Tribal Canoe Event on the Detroit River

Had a nice few hours out on the Detroit River on Friday, helping some local native peoples exercise their treaty rights to pass freely back and forth between Canada and the U.S.A.  Even though I really dislike being in front of the camera, I consented to give an interview to a nice CBC television correspondent.  She asked a few basic questions, and then she asked me the same question 6 different ways.  I obviously was not giving her the answer that she wanted.

What I think she wanted me to say, was that the canoes traveling back and forth the river were "shutting down" the river for a time.  I was telling her the truth, that we had worked with authorities in Canada to try and bring most of the large commercial traffic through before or after the canoe event.  We actually had to slow down two ships, and keep the last canoe on our side of the river, so that they would not get run over by the big tug and barge combos or big lakers that are traveling past my office window (up or down river) several times a day.

If you have a lot of time on your hands, you can find all things nerdy and boaty about great lakes shipping at this link.

Photo of M/V ALGORAIL in Saginaw River by Todd Shorkey - borrowed from www.boatnerd.com

This is one of the boats that we had to ask to slow down a bit, the ALGORAIL, so that they would not create some search and rescue cases for us.

Everything went fine.  There were a lot fewer canoes than we expected, but I don't think that they aired the piece on the CBC, because they could not get the controversial response that they were hoping for.

Of course one of the organizers had repeatedly been quoted in short press stories saying that Canada was shutting down the waterway for the event, which was patently untrue.  Either she did not understand how these things happen, or she was trying to claim that their event was causing a big disruption.  Luckily the later did not happen, and no one needed to be saved.  SUCCESS!!!