Illinois dad, son travel Mississippi by canoe to relive relatives' adventure

HELENA-WEST HELENA, Ark. -- Canoeing was the conventional mode of transportation for the earliest adventurers who braved the treacherous waters of the Mississippi River.

This summer, Kristian Gustavson of Bloomington, Ill., and his father, William, are reliving an adventure two of Kristian's uncles followed down the Mississippi 42 years ago.

"We're following the same route in the same canoe taken by my uncles Bob and Greg Gustavson," Kristian said recently as he and his father stopped at the Helena Harbor for an overnight stay.

Once the Gustavsons arrive at New Orleans, they plan to contact relatives to pick them up and make the trip by vehicle back to Bloomington.

In Helena-West Helena, they met with John Ruskey, a Clarksdale, Miss., resident who opened his second Quapaw Canoe Co. outlet in late June.

Ruskey opened his first canoe company on the banks of the Sunflower River in downtown Clarksdale three years ago.

"There is a growing interest in canoeing," Ruskey said, who is still getting his business set up in Helena.

A 17-foot Grumman canoe was sturdy enough for the previous Gustavsons to make the trip down the Mississippi River four decades ago, and Kristian Gustavson sees no reason to think it won't work again.

Their starting point was Cairo, Ill., where the Mississippi and Ohio rivers converge. The waters were still high from the snow and spring rains, Gustavson said.

"It's tricky down the main channel of the Mississippi River," Gustavson said. "For every 100, 200 yards we move back and forth across the river we go about a mile downstream."

Gustavson called his experience "humbling" because of the Mississippi's "subtle power and strong currents."

The Gustafsons said the Mississippi River shaped the geography of the U.S. and continues to play an important role as the nation revisits its interest in commercial navigation along the nations' major waterways.

Kristian Gustavson, a political science graduate of the University of California at San Diego, is an ecologist who practices what he believes.

"My eco-fuel converted truck burns restaurant grease," Gustavson said. "I still use diesel to get the engine started, but the grease is relatively inexpensive and readily available."

Gustavson said he can get vegetable oil grease for less than $2 a gallon. He has a 40-gallon tank in the flat bed of the 1989 Ford pickup.

"Co-ops collect the grease and sell it for $1 a gallon," Gustavson said.

During his years at UCSD Gustavson became an active wind surfer.

"I enjoyed Big Sur," Gustavson said.

Wind power is another alternative form of energy he espouses. Through a grant from Surf Riders Foundation, Gustavson is making his river odyssey to "raise public awareness of non-point source pollution."

Gustavson said chemical discharges into rivers from industry and farms "have a definite impact on the oceans downstream."

His research focuses on the qualitative aspects of pollution rather than quantitative data, Gustavson said.

"I want to find out what goes into the water and why they do it," Gustavson said. "Collective contamination from chemicals applied to lawns, farm chemicals and disposable plastic bags are among the sources of pollution."