In August 1823, the 44-year-old Italian juror and aristocrat Giacomo Beltrami was on the Red Lake River, southeast of Thief River Falls. Actually, he was in the river, not on it. He had a buffalo hide rope tightly wound in his right hand, with the strap pulled taut across his shoulder and fastened to a birch bark canoe laden with supplies and artifacts collected in the previous months.

In his left, Giacomo gripped a canoe paddle, thrusting it down in the water like a push pole, holding it along the river bottom to steady himself in a more challenging current. For its part, the canoe glided lightly, silently along the river’s edge, unaware that its lone passenger was out ahead rather than inside its birch bark body, trudging through waist-deep river water, head down, speaking happily to the fish.