, was around the same age as his grandsons (Milo, 9, and Eli, 7) when he first dreamed of sending such a canoe away and plotting its journey.
“I always wanted to do something like that with the river here, it was always in the back of my mind,” Molinski said Tuesday, of the story adapted for an Oscar-nominated National Film Board of Canada short in 1966.
Now, the Winnipegger and his grandsons are doing just that.
He made the wooden canoe by hand — three-feet-long, five-inches-wide, painted red with two carved paddlers sitting inside — over the winter, with the intention of helping his grandsons follow its adventures.
It was then the family decided to get the community involved.
“I thought it would just be fun for the boys, something they’d enjoy doing,” Molinski said. “And then the more we thought about it, we thought, ‘Why not get the public involved to help us along?’”
Molinski and his grandsons will set the canoe afloat in the Red River at Emerson, just north of the U.S. border, over the May long weekend.
They hope the current will keep the small boat travelling through Manitoba, and people enjoying the riverside will find the canoe floating by.
Should someone encounter the canoe, a screwed-down lid inside will reveal a message in a blue bottle. The message will contain contact information for Molinski’s grandsons, who will then plot the location on a map, and instructions on how to proceed before the finder sets it back in the river.
“We’d just like to see how far it would go in one summer; how far we could keep track of it, what is the destiny for this canoe,” Molinski said.
He hopes children who live along the river will be on the lookout for the canoe, and said the family would be delighted to receive selfies or messages from finders to help colour in the journey.
“Especially kids, but adults, too; if they know about it, they’ll watch for it,” he said.
The COVID-19 pandemic and its restrictions have been hard on families, Molinski said — all the more reason to get involved in an outdoor project, in a public area, with your loved ones.
“You’re so restricted nowadays, and we thought that anyone living by the river, it’d… be something to look forward to.”
malak.abas@freepress.mb.ca
Twitter: malakabas_
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