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He took the bait. “I see it all the time, dawg. They’re just worried papi gonna steal their wives.” A roar of laughter rose from our table and I saw José smile for the first time in two days.

It was still raining when we found Headwaters Park & Boat Landing in Breckenridge, the town opposite Wahpeton on the Minnesota side of the river. It is here that the Bois de Sioux and Otter Tail Rivers flow into a small reedy lagoon before gathering in a single stream a few canoe lengths wide, forming the Red River of the North.

Seeing this spot for the first time flashed me back to “Red River Mud,” the fifth chapter of Canoeing with the Cree. During their 21-day paddle up the Minnesota River, Sevareid and Port had met some farmers, killed a turtle for soup, and mucked around for a few frustrating days in the wetlands between the Minnesota and Bois de Sioux Rivers, before reaching this lagoon.

Kocher, José, and I posed for photographs with a four-sided granite pillar, which resembled the obelisks we would see later in towns along the Red River Valley, commemorating historic floods. This monument marked the start of the waterway, and an engraved map on it showed our route as far as Lake Winnipeg. After so many months of emotional uncertainty, the clarity was comforting.