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Suddenly a shot rang out, so close we could feel it in our bones.

José fell forward and thrust his chin between his knees.

Another blast, this one closer. José stayed low and looked back at me. “What the fuck, dawg? Rednecks is shooting at us? This is some Deliverance shit.”

Just then I saw the ripple from a beaver’s tail shiver against the side of our boat.

“I ain’t getting raped out here,” José continued obliviously, “tell you that right now.”

Eventually a wet furry head swam across the beam from his headlamp, prompting José to climb back onto his seat and resume paddling.

After some time, we came to the County Road 26 bridge. The covered earth beneath it would have worked, but José wasn’t having it. He said he would only camp in a “designated campsite—one on the map.”

The Red River was a new canoe route for the Minnesota DNR, and they had only published one of three maps planned for this region. In 10 miles we would depart the area it covered, and the only promising designation between our location and the edge of the map was four to five miles downstream, at the junction of the Sheyenne River. Called “Catch Big Cats,” it was marked with the key symbols for “outfitter” and “lodging.”