Minnesota to Washington by canoe

For more than a year, Dave and Amy Freeman, of Grand Marais, Minnesota, have been planning a canoe trip to Washington, D.C., as a way to call attention to — and protest — plans for copper mining in northeast Minnesota which they say threatens the wilderness.

Yesterday, they left.

That’s a hike, err, paddle. They’ll sail along Lake Superior, up the north shore of Lake Huron, the French, Mettawa and Ottawa rivers to Ottawa, to Montreal, Lake Champlain, the Chesapeake and to Capitol Hill, where, by then, there’s unlikely to be anyone home. They won’t reach Washington until early December, where a lame-duck Congress will probably not be in session.

Dave Freeman tells the Duluth News Tribune he’d like to meet with the president. “I’m hopeful, but obviously he’s a very busy person. I’m optimistic we will at least be able to give them to someone high up in the administration, who will listen to our views.”