April 03, 2003

Paddling Our Three Rivers

by Peggy Seigel

The History Center (formerly Fort Wayne-Allen Co. Historical Society) will host a lecture by Ralph Frese at 2:00pm Sunday, April 6, on how canoes and pirogues have shaped our area's history.

Mr. Frese, from the Chicago area, is a 4th generation blacksmith who began building canoes for his son's scout troop. He operates a world famous canoe shop, the Chicago Land Canoe Base, and has recently been recognized for his outstanding role in canoeing with the award "Legends of Paddling."

With canoing the Illinois River becoming popular, and downtown Peoria, IL developing a river landing that is becoming a major attraction (source: the most recent AAA magazine), developing interest in using our city's waterways could revitalize them as a destination spot and encourage greater environmental efforts to clean them up.

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The History Center is located at 302 East Berry Street, Fort Wayne, IN 46802. For more information call (260) 426-2882.

Posted by Admin at April 3, 2003 12:07 PM
Comments

Related to both rivers and history is a group called the Maumee Valley Heritage Corridor - they have a nice website at http://www.maumeevalleyheritagecorridor.org/ which shows some of the things to do from Fort Wayne to Toledo.

Posted by: Karen Goldner at April 3, 2003 01:38 PM

Hey, how was the "Legends of Paddling" lecture? Anyone have any comments?

Posted by: Jeanne at April 8, 2003 06:31 PM

This is a great idea! Too bad the rivers are so dirty! I was talking with a friend who said he remembered swimming in the rivers a long time ago (I am not old enough to remember this). I think it would be great to be able to paddle down the rivers, but if a person got that close to them now, they would gag from the smell. There are lots of fun places around (in the rural areas in Northeast Indiana) that I love to go canoeing, it would be great if we could do that in Fort Wayne. I think many people would be very intersted in it if the waters were clean. This idea could generate a lot of public interest. It would take time to accomplish this task, but it would be worth it.

Posted by: Beckie Stockert at April 13, 2003 09:32 PM