Crew lands at City Front after 5 days on the river

A hearty crew of Tupelo area river paddlers arrived in Vicksburg this morning after a 5-day river odyssey.

Layne Logue with Quapaw Canoe Company guided the crew down the river from Mayersville to Vicksburg. After meeting in Vicksburg Wednesday morning they drove to their launching point in Mayersville. Logue not only guided the crew he also provided meals, entertainment and information.

The crew used 3 Clipper Langley canoes that are 29 feet long, weigh 420 pounds each, and can hold 12 people without gear. “They are made for big open water and waves. They’re perfect for the Mississippi River,” explained Logue.

The 60 mile trip was highlighted by Logue on his social media pages along with this live report. “All the meals were cooked over campfires, including a hearty breakfast featuring biscuits cooked in a dutch oven and molasses,” Logue joked on his social media page, “We heated up the molasses today by the campfire. Yesterday at breakfast the molasses… was Slow As Molasses when 32 degrees!! You can imagine the problems we had! ..and had a heckava time trying to spoon it out! Lol. So we learned and adapted for today.”

Biscuits cooked in a Dutch Oven on the Mississippi River. Photo by Layne Logue

This particular group of voyagers is from the Tupelo area and has been doing this for 8 or 9 years.

Logue, who is called Water Possum by those who love him, has never traveled on the river when it was this low. “I’ve done it when it was at 5, today it’s at 3. We do these trips each year in October and November because it’s the average low-water months. We like to get out there and hunt for treasures and fossils. We’re always looking for gravel beds.” Logue goes on to highlight that, “In the winter we’ve got clear skies for stargazing so we’ve got the Milky Way in full force because we’re away from light pollution.”

“We love the campfire and the fellowship. This group, since we’ve been doing 8 or 9 years, has turned into a fraternal organization. We have initiations, we have river names. ‘River Monk’ and ‘Oley’ and ‘Peawig’ and ‘Pretzel’ and ‘Catfish’… We have 2 new people this year so we’re going to initiate them into the Quapaw’s”

Two distinct types of river travelers. Photo by Joseph Solomon.

“Quapaw is an Indian Tribe that was around Oklahoma and down here on the Mississippi River. They’re the downstream people. The Quapaw Indians were around this area and so since they were out on the river that’s the name we adopted.”

BJ Canup, whose river name is SNL, summed up the trip like this, “We test ourselves as men and how men are not tested. And then they get into the heat of battle of life and they’re not ready for those battles. So, in 26-degree weather, it was hard. We know, we tested ourselves and we’re ready for that next battle of life. If you don’t ever test yourself as a guy how do you know you’re ready to be that guy in life that you want to be.”

Layne Logue, also known as Water Possum. Photo by David Day