Big Red Canoe - Friends of the Boundary Waters podcast · Friends of the Boundary Waters Wilderness

Pushing the River with Frank Bures

·57 min·3 clips

At 7 a.m. on a Sunday, two paddlers in a red canoe appeared with a throw rope as Frank was sinking.

1. Big Red Canoe - Friends of the Boundary Waters podcast centers on Frank Bures and his book Pushing the River. 2. Dave Meyer hosts Frank Bures, a Minneapolis writer whose work has appeared in Harper's, Outside, and The Atlantic. 3. The episode asks why the Mississippi River, canoe racing, and family trips belong in one book. 4. Frank says he grew up in Minnesota, attended St. Olaf College, and taught English in Tanzania. 5. He and his wife lived in Portland, Madison, and Thailand before moving back to the Twin Cities in 2008. 6. Frank links that return to raising kids near the Mississippi, lakes, and outdoor access in South Minneapolis. 7. He and J.D. Frotsky paddled from Minneapolis to Hastings in one day and turned the trip into a Minnesota Monthly story. 8. Frank later took his family from Hidden Falls to Winona over five days in a Minnesota 3 with two little girls. 9. He says seeing the river from that direction changed how he understands towns like Wabasha, Red Wing, Hastings, and Winona. 10. Frank frames the Mississippi as a place that now feels like a national park, with owls, beavers, and hidden stretches inside the city. 11. Dave and Frank discuss the Boundary Waters as a place where risk is real but not constant. 12. Frank describes a family trip on Sawbill where snakes, bugs, and a broken screen-door zipper changed the campsite plan. 13. He says those rough trips become nostalgia later, even when people are grumpy in the moment. 14. Frank explains that his book also includes the Paul Bunyan Canoe Derby, a 450-mile race from Bemidji to Minneapolis in the 1940s and 1950s. 15. He says the finish at St. Anthony Falls and the Franklin Bridge became part of Aquatennial crowds and public spectacle. 16. Frank credits Bob O'Hara, Emily Broderson, and Bill Smith for helping him recover the race's details. 17. He emphasizes that many of the fastest paddlers were Ojibwe from Leech Lake and Ball Club and that they made their own canoes. 18. Frank says the race history includes changing canoe shapes, from V-bottom designs to round-bottom canoes that handled shallow water better. 19. The interview moves in a conversational, memory-driven style with Dave Meyer drawing out stories and Frank answering with details. 20. Listeners who like Minnesota rivers, canoe history, and outdoor essays will get the most from it; listeners wanting a tight, plot-driven narrative may skip it.

As heard by us

A reflective Boundary Waters interview about survival, luck, and hard-earned stories.

Frank's "Pushing the River" sits comfortably in a conversation about Boundary Waters danger, memory, and the odd luck of getting through it. Dave Meyer lets the discussion move from an earlier teaching stint in Arusha, Tanzania to the book's wilderness stories, which stay tied…

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Why you'd press play

You want a Boundary Waters interview with writer Frank Burris, built around Pushing the River and the edge-of-survival stories behind it.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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