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Hal went on to explain that paddling the nearly 500-mile stretch from Lake Winnipeg to the sea on the Hayes River was “like climbing Mount Everest, except that far more people summit Everest every year than reach Hudson Bay on the Hayes. It’s the crown jewel of the canoeing world. The rest of Sevareid’s route, the 1500 miles leading to the Hayes, is really just a driveway to the north end of Lake Winnipeg.”

I confessed to Hal that I was unsure what the trip would accomplish if we didn’t start in Minneapolis and end at Hudson Bay, as Sevareid had done.

This was the most preposterous thing he had ever heard. “Why would you want to do what someone else has done? Totally unoriginal. Are you Eric Arnold Sevareid? For Christ’s sake, didn’t you say you were a writer? Take this Indian–Puerto Rican kid, this José, and make the journey your own. Canoeing with the Cree has already been written. Write your own story. Write Canoeing with José!”

Over the following days, I checked out nearly 20 topographical maps covering Sevareid’s entire route from an obscure campus library for geography majors. I took them home and pored over the charts, which were covered by blue veins of water and the green flesh of mother earth.