The Canoe and Checagou From exploration, to trade and recreation, the enduring canoe connects Chicago to its history by Mary Ann O Rourke Chicago Maritime Museum (c) December 2012 page 1
The Canoe and Checagou Ralph Frese dedicated his life to Chicago maritime history and conservation. As a board member and a dear friend, he will be greatly missed by the Chicago Maritime Museum. We dedicate this article, written shortly before he died, to Ralph, a master storyteller, insightful historian and canoe builder extraordinaire. Chicago s maritime historians spin lively tales of schooners and freighters, excursion ships and barges, cutting through wind and waves on the Chicago River and Lake Michigan. But it is the overlooked canoe, with its sleek, symmetrical shape, that gave birth to a city and transported Chicago into a world-class metropolis. Upon their return trip up the Mississippi River in 1673, French explorer Louis Jolliet, accompanied by Father Jacques Marquette, S.J., turned their pair of birch bark canoes eastward up the Illinois River, rather than retrace their voyage north to Green Bay. Local Indians spoke of a shortcut through a muddy portage, where they could carry their canoes into the southern end of Lac des Illinois, the early French name for Lake Michigan. Through their detour, Jolliet and his voyageurs had unintentionally discovered an important link between the Great Lakes/St. Lawrence watershed and the Mississippi River drainage, the only site in North America where the two were separated by a mere 15-foot high ridge. What the natives called Checagou, was first and foremost a canoe portage connecting two of North America s most important watersheds. The discovery inspired Jolliet to suggest the building of a canal to connect the rivers but it would take 175 years for the Illinois and Michigan canal to become a reality. For more than a century, before schooners and freighters dominated Great Lake s maritime trade, canoes helped transport heavy cargoes of beaver pelts and trade goods through the Chicago portage. Canoes were especially suited for travel through the wilderness because they could be repaired with materials readily available in the forests of the Great Lakes region. Today, no one in Chicago documents and celebrates the importance of canoes in the city s history more than Ralph Frese, fourth generation blacksmith, master craftsman, canoe shop owner, historian, conservationist, lecturer and avid paddler. He is often referred to as Mr. Canoe in the Chicago area. At his canoe shop at Narragansett and Irving Park Road on Chicago s Northwest Side, 86-year-old Frese can be found working on canoes, fabricating metal items or selling the concept of canoeing to patrons who wander into the Chicagoland Canoe Base. (Unfortunately, Mr Frese passed away two months after this paper was prepared, in December 2012.) The canoe is responsible for more geographical knowledge of North America than the horse, the covered wagon or any other method of conveyance, says Frese. The canoe was here in the beginning and is the only watercraft ever designed by the ingenuity of man that has not Chicago Maritime Museum (c) December 2012 page 2
outlived its usefulness. To illustrate the canoe s importance as a means of discovery, in 1973 Frese conceived a four-month long reenactment on the 300 th anniversary of the Jolliet/Marquette expedition. He chose the participants to play the seven voyageurs, made replicas of the birch bark canoes in his shop and arranged for the filming of the 3,000 mile voyage. At each community along the route, the reenactors would explain in thick French accents the purpose of their journey. After entertaining the onlookers with voyageur songs, they would describe how the lands had appeared 300 years before. Conservation became an important theme, as the actors pointed out the degraded and polluted condition they now encountered on the Wisconsin and Illinois waterways. A noted conservationist who often lectures on the state of local rivers, Frese promotes the canoe as the most environmentally friendly way to travel. The canoe leaves no trace of one s passing, unlike other forms of travelling through nature, says Frese. As a board member of the Chicago Maritime Museum, Frese has added more than 120 canoes and kayaks to the museum s small craft collection. (Most of the craft are currently housed at Crowley s Yacht Yard on the South Side, as the museum looks for space to store and protect their artifacts.) From traditional native dugouts and birch bark canoes to modern folding kayaks, the collection reflects the important historical eras of canoeing. The canoes have been retrieved from as far away as Europe, Africa, South and Central America and Polynesia. One of the museum s most noteworthy artifacts is the Sierra Sagrada, a 26-foot dugout from Columbia. In 1966, British adventurer, Francis Benton, travelled to South America to purchase one of these for the Chicago Field Museum. Acquiring two, he sailed them as a catamaran to Chicago. The Field Museum took the smaller one for their collection. Then, asked to do more collecting for them, Brenton rigged the larger one at Frese s canoe shop and proceeded to sail out the St. Lawrence River and across the Atlantic to Africa. He returned with the canoe to Chicago, having crossed the Atlantic twice by himself, making this journey one of the most remarkable adventures in recent years. Frese s canoe store was originally the family blacksmith shop. Frese took over the shop after his father s death. Having acquired a canvas kayak during his teen years, and having no way to transport it, he created a trailer for his bicycle in the blacksmith shop. As a volunteer Boy Scout leader, Frese started building canoes for the troop in his shop, which led to the development of the canoe base. More than a store, the Chicagoland Canoe Base is a haven for paddling enthusiasts. Visitors come from all over the world to visit Frese s shop. His extensive selection of accessories, books, videos and DVDs inspire a convivial Chicago Maritime Museum (c) December 2012 page 3
atmosphere as paddlers and adventurers share their stories with staff and fellow customers. Ralph is a great historian, says Bill Derrah, a board member of the Chicago Maritime Museum and a canoeing enthusiast. People come into his store just to engage him in conversation and learn more about local maritime history. Derrah is one of many Ralph Frese protégés, who took to canoeing and kayaking early on under his guidance. The two first met in 1976 when Frese participated in an historical canoe reenactment for a friend s Boy Scout troop on Lake Superior, of which Derrah was a member. He s been paddling local waterways ever since. An enthusiastic paddler himself, Frese is happy to direct his clientele to the many unique rivers and lakes in the Chicago region and discuss what makes each one special. In 1958, Frese founded the Annual Des Plaines River Canoe Marathon, an 18 ½ mile race that takes place each May to draw attention to a stretch of river that needed protection from development. It is now the second oldest such event in the United States and one of the largest. In 1985, Frese and his wife, Rita, began a tradition of paddling down the upper Chicago River through local forest preserves on New Year s Day. Now, after 27 years, hundreds converge on this stretch of river on January 1 st to initiate another year of paddling adventures. This section of the river has been formally dedicated as the Ralph Frese Water Trail by the Cook County Forest Preserve district commissioners. The New Year s Day paddle is now a yearly event run by the district. Chicago Maritime Museum (c) December 2012 page 4
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