Paper canoe saga

The Daily Morning Astorian, Nov. 10, 1890, mentioned anxiously awaiting R. Elbert Rappleye, a journalist with the New York Mail and Express. He left from the Jersey City Yacht Club in New Jersey, on the Hudson River, on April 10 to cross the country via rivers on a 6,200-mile journey to Astoria in a paper canoe. The newspaper assumed Rappleye’s arrival had been delayed by the Missoula River which, the paper declared, “is nothing but a succession of whirlpools and rapids. Everywhere are the wrecks of canoes and rafts and canal boats.” According to 22rivers.com, news of the journey was covered nationally. Greeted at every stop, Rappleye was cheered and welcomed. Hundreds signed his canoe. And what a journey it was. He wrecked the canoe three times, almost drowned, visited Sitting Bull‘s camp, crossed the Rockies, and picked up a miner/guide passenger at one point. He finally reached the Columbia River in Northern Idaho during winter, and from there headed straight for Astoria. The Nov.

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