Margin Notes: The Epic Canoe Journey of George W. Gardner
An inside look at my approach and processes, and some of the challenges faced
Release Date: May 29, 2025
Hi, and welcome to the Margin Notes on The Epic Canoe Journey of George W. Gardner.
Today, I’ll be sharing a little about my history with George’s story (spoiler alert, it’s a long one), how and why I structured it the way I did, some of the research challenges I came across, a few surprises I stumbled on along the way, and a look at some of the pieces of the story I didn’t include, and why.
This project took nearly four months to complete from research to publication, so there’s not enough room in this Margin Notes to go over all the decisions made, the sources used, the questions asked and the answers found. If you have specific questions, please reach out either in the comments or in a private chat, and I’m happy to talk your ear off.
So let’s, see what we find!
A story with some serious heart tug for me
When I was a child, there were two things I knew about the Mighty Mississippi River:
How to spell it, mostly because of a Chinese jumprope game my friends and I played every recess in elementary schools
And that if you picked your path just right, you could walk all the way across it without getting your shoes wet.
That last one I knew because walking across the Mississippi River was something I’d been doing for as long as I could remember.
My grandparents, you see, lived in northern Minnesota, just a short drive away from Itasca State Park and the headwaters of the Mississippi. We’d spend time at the park during most visits — sometimes just driving around looking for deer or porcupines, but more often following the short path through the woods to the exact spot where the Mississippi River leaves Lake Itasca and begins its journey to New Orleans.
There’s nothing mighty about the river there, especially if you’re a little girl who has successfully walked across it a hundred times holding her grandpa’s hand.
As I grew up, my love of the Mississippi River grew with me. I devoured Mark Twain’s Life on the Mississippi and Huckleberry Finn, and made it a point to dip my toes into Old Man River whenever and wherever our paths crossed. Which was often: Minnesota is home to 650 of the river’s 2,340 miles.
And I kept returning to the headwaters, eventually introducing my kids and grandkids to the magic of walking across the river that marks the line between East and West, and feeds water from Minnesota into the Gulf of Mexico.
It was the Mississippi River that drew me to the story of George Gardner and William Eckman.
I came across this headline on March 1, 2018 — six years before I started The Lost & Found Story Box. As I’d been doing for decades, I printed off the article (in this case two articles, one published on January 28, 1890 and the other on February 2, 1891), and put it into my teaser file along with another story in which the Mississippi plays a starring role. I’d been holding onto that one since 1998.
Yeah, I know.
The two Mayor in a Canoe articles featured entries from a log kept by George Gardner during a three-month canoe trip down the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers he’d taken along with his friend, William Eckman, in late 1883.
And it was entertaining. I mean, the guy was a character. Sure, his language was a little standoffish, a little old-fashioned, but George could turn a phrase.
I did a little research, and eventually sent off an email to various historical societies and organizations to see if George’s log was still out there. My thinking was it had the potential to be a sweet little Joe and Me book, if it was available.
Although I got a number of responses, no one knew anything about the log, and eventually I put the article back in the file with that other Mississippi River story, and moved on.
Fast forward to May of 2024 and Substack and I have found each other. I’m neck-deep into re-jigging Call Me a Bastard to fit this cray new format, but I’m already thinking ahead to the next Lost & Found Story.
I pull out my trusty teaser file, and out pops George.
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