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Lost in this reverie, I almost veered off the bridge. José barely flinched, raising an eyebrow under the cocked rim of his black-on-black Minnesota Twins cap.

I had never mentioned Sevareid and Port’s journey to José. I suppose I didn’t think he would be interested in the exploits of a couple of white kids. Nor did I see him as the kind of guy who would undertake a canoe expedition. And in any case, it all seemed trivial compared to what he was going through.

I called José’s attention to the river bottoms beneath Fort Snelling, pointing out the swamp that once contained a concentration camp where more than 1700 of his Dakota ancestors—men, women, and children—spent the miserable winter of 1862–1863. Over the course of that one harsh season, some 300 Dakota died from malnutrition, disease, and exposure.

It had always bothered me that this ghastly chapter in Minnesota’s history is not noted in Sevareid’s account, even though he and Port launched their expedition from that blood-stained plot beneath Fort Snelling only a few decades after the atrocities took place. Now, José seemed astounded to learn that his people’s nightmare had taken place in the shadow of the historic fort he had visited on school field trips.