By Estefanía Pinto Ruiz, KWQC TV6 News
The Mississippi River stretches for around 2,400 miles from central Minnesota to the Gulf of Mexico. Every year, 30 to 50 paddlers attempt to travel its length.
Shawn Hamerlinck made the journey by kayak. A teacher had planted the idea for the trip in his mind years ago, as a way to see ecosystems along the length of the Mississippi River. He started on May 24, 2025 and paddled, on average, 12 to 14 hours per day.
For him, the undertaking was personal.
Others who do it try to use it for advocacy. Five friends who took off on September 1, 2025 are traveling under the banner of the Drift South Expedition and plan to do citizen science, education and fundraising along the way.
Whatever the motivation, it’s sure to be an adventure.
“The Mississippi is an iconic river. When anyone thinks of the United States, they think of the Mississippi because it has such a long, long history,” said John Sullivan, who paddled it in 2000 and runs a Facebook support group for other paddlers. “And it's kind of a wilderness.”
Connection to nature
The river starts as a small stream flowing out of Lake Itasca in Minnesota. In those early stretches, Hamerlinck said, the water is pristine.
“You can see what you believe to be five feet down, and it’s actually 45 feet down. You can see giant fish — northern pike — and the water is so clear, so clean, and so beautiful that you could just take a cup and drink it,” said Hamerlinck.
As he went downstream and the river became more industrialized, things changed drastically.
He had to be careful to avoid barges, and he couldn’t drink the water anymore. There was trash in it and unappetizing white foam. Near St. Louis, Missouri he says he was almost afraid to light a match because of what looked like gasoline floating on the river.
“You see steel and iron still sitting on the side, rusting away, and you ask, ‘Why did we do that?’” said Hamerlinck. “It makes you look at the environment and say, ‘We should have taken better care of you. And I’m sorry. And we shall do better than what you see.’”
Even so, he says he experienced plenty of wonder. Encounters with wildlife – at times very intimate – were a highlight of the trip.
A skunk sprayed him, nesting geese bit him, invasive carp hit him in the face, and he came across a black bear floating in the river.
His scariest encounters were with alligators.
“The big alligators will swim about 20 yards from you, parallel to you, and they’ll stay right next to you for about half a mile,” said Hamerlinck. “What they’re trying to do is figure out who’s bigger — you in the kayak, or them.”
He slept in a tent or, when he could not find any dry land, on his kayak. In addition to animal encounters, he says storms, difficult conditions, and the monotony of daily miles could wear on a paddler.
“The biggest challenge, hands down, is not the animals or the storms or the distance. It’s the human mind,” said Hamerlinck.
Still, for him, disconnecting from electronics and the connection to nature made it all worth it.
“The best part of it was the sandbars that you would sit in,” he said. “I would stop there about half an hour before sunset, because that’s when the bugs would show up, after sunset. And you just stop, and you just look around you, and see that there is nature right next to you. It’s not like you go to a zoo.”
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