The adventurer who paddled his way into town last Friday was just plain remarkable.
Bill Nedderman is remarkable in many ways. The Iowa native’s travels on foot have taken him the length of the Appalachian Trail and the Pacific Crest Trail each three times.
He has paddled the entire length of the Mississippi River and kayaked and hiked the Lewis and Clark Expedition’s return trip from the Pacific shore in Oregon back to St. Louis. He has kayaked from Great Slave Lake in Canada’s Northwest Territory northward on the MacKenzie River to the Arctic Ocean. He has also kayaked on several rivers across Europe.
The 50-year-old adventurer’s latest journey is taking him from west of Edmonton, Alberta along the shore of Lake Winnipeg, through here and across Lake Superior into Ontario on the Ottawa River and on to Montreal.
He stopped in Granite last week after coming across the CURE office in downtown Monte almost by accident. He connected with Patrick Moore last Thursday who then set him on a course to check in with us and look around the Granite Falls riverfront.
We visited with him for a couple of hours and then Scott Tedrick finished the interview with him by joining the downstream journey in his own kayak from the Granite Falls dam to the Minnesota Falls dam where they met up with a reporter from WCCO TV.
After that, Scott sent him on his way to a camp site at Skalbekken County Park in Renville County. Scott’s story about Bill Nedderman’s journey appears on page 7A in this issue.
While Nedderman’s travels are a remarkable testimony to self reliance and fitness, maybe even more remarkable was his rather laid back outlook on what most of us regard as simply amazing accomplishments.
His “aw shucks” attitude made us all the more interested in finding out about where his travels had taken him.
He is not looking for publicity and is not trying to promote anything except his unquenched curiosity about what it is like wherever he goes. Despite traveling in some areas that are extremely remote, he said that his real enjoyment is meeting the “folks along the way.”
So it was for us who chanced to meet him last Friday.
It was amazing.
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Local Clarkfield historian Dick Peterson and the great grandson of Clarkfield founders Henry and Anna Monson have quite an accomplishment of their own.
They have assembled a very nice book about the early development along the Minneapolis and St. Louis Railroad’s Western Division that ran through Clarkfield on its way from the Twin Cities to Watertown, SD and points west.
Their collection of photos of many of the towns in our area is remarkable. The book shares some very interesting scenes from the early days of the string of towns that the railroad helped to found back in 1884.
There’s a lot of interest in local history and this book is a must have. The article about Early Days in Clarkfield in last week’s Advocate Tribune has the contact information for ordering the book. We will try to find a local sales outlet for interested folks.
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It was more than a little busy in our area last weekend. The Upper Sioux Wacipi always draws a large crowd and did again this year despite the intense summer heat.
The same can be said for the Pioneer Power Threshing show in Hanley Falls. They are both terrific events that add a lot to our area. Thanks to all the folks who work so hard to make it all happen.
