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Some 200 yards downstream, I set the canoe down at the end of a frothing churn. And as I did so, I said hello to a Native man fishing with his two little boys, their bobbers swirling in the fizz.

When José heard the guy was Anishinaabe from the nearby White Earth Reservation, he shifted into high gear, eager to demonstrate what Lakota people can do. Leaping from rock to rock, José bounded past the dam, hefted the food barrel and equipment pack onto his shoulders, and started back on trembling knees. Watching him trip and twist under the burden, it was easy to imagine José popping a fibula. But he eventually disgorged his load in a heap beside the canoe, sniffed at the fisherman and his boys, and shrugged his shoulders dismissively.

The little boys, with matching buzz cuts, begged for a canoe ride. We told them it wasn’t safe to paddle in the rapids without a life jacket. The man asked lots of questions, then said that what we were doing sounded “pretty cool.”

Finally, we shoved off.

“They got Indians!” José whispered back over his shoulder. “I thought it was going to be all rednecks up here.” I could hear the pride in his voice, and knew he thought he had impressed them.