With the help of onlookers, a three-foot-long unmanned canoe made its way from Ste. Agathe to north of Selkirk on the Red River over the summer.
Jason Molinski released the canoe, named the River Gypsy, in June, and the canoe concluded its journey in September as part of his Red River Journey project.
Molinski and his wife started the Red River Journey with their grandsons a few years ago as a way to keep busy during the COVID-19 pandemic. He carved a small canoe, complete with paddlers, and had the idea that it would travel along the river.
The 1941 children’s book Paddle-to-the-Sea, by Holling C. Holling, inspired Molinski to take on this project. He read it when he was about eight years old, and the story stuck with him. The book tells the story of a boy who carves a small wooden canoe that he releases in Lake Nipigon in Ontario, and the canoe travels to the Atlantic Ocean.
As a child, Molinski was intrigued by another young person carving a canoe that went on such an epic journey.
“I found out later it was all a fictional story,” Molinski said. “But I thought, let’s make it real.”
In addition to it being a way to stay busy during the pandemic, the Red River Journey was also meant to bring lightness to people’s days during dark times, something that holds true to this day.
“This was just something pleasant for a change,” Molinski said. “It was something different to take people’s minds off the stuff that’s going on around the world.”
In a small vessel on the canoe, there was a message with contact information for Molisnki and the name of the Facebook page he launched (Red River Journey) to track the canoe.
The River Gypsy had its first journey in 2021, when Molinski and his grandsons released it into the Red River in Emerson in May. Someone found it the next day and re-released it.
And then the River Gypsy disappeared.
“We never heard of it again for another 16 months,” Molinski said.
Someone eventually found it in St. Jean Baptiste.
Over those 16 months, river levels varied, due to a drought one year and flooding the other, so the River Gypsy didn’t have as straightforward of a journey as Molinski might have wanted.
Molinski and his wife decided to release the River Gypsy on another journey, this time with the canoe equipped with a GPS so they could track its location.
He put it into the river in Morris in June 2023, but the canoe travelled very short distances before people found it, often on the bank, since the river has lots of curves in that area. Molinski relocated the canoe to Ste. Agathe, where the river runs straighter.
The River Gypsy had more success, making its way through Winnipeg and ending its journey north of Selkirk around the Netley-Libau Marsh, where in a full-circle moment, Molinski’s son was the last person to find the canoe.
Because of the long journey the River Gypsy made, the Red River Paddle Challenge presented the small canoe with a medal.
Throughout the River Gypsy’s journey, Molinski and his wife would post the GPS location of the canoe on the Red River Journey Facebook page in the morning, and people would go out to find it.
“It was amazing how people were watching for it,” he said.
Forty-two people found the canoe, and Molinski would post photos people shared on the Facebook page.
“When you watch the news, there’s war — it’s such a downer,” he said. “This for them had nothing to do with war — it was just something for people to do that was a little bit exciting.”
At times, the River Gypsy was spotted near other small canoes, which Molinski said were from students from the Pembina Trails School Division.
The River Gypsy is looking pretty rough after the journey it had, but Molinski thinks it still might have more miles to travel in the future.
“I’m very tempted to put it into the lake and see if it would make it to sea, see if it would make it to Churchill,” he said.
He said he’d have to have a lot of contacts to check in on the canoe, but “the possibility is there.”
To stay up to date on any upcoming travels of the River Gypsy, follow along on the Red River Journey Facebook page.
