Posts Tagged ‘quapaw’

The Riverman: John Ruskey of the Quapaw Canoe Company of Clarksdale Mississippi is the only commercial paddler who braves the currents of the Mighty Mississippi River. Jillian and I joined him on a 3 day trip.

The big old river is known to the locals as ‘off limits’. The currents, whirlpools, eddies, its almighty power of a high volume river, not to mention 2 meter large Alligator Gars that will eat your body once you have drowned in its murky waters, have put the fear of god into the people. This is starting to sound right up our alley!

John is trying to educate the people and show them that if you know what you are doing the river is a beautiful goddess rather then a devils toiletbowl. As long as you have respect for the river it will treat you well and you get to enjoy exploring the sandbars, islands and bow lake swamps full of wildlife. Wild boar, coyotes, beavers, rover otters, deer, ducks and geese are among them. We camp on soft silky sandbars, watch the full moon rise out of the campfire, while John is preparing his favourite blacked Catfish dish over the open fire.

After 2 nights camping in relatively good weather, a storm blows in from the south. Before it can do real harm we get to our landing spot where I come eye to teeth with a ome meter long  Alligator Gar. The juvenile has been caught by a fisherman and left on the bank of the river. No respect for nature! A day later we read about three fishermen who disappeared on the river, never to be found, the day we got out. You’ve got to respect the river and treat her right.

Check out this multimedia slideshow with sound about our trip, You will find out that John Ruskey is also a gifted Blues Musician

I just picked up some software called Soundslides Plus for evaluation. The plan is to start producing multimedia content for websites. This is what I came up with after playing with the software for an hour.