Читать книгу Canoeing with Jose онлайн

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This would be the first of several encounters we had with law enforcement. Whether it was the fact that we were an unusual pair of travelers heading toward an international border in an age of terrorism hysteria or simply the kind of harassment people of color endure every day in America, our trip seemed to be viewed by government officials as a criminal act. In fact, we would be interrogated by officials from five different agencies by the time we crossed into Canada.

While their approaches varied, they all asked the same questions. How do you two know each other? Where are you going? How long do you expect the trip to take? How did you get time off for such a long trip? How will you know where you’re going? What are you going to eat? Why are you doing this?

After seeing José lose his cool at the sight of these authority figures the first couple times we encountered them, each jittery utterance sketchier than the last, I invariably took the lead in handling the exhanges. My responses were cautious and truthful. I was José’s mentor. We had met five years earlier at New Voices, a Minneapolis-based journalism program for Native American youth. We expected our trip on the Red, Nelson, Echimamish and Hayes Rivers to take roughly two months. José’s employer had granted him a leave of absence for the summer. I was a teacher, so I had summers off. We were navigating with topographical maps, compasses, and a GPS receiver. For sustenance we had freeze-dried camping food.